Blog: David Loshin

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The Value of a Link

We are bound by the relationships we make (and keep, or ignore) over our lifetime. Today I had the occasion to review four different relationships, and it made me think about more than just the existence of the link I have (or had) with these people, but in the abstract, the value within a business intelligence framework of an established link.

Why was I thinking about the business value of a link? Because a consequence of the convenience of the World Wide Web, and free services such as Yahoo Groups is the inadvertent willingness of people to trade knowledge about their relationships.

So who were the four people that triggered this though process? First, as I was exiting the DC Metro, I was passed by a person who reminded me of a childhood friend with whom I had briefly reestablished a connection a few years back when I tracked down his contact information via Google.

Second, I have been exchanging voice mails with my friend Greg Elin, who is a really bright guy. Greg and I worked together on a few projects, one involving a (now questionable) idea for a web-based service that archived banner ads.

Third, I got an email from a friend and data quality colleague who had been tasked with evolving a solution to a rather sticky (and most likely intractable) Customer Data Integration project.

Fourth, there is a mail list for the employees of the company where I worked for my first job, Compass (also known as Massachusetts Computer Associates). These emails suggested that we migrate the email list to Yahoo Groups, and there seems to be some concurrence to this.

But when you take a look at Yahoo's Privacy Policy, you will see that Yahoo collects information about the transactions of its members, and uses them for research, personalization, targeting, and aggregation. One can extrapolate and assume that Yahoo tracks the relationships and micro-communities associated with the individuals that subscribe (a weak link) or participate (a stronger link) within that group. Determining the strength of the various links, the "spheres of influence," and learning "who knows who" can add a significant amount of value to an ad targeting strategy.

For example, if a particular person clicks through a specific banner ad, one might assume that other individuals within that person's sphere of influence might also have a predilection to respond to a similar ad? Of course, this can be used to refine ad targeting, increase response rates, and consequently increase the charge for ad placement.

Okay, so what does this have to do with my walk down memory lane today? The fact is that I can qualify each of those relationships with different kinds of attributes, and those attributes (and their value sets, and magnitudes, etc.) might contribute even more to analyzing its BI value. More on this topic to follow...

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