Web companies – ad revenue based media companies in particular – have amassed great amounts of data on their users. However, they’re data rich and problem poor. Access and error logs are everywhere, but generally they’re not mined for anything more than simple metrics. I’ve used several log analyzers and web trend trackers like HBX [...]
At its heart, a targeting engine must make a decision about what ad to send to a website visitor. This can be done at random, by looking at surrounding content, or by looking at history. Most “site ads” are chosen randomly from a short list that’s manually administered by the site owner. The ad rotation [...]
Sit still long enough and eventually someone will think you’re dead. The software industry moves so fast that “normal” industry just looks like it’s standing still. How many revolutionary new toilet, shovel, doorknob, or umbrella designs have you seen hit the US market in the past decade? In order for software engineers to stay current [...]