More than big data

The common thing between this week’s readings is that they all implied consumer’s behavioral patterns. For me, the discrimination between behavioral economy or psychology does not matter at all. As Grant mentioned at the end of the article, it is far better for us to pursue interdisciplinary approaches between fields and just name behavioral economists and psychologists as ‘behavioral scientists.’ I want to emphasize the point: ‘if economy and psychology meet, they might create synergy effects.’ Thus, do not fight for the hegemony.

These days, synergy effects can be easily achieved, by the ‘big data.’ Amazon and Netflix are the examples of utilizing big data to keep track of consumer behavior. Big data helped those services infer what consumers want, based on their shopping lists. Their former purchases are the great proofs for future purchases. Defined as a recommendation system, big data can cumulatively calculate future scenario of consumers. High probability of future behavior (consumption) can suggest future ‘wish lists’ for consumers, saving time greatly. The reason that big data has been emphasized for most areas including marketing is that it can successfully predict the future, leading to the earning ultimately.

Web already made ‘everything available,’ by archiving former records. We might tell that this is a micro-targeting period, but we should feel thankful for the past mass production. All those mass production became fundamental basis for the present and future behaviors. Long-tail economy is based on the web technology. Everything is there and even free stuffs are also there. Big data made it. The past made the present and the past and present predict the future.