ACM

communications 01/2011 - vol 2 issue 3

vol 2 issue 3 acm communications | 1

 ACM communications
ACM Communications Chair
Shashank Pradhan
Editor-in-Chief
David Kim
Assistant Editor
Jen Solyanik
Designers
Jason Macdonald
Vincent Siao
The Future of Marketing?
A personalized Lexus ad from “Minority Report” (left)
versus a modern day electronic billboard with facial
recognition designed by NEC (right).
W
ith today’s large variety of science
fiction in books and films, it is easy
to get lost in imagination and forget
plausibility. However, in the case of one
particular hi-tech gimmick from “Minority
Report,” present day advancements may
have caught up with Steven Spielberg’s
futuristic vision. The technology in
question is targeted advertisements using
facial recognition software. Similar to the
way Tom Cruise received Guinness beer
and Lexus ads as he walked through a
mall—though, granted, fancy iris scanning
and talking billboards are not involved—,
today’s companies are devising electronic
billboards that estimate a passerby’s
gender and age in order to provide a
personalized advertisement.
Facial recognition software evaluates
several aspects of the face—the height of
one’s cheekbone, for instance. According
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ACM Communications (ACMC) is an interdisciplinary newsletter to help students
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to the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST),
these recognition algorithms have
advanced by over a hundredfold since
1995 and are constantly continuing to
improve. It has had many applications
regarding security, but its introduction
to the business world as a marketing
technique has been relatively recent. One
of the first to design this type of software
was the NEC Corporation, a Japanese IT
company based in Tokyo, Japan. Currently,
their software can identify gender with 85-
90% accuracy and age to within ten years.
Such a demographic assessment would
ideally provide consumers with more well-
suited ads. The software can also monitor
how long the average passerby looks
at an ad, thus generating feedback for
marketers to analyze.
Japanese companies are not the only
ones interested in facial recognition
either. Earlier this year, Intel and Microsoft
jointly started developing digital in-
David Jia [ECE ‘12]
store advertisements that are even more
advanced than those of NEC. Specifically,
after determining a user’s gender and
providing a list of potentially appealing
items, if he or she selected an item on the
screen, “the sign could send the user’s
smart phone a coupon with a discount
on the item and a map of its location in
a store,” according to the Wall Street
Journal.
Despite these impressive capabilities,
this new use for facial recognition raises
a few issues. Several civil liberties groups,
such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
view the software as serious breach of
privacy. Another potential controversy of
these advertisements is the possibility
of racial profiling, a parameter that has
already been considered by companies,
says the New York Times.
NEC defends itself by claiming that
their software does not store facial
images, but instead only remembers the
gender and age statistics. In addition, they
plan on placing signs near all billboards
to clearly inform passersby that there
are cameras. Yet, whether these directed
advertisements should become a societal
norm remains unanswered. Current online
advertisements on Facebook and other
social networks have become extremely
personal and specific already, but is it
a good idea to bring these marketing
concepts into such a tangible form?
Morality and consequences aside,
it is very likely that the world will be
seeing many more of these personalized
advertisements in the years to come,
bringing technology one step closer to the
marketing world shown in the “Minority
Report.”
 EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH UMANG PATEL
An Entrepreneur’s Tale
How do you define entrepreneurship?
I think entrepreneurship is really about
creating unique solutions. It’s about
coming up with a new and innovative
way to do something that has a positive
impact on people.
Tell us a little about how you got
started and how it led you to where
you are right now.
I got started back in 2005 when I was
14. At that point there was a lot of buzz
around e-commerce and I wanted to
get in on that action. Initially, I started
out very simple by buying a ton of the
5th Harry Potter books, listed them
on e-Bay and got people to pay a
higher value. That led to starting my
own e-commerce website with my
brother. We came up with solutions
for businesses that would need to buy
some technology. It was adding value
by matching their needs to a product
and delivering that service to them.
What was the biggest lesson you
learnt managing your first company?
