Journal articles on the topic 'CUSTOMISED ADVERTISEMENTS'

Retargeting is a type of online advertising in which the consumer's previous activities are used to target them. In this paper it reflects the “impact of behavioural retargeting on the purchase pattern of consumers Using this relatively new method, businesses can now give customers customised recommendations in real time when they visit their websites, allowing them to remember their intents and possibly persuading them to make a purchase. This paper study the change in purchase pattern of the customers and it was found that the behavioural change is not influenced by retargeting advertisements.

Existing digital signage advertisements send advertisements to unspecified people, so there is a limit to the advertisement exposure effect, and it is very difficult to analyze advertisement effects because several advertisements are repeatedly exposed for a certain period of time. This paper proposes an AI digital signage system that automatically analyzes the user hierarchy based on deep learning and displays customized advertisements to users. For this, a system that learns the face of an ad viewer is built using a convolutional neural network. For preliminary training, we used face images from Korean face image data, and layered them into six using the gender and age information provided. The facial features of these pictures were quantified using a convolutional neural network, and these values were stored in a database for learning. Real-time automatic hierarchy was tested using the data set produced in this way, and the success rate was between 84% and 95% for each hierarchy. It is thought that a system with a higher success rate can be created if the user hierarchy learning model learns images of various face poses and collects and learns data used in the automatic classification process through tracking.

Location-Based Systems enable novel business models that can locate a person and send an action or message to him/her. One of the most commonly adopted location-based business models is location-based advertisements. Companies can send customized messages to target customers by using location-based ads. The model is promising since the conversion rate of the customers is high. On the other side, since the customers can be targeted based on their locations and interests, the price of the advertisement should be modeled a dynamic pricing model. In this study, we propose a dynamic pricing model for location-based ads by using the Spherical Fuzzy AHP method.

Applying bleeding edge courses of action in advertising is always a case on the table of decision makers. In online case, lack of a practice to place right advertisement in a right time for the right user has been counted as biggest challenage. On the other hand, “ad clutter”, the key criticism on online advertising; is about to put online advertisement's benefits away and annoying users more than before. Accordingly, this article aims at scrutinizing this critical problem by incorporating one of the next generation technologies, Lead Generation. This study introduces an e-business framework in advertisement intermediating in the form of a framework so that lets advertisers advertise in customized way. In this approach, the authors focused on displaying a personalized ad for each user by which marketers could redirect their visiting prospects into becoming their own consumers. At the end, the managerial implications are reported.

With advancements in information and communication technology, a lot of changes have come in the way the products are being promoted by the marketers across the globe. Viral marketing incites the consumers to disseminate marketing content through various modes and one of which includes viral advertisements. The study analysed the content of global advertisements to explore the dominating factors in the ad content which makes them viral across the globe. Survey was conducted online among the respondents of Indian and American origin for measuring the effectiveness of the dominating elements on brand attitude and respondents’ intentions to purchase the advertised brand and to share the corresponding advertisements. Structural equation modeling (SEM), a multivariate technique, was used on two samples to measure effectiveness of advertising content across two countries. The content analysis results show that although a standardized advertising strategy is used across the global level, but as indicated by the distinctions revealed from the empirical analysis of choices of two cultures, it can be inferred that advertisement should be fairly similar across the different cultures. The study leaves an implication for the advertisers to customize their advertising content in compliance with the uniqueness of culture in different countries.

Classified advertisement sites often follow two different approaches to filter classified advertisement data to customers and potential customers. The first approach is to reach out to the broader market, allowing the customers to filter to their target market on the classified website. The downside of this approach is that it lacks the customization and specialization people in a niche market tend to prefer. The second approach is to create classified advertisement websites that are customized to meet the needs of a target or niche market. This specialization is more appealing to niche market customers. However, the second approach is more focused. Therefore, the customer base is smaller, and expanding to more markets requires building more websites, which can be costly in time, money and effort. In this paper the authors propose a framework that allows website developers to quickly and efficiently create targeted market websites. The framework proposed enables website developers to quickly customize text, context and features offered on the newly created targeted market website. In addition, the framework overcomes the entry barrier new websites face by obtaining the starting classified listings required to make a new classified website viable to potential buyers and sellers.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of a targeted email advertising method that informs university students about library resources relevant to their major.Design/methodology/approachOver the course of one semester, students with business and communications majors who reserved group study rooms received customized confirmation emails that included targeted advertisements for library databases. These advertisements invited students to click a link that led to a database related to a student's major. Near the end of the semester, students were invited to complete a short survey about the advertisements. Survey questions were designed to discover whether the advertisements were seen and to measure database relevancy. The survey also gathered participant perceptions about the value of this targeted awareness advertising approach.FindingsOverall, the technique of appending database advertisements to reservation emails proved ineffective; very few students recalled seeing the advertisements or clicking the links. On the positive side, this study showed that very few of the survey respondents disapproved of receiving advertisements. Another positive result was that a majority indicated the selected library databases were relevant to their needs. Respondents also offered suggestions for improving this marketing technique.Originality/valueThis research introduces a novel, unobtrusive approach to advertising library resources to a targeted audience. The results can be used by library administrators as a starting point for experimenting with similar (yet improved) methods of sharing information about relevant library resources with specific user populations.

O presente artigo tem por objetivo analisar a resposta de usuários do YouTube à existência de propaganda inserida dentro do conteúdo de vídeosPara se chegar a tal objetivo foi realizada uma pesquisa exploratória e qualitativa através do método netnográfico. Como principais resultados foi observado que existem cinco modelos utilizados pelos produtores de conteúdo para a inserção de propagandas no conteúdo de vídeos. Os modelos com maior resposta por parte dos usuários foram aqueles que apresentavam o produto por um período maior de tempo. Sendo que as propagandas que apresentaram uma resposta mais positiva dos usuários foram aquelas que geraram informação, entretenimento ou eram customizadas para o público que as assistiram. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: YouTube; Propaganda; Netnografia. ABSTRACT This article purpose to analyze the response of YouTube users to advertisement inserted within the content of videos. To reach this aim, an exploratory and qualitative research was carried out through the netnographic method. As main results it was perceived that there are five models used by content producers for the insertion of advertisements in the content of videos. The models with the highest response from users were those who presented the product for a longer period of time. Since the advertisements that presented a more positive response from the users were those that generated information, entertainment or were customized for the audience that attended them. KEYWORDS: YouTube; Advertising; Netnography. RESUMEN El presente artículo tiene como objetivo analizar la respuesta de usuarios de YouTube a propagandas insertadas em el contenido de videos. Para llegar a tal objetivo se realizó una investigación exploratoria y cualitativa por médio del método netnográfico. Como principales resultados se observó que existen cinco modelos utilizados por los productores de contenido para la inserción de propagandas en el contenido de los vídeos. Los modelos con más respuesta por parte de los usuarios fueron aquellos que presentaban el producto por un período mayor de tiempo. Siendo que las propagaciones que presentaron una respuesta más positiva de los usuarios fueron aquellas que generaron información, entretenimiento o eran personalizadas al público que las asistieron. PALABRAS CLAVE: YouTube; publicidad; Netnografía.

In response to consumer demand for personalized content, the customized cosmetics market continues to grow, centering on the beauty industry. This study was conducted to find out the awareness and brand awareness of customized cosmetics. From February 2023, a total of 313 adult men and women residing in Korea were surveyed on the degree of awareness of customized cosmetics, domestic and foreign brand awareness and use experience, evaluation of major brands of customized cosmetics, and expectations. Statistical analysis was performed on the data collected after the survey using SPSS version 25.0 for Windows. As a result, the recognition level of customized cosmetics was 'normal' (45.4%), and the product path was 'online advertisement' (42.8%), 'new purchase and plan to use' of customized cosmetics (62.6%), and product purchase and use plan. As for the place, 'online shopping mall' (46.3%) accounted for a high proportion. Brand recognition and usage status at home and abroad was 'know' (53.6%), the number of recognized brands was 'more than 4' (53.0), and the evaluation of domestic and foreign brand image was very high as 'positive' (80.7%). In terms of product diversity, 'satisfaction' (68.6%) was found to be high. The experience of purchasing and using domestic and foreign brands for customized cosmetics was higher than that of foreign brands, showing a significant difference. As for the purchase of customized cosmetics and the level of expectation for domestic and foreign brands, the expectation level was high with 'expectation' for domestic brands (92.9%) and 'expectation' for foreign brands (94.8%). As a result of comparative analysis by classifying groups according to general characteristics, the degree of recognition of customized cosmetics and intention to purchase showed significant differences in part according to gender, residential area, and final education level. Domestic and foreign brand awareness and experience of customized cosmetics, and expectations for customized cosmetics showed differences according to gender, region of residence, and final education level. Therefore, based on these results, it can be applied as basic data for research on the activation of customized cosmetics.

As the amount of sales increases rapidly, amount of data become very huge, and the management of customers’ relationship also becomes a more complex problem. Using data mining to analyze data to discover the rules and knowledge among them so that customized services in electronic commerce could be sustained and enterprises’ sales could be more intelligential. With data mining, we can do the following things. Firstly, it analyzes the customers’ shopping behavior and preference with association rules so that it can provide the recommending in the shopping process to make customers getting the right goods more convenient and faster. Secondly, it uses decision tree to classify the customers so that it makes a better communication between customers, provides customized shopping user interface to them and gives the pertinent advertisement to them.

The implementation of advertising for green housing usually involves consideration of individual differences among potential buyers, their desires for residential unit features as well as location impacts on a selected property. Much more rarely, there is consideration of the arousal and valence, affective behavior, emotional, and physiological states of possible buyers of green housing (AVABEPS) while they review the advertising. Yet, no integrated consideration of all these factors has been undertaken to date. The objective of this study was to consider, in an integrated manner, the AVABEPS, individual differences, and location impacts on property and desired residential unit features. During this research, the applications for the above data involved neuromarketing and multicriteria examination of video advertisements for diverse client segments by applying neuro decision tables. All of this can be performed by employing the method for planning and analyzing and by multiple criteria and customized video neuro-advertising green-housing variants (hereafter abbreviated as the ViNeRS Method), which the authors of this article have developed and present herein. The developed ViNeRS Method permits a compilation of as many as millions of alternative advertising variants. During the time of the ViNeRS project, we accumulated more than 350 million depersonalized AVABEPS data. The strong and average correlations determined in this research (over 35,000) and data examination by IBM SPSS tool support demonstrate the need to use AVABEPS in neuromarketing and neuro decision tables. The obtained dependencies constituted the basis for calculating and graphically submitting the ViNeRS circumplex model of affect, which the authors of this article developed. This model is similar to Russell’s well-known earlier circumplex model of affect. Real case studies with their related contextual conditions presented in this manuscript show a practical application of the ViNeRS Method.

