Doc Searls' piece: blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2018/05/12… has been getting a lot of attention. Some thoughts:
1) Adtech is a space in which a lot of companies actually make money. To be a "bubble," it would need to have a higher-than-normal % of firms that raised lots & never became profitable.
1) Adtech is a space in which a lot of companies actually make money. To be a "bubble," it would need to have a higher-than-normal % of firms that raised lots & never became profitable.
2) AdTech has enabled some fraudulent advertising, but that's not the core feature. The core is more effective, targeted, personalized ads that are easier to buy/sell/scale. GDPR won't kill that. Will some providers need to jump through more hoops? Sure. But it's here to stay.
3) One of his points is: "Adtech incentivizes hate speech and tribalism by giving both—and the platforms that host them—a business model too," but he doesn't explain why adtech does this more than classic advertising nor how the Guardian piece he links to relates to this. 🤨
4) Of his 11-point list, #1, #7, #8, #9, #10, and #11 are a combination of wrong, poorly argued, poorly backed-up, and/or entirely subjective. Some of the points could be well-argued, but the piece doesn't do the work, which costs credibility on the points that are valid.
5) On May 25th, we will NOT see hundreds of adtech companies shut their doors. We won't see that over the next year, either. Adtech will be affected by GDPR in the same way SEOs are affected by Google's big shakeups; we change tactics, but goals, incentives, & opportunity remain.
