Personalization
I think about the future a lot. Fortunately I work for a brand that facilitates conversations surrounding the future of everything, well mostly on things like technology, media, sustainability, design, advertising, music, fashion, and such.
Lately, I have been reading a lot about the future of media and advertising. It seems as though more and more people believe that “personalization” is the key to not only surviving the future but to dominating it as well.
My main issue with “personalized” everything is this: The technology used to “personalize” a recommendation for you is a simple formula that derives data from your past decisions to predict things you might like in the future. This means your life will be continuously filled with things you commonly like and do already, thus enabling you to continue to like them in the future.
Put simply, this formula uses decisions you have made in the past to predict the future.
Therefore how will you be better able to expand your interests, tastes, and “likes” if your “personalized” filter is constantly streaming with things you already know you like? Can personalization really be the future of everything, even when it is so full of the past?
