[…]  It is important, furthermore, to understand that this contextual paradox of research between transparent communication and platform obfuscation is not just limited to what kind of data is accessible. Data itself, from a critical perspective, is a problematic concept: should it be seen as a faithful representation of human behaviour or as a dehumanized recording that artificially parcels out existence into quantifiable bits? As we said above, corporate social media do not simply transmit communication among users, they transform it and impose specific logic on it. To borrow from Lawrence Lessig (2006), the platform’s code imposes specific regulations, or laws, on social acts. The consequence of this is that corporate social media give the impression that they merely render social acts visible, whereas in fact they are in the process of constructing a specific techno-social world. For instance, while I can ‘like’ something on Facebook and have ‘friends’, I cannot dislike, or hate or be bored by something and have enemies or people that are very vague acquaintances. The seeming social transparency that is the promise of corporate social media is a construct: the platform imposes its own logic, and in the case of Facebook, this logic is one of constant connectivity. The promise that social media data is in the first place a transparent trace of human behaviour is thus false: what data reveals is the articulation of participatory and corporate logics. As such, any claim to examine a pre-existing social through social media is thus flawed. Thus, in studying modes of participatory culture on corporate social media platforms we encounter two main challenges: one concerning access to data and the ethics of data research, the other data itself and what it claims to stand for […. p 9-10]

from “THE RESEARCH POLITICS OF SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS” – Ganaele Langlois and Greg Elmer – CULTURE MACHINE VOL 14 • 2013

 

[…] More and more we can see a continuous change from the old Media Management to new strategic, operative and normative management options. Social Media Management has become an issue for every media company with a renewed “skill set”- specialized knowledge for the digital products and production and for marketing and target groups. This emerging development of media shift nowadays requires increasingly for active communication in the fundamental segments of these scholarly disciplines. The interface of media economy/media management provides the relevant arena in this matter.

– Management with Social Media.

– New Value Chain with Social Media.

– Forms and Content of Social Media.

– Social Media: Impact and Users.

Most of the chapters are interdisciplinary approaches. Main questions (among other) are:

– What are the specific effects of Social Media on Media Management Research?

– How is the value chain changing?

– What are the main changes of business models?

– Are there new theoretical approaches? Is it possible to combine “old” and “new” theories?

– Do we have some new empirical results?

– What are the proposals for the development in this research field?

Seventy-five Media Management researchers from the whole world are involved in this book. With very different content and methodical attempts the contributions also permit an interesting comparison of the developments in each country.

(from the Preface of Handbook of Social Media Management, 2013, Springer)

[…] In fact, if you speak with most data industry veterans, Big Data has been around for decades for fi rms that have been handling tons of transactional data over the years—even dating back to the mainframe era. The reasons for this new age are varied and complex, so let ’s reduce them to a handful that will be easy to remember in case someone corners you at a cocktail party and demands a quick explanation of what ’s really going on. Here ’s our standard answer in three parts:

1. Computing perfect storm.  Big Data analytics are the natural result of four major global trends: Moore ’s Law (which basically says that technology always gets cheaper), mobile computing (that smart phone or mobile tablet in your hand), social networking (Facebook, Foursquare, Pinterest, etc.), and cloud computing (you don ’t even have to own hardware or software anymore; you can rent or lease someone else ’s).

2. Data perfect storm.  Volumes of transactional data have been around for decades for most big fi rms, but the fl ood gates have now opened with more volume  , and the velocity  and variety—  the three Vs—of data that has arrived in unprecedented ways. This perfect storm of the three Vs makes it extremely complex and cumbersome with the current data management and analytics technology and practices.

3. Convergence perfect storm.  Another perfect storm is happening, too. Traditional data management and analytics software and hardware technologies, open-source technology, and commodity hardware are merging to create new alternatives for IT and business executives to address Big Data analytics” (from “Big Data, Big Analytics: Emerging Business Intelligence and Analytic Trends for Today’s Businesses”, by Michael Minelli, Michele Chambers and Ambiga Dhiraj, 2013, p.1-2)

 

“To be mediated by the immediacy, with N=all (totality) and T=-1 (premediation), is the service instantiation in a data-intensive age”
| from my next book |

“Quantified selves (Ostherr 2013), social machines (Semmelhack 2013), ambient commons (McCullough 2013) are data actants”
| from my next book | 

“Data Ontologies: Totality, Immediacy, Premediation are the ontological vectors reshaping businesses and organizations”
| from my next book |

 “In a data deictic perspective, a quantified, networked and anticipated self is emerging as new marketing platform”
| from my next book|

 “Data deixis changes the logic of the customer segmentation. It’s no longer a logic of set, rather a logic of emergence”
| from my next book |

“In data-intensive age, customer centricity is useless unless you include the algorithmic mediation of secondary agency”
|from my next book|

 “The ‘data continuum’ paradigm is reshaping customer information markets and systems as well as industry boundaries”
| from my next book |

“Looking at data as new personal and partecipatory markets devices is a way to deeply understand our data-intensive age”
| from my next book |

“In a data-intensive age, “real-time” is an ontological continuum spanning from subperceptuality to embedded temporalities”
| from my next book |