The article is devoted to the analysis of communicative and pragmatic features of German advertisements about finding a partner, the language of which is characterized by certain changes in lexical content. Lexical units for the material were selected from advertisements on dating sites or newspaper sections for dating with age categories: 25-40 years and 60 or more years. The concise presentation of information and the desire to present yourself positively led to changes in the selection of lexical tools. In order to achieve his goal, the author is forced to customize the text to the target audience, taking into account the cultural and gender characteristics of the present. The language and its functioning in such advertisements has changed its meaning and lexical content, in particular, the use of evaluative lexical means, as well as the frequent use of abbreviations with an emphasis on general characteristics, rather than individual ones. Changes in the attitude of the younger age group towards the approach to writing have led to changes in the tactics of selecting lexical units and their implementation in order to achieve a communicative goal. As a conclusion, there is a tendency to simplify the structure, lexical content, speech formation. The research is interdisciplinary in nature and contributes to the formation of an idea of the development of language in virtual discourse and its changes caused by modern society and factors influencing it.

Using its technological capabilities, Facebook has introduced customized and more relevant commercial messages for its growing number of advertisement-savvy users. We empirically examined the factors that influence the way in which users respond to Facebook-based advertising, using the perceived advertising values posited by Ducoffe's model and Facebook usage behavior as a basis. The results of an online survey that involved 758 participants show that users are more likely to click on Facebook-based advertising if they perceive it as informative rather than irritating. Moreover, the extent to which users depend on Facebook and participate as "fans" on brand pages positively impacts the likelihood that they will click on advertising.

This article refers to mass customization as an individual marketing strategy, centered on costumer's order, by means of technology, emphasizing the sensibility, the flexibility and the elasticity. Such an approach is based on the mass customization advantages and its principles of flexibility: the postponement, the resenquencing and the process standardization. Moreover, the article refers to the Hewlett-Packard, (PCs) success, due to its power of integrating the designs of products, processes and supply network. We can, thus, think about the end of the advertisement. So, the old message: “Buy it now!” is not worthwhile anymore. The intelligence, nowadays, by means of technology, creates a "fatal", customized relationship with each customer. And it sells much more.

This paper examines the effect of culture on the Indian retail market and the behavior of native consumers. Here we have tried to study in the change of behavior of consumers and their concern for their culture. Today’s era can be quoted as the era of consumerism where the market is designed and customized as per the need of hour. The focus is laid on the emerging trends in shopping and the changing shopping habits of Indians. Today the market has entirely changed the way of celebrating and living of consumers, on the other end Indian customers have accepted these re-design markets which are the resultant of the Globalization and Media, which is the most efficient and effective path of advertisement and awareness

Significant effort in advertising is directed towards maximising exposure — to ensure that, for example, a broadcast audience is exposed to an optimum number of messages in a media planning schedule. ‘Interactivity’ as it is emerging, however, has a dramatic effect on traditional assumptions about frequency and reach (how many times the message is repeated and how extensively it is received). Interactivity potentially shifts choice back to the audience, allowing a ‘bypassing’ of attempts to repeat messages. Audiences, given the choice, simply will avoid advertisements that are designed primarily for exposure. Audiences in an environment where they can personalise and customise a medium according to their preferences — and indeed become ‘producers' of content themselves — will be looking for content that is designed for elaboration, rather than only repetition. There is a background to this emerging trend and it is explored in this paper.

The phrase "cloud computing" refers to any activities connected with the delivery of hosted services through the Internet. The term "cloud computing" is frequently used to describe data centers that are accessible to many people online. Drops for efficient and secure data dissemination and duplication in the cloud. Technology called Cloud Drop is about cloud data protection, e.g., users have concerns about security when extracting their external sources data on external administrative management. Loss of data can be caused by attacks on other users and nodes in the cloud. Cloud Drops is a ubiquitous awareness platform that closely integrates visual information from Webs have entered the visual contexts that we live in and work. Cloud Drops has a variety of interactive features, including stamp-like advertisements that each displays a small amount of digital data. Numerous screens and their little size enable the user to use the flexible tool, rearrange it reset their information status. We show different forms of forms on stamped screens, bring up the idea of ​​the device and the original use. We suggest light strategies and consultation familiar with small phone form. We to provide ways for tying these parts to the information the user wants to maintain, such as contacts, locations, and websites. To show platform functionality, we present a specific program example. User research provides initial information on the usage of cloud removal by users to give a customized one-information environment advertisements stored throughout the site location of buildings.

This paper presents a survey of the worldwide use of Digital Television interactivity (DTVi) standards. First, we recall some concepts of first-generation interactivity middlewares released in the early 2000s, such as the European MHP (based on Java) and the Japanese BML (based on XML). Then, we cover the new standards (emerging after 2010) that introduced the new Integrated Broadcast Broadband (IBB) model, which combines broadcast signals with a broadband interface and leverages synergies to offer high-quality, flexible, interactive and customized services and applications to viewers. Regarding IBB systems, we also cover the main aspects of their architectures and innovations introduced by this kind of technology, such as support to companion devices, e.g., smartphones, tablets, targeted advertisements, and integration with Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices. Finally, we show the current adoption of different IBB systems around the world as well as current challenges regarding IBB technologies.

This paper starts from the research of computational advertising and scene theory, based on the background of artificial intelligence technology application, and studies the communication strategy of the computational advertising scene. It studies the three major strategies of computing advertising scene communication and deeply analyzes the principles and applications of scene insight strategy, content selection strategy, and community operation strategy. Results show the following: (1) under the background that the era of artificial intelligence has arrived, computing advertising uses artificial intelligence algorithms to complete breakthrough upgrades. Through the combination of algorithms and data, its intelligent upgrades are mainly manifested in three aspects: First, to achieve higher matching accuracy communication, the second is efficient customized communication, and the third is to realize the contextual interaction between advertisements and users; (2) the “intelligent” performance characteristics of intelligent scene dissemination of computing advertising are mainly in the application of scene intelligence technology, the intelligence of the data platform, and the intelligent construction of user portraits; (3) in the era of artificial intelligence, the communication strategies for computing advertising scenarios mainly include intelligent scenario insight strategies, content selection strategies, and community operation strategies. First, the intelligent scene insight strategy is mainly analyzed from two levels. On the one hand, it is a scene mining based on intelligent data and an in-depth analysis of the user tag system centered on intelligent algorithms. On the other hand, through the research on keyword search, the impact of intelligent upgrade on scenario insight is analyzed. Secondly, in terms of content selection strategy, the application of artificial intelligence technology has brought a new upgrade to the creation and recommendation mechanism of computational advertisements.

AbstractGlasses-free augmented reality is of great interest by fusing virtual 3D images naturally with physical world without the aid of any wearable equipment. Here we propose a large-scale spatial multiplexing holographic see-through combiner for full-color 3D display. The pixelated metagratings with varied orientation and spatial frequency discretely reconstruct the propagating lightfield. The irradiance pattern of each view is tailored to form super Gaussian distribution with minimized crosstalk. What’s more, spatial multiplexing holographic combiner with customized aperture size is adopted for the white balance of virtually displayed full-color 3D scene. In a 32-inch prototype, 16 views form a smooth parallax with a viewing angle of 47°. A high transmission (>75%) over the entire visible spectrum range is achieved. We demonstrated that the displayed virtual 3D scene not only preserved natural motion parallax, but also mixed well with the natural objects. The potential applications of this study include education, communication, product design, advertisement, and head-up display.

Background Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, which have millions of users who interact and communicate every day, have been effective in promoting sexual health interventions and in disseminating reproductive health education. They have also been shown to be useful in health promotion and have been used to track several key metrics (eg, comments, posts) among users of all demographics. However, there is a lack of research on the impact and reach of these social media platforms as a community-based tool for disseminating sexual health information and for increasing engagement among Black adolescents and young adults, which is a targeted high-risk population. Objective The purpose of this study was to determine the social media platforms and banner advertisements that affected engagement among Black male adolescents and young adults in participating in web-based health surveys. Methods A web-based survey was conducted from March 2019 to July 2019 to assess sexual health and health behaviors in a convenience sample of Black male adolescents and young adults in the age range of 18-24 years (N=170). Social media metrics from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter were monitored. This cross-sectional survey comprised several categories, including basic personal information, drug-related risk behaviors, health care, sexual reproductive health questions, attitudes, norms, and perceived control, mental health, violence-related risk behaviors, and social media preferences. Results Social media advertisements on the Black Male Opinion survey reached approximately 146,412 individuals. Our primary finding of the web-based survey engagement was that referral (eg, group chat, indirect social media sharing) led to as the greatest proportion of recruitment, with Twitter and YouTube as the preferred sites to receive sexual health information. Conclusions Recognizing the variety of technologies being used among Black male young adults and adolescents can help the community, researchers, and health care providers understand the web-based engagement of this high-risk population. This information may also promote culturally sensitive, customized marketing on sexual health information for this population.

Introduction: Mental health problems have a high rate of prevalence among adolescents in Pakistan, however, the tendency to access mental health professionals for the treatment has been low due to some barriers. The current review focuses on those barriers and identifies the relevant facilitators in reducing the barriers to enhance the well-being of adolescents. Methodology: By considering the objective of the study, the adolescents whose age ranged between 10-19 years were included, the research work done during 2012-2018 was accessed through Pub Med, Science Direct, Google Scholar and SAGE articles. The key terms mental health services, adolescents, barriers, facilitators were used to locate the articles. Result: Most prevailing barriers were found as stigmatizing belief, lack of awareness, preference for other sources and scarcity of mental health services. Social support from significant others, finding an expression for the problems, customized mental health advertisements, increased awareness about mental health and providing online services for mental health problems can facilitate for reducing reluctance in adolescents for accessing mental health help services. Discussion: Mental health awareness programs can facilitate in reducing the above-mentioned barriers. This review can make it easier to lower down the perceived barriers among adolescents which consequently encourage them to seek help they require. Recommendations for future research are further discussed.

Due to globalization and the need to seek out new markets (sometimes labelled as business to 4-billion [B2-4B]), rural marketing is gaining new importance in India as well as across the globe. This article examines three facets: the marketing, linguistic and advertising of these markets. Our study shows that global companies are engaged in devising new strategies to market their products. Indian media planners have pioneered new media forms (for example, Video Vans) combining conventional and non-conventional advertising to meet the challenge of reaching rural India. The result is that messages are customized effectively to meet their audiences’ regional sensibilities and tastes. The main focus of this study is on the analysis of the messages in the ‘unconventional’ media and wall advertising. We base our study on an empirical investigation of over 2,000 ads in rural settings. The ads include commercial, social and service advertisements. The findings indicate that the advertisers favour the ‘cooperative’ view as opposed to the ‘competitive’ view. They mix languages and scripts to optimize the strength and appeal of their messages. The strengths and limits of the ‘standardization’ versus ‘adaptation’ strategies are accounted for with special reference to the structural properties of wall ads. The directions for future research are outlined.

