After seeing the backlash over Instant Personalization from Facebook, many people have been nervous to approach the subject. But invariably, as we move forward into an increasingly data-driven society, personalization will need to become a larger and larger part of how we communicate with customers, site visitors, and consumers of online content. So the question is, how do you personalize content without making people feel violated and uncomfortable? Is it just a question of people’s preferences changing over time as they "come around" to the idea of personalization, or is it an implementation question? What's the degree of personalization that is acceptable to most consumers? This panel will look at how to preserve users’ trust while personalizing content to them. It will also discuss some acceptable practices for personalizing content to individual users' data, and shifts in the societal acceptability of content personalization over time & by demographic.
Hugo Liu is the Chief Scientist of Hunch - an internet personalization engine. Hugo is also a taste researcher at MIT, where he has taught courses in Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence. Previously he has worked in trend predictives, computational food, and wine and spirits design. He has a Ph.D. in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT.
Jennifer King is a social technologist who draws upon her training in the social sciences and human-computer interaction to investigate the issues that arise when technology and society collide. Most recently as a researcher at the Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic at UC Berkeley’s School of Law, Ms. King focused on privacy and security on the Internet, in sensor networks, and in ubiquitous computing environments (including RFID and video surveillance technologies), usable security, and technology policy issues. Ms. King received her master’s degree in Information Science in 2006 from UC Berkeley’s School of Information (“I-School”). Prior to her research career, Ms. King worked in security and product management for several Internet companies, including Yahoo!, where she was an online community expert. She is currently a Ph.D candidate at UC Berkeley’s School of Information.
Mat Harris is Co-Founder and CEO of BizGreet, an online video advertising platform for dynamically morphing video ads to each viewer using all types and sources of viewer data. He is also the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Good Goliath, an Austin-based digital marketing agency. Mat has studied personalization trends and practiced one-to-one marketing for over a decade. He is a serial entrepreneur, and currently resides in Austin with his wife and three children.
Noah is a Product Manager at Foursquare. Before joining foursquare, Noah spent two and a half years at Google working in search and display ads. Previously, he worked at Fog Creek Software, Cooliris, and Acumen Fund. Noah holds a bachelor's degree in Science, Technology, and Society with a focus in computer science and economics from Stanford University, where he graduated with distinction. He is a current and lifelong New Yorker.
Vijay Ravindran joined The Washington Post Company as senior vice president and chief digital officer in February 2009. In his role, he leads several new media innovation efforts at the company including the work of the WaPo Labs product development team and SocialCode, a Facebook advertising agency. His most recent initiative is the personalized news aggregator Trove. He also has his hand in technology start up investments made by the Post Company and advises the online media properties.
Prior to the Post Company, Vijay was the CTO of Catalist, a political technology firm that worked closely with progressive organizations including the Obama For America campaign. Prior to Catalist, Vijay was at Amazon.com from 1998-2005 in a variety of technical roles including Director of Ordering, where he oversaw product development for such areas of the Amazon site as "Checkout", "1-click", "Shopping Cart", and "Your Account" as well as launching Amazon Prime.
Ravindran graduated from the University of Virginia. He is a member of the board of directors of the Alliance for Excellent Education, Ongo, and Fab.
