Connect-World Magazine - Connect-World Global (2014)

In this issue

We object to organisations revealing our personal details but we expose much of it on our own websites. We happily reveal-all on Social Media, yet publish the same information in the press - and it is invasion of personal space. Different people want different privacy at different times, so how do we reach consensus and design cyber privacy standards?

Analytics must support context aware applications - it is a differentiator that is yet to be fully exploited. It is what advertisers look for, and advertisers make the web tick for free. Context awareness gives apps the power to grab users’ attention and reach deeply into users’ sub-consciousness.

Analytics are going real-time - it is a game changer. If user context can be provided at the time that a service is requested, decisions can be made on how the service is provided, how content is filtered, what level of security, what quality, which route ... What changes will this bring to content distribution?

Big Data with faster-than-ever analytics and processing power are the catalysts for real-time context awareness. What are the new methods of filtering and analysing large volumes of data? Are there any rules?

Remember when Google started suggesting search topics? I was puzzled, may be irritated at first, but learned to love it, so long as it is based on other users. However, when context aware apps appear to know what I think - that comes too close for comfort… it smacks of surveillance. Wave it off by “Just get over it” - or is it that simple? Where are the boundaries?

Websites retain our ‘footprint’, and no legislation can ever force them to let go… Forcing websites to destroy users’ information is like forbidding cats crossing the road. Huge amount of analytic data is already there, just waiting for Big Data tools…