本文导读：为什么Facebook总让我买拖鞋？If Facebook is so smart, why does it keep ...

为什么Facebook总让我买拖鞋？

If Facebook is so smart, why does it keep selling me slippers?

如果大数据能够如此诡异地了解到我个性的方方面面，我只想问：为什么Facebook一直想让我花80英镑买双拖鞋？If Big Data is so spookily effective at knowing every aspect of my character, I just have one question: why does Facebook keep trying to sell me £80 slippers?

我上Facebook或Instagram时几乎总会看到一则标价过高的帆布便鞋广告。我怀疑自己迄今从没买过超过15英镑的拖鞋，我也不太可能在马莎百货(Marks and Spencer)以外的地方买这类东西。我从来没在网上搜索过拖鞋二字，也想不出我上网时哪些举动会暗示出我喜欢“新潮”的拖鞋。（实际上，这款拖鞋有种难看的可拆户外鞋底，所以人们多半会说我是个穿拖鞋出门溜达的“中年大叔”，而不会说我“新潮”，如果我买了它的话。）Rare are my visits to Instagram that are not rewarded with an advert for what look like overpriced espadrilles. I doubt I have ever spent more than £15 on slippers or bought them anywhere but Marks and Spencer. I have never googled them and can think of nothing in my online activity to suggest that, when it comes to slippers, I might be susceptible to the last word in style. (In fact, this product has ugly detachable outdoor soles so they don’t so much say “last word in style” as “middle-aged guy who goes out in his slippers”.)

对那些数据科学天才们来说，公平地讲，Facebook并不总是给我推销天价拖鞋。有时它也向我推销天价耳塞，或购买一款正念app的机会。照说，我们应该相信，建立在数据抓取和机器学习基础上的复杂算法现在比我们最亲密的朋友还了解我们。然而，在我们公司，不用15分钟你就能了解，我这个人不太可能花80英镑去买拖鞋，也不会破费购买什么正念app。To be fair to the data-science geniuses, Facebook does not always offer me overpriced slippers. Sometimes it offers me overpriced earplugs or the chance to buy a mindfulness app. We are supposed to believe that the sophisticated algorithms built upon data-scraping and machine learning now know us better than our closest friends. Yet you would not need more than 15 minutes in my company to mark me down as a guy unlikely to spend £80 on slippers or splash out on a mindfulness app.

这些广告还会根据浏览历史来投放。我明白为什么我在浏览过某个城市的旅游景点后会看到爱彼迎(Airbnb)的招租广告。在一个数据被认为无所不知的时代，令我困惑的是，为什么我在订完房后还能看到广告。总是如此。有谁没在网购后的六周接连不断地收到同一个商品的广告推送？去年，我们买了台电子琴送给儿子当生日礼物。几个月后，我仍会收到相同型号产品的广告。要么是数据分析师们不知道我们已经下了单，要么是他们认为我们是电音组合“宠物店男孩(Pet Shop Boys)”，一台电子琴不够使。Likewise the ads based on browsing history. I understand why I see an ad for Airbnb apartments after looking at tourist sites for a city. What puzzles me, in an era of supposed data omniscience, is why I continue to see the ad even after I have made the booking. It is always the same. Who has not bought something online only to find the same thing is advertised to you for the next six weeks? Last year, we bought an electric keyboard for the boy’s birthday. Months later, I am still getting ads for the same model. Either the data guys missed the purchase or they assume we are the Pet Shop Boys and that one keyboard is never enough.

在我看来，这些广告不像是来自别有用心的数据天才，它们更像出自一位上了年纪的大爷之手，他记得你小时候爱吃夹心饼干，所以即使你都过完45岁生日了，他还在给你买。Far from looking like the work of a sinister data genius, the ads I see seem more to suggest an aged uncle who remembers you once liked bourbon biscuits when you were a child and so still buys them for you even though you turned 45 last birthday.

很明显，还有更多原因。如果不值当的话，像Facebook和谷歌(Google)这种企业才不会做这么麻烦的事。我们必须假设，密集的数据挖掘会带来更有针对性的广告，从而为客户提供更优质的筛选结果，也会给平台带来更高的回报。Clearly, there must be more to it. Companies such as Facebook and Google would not take the immense trouble they do if it was not worth anything. We have to assume that the intense data mining leads to more effectively targeted advertising, which delivers better results for customers and higher returns for the platforms.

我只想提一个忠告。不管这些公司掌握了我多少数据，在有针对性地推送消息上，他们显然还得再接再厉。我每天大部分时间都耗在网上，访问那些被Facebook搜索的网站，并通过Chrome浏览器将我的一举一动反馈给谷歌。我大致的生活状况不难了解，然而，它们还在给我推送金拖鞋。我想这意味着Facebook将我界定为国际精英阶层，但更有可能的是，我被归入了“钱多人傻”一族。I would just offer one caveat. However well these companies are mining my data, they clearly still have a way to go on the targeted messaging. I spend an inordinate amount of my day online, visiting sites that Facebook scrapes and via the Chrome browser, which feeds my every action back to Google. The gist of my life is easily captured and, yet, I still get offered golden slippers. I’d like to think this means Facebook has me down as part of an international elite but, more likely, I am in a bucket marked More Money Than Sense.

定向广告的价值显而易见。给巴黎某个对麸质过敏的人推销一家伦敦的面包店毫无意义，但夸大算法的能力却符合每个人的利益。It is easy to see the value of targeted ads. There is no point in advertising a bread shop in London to a coeliac in Paris, but it has been in everybody’s interest to overstate the abilities of the algorithm.

一种合理的解释也许是，这些平台尚未将它们掌握的有关我的海量数据整合为有用的行动。目前，它们仅需胜过其它媒介，如报纸和电视。虽然它们可能还没有很好地将自身掌握的大量数据投入使用，但有理由相信它们会越来越擅长利用这些资源。这也许就是为什么如今监管机构应该认真考虑限制数据采集的规模。One plausible view may be that the platforms have yet to marry the vast amounts of data they hold on me into useful actions. At the moment, their adverts only have to be better than the alternatives, such as newspapers and TV. And while they may not be using the eye-watering amount of data they hold very well just yet, it is reasonable to think they will get better. This may be why the time has come for regulators to get serious about limiting the scale of the data harvesting.

还有另一种解释。也许它们非常了解我，以至于还没等我自己意识到，它们就知道我需要这些华而不实的高价货。它们知道，私下里我就是那种把脚套进80英镑的居家鞋的人。也许大数据革命就像许多人宣称的那样高深莫测，而且比我本人更了解我自己。或许我只需要屈服，它让我买啥我就买啥。噢，金拖鞋；噢，金拖鞋。There is one other explanation. Maybe they know me so well that they know I need these crappy overpriced products even before I do. They know that secretly I am the kind of man who treats his toes to £80 house shoes. Maybe the Big Data revolution is as deep and sinister as many would claim and understands me better than I do myself. Perhaps I just need to give in and buy what it tells me. Oh, them golden slippers; oh, them golden slippers.

本文标题：信息流算法广告：没那么精确

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