The key to a good April Fool's joke is making it at least plausible--and
sadly, in our current culture, this is darn close to being believable. You
certainly did a nice job of adding details! Well played, Matt.
Alex MacKenzie
Seattle
mizmak at gmail.com
On Sun, Apr 1, 2018 at 4:16 AM, Matt Bartels <
mattxyz at earthlink.net> wrote:
>
eBird announced Sunday that it would remain a free service. After years of
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considering moving to a paid subscription model to cover costs, eBird has
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partnered with Facebook to maintain the free access to its service.
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Beginning today, eBird will show begin showing ads to users and revenue
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generated by targeted advertising is expected to be sufficient to maintain
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eBird into the future.
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The partnership raises questions in the wake of the recent news about how
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Facebook has made user data available in questionable ways. Now eBird data
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from its users will be subject to the same analytics that allow for more
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targeted ad generation on Facebook. In the beginning, as the algorithms are
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learning, expect ads to mostly reflect demographic information (easily
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gleaned by cross-referencing with Facebook data). But before long, eBird
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users should begin to experience the power of the AI as their birding
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destinations reveal patterns and allow advertisers to accurately place ads
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for the most likely next destinations on your itinerary.
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Marshall Iliff of eBird enthusiastically noted: "Think of it. Before long,
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the ad software will be powerful enough to combine demographic info, bird
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checklist data, and news of recent sightings around the world to accurately
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predict where any birder is likely to go next and send helpful
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advertisements from that location. Advertising revenue will remain robust
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because of the ability to accurately target only those users likely to be
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in a region."
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I can see how this might play out in Washington for better and for worse.
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Looking at this coming weekend, I might still be unsure whether to, say,
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head south to look for early spring migrants, or if it might be more fun to
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get a glimpse of shrub steppe birds in eastern Washington. A quick look at
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the ads served up to me on eBird could reveal that, in fact, I'm most
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likely to head to the San Juan Islands -; decision made! Sure, it is a
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little creepy to know how much of our lives is revealed online, but it
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might be a price worth paying to have help selecting a destination!
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For those, like me, who don't actually enter data into eBird, you aren't
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spared: Searches for recent sightings are also tracked and incorporated
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into the overall snapshot that eBird now offers to advertisers. It has long
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been understood that Birder's Dashboard also earned significant revenue
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through this model -; now the two platforms will be more formally integrated
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for advertisers' benefit.
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eBird's Iliff notes that eventually this should result in a better
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experience for birders: "At first, the increased revenue will allow us to
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improve the quality of our offerings to our users, the advertisers. But
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down the road, we hope to use a portion of our profits to enhance the
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ability of birders, our product, to learn about and find birds."
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>
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Matt Bartels
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>
Seattle, WA
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