Imagine this: You go to your local 7-11 convenience store, and you’re at the counter to buy a coffee. You realize you forgot your wallet or pocketbook in the car and all you have is your phone on you. Your phone happens to be a smart phone with the required software to communicate with the contactless terminal to read your phone. Success! You paid for your coffee and you go back into your car.
So you’re driving in your car and you have the local radio station playing and then all of a sudden an advertisement from the coffee distributor comes on that you just bought. Maybe you thought it was a coincidence. Then you’re at work and you’re browsing Google and all you can see is this coffee distributor and 7-11 advertising to you trying to get you to come back. At this point, you might feel that Big Brother is watching you. In reality, he’s really not. This is the future we’re going to be looking forward to and this is going to be driven by Web 3.0.
How do I know this you ask!? Well, interestingly enough, Google just announced that you’ll be able to use their virtual credit card system. Mastercard and Citibank are teaming up with Google to make it possible to buy your coffee like that. Google is definitely going to be collecting information on your purchase as much as they can. In Web 3.0, Google will be communicating with as many databases as possible to get the best possible information on you. Perhaps they’ll be directly involved in these advertisements following you around. Perhaps they’ll be selling these ideas to you. No matter how you look at it, everything you do electronically will be recorded.
If you’ve taken a look at Google since it began, you would notice that it keeps acquiring information from you in new ways. First it was the search engine, but it wasn’t you personally, it was everyone with geo-targeting. Then there’s Google Earth/Maps, mapping out everywhere. There’s Gmail which lets you have an account with Google to track you further. When you login to Google News or when you use Google Translate, it’s all getting recorded. Now conspiracy theorists would believe this to be diabolical. I don’t believe this is diabolical in any sense. I believe Google is making a push to provide you with the best content and relevant advertising.
That sums up what I have to say about Google and how they’re using new technology to make life easier for you and at the same time, how they’re gathering information to serve you better. Please comment any questions, suggestions or stories you’d like to see in the future.