The beer industry is one of the businesses affected during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the exponential growth of the beer industry throughout the years, this aspect of the beverage industry has gained limited attention and has been underexplored. This study aimed to provide a better and up-to-date understanding of Philippine-beer consumers to speed up its recovery. An online survey with 853 volunteer respondents was conducted to investigate Filipinos’ local beer consumption considering frequency, intake, expenses, and preference. A descriptive analysis of the consumers’ self-perceived evaluation of the changes in drinking showed a slight decrease in frequency, intake, and expenses and a minor change in preference. Somers’ d and the chi-squared test results indicated significant relationships between each demographic information (age, sex, and income) and frequency, intake, and expenses. In addition, a conjoint analysis with an orthogonal design indicated that price was the most important attribute (58.025%), followed by primary taste (12.452%), alcohol content (9.706%), mouthfeel (6.445%), aftertaste (6.355%), aroma (5.189%), and, lastly, color (1.827%). The findings of this study could be used as a baseline for improved product offerings, customized advertisements, and market segmentation. Moreover, the results of this study could be applied and extended by breweries to promote and create strategies. Lastly, this study could be extended and utilized by other beverage industries worldwide.

Digital marketing is arguably one of the preeminent marketing strategies utilized by today's vast number of businesses and companies. This strategy offers tools that enable them to promote their products to a much larger audience as it encompasses geographical boundaries. Also, it can build better relationships with customers since the content is customized to their liking. In the current study, the researchers aimed to determine how digital marketing affects the consumer behavior of Filipinos, specifically customer engagement and purchase intention. The following hypotheses were formulated: (H1) Social Media has a significant impact on Customer Engagement. (H2) Social media has a significant impact on purchase intention. (H3) Email marketing has a significant impact on customer engagement. (H4) Email marketing has a significant impact on purchase intention. (H5) Customer Engagement has a significant impact on purchase intention. A total of 334 respondents were surveyed online, and data was analyzed through the SPSS software. By the end of the research, it was found that digital marketing strategies, specifically social media marketing and email marketing, effectively generate purchase intention from Filipino consumers. This is aided by the customer engagement triggered by the advertisements presented on Facebook and their email. The researchers recommend further research on the topic but to branch out to other strategies and tactics of digital marketing since the current study focused solely on Facebook and email.

The study presented in this article is part of the topic The Impact of Image Banks on the Advertising Photography in Bulgaria, which in turn is part of the doctoral thesis Trends in the Development of Bulgarian Advertising Photography in the Period 2000 – 2017. The purpose of the research is to explore the trends in the selection of an advertising image, i.e. when the preferred images are from image banks and when they are custom-made. The survey will present the number of photographs in Bulgarian advertisements taken from an image bank and the amount of custom made ones. Another issue considered is at what stages of the working advertising process stock images appear. What is also discussed is whether the stock image generating industry is detrimental to customized advertising photography and if it provides additional business opportunity for advertising photographic studios. Through analysis and in-depth interviews with art directors, custom commercial photographers and stock image photographers, the research will attempt to present and systemize specific trends in the working process of advertising agencies on the Bulgarian market and how this affects the advertising photography in Bulgaria. The term advertising photography will be used in the sense of custom photography created for a particular advertising project, while the term stock photography will be used to define a photograph created without a specific assignment and of general commercial nature.

The research employed the method of Perceived Counterfeit Detection (PCD) to determine the significance of individuals' considerations in determining their decision to purchase original luxury brands. The study explored the relationship between self-brand connection and the purchase of counterfeit luxury brands, and also, evaluated the influence of economic benefits. The research was conducted through a survey of prospective luxury goods consumers, both original and counterfeit, in six malls located in two cities using a questionnaire. A sample of 930 participants was used, and the hypotheses were tested using a structural equation model. The findings indicate that an individual's self-concept might play a role in deciding whether to purchase an original or counterfeit luxury brand. It is noteworthy that the Perceived Counterfeit Detection completely influenced the relationship between self-brand connection and the decision to buy an original luxury brand. Furthermore, the study discovered that economic advantages intensified the inclination of consumers to buy counterfeit products in emerging economies. This contributes to the Social Identity Theory, suggesting that in scenarios heavily influenced by personal development, social pressure from one's social group might override individual moral considerations such as self-brand connection. The findings of this study hold considerable importance for managers and marketers as they enhance their comprehension of the influential role that individuals play in influencing the purchase of luxury brands. Marketing strategies need to consider the influence of family and social groups on buying choices, and advertisements should be customized accordingly.

Along with the rapid developments of both wireless and mobility technology, as the cellular phones are with extraordinary processing speed and abundant functions, there are creations of various innovative applications of Ubiquitous Computing. In order to improve the traditional product settlement which easily lead to a long waiting line for product checkouts in front of the cash registers of supermarkets for the POS system and one dimension product labeling which is resulted the erasion or identified difficulty, we introduce the QR-Code technique as product information management technology and adopt the locating of GPS as auxiliary marketing tool to help track each customer’s shopping paths and personal preference. We utilize of QR-Code Encoding and Decoding functions of the cellular phone, recording quickly of to-buy list inside of cellular phone product purchasing list, as well as offering functions such as product information instant check-up, price comparing and record on file without being limited by time and location, in order to let the consumers be able to enjoy the benefits of instant information with access at any time through mobility network. This is however to make savings on the time for many consumers waiting in line for product to be scanned, and through both on-line price comparing module and customized advertisement functions in the system, to provide the consumers with access at any time on the comparison of product prices.

E-commerce companies often use image advertising as a marketing approach to introduce potential customers to the goods or services that the business offers. People’s tastes are becoming more diverse and diverse in their range of variance. It is difficult for standard e-commerce commercials that aim their message at everyone to get the results they are looking for. The most significant obstacle that must be conquered in e-commerce is figuring out how to properly communicate an image advertisement to the ideal client for e-commerce in the optimal setting. This is a problem that must be resolved. As a result, in this work, we developed a unique commercial fuzzy picture advertising recommendation system for e-commerce items looking at it from the standpoint of the Internet of things (IoT). Customers who shop online may have their location and browsing history collected by Internet of Things devices. A multiadaptive k-nearest neighbour technique is used to predict the customers’ interests. After that, the suggested system is used to provide customized picture adverts to customers based on the customers’ interests and the locations of their devices. The proposed model’s effectiveness was assessed by using variables such as suggestion efficiency, Ad satisfaction rate, execution time, and click-through rate (CTR). According to the findings, the integrated Internet of Things advertising suggestion system that was developed is effective for targeted image advertising and enhancing client happiness.

As a recognized type of art, graffiti is a cultural asset and an important aspect of a city’s aesthetics. As such, graffiti is associated with social and commercial vibrancy and is known to attract tourists. However, positional uncertainty and incompleteness are current issues of open geo-datasets containing graffiti data. In this paper, we present an approach towards detecting building facades with graffiti artwork based on the automatic interpretation of images from Google Street View (GSV). It starts with the identification of geo-tagged photos of graffiti artwork posted on the photo sharing media Flickr. GSV images are then extracted from the surroundings of these photos and interpreted by a customized, i.e., transfer learned, convolutional neural network. The compass heading of the GSV images classified as containing graffiti artwork and the possible positions of their acquisition are considered for scoring building facades according to their potential of containing the artwork observable in the GSV images. More than 36,000 GSV images and 5000 facades from buildings represented in OpenStreetMap were processed and evaluated. Precision and recall rates were computed for different facade score thresholds. False-positive errors are caused mostly by advertisements and scribblings on the building facades as well as by movable objects containing graffiti artwork and obstructing the facades. However, considering higher scores as threshold for detecting facades containing graffiti leads to the perfect precision rate. Our approach can be applied for identifying previously unmapped graffiti artwork and for assisting map contributors interested in the topic. Furthermore, researchers interested on the spatial correlations between graffiti artwork and socio-economic factors can profit from our open-access code and results.

OBJECTIVES: Estimate the frequency of online searches on the topic of smoking and analyze the quality of online resources available to smokers interested in giving up smoking. METHODS: Search engines were used to revise searches and online resources related to stopping smoking in Brazil in 2010. The number of searches was determined using analytical tools available on Google Ads; the number and type of sites were determined by replicating the search patterns of internet users. The sites were classified according to content (advertising, library of articles and other). The quality of the sites was analyzed using the Smoking Treatment Scale- Content (STS-C) and the Smoking Treatment Scale - Rating (STS-R). RESULTS: A total of 642,446 searches was carried out. Around a third of the 113 sites encountered were of the 'library' type, i.e. they only contained articles, followed by sites containing clinical advertising (18.6) and professional education (10.6). Thirteen of the sites offered advice on quitting directed at smokers. The majority of the sites did not contain evidence-based information, were not interactive and did not have the possibility of communicating with users after the first contact. Other limitations we came across were a lack of financial disclosure as well as no guarantee of privacy concerning information obtained and no distinction made between editorial content and advertisements. CONCLUSIONS: There is a disparity between the high demand for online support in giving up smoking and the scarcity of quality online resources for smokers. It is necessary to develop interactive, customized online resources based on evidence and random clinical testing in order to improve the support available to Brazilian smokers.

Internet technology has provided an indescribable new way for businesses to attract new customers, track their behaviour, customise services, products, and advertising. Internet technology and the new trend of online shopping have resulted in the establishment of numerous websites to sell products on a daily basis. Products compete to be displayed on the limited pages of a website in online shopping because it has a significant impact on sales. Website designers carefully select which products to display on a page in order to influence the customers’ purchasing decisions. However, concerns regarding appropriate decision making have not been fully addressed. As a result, this study conducts a comprehensive comparative analysis of the performance of ten different metaheuristics. The ant lion optimiser (ALO), Dragonfly algorithm (DA), Grasshopper optimisation algorithm (GOA), Harris hawks optimisation (HHO), Moth-flame optimisation algorithm (MFO), Multi-verse optimiser (MVO), sine cosine algorithm (SCA), Salp Swarm Algorithm (SSA), The whale optimisation algorithm (WOA), and Grey wolf optimiser (GWO) are some of the recent algorithms that were chosen for this study. The results show that the MFO outperforms the other methods in all sizes. MFO has an average normalised objective function of 81%, while ALO has a normalised objective function of 77%. In contrast, HHO has the worst performance of 16%. The study’s findings add new theoretical and practical insights to the growing body of knowledge about e-commerce environments and have implications for planners, policymakers, and managers, particularly in companies where an unplanned advertisement wastes the budget.

