bytes and ballots

There is a good article in the new issue of Wired Magazine, that presents a lot of detail about Joost. There is some discussion in the Wired piece (which when it is available online I'll link to) about how advertisers are excited about Joost, and the new possibilities it presents for precise targeting of advertising to specific Joost subscribers, and the content they are watching.

But I am struck by the synergy between Joost's technology and the current use of "microtargeting" by political campaigns, and wonder about whether, if Joost (or something like Joost) eventually takes hold, when campaigns will start using it to precisely target political messages. It would be possible to get campaign video right to the eyeballs of specific voters, and to even allow for interactivity between the campaign message and specific voters. These new technologies certainly bear watching, as they present new and unprecedented opportunities for the targeting of political messages to individual voters.

More on Joost later ...