The internet did not just modify the way companies work, it also brought a change in the profile of consumers and clients.. The positives and negatives of the so-called era of information, technologies, post-truth and misinformation appear in thousands of homes every day. As a result, we must tread carefully in the depths of the web and avoid confusing the real universe with the virtual one.
Claudia Dupeyrón
“As it is a social construction, this technological system is open, just as network society is an open way of social organisation that captures the best and worst of the human race”.
This is confirmed by sociologist, Manuel Castells, for whom the internet – as well as a growing variety of networks that operate on wireless platforms – constitutes the technological infrastructure of network society. The internet did not only change the way in which one machine communicates with another, it modified humanity’s methods of interaction thanks to the World Wide Web; the ways in which we study, work, move around, shop, listen to music, watch films, create recipes, read, choose a partner, travel and go to the doctor. With the arrival of the Metaverse, you could even be in two places at the same time.
The internet also created new forms of expression and new terminology related to this era of the digital revolution.
The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated many of the uses that had already come from the network of networks and significantly increased online purchases.
According to the study “The Influential Buyer”, carried out by The Economist, the acquisition of basic goods (takeaway meals, food, cleaning and personal hygiene products) through this channel increased by 15% since just 2021 with the pandemic.
The report concluded that, although to a lesser extent, those new habits will remain and online purchases will increase, while channels for this type of sale will constitute a great opportunity for brands.
The study indicated that businesses should identify options to expand their portion of the digital market and reformulate their business strategies with a view to post-pandemic recovery.
The internet did not just modify the way companies work, it also brought a change in the profile of consumers and clients.
The need to access information and the demand for services and products 24 hours a day, seven days a week, implies that companies should be connected and selling their products and services in a different way. The internet increased the possibility of obtaining feedback from consumers and data to learn about their consumption habits.
Another of the most prominent aspects of the digital transformation strategy of all the companies is the Big Data analysis. This trend, which will improve in the future with the incorporation of artificial intelligence and professionals who nowadays are being trained in these matters, will make it possible to analyse and make the most of the information collected from many customers.
Big Data refers to the combination of technologies created to compile, analyse and handle the data generated by internet users. Their idea is to gather the mass raw data generated and process it to identify patterns and other types of behaviours that could help specific sectors.
Every time that someone searches the internet, they generate certain data. With this information, the pages collect data on people’s interests: what topics they are concerned with, how they move from a specific search to another website, the way they use different applications or tools and much more.
Everything leaves a footprint, and although it is supposed to be anonymous data, it represents everything that a user does on the internet.
With these possibilities from Big Data, every service provider could have infinite quantities of data generated by the users, and they will use their tools to be able to analyse it and process it, trying to benefit themselves.
Big Data is also the basic fuel for Artificial Intelligence, because this is nourished by the mass data from users. If Google Photos learned to recognise faces, it was partly through being able to process the images of millions of users’ faces, recognising their customers in them. Big Data was even one of the most controversial tools during the US presidential elections in 2016, which brought the magnate Donald Trump to the White House.
Studies on the multimillionaire’s campaign showed that, using the traditional advertising segmentation models, he was able to find preferences and the probability of receiving votes in the places that his rival, Hilary Clinton, never visited. Data uncovered after the elections indicated that following activity on social media, especially Facebook and Twitter, provided very relevant information about where to intensify the campaign, which voters to target and with what messages.
There are no limits
If Web 2.0 turns out to be revolutionary, Web 3.0 or the Semantic Web comes in general lines with the objective of introducing a series of languages and processes that could interpret certain user characteristics with the goal of offering a more personalised interface.
That means looking to create a new system of classifying web pages, closely linked to the needs and characteristics of the users.
Victor Garcia Font, Professor of Information, Multimedia and Telecommunication Studies at the Open University of Catalonia, says that it is about “integrating technologies that work separately, like artificial intelligence or ‘machine learning’, to obtain a new ecosystem”.
It is an idea that would try to recalibrate the balance of power on the internet in favour of users. On this point, Font explains that the ideal is for each person “to not have to give data to each provider and, also, to be able to control who it is given to”.
Furthermore, Web 3.0 has been designed to provide the user with tools to make use of voices, images and immersive interactions, which would turn the internet into a spatial experience, very similar to the Metaverse. PL
(Translated by Donna Davison. Email: donna_davison@hotmail.com) – Photos:Pixabay
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