Does Facebook really produce better demographic targetting? Facebook has more explicit knowledge about me, in that I've filled in stuff like my age and gender on my Facebook profile; but Google knows enough about my web habits that it ought to be able to work out that information and more besides (Facebook obviously also knows stuff implicitly about me from tracking Like buttons and so on, but it's not in any better position than Google in terms of implicit knowledge). Google viewing Facebook as a threat strikes me as Google having a lack of faith in its distinctive advantage (big data rather than conventional explicit demographics).
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"better demographic targeting for ad sales"
Does Facebook really produce better demographic targetting? Facebook has more explicit knowledge about me, in that I've filled in stuff like my age and gender on my Facebook profile; but Google knows enough about my web habits that it ought to be able to work out that information and more besides (Facebook obviously also knows stuff implicitly about me from tracking Like buttons and so on, but it's not in any better position than Google in terms of implicit knowledge). Google viewing Facebook as a threat strikes me as Google having a lack of faith in its distinctive advantage (big data rather than conventional explicit demographics).