The Social Aspects Of It All
Ya know, Biometrics as I have written about is one of those things which embraces two very important things: technology and the social aspects. True, Biometrics is for sure the former, but what do I mean about the latter? Well, if you think about all things security related (minus the actual security guard), Biometrics is something which has, or will, in the near future, embrace our everyday lives, in the way we purchase items and communicate with another. This embracement will either be positive or negative for most people, and so far, I would have to say it is somewhere in between, probably erring to the side of more negative. This is from the standpoint of privacy rights, of course.
But now, people are capitalizing further upon the social aspect of things, and trying to extrapolate it for further purposes. Here we go: “Time Warner Inc. today announced the opening of a state of the art Medialab for research and development at its worldwide headquarters in New York City. The Time Warner Medialab has been designed to generate valuable insights into consumer behavior, evolving media habits and industry trends across all of Time Warner's businesses, brands and advertising partners . . . The Time Warner Medialab, located within Time Warner Center on New York's Columbus Circle, provides an unprecedented destination for testing engagement throughout the entire consumer experience. The facility offers different everyday settings for conducting studies including a 50-seat theater, an in-home style living room, a consumer retail area with a mock checkout, an eye-tracking station and gaming stations, all observable live by researchers both at the lab and around the world.” (SOURCE: http://www.findbiometrics.com/industry-news/i/9516/).
My Take
And . . . this is something I have written about before as well. I have composed some writings as to how Biometrics is being used for market research, in real time, in order to gauge consumer’s reactions to certain advertisements, commercials, etc. Usually, this research in the past has been a collaborative effort between different media groups, so what makes this content different and new is that now an actual research center is being devoted to conduct this research, as you can see from up above. And, it seems to be a very elaborate setup of sorts in order to test subjects with the most accuracy and scientific detail possible.
The Biometrics that are going to be used include tracking emotion, eye movements, as well as focus group interviews. The basic premise of all this is to see what the physiological reactions are of the subjects when they are exposed to different stimuli in the way of the various media channels. Although, this definition of Biometrics may be quite a bit of a stretch according to the people who compiled the testing material for the CBP exam, of which I am studying for right now. But hey, to me it is still all Biometrics (but in a different light), because it is people’s unique, biological reactions which are being monitored. But there is one important thing here. With the advent of the Internet and now all things social media related (especially the likes of You Tube, Facebook, and the likes of that), the days of commercial TV, just like Border’s and the traditional newspapers, may soon be numbered.
I hope that the research which will be conducted at this new, ultra modern research center will primarily focus upon the latter. After all, this is where most of the marketers are now going to advertise and showcase their products and services, and rely heavily upon what is known as “viral marketing”-meaning how quickly something can spread into the eyes and ears of viewers on the Internet. This is where the money is going to be made not only now, but well into the next century (if something better or even more powerful than social media develops). And with this, who knows, even the Biometrics Industry can now go through a total, entire transformation. What I mean by this is that instead of the traditional applications such as physical access entry, time and attendance, and logical security, now the focus will be on social media and the advertising which takes place on it.
After all, people will want to make sure what they are seeing, hearing, and especially downloading, is very safe. The industry needs to be ready for this huge monumentous change in direction, which I predict could very well happen even within this decade, if not the next few years. In the end, in all types and kinds of industries, the name of the game is always to make money. And this is so true also of our own industry. Let’s just hope we capitalize upon in time, in other words, being the early adopters and the pioneers, and not the laggards in the spectrum of things.
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