I heard from somewhere that inventory
is dead fish. That’s something that
I realized really quickly. You don’t
want to hold inventory especially for
something like technology that is
constantly changing. That company we
formed isn’t around today just because
at that age we didn’t quite understand
how to liquidate a company and get a
broker to do that. The novelty of that
idea also wasn’t there anymore after
a few years as there were tons of
companies doing what we were doing.
It also taught me how to manage my
time well as I was in high school at that
point.
What are some things that you
find rewarding as you undertake
entrepreneurial opportunities?
There’s definitely a sense of
gratification in being able to envision
an idea and see it come around full
Shashank Pradhan [CS ‘12]
circle. The first company was just cool
when I was 15 as I was conducting this
business, making revenue and people
thought that it was legit. After that I
founded an entertainment company
that’s still around. We provide live
musical entertainment for events,
specifically for South Asian events.
It’s called Masala Entertainment
(masalaent.com). We are based in
Columbus, Ohio and Pittsburgh. There’s
a very large market for entertainment
in the United States and at this point
we are trying to scale nationally. We
want to build an IT solution which will Umang Patel
allow people to organize their events
more systematically and on their own
“
time.
How do you not just give all this up There’s definitely a
and join a company where you get sense of gratification
paid much more and have a more
secure future?
in being able to
My issue with corporate culture is that envision an idea and
it sometimes doesn’t move fast enough see it come around
for me. A lot of that is just embedded
full circle.
”
in my personality. The sense of
ownership you have once you have
your own idea is what really pushes
me to start my own thing instead of
working for someone else. My parents
actually have government jobs but they
are really supportive which helps a lot.
What advice would you give budding
entrepreneurs?
If you think you have a great idea, pursue
it. Try to mitigate a risk you have in the
beginning. Don’t try to do everything at
once as you will definitely lose focus.
Break the concept down into small
steps and build on the idea. Don’t put
all your eggs in one basket. Test your
concept first and only then go ahead
with it. Always remember that if you
do fail, pause and reflect. When I fail
at something, I always want to redeem
myself. Look back at what you did wrong
and then look ahead at how you’re going
to make it right the next time.
vol 2 issue 3 acm communications | 3
 Elliot Onn ‘10
Aardvark
Why the broadcast-to-all model
won’t hold up against social search
W
e often don’t have a proclivity
to leave our computers
because we think of them as
our connection to information, to our
work, and generally the tool to help us
achieve our goals. We similarly spend
time on Facebook—1.7 hours per day on
average–because it seems a primary
connection to people: everyone is on it,
and we want to be in touch with people.
At face value, it’s not a bad proposition.
We would prefer to communicate with
people who we’re interested in, who
share our same interests, and if those
people are on Facebook rather than in
our immediate environment, we opt to
be on Facebook.
In a seminal psychology experiment,
mice were deprived of food for
24 hours, and then given a choice
between food or an electrode shock
that delivered an indicator of pleasure;
mice would always choose the latter
to the point of starvation. Similarly, we
have indicators that social activity is
happening online, but we don’t ever get
that fulfillment of social interaction--
the food, if you will--that often comes
with laughing with a friend over a cup
of coffee.
Part of the problem is the template
on which we operate. The way we
share, using Facebook’s “wall,” was
developed by Mark Zuckerberg, then
19 years old, whose creation reflects
how social interaction often takes
place in high school: it’s about show-
boating, where all is done in the
public eye. Mature communication is
4 | acm communications vol 2 issue 3
different. You are not necessarily a
different person to different people,
but you share with different people in
different ways. With some people, you
talk about higher level concepts such
as feeling and art, and with others, it’s
a recap of a TV show.
In addition, there is a type of
norming that occurs within such
a presentation-oriented network.
Profiles on Facebook don’t have the
same type of expressivity that they do
on, say, CouchSurfing, a sub-culture
in social network services. Users
are engaged in a hive mind, as Jaron
Lanier calls it, confined in what they
include in profiles and write on walls,
by the average of what they see on
their friends’ profiles.
The website Quora, developed by
alumni of Facebook, is a question and
answer community that is popular
among Silicon Valley’s digital crowd.
Sometimes you can catch a post from
CEOs and high tech leaders on the site.