Purpose – This paper aims to study whether age impacts the responses to different communication cues in terms of brand recall, attitude toward advertisement, attitude toward brand and purchase intention, and which age groups respond more favorably to a given cue. Design/methodology/approach – An experimental research was conducted across a sample of 1,050 respondents in Delhi to test variance in consumer attitudes across “tweenagers”, teenagers, youth, young adults and adults, when exposed to different communication cues for dummy brands of biscuits and mobile handsets. Findings – Significant variances were observed in consumer attitudes across the five age groups. However, the variation pattern differs across the two product categories. The caricature cue worked well for biscuits across most age groups. For mobile handsets, the picture cue was very effective for the two younger age groups but not as much for others. The product information cue was highly effective for adults. Practical implications – The study provides insights on making communication for brands targeted at more than one age group. If adults are a part of the marketers’ age group, some amount of product information is highly desirable, just as bright pictures/caricatures are necessary for tweenagers. For teenagers, who exhibit high variance vis-a-vis other age groups, communication needs to be customized. For brands where both children and adults are part of the target audience, common appeals can easily be identified, as they had similar responses in all but one case. Originality/value – The framework proposed in this research fills a gap in the existing literature by establishing that age impacts attitude formation in response to communication cues and gives insights for marketing communication.

Purpose – There is plethora of advertising research that has highlighted the mothers’ perspective to TV food advertising. However, the fathers’ perspective on children food advertising in societies that score high on masculinity is important but absent from literature. The purpose of this paper is to present opinions of respondents as fathers, concerning the impact of TV food advertisements on children buying and consumption habits. Design/methodology/approach – The qualitative data through semi-structured interviews has been collected from 32 males having at least one child between the ages of seven and 14 years. The respondents were purposefully selected from a private sector university located in the province of Punjab, Pakistan. The collected data have been analysed through thematic analysis. Findings – Thematic analysis revealed six themes; quantity of ads, negative impact of TV food ads, changing buying patterns, positive/productive impact on children, father's perceptions of TV advertising, and advertising changes to be incorporated. The findings have some social, cultural, and managerial implications for core advertising stakeholders. Practical implications – This study is useful for marketing managers whose job is to persuade children and their families into buying their products. They can benefit from the findings of this study to customize the brand communication strategies as per the expectations of respondents as fathers. Furthermore, the study proposes useful insights that will help in devising consumer-led advertising policies in Pakistan. Originality/value – The gender role of males while influencing family decision making with regards to food products marketing has been a new area of research. The study is pioneer in the field of consumer socialization in that it focuses upon the fathers’ perspective on TV advertising to children.

Abstract Introduction Digital cognitive-behavioral therapies for insomnia (dCBT-I) provide low-cost, evidence-based technology, effective in improving mental health and reducing healthcare costs. However, dropout rates still challenge dCBT-I scalability. Moreover, few solutions are available in middle-and-low-income economies where they are most needed. Our goal was to investigate feasibility, describing real-world data and preliminary findings of a novel, fully automated program, developed by Vigilantes do Sono (Sleep Watchers) using Chatbot and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Methods A digital coach interacts with users daily for 5–10 minutes, asking them to complete tailored diaries and delivering CBT-I knowledge pills in ~50 sessions, during ~7 weeks. The Insomnia Severity Index (ISI) is used before and after sleep restriction cycles, weekly revised by an algorithm. Participants (18+ years) were recruited (Jan-Oct/2020) through advertisements on social media, organic search, or were referred by health-care professionals, without face-to-face evaluation. All electronically signed an informed consent. We estimated engagement dividing number of complete diaries by number of days in the program. Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) evaluated changes in sleep parameters, adjusting for baseline characteristics. Results Of 3,887 individuals who completed initial assessment, 3,139 (81%) had insomnia (ISI ≥11) and 1,489 (42±11 years, 91% women) fulfilled 7+ diaries, commenced sleep restriction, and were included in analysis. Of them, 604 (41%) completed a second ISI and 326 (22%) finished the program. GEE analyzing 42,802 diaries showed sleep duration increased 16.8 (11.9–21.6) minutes from first to second week and 67.3 (52.8–81.8) after week seven; parallel to a relative increase of 34% in sleep efficiency among women and 26% among men. Of 296 participants who reached therapeutic response (ISI reduction ≥8), 66% completed all sessions and 34% crossed half-way. Insomnia remission (ISI≤7) was seen for 55% and 33% of those with subthreshold (n=171) or clinical (n=419) baseline insomnia, respectively. Median (interquartile) engagement was 86% (65–98) and 90% of users recommend the program. Conclusion Chatbot and AI provide a framework to customize dCBT-I and personalize insomnia therapy, potentially favoring engagement and effectiveness. Our findings demonstrate feasibility of the program and support moving forward to continued development and testing the effects in clinical trials. Support (if any):

Large corporations have taken benefit of social media marketing's potential as a forum for marketing and have used it to drive their ad campaigns. Marketers are more conscious than ever of the different social media options that are available to them and are moving much faster than ever to start new sustainability campaigns. Social marketing is the method of promoting a company and its products and services through social media and other networks. While propagating their culture, mission, or desirable tone, organizations can utilize social media marketing to communicate with their existing customers and entice new ones. With help of data analytics tools specifically designed for social media marketing, marketers may monitor the effectiveness of their campaigns. The way we interact with one another and how our society functions as a whole have both changed as a consequence of social networking. Entrepreneurs started to notice how popular social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are becoming more and more. They started utilizing these platforms for social media marketing purposes to advance their objectives. That's because these websites have the power to alter user behaviour. On the social media platforms, marketing professionals can employ a variety of strategies and techniques to catch users' attention and enhance the engagement of their content. Marketers can employ the particular geographic, demographic, and personal information that users can submit on a variety of social media networks to customize their messaging to what is most likely to be popular with consumers. Social media is one of the "biggest chances" a company has currently now just to reach out to prospective customers. The means of socialization are social media. By establishing a closer connection with the public, these new media gain the trust of the public. Social networking marketing has transformed into the new norm for many organizations since the beginnings of last year. Social networking marketing has advanced, as have the companies that use it. It is impossible to pay to be completely silent on social media if a rival is generating controversy with its services and products. It is equally astounding how quickly the social media phenomenon is expanding and growing. With publication came social media marketing first. In an attempt to boost visitors to their sites and preferably, revenue, businesses published their information on social media. Social networking, however, has expanded to be a lot more than simply a method for disseminating information. Companies increasingly utilize social networking sites in a wide range of ways. For instance, an organization that is curious in what customers have to say about its brand may monitoring social media conversations and respond to significant references. In order to determine how effectively a company is operating on social media, it would employ an analytics tool to examine at its visibility, engagement, and sales. Highly targeted social media advertisements would be used by a company looking to reach a certain population on a large scale. The term "social media management" is frequently used to refer to all of them. Numerous ways in which social media has altered business. It is a reality that because of the digital era in which we live, social media and internet marketing have a big influence on how people behave. The technology is evolving quickly, which has increased both supply and demand over time. Automation of all processes is the only way to deal with the significant changes. Despite the emergence of the new communications era, experts advise companies to keep employing conventional methods while also making the most of social media to promote their goals. This study analyzes social media and social media marketing principles as well as related topics like social media's development and advantages, its function and importance in marketing, and its social media marketing tactics. It also offers a broad perspective of marketing through social media in India.

Advertising shapes our larger public culture but the typical experience of advertising is now confined to our private and algorithmically-customised social media feeds. In this project, with our partner VicHealth, we used a participatory digital method to work with 204 young Australians aged 18 to 25 to collect 5169 examples of alcohol, gambling and fast food advertising from their social media feeds. We analyse the collections of advertisements each participant sent us. The patterns across participants’ collections illustrate how social media platforms’ advertising models ‘learn’ to reflect and reproduce the identities and subject positions of participants. The collections of ads we see on social media are an important object of study because they reveal not just the symbolic content and targeting patterns of particular ads, but also because they illustrate how advertising on social media algorithmically-curates an immersive cultural experience. Our study demonstrates how social media continues the larger social role advertising plays in the construction and maintenance of consumer subjectivities. The algorithmic flow of advertising on social media is now the basis of our everyday engagement with advertising. We need to conceptualise advertising on social media not only using concepts of ‘targeting’ that imply the precise identification of our characteristics, but instead as a complex feedback loop between the refinement of ad content and themes, the data-driven optimization of audiences, and our reflexive and fluid identities, interests and aesthetic sensibilities.

Digital advertising provides great advantages such as lower advertising costs, fast and reliable feedbacks from customers, increased efficiency, and the ability to create detailed databases of customers, which make it increasingly more important for companies. Production of contents is mainly based on intuition and experience for conventional advertising, while it based on data for digital advertising. This makes it possible to offer targeted advertisements that are customized according to the digital trails of consumers. Targeted advertising has become the focus of digital advertising, and methods that have been developed in this field open new horizons for both companies and researchers. To provide targeted advertisements for digital advertising, bidding machines or pricing engines that offer customized prices and promotions are typically generated by means of a machine learning algorithm. Machine learning provides companies with more power to control advertisements; but the most important matter of debate is the customization of advertisements and, as a result thereof, the possibility that data privacy is compromised. This paper discusses the matter with a holistic approach by means of focusing on the concerns of data privacy in addition to the benefits of targeted advertisements and machine learning algorithms for businesses. This paper also discusses the steps that would prevent consumers from not proceeding with a purchase due to concerns about data privacy, while maintaining the high level of profitability gained thanks to targeted advertisements.

Users on social media have increased rapidly in recent years, social media advertising has become a popular marketing tool for companies to promote their products. A feature of social media advertising is that marketers can use customers' online behavior to create customized advertisements, which are also known as targeting ads. In this study, we conducted experimental testing 2 (advertising type) X2 (product type) to see if increased knowledge of social advertising would influence users' attitudes towards ads. We separated two different types of advertising on Facebook, namely remarketing and social support, and two different types of products, which advertised general products and ads about embarrassing products. The results of this study are that the increase in advertising knowledge is able to (1) affect the perceived value of advertisements from different types of products and (2) different types of advertisements do not affect user attitudes towards advertisements. For future research, we recommend focusing primarily on the demographic and environmental variables of digital advertising users about embarrassing products.