 “Market, marketing or marke-things intelligence? In an ubiquitous data age, the situated analytics performs operations
| from my next book |

“Technologies for markets remote sensing are not monitoring practices, but modeling devices for new value propositions”
|from my next book |

“Big Data is about Transduction of Coded Spaces, Subperceptuality of Emebedded Temporalities and Machinic Secondary Agencies”
| from my next book

“In a subperceptual regime of temporality, the im-mediate is ontologically and conceptually linked to the un-mediated”
|from my next book |

“In digital age, we have performances not contents, performers not users, performables not channels”
| from my next book |

“In a data-intensive age, customer centricity is useless unless you include the algorithmic mediation of secondary agency”
|from my next book|

a working progress on (big) data technologies: from sensing to actuating

“Quantified selves (Ostherr 2013), social machines (Semmelhack 2013), ambient commons (McCullough 2013) are data actants” | from my next book |

 “Data Ontologies: Totality, Immediacy, Premediation are the ontological vectors reshaping businesses and organizations” | from my next book |

 “In a data deictic perspective, a quantified, networked and anticipated self is emerging as new marketing platform” | from my next book |

“In a data-intensive age, “real-time” is an ontological continuum spanning from subperceptuality to embedded temporalities” | from my next book |

 “Data deixis changes the logic of the customer segmentation. It’s no longer a logic of set, rather a logic of emergence” | from my next book |

 “The ‘data continuum’ paradigm is reshaping customer information markets and systems as well as industry boundaries” | from my next book |

“Looking at data as new personal and partecipatory markets devices is a way to deeply understand our data-intensive age | from my next book |

 “Market, marketing or marke-things intelligence? In an ubiquitous data age, the situated analytics performs operations | from my next book |

“The use of myriad forms of data in this way for data-mining purposes represents, among other things, a vast process of the semioticization of behavior” ( Fuller and Goffey, Evil Media, The MIT Press, 2012:98)

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/evil-media-0

“The use of consumer segmentations is also pervasive. Consumer segments are models, whether we consider them as an example of virtualism (Miller, 2002), or as manufactured (Zwick and Knott, 2009), or in the terms of “dividuals” (Deleuze, 1992). Segments are managerial models of “consumers” and “consumers” are not (living, breathing) people, yet segments quite literally are brought to life by virtue of naming and psychological profiling (in this case in the “marriage” of transaction-based data with attitudinal research and the assumptions attached to the segment names). As “quasi-people,” target segment characterizations afford intimacy; they offer a façade of verisimilitude for actual consumption. From these personalized parameters comes deep attachment. We would contend that such abstractions also adhere because they mesh with reigning ideas of personhood, individual control and personal choice, and corresponding notions that consumption is best understood as a single individual making a choice. Such intuitive models of behavior and consumption are thus also likely to persist because such models offer fewer surprises and therefore accrue greater buy-in from managers (Zaltman and Deshpandé, 2001). Of course these individually oriented models of consumption grate in the context of our own allegiance to anthropological modes of analysis. If consumer segmentation annoys us as researchers, it is not only because of the recruiting dilemmas; it is also because of the analytic frame in which they tend to push our work. They do not facilitate an examination of how consumption actually happens in everyday life. They do not allow for an analysis of consumption that would consider processes that involve more than an individual; they close down the possibilities of examining consumption in other terms, for instance in terms of “market-things” (see Cochoy, 2007, this volume)” | From “Consumer Segmentation in Practice: An Ethnographic Account of Slippage, by Patricia L. Sunderland and Rita M. Denny. In Inside Marketing. Practices, Ideologies, Devices)

“What is common to these three companies beyond their lasting success? They actually belong to the same industry, the information industry  . Like Reuters and Google, McKinsey & Co. is essentially an information or knowledge provider. This book is about the universe of similar companies, organizations, or individuals whose core business is to “sell” information to decision makers. A few prominent examples are listed in table 0.1. The information industry is larger and broader than it seems. In 2010, “business information” alone accounted for about $358 billion worth of sales with over two hundred providers. 3  Some of these companies’ business consists of collecting and selling data (this is the case of Reuters or credit rating agencies), while others sell market analysis (e.g., market research firms, financial analysts, or macroeconomic forecasters). There are companies that use their complex expertise to generate customized business strategies for their clients (e.g., management consultants). Part of the media also belongs to the information industry: newspapers and news programs on television are clearly in the business of selling information, as are many Internet services that provide online information to the public (e.g., online newspapers, weather forecasting sites, some blogs, or search engines). Even large social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter can be considered information vendors as user- generated content becomes a genuine information source for their members. Besides thousands of large corporations, the information industry also includes the millions of small companies and individual experts who make a living selling advice in various domains including finance, accounting, law, engineering, and medicine. Even some doctors who specialize in providing medical diagnoses belong to the information industry. But why lump these diverse businesses together? A key argument of this book is that they have more in common than it seems. Indeed, information is such a special product that it requires special business practices. But what is so special about information? Before providing an answer, it is important to define exactly what an “information product” is” (Savary M. (2012)  Gurus and Oracles. The Marketing of Information, The MIT Press)