The future of shopping

Today is Black Friday or Blitz Day and to many of us that seek to avoid manic shopping scenarios: the day after Thanksgiving.  In the United States, advertising cranks up to build the buzz for the most lucrative shopping day of the year.  More products are bought and sold across retail counters today than any other day of the holiday frenzy.  So, you may wonder what shopping may look like fifty years from now.

Here's a interesting blog entry from nothing to hide which is written by digital advertising professional Dean Donaldson. There are salient facts and trends regarding radio chips in the article: they're being embedded into certain credit cards today; could easily track you from purchasing nodes; and pose a threat to your personal privacy. It's funny that he starts off with a Minority Report reference. When I watched the film I found this subtly injected ad-mode-of-the-future comment to be prescient. Marketers are certainly striving to use technology to personalize product pitches...and I think people would actually prefer to only hear about products that might interest them in lieu of broad-based lambasting like that which showed up this morning in my newspaper.

Mr. Donaldson continues in the post to explore the implications of such technology. It's an interesting read considering that he's a guy that makes his living getting creative with advertising technologies. His cautionary allegory of Nazi population tracking technologies is a chilling possible outcome indeed. Coming from a person who would want to push the marketing envelope by tracking people, Mr. Donaldson should be applauded for his awareness of the negative implications of where his technological implementations could lead. Information is powerful stuff.

Check out his post for more details. You may consider it a bit reaching or somewhat paranoid but it is both logical and factual based on what I've read to date that relates to it. It's always refreshing when a professional gets critical of his own trade...especially if it's in advertising.