This study explores the role of social media in influencing consumer purchase behavior and brand loyalty. Social media platforms have become powerful tools in shaping consumer decision-making processes. They give buyers admittance to tremendous measures of data, item surveys, and client produced content, empowering them to go with informed buy choices. Furthermore, web-based entertainment forces to be reckoned with and online networks assume a pivotal part in impacting buyer inclinations and sentiments. Besides, web-based entertainment stages work with two-way correspondence among brands and customers, taking into account customized connections and commitment. Brands can give client assistance, address concerns, and fabricate associations with their main interest group, prompting expanded trust and steadfastness. Online entertainment likewise fills in as a virtual commercial center, giving comfort and customized proposals that energize rehash buys. Besides, web-based entertainment assumes a huge part in building brand dependability. It is observed that social media has a lasting impact in people due to its accessibility and transparency. Both customers and companies can leverage social media to fullest to understand purchase patterns and behaviour. Keywords: Social Media, Marketing, Brands, Brand Loyalty, Consumer Purchase Behaviour, Advertisement

A client is an individual who is utilising one or added services offered by banks. A client is a one in the course of whom the banks acquire a chance to create an income in return to the service they give the client. Every bank always tries to maximise the satisfaction of their consumers by providing customised service and product. Everything in banking business depends on how well the bank product and services gives high degree of satisfaction to customers. Product and services that are offered must satisfy customer requirements at an affordable price. With regard to the service market, the best way of advertisement is word of mouth by customers that give popularity to services. A satisfied customer thus becomes hub to connect new customers to a bank. Internet banking permits clients to carry out monetary dealings on a protected website run by their retail or implicit bank. Only the customer belonging to the particular Bank can be allowed to operate his account through online banking. User ID & Password will be provided by the Bank to their customer to operate the online banking facility.

Businesses (retailers) often wish to offer personalized advertisements (coupons) to individuals (consumers), but run the risk of strong reactions from consumers who want a customized shopping experience but feel their privacy has been violated. Existing models for privacy such as differential privacy or information theory try to quantify privacy risk but do not capture the subjective experience and heterogeneous expression of privacy-sensitivity. We propose a Markov decision process (MDP) model to capture (i) different consumer privacy sensitivities via a time-varying state; (ii) different coupon types (action set) for the retailer; and (iii) the action-and-state-dependent cost for perceived privacy violations. For the simple case with two states ("Normal" and "Alerted"), two coupons (targeted and untargeted) model, and consumer behavior statistics known to the retailer, we show that a stationary threshold-based policy is the optimal coupon-offering strategy for a retailer that wishes to minimize its expected discounted cost. The threshold is a function of all model parameters; the retailer offers a targeted coupon if its belief that the consumer is in the "Alerted" state is below the threshold. We extend this two-state model to consumers with multiple privacy-sensitivity states as well as coupon-dependent state transition probabilities. Furthermore, we study the case with imperfect (noisy) cost feedback from consumers and uncertain initial belief state.

Purpose: Asia's E-Commerce sector is booming and is estimated to develop rapidly. This paper examines the potential development areas for Indian e-commerce while providing a general picture of the Trends in Consumer Buying Behavior. Additionally, learn about several elements that will be crucial for the progress of Indian e-commerce in the future. A SWOC analysis is done for a deeper understanding of the industry. In this study, we discovered that overall e-commerce in India, an emerging sector, will grow rapidly in the years to come. Design/Methodology/Approach: The case contributes to the SWOC analysis of the current situation of the E-Commerce sector. The study is derived from secondary data from sources like literature, case studies, and books. Findings/Result: In order to increase customer engagement and foster familiarity and trust, e-commerce businesses are attempting to strengthen their supply chain and delivery capabilities. Additionally, they are incorporating technology to provide a customized purchasing experience. The sellers may intensify organic traffic of customers and also sales with e-commerce blogging content. They will be able to optimize content to increase traffic and sales without consuming to spend additional money by doing anything from creating videos to writing blog posts. Additionally, they will be able to monetize those visitors with retargeting advertisements in addition to attracting traffic naturally through content production. Originality/Value: The discoveries in the case will give more insight into consumer buying behavior trends and help e-commerce sellers to target better to obtain consumer satisfaction and consumer loyalty. Paper Type: Case Study

The dramatic change in shopping experience over the past few decades presents many challenges to the retailers. In this technology can play an important role in enriching the shopping experience for the customers and help increase the sales of the retailers. In this paper an innovative method for doing the same is proposed. In this proposed system, customers are tracked using beacons that are set up in the retail shops and personalized discounts are offered to the customers based on their shopping patterns and purchase histories. The smartphone application detects the location of the customer inside the shop using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) signals emitted by the beacons and the information is then sent to the server for processing. The server then sends personalized offers to the customer. A Beacon is commonly a little Bluetooth Low Energy (BTLE, Bluetooth 4.0) gadget that can be controlled by a coin cell, batteries or through an outer power supply. Beacon is expertise in identifying proximity and can be used in business areas for various information. The data which beacons transmit will be in the form of packets and relevant Smartphone can take up the data which is transmitted. In the proposed system the customer will receive the notifications and services provided by the vendor when he passes near the store/mall, thus providing the customized advertisement service to the user. This paper review beacon technology in the aspects of its roles, merit and demerit. Keywords: Beacon technology, Cluster analysis, Data management systems, Electronic commerce, Internet of things and Unsupervised learning

To interact with webpages, people with low vision typically rely on screen magnifier assistive technology that enlarges screen content and also enables them to pan the content to view the different portions of a webpage. This back-and-forth panning between different webpage portions makes it especially inconvenient and arduous for screen magnifier users to interact with web data records (e.g., list of flights, products, job advertisements), as this interaction typically involves making frequent comparisons between the data records based on their attributes, e.g., comparing available flights in a travel website based on their prices, durations, etc. To address this issue, we present TableView+, an enhanced version of our previous TableView prototype – a browser extension that leverages a state-of-the-art data extraction method to automatically identify and extract information in web data records, and subsequently presents the information to a screen magnifier user in a compactly arranged data table to facilitate easier comparisons between records. TableView+ introduces new features aimed mostly at addressing the critical shortcomings of TableView, most notably the absence of interface customization options. In this regard, TableView+ enables low-vision users to customize the appearance of the data table based on their individual needs and eye conditions. TableView+ also saves these customizations so as to automatically apply them to the best extent possible the next time the users interact with the data records on either the same or other similar websites. A user study with 25 low-vision participants showed that with TableView+, the panning time further decreased by 8.5\% on unfamiliar websites and by 8.02\% on a familiar website than with TableView when compared to a screen magnifier.

AbstractCustomizable, portable, battery-operated, wireless platforms for interfacing high-sensitivity nanoscale sensors are a means to improve spatiotemporal measurement coverage of physical parameters. Such a platform can enable the expansion of IoT for environmental and lifestyle applications. Here we report a platform capable of acquiring currents ranging from 1.5 nA to 7.2 µA full-scale with 20-bit resolution and variable sampling rates of up to 3.125 kSPS. In addition, it features a bipolar voltage programmable in the range of −10 V to +5 V with a 3.65 mV resolution. A Finite State Machine steers the system by executing a set of embedded functions. The FSM allows for dynamic, customized adjustments of the nanosensor bias, including elevated bias schemes for self-heating, measurement range, bandwidth, sampling rate, and measurement time intervals. Furthermore, it enables data logging on external memory (SD card) and data transmission over a Bluetooth low energy connection. The average power consumption of the platform is 64.5 mW for a measurement protocol of three samples per second, including a BLE advertisement of a 0 dBm transmission power. A state-of-the-art (SoA) application of the platform performance using a CNT nanosensor, exposed to NO2 gas concentrations from 200 ppb down to 1 ppb, has been demonstrated. Although sensor signals are measured for NO2 concentrations of 1 ppb, the 3σ limit of detection (LOD) of 23 ppb is determined (1σ: 7 ppb) in slope detection mode, including the sensor signal variations in repeated measurements. The platform’s wide current range and high versatility make it suitable for signal acquisition from resistive nanosensors such as silicon nanowires, carbon nanotubes, graphene, and other 2D materials. Along with its overall low power consumption, the proposed platform is highly suitable for various sensing applications within the context of IoT.

