Geo-Targeting with ZipCodeMap
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The web is an incredibly diverse and unpredictable place for doing business. Whether you are trying to build an online business, or merely provide a useful service that you hope many will enjoy and use regularly, understanding your user-base is perhaps one of the most important aspects of success and longevity in this challenging and constantly changing industry.
Audiences are becoming increasingly fragmented, and since the internet connects every nation, your web site, web application or web service can potentially reach any one of the 1.6 Billion+ internet users who either enjoy an always-on connection of their own, or know how to find one. So as an engineer, developer or webmaster, how can you reach out to these increasingly diverse, increasingly fragmented audiences?
One of the best places to start, as it turns out, may very well be a new field of research known as Geo-Targeting. Read the rest of this entry »
BC$ = Behavior, Content, Money
The goal of the BC$ project is to raise awareness and make changes with respect to the three pillars of information freedom - Behavior (pursuit of interests and passions), Content (sharing/exchanging ideas in various formats), Money (fairness and accessibility) - bringing to light the fact that:
1. We regularly hand over our browser histories, search histories and daily online activities to companies that want our money, or, to benefit from our use of their services with lucrative ad deals or sales of personal information.
2. We create and/or consume interesting content on their services, but we aren't adequately rewarded for our creative efforts or loyalty.
3. We pay money to be connected online (and possibly also over mobile), yet we lose both time and money by allowing companies to market to us with unsolicited advertisements, irrelevant product offers and unfairly structured service pricing plans.