Game Theory could be an application of Analytics, I suppose – apparently there's someone, Bueno de Mesquita, who developed a way to predict the future accurately 90% of the time using Game Theory, according to David Pescovitz at BoingBoing in a post about Game theory and future forecasting - "…game theory, an esoteric branch of mathematics used to analyze interaction. “Game theory is math for how people behave strategically,” Bueno de Mesquita:

"…He's consulted for the CIA, the Department of Defense, and Fortune 500 companies to help generate forecasts using a computerized game theory model. He's recently worked with the US government on the conflict with Iran. However, he says his private consultancy corporate policy bars him from saying, "on a commercial basis," who will be the next president of the United States. From Science News:

The details of his study of negotiation options with Iran are classified, but Bueno de Mesquita says that the broad outline is that there is nothing the United States can do to prevent Iran from pursuing nuclear energy for civilian power generation. The more aggressively the U.S. responds to Iran, he says, the more likely it is that Iran will develop nuclear weapons. The upshot of the study, Bueno de Mesquita argues, is that the international community needs to find out if there is a way to monitor civilian nuclear energy projects in Iran thoroughly enough to ensure that Iran is not developing weapons.

One of his most famous past predictions also concerned Iran. In 1984, the model predicted that when Ayatollah Khomeini died, an ayatollah named Hojatolislam Khameini and a little-known cleric named Hasheimi Rafsanjani would rise to succeed Khomeini as leaders of Iran. At the time, most experts considered that outcome exceedingly unlikely, since Khomeini had designated a different person as his successor. But in fact, when Khomeini died five years later, Rafsanjani and Khameini succeeded him. "

The article on The New Nostradamus for Good Magazine mentions a point that Burno de Mesquita made about accuracy of input:

"…he’ll claim that mathematics can tell you the future. In fact, the professor says that a computer model he built and has perfected over the last 25 years can predict the outcome of virtually any international conflict, provided the basic input is accurate. What’s more, his predictions are alarmingly specific. His fans include at least one current presidential hopeful, a gaggle of Fortune 500 companies, the CIA, and the Department of Defense. Naturally, there is also no shortage of people less fond of his work. “Some people think Bruce is the most brilliant foreign policy analyst there is,” says one colleague. “Others think he’s a quack.”

The CIA is using de Mesquita's approach for quite some time and tested it and it came up over 90% accurate in those tests:

"..To verify the accuracy of his model, the CIA set up a kind of forecasting face-off that pit predictions from his model against those of Langley’s more traditional in-house intelligence analysts and area specialists. “We tested Bueno de Mesquita’s model on scores of issues that were conducted in real time—that is, the forecasts were made before the events actually happened,” says Stanley Feder, a former high-level CIA analyst. “We found the model to be accurate 90 percent of the time,” he wrote. Another study evaluating Bueno de Mesquita’s real-time forecasts of 21 policy decisions in the European community concluded that “the probability that the predicted outcome was what indeed occurred was an astounding 97 percent.” What’s more, Bueno de Mesquita’s forecasts were much more detailed than those of the more traditional analysts. “The real issue is the specificity of the accuracy,” says Feder. “We found that DI (Directorate of National Intelligence) analyses, even when they were right, were vague compared to the model’s forecasts. To use an archery metaphor, if you hit the target, that’s great. But if you hit the bull’s eye—that’s amazing.”

 

Yesterday I heard about the "Do Not Track List" being the First Shot in the Behavioral Targeting Wars from Steve Rubel:

"…Right now, the marketers can really dabble a lot and perhaps even blur the line with what's ethical. I am not saying they are nor am I condoning it. However, since this level of behavioral targeting is relatively new, the unwritten ethics rules – in theory – could be bent since a lot of consumers aren't paying a lot of attention – yet. Plus, of course, they benefit from more relevant ads.

That's all about to change. It's clear the FTC is concerned about user privacy. That's why they're hosting hearings next week."

