Take notice of your online ads - they're noticing you, too! *updated*

I was fascinated when, in one of our previous classes, Professor Kagan shared that the selling and purchasing of online ad space - and its personalization to the browser - happened in nanoseconds. It's difficult to fathom that any process can happen so quickly, let alone one that is customized.

Although this article (from theatlantic.com) is a few years old, it does a great job of capturing in detail what Professor Kagan was explaining to us.

Some excerpts from the article are below --
"Every move you make on the Internet is worth some tiny amount to someone, and a panoply of companies want to make sure that no step along your Internet journey goes unmonetized."
"As users, we move through our Internet experiences unaware of the churning subterranean machines powering our web pages with their cookies and pixels trackers, their tracking code and databases ... We sometimes think the ads following us around the Internet are "creepy." We sometimes feel watched. Does it matter? We don't really know what to think. ... These are phenomena of our time and while there are many antecedent forms of advertising, never before in the history of human existence has so much data been gathered about so many people for the sole purpose of selling them ads."


Recently I was feeling nostalgic (yes, nostalgic!) and visited Groupon for the first time in a while.  Sadly, the offers were even poorer than I remember them. However, I <did> see an interesting sale on a bulk order of PB2 and my interest was captured for just a moment. A fan of powdered peanut butter, I almost got it but then realized 6 lbs of powdered anything had no business in my tiny studio apartment. I x-ed out and went to Facebook. After just a few minutes on Facebook, I refreshed my page and there was a PB2 add from Groupon, with a 5% price cut! Creepy? #yes

UPDATE: It just happened again! *Screen Shot of FB - bottom right-hand corner*