Dyson On Commercial Community

Esther Dyson, aka Queen of the Web, gives a powerful view in The Wall St Journal, about how personal data privacy and control is going to influence marketing and advertising.  If people are operating in public spaces where they are withholding personal information and are merely another IP address washing around vast websites their value to advertisers will be limited.  However, those private encalves which we see as being directly relevant to our lives, and therefore safe places to broadcast information about ourselves, will become extremely attractive places for brands looking to find markets.  Taking heavy-flyer community Dopplr as an example she says: "So what's the business model? I'll "friend" British Airways, which will say, "We see you're going to Moscow next month. Why not fly through London and we'll give you 10,000 extra miles?" I'm no longer in a bucket of frequent travelers, my privacy protected. I'm an individual with specific travel plans, which I intentionally make visible to preferred vendors. British Airways, of course, will pay Dopplr a handsome sponsorship fee to be eligible to be my "friend" (just as a Nike rep might pay to sponsor a basketball game and be part of the community). Someday NetJets may show up, offering to ferry me and my friends to a conference we'll be attending together."  (Via twitter/bmcmichael).