AOL, being proactive, and also stealing some Thunder from the FTC will allow you To Opt Out Of Behavioral Ads? AOL Says It Is Your Choice. 

"…AOL Will Let Consumers Opt Out of Targeted Ads from the Wall Street Journal reports that AOL will announce today a new tool that will enable AOL users to opt out of targeted or personalized ads. (NOTE: The AOL announcement is now live).

AOL has behavioral ad technology that stores consumer's preferences and then tailors ads based on the sites users visits. AOL is expected to announce a system that will give these users the ability to opt out of those ads. "

The AOL announcement, titled – AOL Launches Innovative Privacy Education Program For Behaviorally Targeted Advertising claims it can get it's educational message about opting out of behavioral targeting to up to 91% of the US online audience:

"…the program will deliver millions of public service banner ads across AOL's owned-and-operated and third-party networks, which together reach more than 91% of the U.S. online audience. AOL also announced a substantial improvement to the current opt-out process by expanding the use of patent-pending technology developed by TACODA, a leading behavioral targeting solutions company that AOL acquired earlier this year.

“Our goal with this program is to engender greater trust for targeted advertising by communicating with consumers in a more visible way, and by providing them more information about their choices,” said Curt Viebranz, President of Platform-A. “AOL believes that doing more to explain to users the choices they have over the way their data is used, and helping them exercise those preferences will help them feel more in control.”

I'm told that now, if you opt out of any behavioral targeting your being monitored for, your opt-out is often lost and tracking is reapplied at a later date; that won;t be as likely with the new AOL system:

"…Today, users who opt-out of behavioral targeting by using an opt-out cookie risk having their preference lost if they later delete their cookies.  TACODA leverages a Web cache technique to preserve a consumers' opt-out choice even if they delete their browser cookies, something other opt-out systems cannot currently do. AOL is also exploring opportunities to license this technology on a royalty-free basis for use exclusively in consumer privacy protection programs. "

When I write a post that I hope will be read a lot, about the last thing I want is to have it appear on the bottom of the first page of Google, for that search term, as a blog result.  I've noticed that sometimes this happens and sometimes, it doesn't – but more likely, if the query I'm writing a post about is about a popular current event, then I'll end you having my post appear briefly at the bottom of the first page as a blog.

Yet at other times, my post will appear as a static page, often near the top of the search results – which is much, much better, as far as I'm concerned.   I realize what Google is trying to do by including blogs in current events, but the problem is a page that's treated by Google as a blog post doesn't stay around in Google's Search Results very long, (it drops quickly) while a static page, doesen't (there must be a different criteria being applied against content).

Today, Matthew Hurst is also saying that what Google is doing by treating the same content as blog in one moment/context, and a static page, at another moment/context is bad interface design – and Matthew Hurst calls Google's Universal Search – Confused? in today's post.

"…One of the maxims of interface design is predictability. An interface shouldn't change from under you. A search now for 'Santiago Fire' doesn't produce blog results. A search for 'Gordon Brown' produces, at the top of the list, first images of the man himself, then news articles then organic results. Actually – it does if I do the search on IE6, but not if I do the search on Firefox (Japanese). "

"..In addition to the lack of predictability in the results page, one can't page through the mixed results. The first page offers the interlaced results, but going to the next page only offers organic results.

I think it is great that Google is addressing the interface problem – the web is so much more than a bland list of pages. However, the current approach seems more confusing than, say, Ask's 3D layout (though I notice that that is shifting over time too…)".

Sometimes, people "overreach" and so do companies, even Google.  In trying to solve one problem, the created others.   Now you have a lot more content you can optimize, not just textual, but other other hand, the way the results stream out on the first page are often "unpredictable".   Is that a good thing?

Apparently not – at least, not according to Matthew Hurst; and not according to me, either, since I'd rather not have my content be classified as a static web page, not a blog post – but that's just me.