The first uncomfortable twinges started when I was a grad student, churning out my Master’s thesis on a laptop that I worked on at the library, in my bedroom, on the kitchen table, and at the coffee shop. By the last few months, typing was becoming uncomfortable for my arms, but as any thesis writer will tell you, your whole body is uncomfortable with the endless hours sitting, inputting, and revising. I didn’t think much of it until I moved on to a new city to start a PhD program. Now the burning that accompanied my essay-typing binges started to worry me more, especially since I noticed the twinges didn’t go away when I got up to chat with my roommate, or to go to bed. I finally mentioned the annoying arm to Sonja, a medical student friend of mine visiting me one afternoon. She asked me to pick up a chair in front of me, palms out. I did, and the attempt stabbed pain up my arm and through my elbow joint. The chair fell out of my hands. We looked at each other, eyebrows raised.Six months and much computer work later, I still hadn’t really addressed the issue. Who had time? Chasing mystery ailments around and more importantly, doing any less typing were not high on my likely list. But like the proverbial frog in slowly heated water, things had gotten much worse without my really acknowledging it. That is, until the day I got up from my laptop, stretched out and wandered into the kitchen to put some pasta on to boil. When the spaghetti was ready, I grabbed the pot to drain it and my right arm gave as if someone had just handed me a 200-pound weight. The pot, pasta and boiling water hit the floor with a scalding splash that nearly missed both me and the fleeing cat. Maybe there was a problem here.Both popular and critical understandings of the body have been in a great deal of flux over the past three or four decades as digital media technologies have become ever more pervasive and personal. Interfacing with the popular Internet, video games, mobile devices, wearable computing, and other new media technologies have prompted many to reflect on and reconsider what it means to be an embodied human being in an increasingly digitally determined era. As a result, the body, at various times in this recent history, has been theoretically disowned, disavowed, discarded, disdained, replaced, idealised, essentialised, hollowed out, re-occupied, dismembered, reconstituted, reclaimed and re-imagined in light of new media. Despite all of the angst over the relationships our embodied selves have had to digital media, of course, our embodied selves have endured. It remains true, that “even in the age of technosocial subjects, life is lived through bodies” (Stone 113).How we understand our embodiments and their entanglements with technologies matter deeply, moreover, for these understandings shape not only discourse around embodiment and media, but also the very bodies and media in question in very real ways. For example, a long-held tenet in both popular culture and academic work has been the notion that media technologies extend our bodies and our senses as technological prostheses. The idea here is that media technologies work like prostheses that extend the reach of our eyes, ears, voice, touch, and other bodily abilities through time and space, augmenting our abilities to experience and influence the world.Canadian media scholar Marshall McLuhan is one influential proponent of this notion, and claimed that, in fact, “the central purpose of all my work is to convey this message, that by understanding media as they extend man, we gain a measure of control over them” (McLuhan and Zingrone 265). Other more contemporary media scholars reflect on how “our prosthetic technological extensions enable us to amplify and extend ourselves in ways that profoundly affect the nature and scale of human communication” (Cleland 75), and suggest that a media technology such as one’s mobile device, can act “as a prosthesis that supports the individual in their interactions with the world” (Glitsos 161). Popular and commercial discourses also frequently make use of this idea, from the 1980’s AT&T ad campaign that nudged you to “Reach out and Touch Someone” via the telephone, to Texas Instruments’s claim in the 1990’s that their products were “Extending Your Reach”, to Nikon’s contemporary nudge to “See Much Further” with the prosthetic assistance of their cameras. The etymology of the term “prosthesis” reveals that the term evolves from Greek and Latin components that mean, roughly, “to add to”. The word was originally employed in the 16th century in a grammatical context to indicate “the addition of a letter or syllable to the beginning of a word”, and was adopted to describe “the replacement of defective or absent parts of the body by artificial substitutes” in the 1700’s. More recently the world “prosthesis” has come to be used to indicate more simply, “an artificial replacement for a part of the body” (OED Online). As we see in the use of the term over the past few decades, the meaning of the word continues to shift and is now often used to describe technological additions that don’t necessarily replace parts of the body, but augment and extend embodied capabilities in various ways. Technology as prosthesis is “a trope that has flourished in a recent and varied literature concerned with interrogating human-technology interfaces” (Jain 32), and now goes far beyond signifying the replacement of missing components. Although the prosthesis has “become somewhat of an all-purpose metaphor for interactions of body and technology” (Sun 16) and “a tempting theoretical gadget” (Jain 49), I contend that this metaphor is not often used particularly faithfully. Instead of invoking anything akin to the complex lived corporeal experiences and conundrums of prosthetic users, what we often get when it comes to metaphors of technology-as-prostheses is a fascination with the potential of technologies in seamlessly extending our bodies. This necessitates a fantasy version of both the body and its prostheses as interchangeable or extendable appendages to be unproblematically plugged and unplugged, modifying our capabilities and perceptions to our varying whims.Of course, a body seamlessly and infinitely extended by technological prostheses is really no body. This model forgoes actual lived bodies for a shiny but hollow amalgamation based on what I have termed the “disembodimyth” enabled by technological transcendence. By imagining our bodies as assemblages of optional appendages, it is not far of a leap to imagine opting out of our bodies altogether and using technological means to unfasten our consciousness from our corporeal parts. Alison Muri points out that this myth of imminent emancipation from our bodies via unity with technology is a view that has become “increasingly prominent in popular media and cultural studies” (74), despite or perhaps because of the fact that, due to global overpopulation and wasteful human environmental practices, “the human body has never before been so present, or so materially manifest at any time in the history of humanity”, rendering “contradictory, if not absurd, the extravagantly metaphorical claims over the past two decades of the human body’s disappearance or obsolescence due to technology” (75-76). In other words, it becomes increasingly difficult to speak seriously about the body being erased or escaped via technological prosthetics when those prosthetics, and our bodies themselves, continue to proliferate and contribute to the piling up of waste and pollution in the current Anthropocene. But whether they imply smooth couplings with alluring technologies, or uncoupling from the body altogether, these technology-as-prosthesis metaphors tell us very little about “prosthetic realities” (Sun 24). Actual prosthetic realities involve learning curves; pain, frustrations and triumphs; hard-earned remappings of mental models; and much experimentation and adaption on the part of both technology and user in order to function. In this vein, Vivian Sobchak has detailed the complex sensations and phenomenological effects that followed the amputation of her leg high above the knee, including the shifting presence of her “phantom limb” perceptions, the alignments, irritations, movements, and stabilities offered by her prosthetic leg, and her shifting senses of bodily integrity and body-image over time. An oversimplistic application of the prosthetic metaphor for our encounters with technology runs the risk of forgetting this wealth of experiences and instructive first-hand accounts from people who have been using therapeutic prosthetics as long as assistive devices have been conceived of, built, and used. Of course, prosthetics have long been employed not simply to aid function and mobility, but also to restore and prop up concepts of what a “whole,” “normal” body looks like, moves like, and includes as essential components. Prosthetics are employed, in many cases, to allow the user to “pass” as able-bodied in rendering their own technological presence invisible, in service of restoring an ableist notion of embodied normality. Scholars of Critical Disability Studies have pushed back against these ableist notions, in service of recognising the capacities of “the disabled body when it is understood not as a less than perfect form of the normative standard, but as figuring difference in a nonbinary sense” (Shildrick 14). Paralympian, actress, and model Aimee Mullins has lent her voice to this cause, publicly contesting the prioritisation of realistic, unobtrusive form in prosthetic design. In a TED talk entitled It’s Not Fair Having 12 Pairs of Legs, she showcases her collection of prosthetics, including “cheetah legs” designed for optimal running speed, transparent glass-like legs, ornately carved wooden legs, Barbie doll-inspired legs customised with high heel shoes, and beautiful, impractical jellyfish legs. In illustrating the functional, fashionable, and fantastical possibilities, she challenges prosthetic designers to embrace more poetry and whimsy, while urging us all to move “away from the need to replicate human-ness as the only aesthetic ideal” (Mullins). In this same light, Sarah S. Jain asks “how do body-prosthesis relays transform individual bodies as well as entire social notions about what a properly functioning physical body might be?” (39). In her exploration of how prostheses can be simultaneously wounding and enabling, Jain recounts Sigmund Freud’s struggle with his own palate replacement following surgery for throat cancer in 1923. His prosthesis allowed him to regain the ability to speak and eat, but also caused him significant pain. Nevertheless, his artificial palate had to be worn, or the tissue would shrink and necessitate additional painful procedures (Jain 31). Despite this fraught experience, Freud himself espoused the trope of technologically enhanced transcendence, pronouncing “Man has, as it were, become a prosthetic god. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs, he is truly magnificent.” However, he did add a qualification, perhaps reflective of his own experiences, by next noting, “but those organs have not grown on him and they still give him much trouble at times” (qtd. in Jain 31). This trouble is, I argue, important to remember and reclaim. It is also no less present in our interactions with our media prostheses. Many of our technological encounters with media come with unacknowledged discomforts, adjustments, lag, strain, ill-fitting defaults, and fatigue. From carpal tunnel syndrome to virtual reality vertigo, our interactions with media technologies are often marked by pain and “much trouble” in Freud’s sense. Computer Science and Cultural Studies scholar Phoebe Sengers opens a short piece titled Technological Prostheses: An Anecdote, by reflecting on how “we have reached the post-physical era. On the Internet, all that matters is our thoughts. The body is obsolete. At least, whoever designed my computer interface thought so.” She traces how concentrated interactions with computers during her graduate work led to intense tendonitis in her hands. Her doctor responded by handing her “a technological prosthesis, two black leather wrist braces” that allowed her to return to her keyboard to resume typing ten hours a day. Shortly after her assisted return to her computer, she developed severe tendonitis in her elbows and had to stop typing altogether. Her advisor also handed her a technological prosthesis, this time “a speech understanding system that would transcribe my words,” so that she could continue to work. Two days later she lost her voice. Ultimately she “learned that my body does not go away when I work. I learned to stop when it hurt […] and to refuse to behave as though my body was not there” (Sengers). My own experiences in grad school were similar in many ways to Sengers’s. Besides the pasta problem outlined above, my own computer interfacing injuries at that point in my career meant I could no longer turn keys in doors, use a screwdriver, lift weights, or play the guitar. I held a friend’s baby at Christmas that year and the pressure of the small body on my arm make me wince. My family doctor bent my arm around a little, then shrugging her shoulders, she signed me up for a nerve test. As a young neurologist proceeded to administer a series of electric shocks and stick pins into my arms in various places, I noticed she had an arm brace herself. She explained that she also had a repetitive strain injury aggravated by her work tasks. She pronounced mine an advanced repetitive strain injury involving both medial and lateral epicondylitis, and sent me home with recommendations for rest, ice and physiotherapy. Rest was a challenge: Like Sengers, I puzzled over how one might manage to be productive in academia without typing. I tried out some physiotherapy, with my arm connected to electrodes and currents coursing through my elbow until my arm contorted in bizarre ways involuntarily. I tried switching my mouse from my right side to my left, switching from typing to voice recognition software and switching from a laptop to a more ergonomic desktop setup. I tried herbal topical treatments, wearing an extremely ugly arm brace, doing yoga poses, and enduring chiropractic bone-cracking. I learned in talking with people around me at that time that repetitive strains of various kinds are surprisingly common conditions for academics and other computer-oriented occupations. I learned other things well worth learning in that painful process. In terms of my own writing and thinking about technology, I have even less tolerance for the idea of ephemeral, transcendent technological fusions between human and machine. Seductive slippages into a cyberspatial existence seem less sexy when bumping your body up against the very physical and unforgiving interface hurts more with each keystroke or mouse click. The experience has given me a chronic injury to manage carefully ever since, rationing my typing time and redoubling my commitment to practicing embodied theorising about technology, with attention to sensation, materiality, and the way joints (between bones or between computer and computant) can become points of inflammation. Although pain is rarely referenced in the myths of smooth human and technological incorporations, there is much to be learned in acknowledging and exploring the entry and exit wounds made when we interface with technology. The elbow, or wrist, or lower back, or mental health that gives out serves as an effective alarm, should it be ignored too long. If nothing else, like a crashed computer, a point of pain will break a flow of events typically taken for granted. Whether it is your screen or your pinky finger that unexpectedly freezes, a system collapse will prompt a step back to look with new perspective at the process you were engaged in. The lag, crash, break, gap, crack, or blister exposes the inherent imperfections in a system and offers up an invitation for reflection, critical engagement, and careful choice.One careful choice we could make would be a more critical engagement with technology-as-prosthesis by “re-membering” our jointedness with technologies. Of course, joints themselves are not distinct parts, but interesting articulated systems and relationships in the spaces in-between. Experiencing our jointedness with technologies involves recognising that this is not the smooth romantic union with technology that has so often been exalted. Instead, our technological articulations involve a range of pleasures and pain, flows and blockages, frictions and slippages, flexibilities and rigidities. I suggest that a new model for understanding technology and embodiment might employ “articulata” as a central figure, informed by the multiple meanings of articulation. At their simplest, articulata are hinged, jointed, plural beings, but they are also precarious things that move beyond a hollow collection of corporeal parts. The inspiration for an exploration of articulation as a metaphor in this way was planted by the work of Donna Haraway, and especially by her 1992 essay, “The Promises of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others,” in which she touches briefly on articulation and its promise. Haraway suggests that “To articulate is to signify. It is to put things together, scary things, risky things, contingent things. I want to live in an articulate world. We articulate; therefore we are” (324). Following from Haraway’s work, this framework insists that bodies and technologies are not simply components cobbled together, but a set of relations that rework each other in complex and ongoing processes of articulation. The double-jointed meaning of articulation is particularly apt as inspiration for crafting a more nuanced understanding of embodiment, since articulation implies both physiology and communication. It is a term that can be used to explain physical jointedness and mobility, but also expressive specificities. We articulate a joint by exploring its range of motion and we articulate ideas by expressing them in words. In both senses we articulate and are articulated by our jointed nature. Instead of oversimplifying or idealising embodied relationships with prostheses and other technologies, we might conceive of them and experience them as part of a “joint project”, based on points of connexion that are not static, but dynamic, expressive, complex, contested, and sometimes uncomfortable. After all, as Shildrick reminds us, in addition to functioning as utilitarian material artifacts, “prostheses are rich in semiotic meaning and mark the site where the disordering ambiguity, and potential transgressions, of the interplay between the human, animal and machine cannot be occluded” (17). By encouraging the attentive embracing of these multiple meanings, disorderings, ambiguities, transgressions and interplays, my aim moving forward is to explore the ways in which we might all become more articulate about our articulations. After all, I too want to live in an articulate world.ReferencesAT&T. "AT&T Reach Out and Touch Someone Commercial – 1987." Advertisement. 13 Mar. 2014. YouTube. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OapWdclVqEY>.Cleland, Kathy. "Prosthetic Bodies and Virtual Cyborgs." Second Nature 3 (2010): 74–101.Glitsos, Laura. "Screen as Skin: The Somatechnics of Touchscreen Music Media." Somatechnics 7.1 (2017): 142–165.Haraway, Donna. "Promises of Monsters: A Regenerative Politics for Inappropriate/d Others." Cultural Studies. Eds. Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson and Paula A. Treichler. New York: Routledge, 1992. 295–337.Jain, Sarah S. "The Prosthetic Imagination: Enabling and Disabling the Prosthetic Trope." Science, Technology, & Human Values 31.54 (1999): 31–54.McLuhan, Eric, and Frank Zingrone, eds. Essential McLuhan. Concord: Anansi P, 1995.Mullins, Aimee. Aimee Mullins: It’s Not Fair Having 12 Pairs of Legs. TED, 2009. <http://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_prosthetic_aesthetics.html>.Muri, Allison. "Of Shit and the Soul: Tropes of Cybernetic Disembodiment in Contemporary Culture." Body & Society 9.3 (2003): 73–92.Nikon. "See Much Further! Nikon COOLPIX P1000." Advertisement. 1 Nov. 2018. YouTube. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtABWZX0U8w>.OED Online. "prosthesis, n." Oxford UP. June 2019. 1 Aug. 2019 <https://www-oed-com.proxy.hil.unb.ca/view/Entry/153069?redirectedFrom=prosthesis#eid>.Sengers, Phoebe. "Technological Prostheses: An Anecdote." ZKP-4 Net Criticism Reader. Eds. Geert Lovink and Pit Schultz. 1997.Shildrick, Margrit. "Why Should Our Bodies End at the Skin?: Embodiment, Boundaries, and Somatechnics." Hypatia 30.1 (2015): 13–29.Sobchak, Vivian. "Living a ‘Phantom Limb’: On the Phenomenology of Bodily Integrity." Body & Society 16.3 (2010): 51–67.Stone, Allucquere Roseanne. "Will the Real Body Please Stand Up? Boundary Stories about Virtual Cultures." Cyberspace: First Steps. Ed. Michael Benedikt. Cambridge: MIT P, 1991. 81–113.Sun, Hsiao-yu. "Prosthetic Configurations and Imagination: Dis/ability, Body and Technology." Concentric: Literacy and Cultural Studies 44.1 (2018): 13–39.Texas Instruments. "We Wrote the Book on Classroom Calculators." Advertisement. Teaching Children Mathematics 2.1 (1995): Back Matter. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/41196414>.

