In 2009, more data will be generated by individuals than in the entire history of mankind through 2008. Information overload is more serious than ever. What are the implications for marketing?

Check out this article at http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/now-new-next/2009/05/the-social-data-revolution.html

On the eve of the launch of Geoffrey Miller’s book “Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior”, we discuss the key role of openness, the importance of dialogue, and the true reason for advertising. http://weigend.com/files/audio/GeoffreyMillerAndreasWeigend_2009.05.17.mp3

Geoffrey, a tenured professor at the University of New Mexico, combines an evolutionary framework with a data driven mindset to create insights about consumers. Openness, perhaps the least studied of the Big Five personality traits, and inherited to a large degree, is often underestimated. As we reflect on how our time as graduate students in Cognitive Psychology at Stanford has shaped us – Geoffrey worked with Roger Shepard and I with David Rumelhart — we discuss how marketers used to force-communicate customers, and got away with ignoring the deeply social characteristics of humans. Furthermore, Geoffrey explains, the traditional goal of advertising was to demonstrate to a few potential buyers the large symbolic significance of a product for the broad masses. Communication now having primarily become C2C, consumer to consumer, and C2W, consumer to world: what is the impact of the Social Data Revolution on advertising and consumer behavior?