Enough has already been said about the scary amount of information about us that others know through social networks. Admittedly, being the social animals that we are, we tend to take this scare with a pinch of salt and probably think hard to write a witty one-liner and post it as a status message aiming to get 20 'like's. Hence this article does not in any way force you to forbid social networking. All it tried to do is to make us aware of how the information we let loose can be used (read sold). I, being one of the so-called social animals myself, start this article with my witty one-liner.
Social network indulgence is subject to privacy risks. Please read data mining carefully before updating status !
Social networks strive to influence and arrange contact and information sharing of many people. Meanwhile they also develop statistical tools to eavesdrop and sell information to the giant ears of the businessmen who eternally want that elusive root cause. This is normal statistical analysis. These sites also sell information to another set of giant business ears which want fodder to run their predictive machines. Fed by information input about us through social networks, marketers decide what to say to whom and whom to say what.
Let us look at five ways in which social networks can mint money through predictive analytics.