Introduction Many social media tools and services are free to use. This fact often leads users to the mistaken presumption that the associated data generated whilst utilising these tools and services is without value. Users often focus on the social and presumed ephemeral nature of communication – imagining something that happens but then has no further record or value, akin to a telephone call – while corporations behind these tools tend to focus on the media side, the lasting value of these traces which can be combined, mined and analysed for new insight and revenue generation. This paper seeks to explore this social media contradiction in two ways. Firstly, a cursory examination of Google and Facebook will demonstrate how data mining and analysis are core practices for these corporate giants, central to their functioning, development and expansion. Yet the public rhetoric of these companies is not about the exchange of personal information for services, but rather the more utopian notions of organising the world’s information, or bringing everyone together through sharing. The second section of this paper examines some of the core ramifications of death in terms of social media, asking what happens when a user suddenly exists only as recorded media fragments, at least in digital terms. Death, at first glance, renders users (or post-users) without agency or, implicitly, value to companies which data-mine ongoing social practices. Yet the emergence of digital legacy management highlights the value of the data generated using social media, a value which persists even after death. The question of a digital estate thus illustrates the cumulative value of social media as media, even on an individual level. The ways Facebook and Google approach digital death are examined, demonstrating policies which enshrine the agency and rights of living users, but become far less coherent posthumously. Finally, along with digital legacy management, I will examine the potential for posthumous digital legacies which may, in some macabre ways, actually reanimate some aspects of a deceased user’s presence, such as the Lives On service which touts the slogan “when your heart stops beating, you'll keep tweeting”. Cumulatively, mapping digital legacy management by large online corporations, and the affordances of more focussed services dealing with digital death, illustrates the value of data generated by social media users, and the continued importance of the data even beyond the grave. Google While Google is universally synonymous with search, and is the world’s dominant search engine, it is less widely understood that one of the core elements keeping Google’s search results relevant is a complex operation mining user data. Different tools in Google’s array of services mine data in different ways (Zimmer, “Gaze”). Gmail, for example, uses algorithms to analyse an individual’s email in order to display the most relevant related advertising. This form of data mining is comparatively well known, with most Gmail users knowingly and willingly accepting more personalised advertising in order to use Google’s email service. However, the majority of people using Google’s search engine are unaware that search, too, is increasingly driven by the tracking, analysis and refining of results on the basis of user activity (Zimmer, “Externalities”). As Alexander Halavais (160–180) quite rightly argues, recent focus on the idea of social search – the deeper integration of social network information in gauging search results – is oxymoronic; all search, at least for Google, is driven by deep analysis of personal and aggregated social data. Indeed, the success of Google’s mining of user data has led to concerns that often invisible processes of customisation and personalisation will mean that the supposedly independent or objective algorithms producing Google’s search results will actually yield a different result for every person. As Siva Vaidhyanathan laments: “as users in a diverse array of countries train Google’s algorithms to respond to specialized queries with localised results, each place in the world will have a different list of what is important, true, or ‘relevant’ in response to any query” (138). Personalisation and customisation are not inherently problematic, and frequently do enhance the relevance of search results, but the main objection raised by critics is not Google’s data mining, but the lack of transparency in the way data are recorded, stored and utilised. Eli Pariser, for example, laments the development of a ubiquitous “filter bubble” wherein all search results are personalised and subjective but are hidden behind the rhetoric of computer-driven algorithmic objectivity (Pariser). While data mining informs and drives many of Google’s tools and services, the cumulative value of these captured fragments of information is best demonstrated by the new service Google Now. Google Now is a mobile app which delivers an ongoing stream of search results but without the need for user input. Google Now extrapolates the rhythms of a person’s life, their interests and their routines in order to algorithmically determine what information will be needed next, and automatically displays it on a user’s mobile device. Clearly Google Now is an extremely valuable and clever tool, and the more information a user shares, the better the ongoing customised results will be, demonstrating the direct exchange value of personal data: total personalisation requires total transparency. Each individual user will need to judge whether they wish to share with Google the considerable amount of personal information needed to make Google Now work. The pressing ethical question that remains is whether Google will ensure that users are sufficiently aware of the amount of data and personal privacy they are exchanging in order to utilise such a service. Facebook Facebook began as a closed network, open only to students at American universities, but has transformed over time to a much wider and more open network, with over a billion registered users. Facebook has continually reinvented their interface, protocols and design, often altering both privacy policies and users’ experience of privacy, and often meeting significant and vocal resistance in the process (boyd). The data mining performed by social networking service Facebook is also extensive, although primarily aimed at refining the way that targeted advertising appears on the platform. In 2007 Facebook partnered with various retail loyalty services and combined these records with Facebook’s user data. This information was used to power Facebook’s Beacon service, which added details of users’ retail history to their Facebook news feed (for example, “Tama just purchased a HTC One”). The impact of all of these seemingly unrelated purchases turning up in many people’s feeds suddenly revealed the complex surveillance, data mining and sharing of these data that was taking place (Doyle and Fraser). However, as Beacon was turned on, without consultation, for all Facebook users, there was a sizable backlash that meant that Facebook had to initially switch the service to opt-in, and then discontinue it altogether. While Beacon has been long since erased, it is notable that in early 2013 Facebook announced that they have strengthened partnerships with data mining and profiling companies, including Datalogix, Epsilon, Acxiom, and BlueKai, which harness customer information from a range of loyalty cards, to further refine the targeting ability offered to advertisers using Facebook (Hof). Facebook’s data mining, surveillance and integration across companies is thus still going on, but no longer directly visible to Facebook users, except in terms of the targeted advertisements which appear on the service. Facebook is also a platform, providing a scaffolding and gateway to many other tools and services. In order to use social games such as Zynga’s Farmville, Facebook users agree to allow Zynga to access their profile information, and use Facebook to authenticate their identity. Zynga has been unashamedly at the forefront of user analytics and data mining, attempting to algorithmically determine the best way to make virtual goods within their games attractive enough for users to pay for them with real money. Indeed, during a conference presentation, Zynga Vice President Ken Rudin stated outright that Zynga is “an analytics company masquerading as a games company” (Rudin). I would contend that this masquerade succeeds, as few Farmville players are likely to consider how their every choice and activity is being algorithmically scrutinised in order to determine what virtual goods they might actually buy. As an instance of what is widely being called ‘big data’, the data miing operations of Facebook, Zynga and similar services lead to a range of ethical questions (boyd and Crawford). While users may have ostensibly agreed to this data mining after clicking on Facebook’s Terms of Use agreement, the fact that almost no one reads these agreements when signing up for a service is the Internet’s worst kept secret. Similarly, the extension of these terms when Facebook operates as a platform for other applications is a far from transparent process. While examining the recording of user data leads to questions of privacy and surveillance, it is important to note that many users are often aware of the exchange to which they have agreed. Anders Albrechtslund deploys the term ‘social surveillance’ to usefully emphasise the knowing, playful and at times subversive approach some users take to the surveillance and data mining practices of online service providers. Similarly, E.J. Westlake notes that performances of self online are often not only knowing but deliberately false or misleading with the aim of exploiting the ways online activities are tracked. However, even users well aware of Facebook’s data mining on the site itself may be less informed about the social networking company’s mining of offsite activity. The introduction of ‘like’ buttons on many other Websites extends Facebook’s reach considerably. The various social plugins and ‘like’ buttons expand both active recording of user activity (where the like button is actually clicked) and passive data mining (since a cookie is installed or updated regardless of whether a button is actually pressed) (Gerlitz and Helmond). Indeed, because cookies – tiny packets of data exchanged and updated invisibly in browsers – assign each user a unique identifier, Facebook can either combine these data with an existing user’s profile or create profiles about non-users. If that person even joins Facebook, their account is connected with the existing, data-mined record of their Web activities (Roosendaal). As with Google, the significant issue here is not users knowingly sharing their data with Facebook, but the often complete lack of transparency in terms of the ways Facebook extracts and mines user data, both on Facebook itself and increasingly across applications using Facebook as a platform and across the Web through social plugins. Google after Death While data mining is clearly a core element in the operation of Facebook and Google, the ability to scrutinise the activities of users depends on those users being active; when someone dies, the question of the value and ownership of their digital assets becomes complicated, as does the way companies manage posthumous user information. For Google, the Gmail account of a deceased person becomes inactive; the stored email still takes up space on Google’s servers, but with no one using the account, no advertising is displayed and thus Google can earn no revenue from the account. However, the process of accessing the Gmail account of a deceased relative is an incredibly laborious one. In order to even begin the process, Google asks that someone physically mails a series of documents including a photocopy of a government-issued ID, the death certificate of the deceased person, evidence of an email the requester received from the deceased, along with other personal information. After Google have received and verified this information, they state that they might proceed to a second stage where further documents are required. Moreover, if at any stage Google decide that they cannot proceed in releasing a deceased relative’s Gmail account, they will not reveal their rationale. As their support documentation states: “because of our concerns for user privacy, if we determine that we cannot provide the Gmail content, we will not be able to share further details about the account or discuss our decision” (Google, “Accessing”). Thus, Google appears to enshrine the rights and privacy of individual users, even posthumously; the ownership or transfer of individual