Latest from Molly Wood

• Feb 20, 2019

  Amazon knows what we buy, and it’s turning that into a huge ad business

  

  Facebook and Google might need to watch out.

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• Feb 20, 2019

  Amazon knows what we buy, and it’s turning that into a huge ad business

  You know how there’s this sense that if Amazon gets into your line of work, you’re in trouble? Well, hello, digital advertising. Amazon has been slowly building up its ad business, letting brands target ads to people on Amazon.com and its other sites, like the live-streaming platform Twitch, IMDB, Zappos and all across the web. Its pitch is simple: Amazon is telling advertisers that the best predictor of what you, the consumer, are going to buy is what you’ve already bought. A report out today from research firm eMarketer says Amazon has been a distant third behind Facebook and Google and is starting to look like a dangerous third. Host Molly Wood talks about it with Monica Peart, senior forecasting director for eMarketer. Today’s show is sponsored by Topo Athletic, Evident and Indeed.

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• Feb 19, 2019

  Targeted ads aren’t just online, they’re on TV

  

  How targeted ads have migrated to your television

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• Feb 19, 2019

  Targeted ads aren’t just online, they’re on TV

  By now, if we’re doing our job right, you should kind of get how digital advertising works. Companies collect information about you — like where you live, your age, what you buy online, what websites you visit and much more. And they use that information to target you with ads they think you will like so you’ll buy their stuff. But you may not know that this is also happening on television. It’s called addressable advertising, and it means your cable or satellite TV provider is showing you ads on your TV that your neighbor might not see. Right now only a small number of the ads you see are targeted ads, but it’s evolving fast because the money is good. Molly Wood talks about it with Tim Peterson, a senior reporter at Digiday. She asked him how the tech works. Today’s show is sponsored by WellFrame, Nulab  and Lenovo for Small Business.

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• Feb 18, 2019

  Before facial recognition tech can be fair, it needs to be diverse

  As facial recognition software spreads, it brings the challenge of diversity along with it. So far, programs identify male, white faces far more accurately than they do black women, for example. A new IBM project aims to change that. Diversity in Faces is a data set of a million faces pulled from public domain pictures on Flickr. It gives computers a lot more to look at and process, and it introduces a way to better measure diversity in faces. John R. Smith is an IBM fellow and lead scientist of Diversity in Faces. He tells Jed Kim that there’s nothing else like this. Today’s show is sponsored by Pitney Bowes and Indeed.

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• Feb 15, 2019

  What internet search is like behind China’s Great Firewall

  This week, activist shareholders in Alphabet, the parent company of Google, spoke out against development of Google’s Dragonfly. That’s the internal code name for a project reportedly working on a censored search engine for China. We hear a lot about web censorship in China, but how does it work? What’s it like to use? Host Jed Kim talks with Marketplace correspondent Jennifer Pak about it. Now based in Shanghai, Pak has reported from inside China for years. She says censorship is getting stronger. Today’s show is sponsored by Nulab  and Indeed.

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• Feb 14, 2019

  A major trade sticking point between the U.S. and China has deep roots

  This week, trade talks continue between the United States and China. U.S. officials complain that China has long failed to protect U.S. intellectual property rights, a charge China rejects. The U.S. wants China to put an end to what’s known as “forced technology transfers.” That’s when U.S. companies have to share their valuable tech secrets with local partners in order to access China’s much-coveted market. Finding a solution has been a big sticking point in trade negotiations. And the history of countries sparring over IP issues goes back centuries. Marketplace’s Tracey Samuelson talks with Greg Clark, a professor of economics at the University of California, Davis. He says, in its infancy, the United States took advantage of some stolen tech. Today’s show is sponsored by Topo Athletic, WellFrame and Indeed.

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• Feb 13, 2019

  In the golden age of streaming, does film history have a place?

  It’s Oscar season, a time when we celebrate the history of film. But what if you want to sit down and watch some classics? That was the selling point of one streaming service, FilmStruck, that AT&T recently shuttered. FilmStruck showcased directors like Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa and Stanley Kubrick. It was the darling of cinephiles for the two years it existed. Given that streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon seem to be focused on making original content, could the golden age of streaming mean that film history falls through the cracks? Jed Kim talks with Ann Hornaday, a senior film critic for the Washington Post, about the death of FilmStruck and the future of classic film. Today’s show is sponsored by Pitney Bowes and Indeed.

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• Feb 13, 2019

  In the golden age of streaming, does film history have a place?

  

  A streaming service for historic, art house and other non-mainstream cinema recently folded.

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• Feb 12, 2019

  Expect a boom in the business of supersonic flight

  

  Companies are working on ways to bring back supersonic travel for commercial flights.

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