digital assets after death is neither a given, nor enshrined in Google’s policies. Yet, ironically, the economic value of that email to Google is likely zero, but the value of the email history of a loved one or business partner may be of substantial financial and emotional value, probably more so than when that person was alive. For those left behind, the value of email accounts as media, as a lasting record of social communication, is heightened. The question of how Google manages posthumous user data has been further complicated by the company’s March 2012 rationalisation of over seventy separate privacy policies for various tools and services they operate under the umbrella of a single privacy policy accessed using a single unified Google account. While this move was ostensibly to make privacy more understandable and transparent at Google, it had other impacts. For example, one of the side effects of a singular privacy policy and single Google identity is that deleting one of a recently deceased person’s services may inadvertently delete them all. Given that Google’s services include Gmail, YouTube and Picasa, this means that deleting an email account inadvertently erases all of the Google-hosted videos and photographs that individual posted during their lifetime. As Google warns, for example: “if you delete the Google Account to which your YouTube account is linked, you will delete both the Google Account AND your YouTube account, including all videos and account data” (Google, “What Happens”). A relative having gained access to a deceased person’s Gmail might sensibly delete the email account once the desired information is exported. However, it seems less likely that this executor would realise that in doing so all of the private and public videos that person had posted on YouTube would also permanently disappear. While material possessions can be carefully dispersed to specific individuals following the instructions in someone’s will, such affordances are not yet available for Google users. While it is entirely understandable that the ramification of policy changes are aimed at living users, as more and more online users pass away, the question of their digital assets becomes increasingly important. Google, for example, might allow a deceased person’s executor to elect which of their Google services should be kept online (perhaps their YouTube videos), which traces can be exported (perhaps their email), and which services can be deleted. At present, the lack of fine-grained controls over a user’s digital estate at Google makes this almost impossible. While it violates Google’s policies to transfer ownership of an account to another person, if someone does leave their passwords behind, this provides their loved ones with the best options in managing their digital legacy with Google. When someone dies and their online legacy is a collection of media fragments, the value of those media is far more apparent to the loved ones left behind rather than the companies housing those media. Facebook Memorialisation In response to users complaining that Facebook was suggesting they reconnect with deceased friends who had left Facebook profiles behind, in 2009 the company instituted an official policy of turning the Facebook profiles of departed users into memorial pages (Kelly). Technically, loved ones can choose between memorialisation and erasing an account altogether, but memorialisation is the default. This entails setting the account so that no one can log into it, and that no new friends (connections) can be made. Existing friends can access the page in line with the user’s final privacy settings, meaning that most friends will be able to post on the memorialised profile to remember that person in various ways (Facebook). Memorialised profiles (now Timelines, after Facebook’s redesign) thus become potential mourning spaces for existing connections. Since memorialised pages cannot make new connections, public memorial pages are increasingly popular on Facebook, frequently set up after a high-profile death, often involving young people, accidents or murder. Recent studies suggest that both of these Facebook spaces are allowing new online forms of mourning to emerge (Marwick and Ellison; Carroll and Landry; Kern, Forman, and Gil-Egui), although public pages have the downside of potentially inappropriate commentary and outright trolling (Phillips). Given Facebook has over a billion registered users, estimates already suggest that the platform houses 30 million profiles of deceased people, and this number will, of course, continue to grow (Kaleem). For Facebook, while posthumous users do not generate data themselves, the fact that they were part of a network means that their connections may interact with a memorialised account, or memorial page, and this activity, like all Facebook activities, allows the platform to display advertising and further track user interactions. However, at present Facebook’s options – to memorialise or delete accounts of deceased people – are fairly blunt. Once Facebook is aware that a user has died, no one is allowed to edit that person’s Facebook account or Timeline, so Facebook literally offers an all (memorialisation) or nothing (deletion) option. Given that Facebook is essentially a platform for performing identities, it seems a little short-sighted that executors cannot clean up or otherwise edit the final, lasting profile of a deceased Facebook user. As social networking services and social media become more ingrained in contemporary mourning practices, it may be that Facebook will allow more fine-grained control, positioning a digital executor also as a posthumous curator, making the final decision about what does and does not get kept in the memorialisation process. Since Facebook is continually mining user activity, the popularity of mourning as an activity on Facebook will likely mean that more attention is paid to the question of digital legacies. While the user themselves can no longer be social, the social practices of mourning, and the recording of a user as a media entity highlights the fact that social media can be about interactions which in significant ways include deceased users. Digital Legacy Services While the largest online corporations have fairly blunt tools for addressing digital death, there are a number of new tools and niche services emerging in this area which are attempting to offer nuanced control over digital legacies. Legacy Locker, for example, offers to store the passwords to all of a user’s online services and accounts, from Facebook to Paypal, and to store important documents and other digital material. Users designate beneficiaries who will receive this information after the account holder passes away, and this is confirmed by preselected “verifiers” who can attest to the account holder’s death. Death Switch similarly provides the ability to store and send information to users after the account holder dies, but tests whether someone is alive by sending verification emails; fail to respond to several prompts and Death Switch will determine a user has died, or is incapacitated, and executes the user’s final instructions. Perpetu goes a step further and offers the same tools as Legacy Locker but also automates existing options from social media services, allowing users to specify, for example, that their Facebook, Twitter or Gmail data should be downloaded and this archive should be sent to a designated recipient when the Perpetu user dies. These tools attempt to provide a more complex array of choices in terms of managing a user’s digital legacy, providing similar choices to those currently available when addressing material possessions in a formal will. At a broader level, the growing demand for these services attests to the ongoing value of online accounts and social media traces after a user’s death. Bequeathing passwords may not strictly follow the Terms of Use of the online services in question, but it is extremely hard to track or intervene when a user has the legitimate password, even if used by someone else. More to the point, this finely-grained legacy management allows far more flexibility in the utilisation and curation of digital assets posthumously. In the process of signing up for one of these services, or digital legacy management more broadly, the ongoing value and longevity of social media traces becomes more obvious to both the user planning their estate and those who ultimately have to manage it. The Social Media Afterlife The value of social media beyond the grave is also evident in the range of services which allow users to communicate in some fashion after they have passed away. Dead Social, for example, allows users to schedule posthumous social media activity, including the posting of tweets, sending of email, Facebook messages, or the release of online photos and videos. The service relies on a trusted executor confirming someone’s death, and after that releases these final messages effectively from beyond the grave. If I Die is a similar service, which also has an integrated Facebook application which ensures a user’s final message is directly displayed on their Timeline. In a bizarre promotional campaign around a service called If I Die First, the company is promising that the first user of the service to pass away will have their posthumous message delivered to a huge online audience, via popular blogs and mainstream press coverage. While this is not likely to appeal to everyone, the notion of a popular posthumous performance of self further complicates that question of what social media can mean after death. Illustrating the value of social media legacies in a quite different but equally powerful way, the Lives On service purports to algorithmically learn how a person uses Twitter while they are live, and then continue to tweet in their name after death. Internet critic Evgeny Morozov argues that Lives On is part of a Silicon Valley ideology of ‘solutionism’ which casts every facet of society as a problem in need of a digital solution (Morozov). In this instance, Lives On provides some semblance of a solution to the problem of death. While far from defeating death, the very fact that it might be possible to produce any meaningful approximation of a living person’s social media after they die is powerful testimony to the value of data mining and the importance of recognising that value. While Lives On is an experimental service in its infancy, it is worth wondering what sort of posthumous approximation might be built using the robust data profiles held by Facebook or Google. If Google Now can extrapolate what a user wants to see without any additional input, how hard would it be to retool this service to post what a user would have wanted after their death? Could there, in effect, be a Google After(life)? Conclusion Users of social media services have differing levels of awareness regarding the exchange they are agreeing to when signing up for services provided by Google or Facebook, and often value the social affordances without necessarily considering the ongoing media they are creating. Online corporations, by contrast, recognise and harness the informatic traces users generate through complex data mining and analysis. However, the death of a social media user provides a moment of rupture which highlights the significant value of the media traces a user leaves behind. More to the point, the value of these media becomes most evident to those left behind precisely because that individual can no longer be social. While beginning to address the issue of posthumous user data, Google and Facebook both have very blunt tools; Google might offer executors access while Facebook provides the option of locking a deceased user’s account as a memorial or removing it altogether. Neither of these responses do justice to the value that these media traces hold for the living, but emerging digital legacy management tools are increasingly providing a richer set of options for digital executors. While the differences between material and digital assets provoke an array of legal, spiritual and moral issues, digital traces nevertheless clearly hold significant and demonstrable value. For social media users, the death of someone they know is often the moment where the media side of social media – their lasting, infinitely replicable nature – becomes more important, more visible, and casts the value of the social media accounts of the living in a new light. For the larger online corporations and service providers, the inevitable increase in deceased users will likely provoke more fine-grained controls and responses to the question of digital legacies and posthumous profiles. 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