However, most of the big wigs don’t
post much, probably because the site
suffers from the same viewable-by-all
fate of Facebook. A product designer
at Facebook using the Quora services
comments (somewhat ironically) that,
“I actually find the risk of inadvertently
disclosing something sensitive and
having it appear on a blog demotivating,
not encouraging.” As Quora opens up
registration to the public, activity from
its early, tight-knit group has slowed.
“Culture-wise, the community took
a dive,” said Lucas Meadows, in a
comment on the site. “Average quality
has declined markedly.”
This broadcast-to-all model won’t
hold up when people become aware
of ways to better communicate on a
social network.
What has recently emerged is social
search. On the website Aardvark, users
can ask questions, and instead of just
being matched up with an “answerer”
who has knowledge of a topic, they are
matched with someone who is most
similar to them. Aardvark imports
status messages and Facebook profile
interests, and analyzes the types of
words a user uses (e.g., sophisticated
versus basic), in order to maximize
similarity.
The benefits of this system are
many fold. First of all, “it’s not a
performative act,” said Damon
Horowitz, co-founder of the site.
“You’re looking for information. You’re
not trying to entertain your followers.”
Where you once felt self-conscious in
writing a status message or wall post
on the open floor of Facebook, you
now have confidence that the person
receiving the message shares your
ideas and experiences, and won’t be
a harsh judge. Another benefit is that
it is now possible for continuing and
open dialog to take place, something
unthinkable with the glaring eyeballs
of lurkers on your wall.
A potential pitfall is that Aardvark
may become too focused on the utility
of question and answers. There is more
to human thought than just questions.
We want a tool where we can explore
social life and where we can fulfill
that need for social interaction. It’s
choosing the food over the shock, if
only social applications can frame it
right.
Elliot is a 2010 graduate in Decision Science.
He can be reached at elliot@alumni.cmu.edu.

Jason MacDonald [CS ‘13]
A
t first glance, Rockmelt may
appear to be nothing more than
a Google Chrome clone with a
couple added extensions. While it is
built on Chromium, the open source
project behind Google Chrome,
Rockmelt adds a barrage of social
networking features, integrating
social content right into its interface.
The idea of a social web browser is
not new, with browsers such as Flock
having been around for several years,
but Rockmelt is taking an entirely new
approach to the experience.
Rockmelt users connect using
Facebook, which means that users
don’t have to create a separate
Rockmelt account. Of course, this
means giving them full access to
personal data and news feeds, but
this is the key behind its seamless
integration. Users can view their
friends’ activity and post content on
their Facebook without ever going to
the site. Currently, the browser is in
limited public beta, only allowing new
users through an invitation process. A
user must first be invited by a Facebook
friend to be able to download and use
Rockmelt and is then given three
invites to use for other friends.
RockMelt’s creators have ensured
its users that privacy is a top priority,
saying, “We’re not running ad
networks, so we’re not trying to target
users in any way. We’re not storing
personal information about users
and what they do. We anonymize info
about what users are doing. We never
record info about users, what they’re
doing online, searches they’re doing,
anything like that.”1
The first noticeable difference
between Rockmelt and a traditional
web browser is its vertical “edges”
on each side. These edges provide
information about the user’s Facebook
and Twitter accounts, giving quick
access to news feeds, chats, and
1http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372309,00.asp
Rockmelt
A Social Web Browser
updates. The left edge focuses on
Facebook friends, populated with
icons of the user’s friends (taken from
profile pictures). Clicking a friend pops
open a small window that shows his/
her latest updates as well as a chat
box for quick messaging. The right
edge contains icons for the user’s own
Facebook and Twitter feeds, with room
to add RSS feeds as well. Next to each
icon is a badge indicating the number
of new notifications.
Beyond its integration with social
networks, Rockmelt also brings
additional useful features, such as its
innovative search bar. When a user
enters a term into the bar, a dropdown
menu slides into place, revealing a
list of search results. Because the
results are preloaded, clicking a result
instantly displays the page with no
delay, a neat enhancement that lets
users quickly page through search
results.
Why has Rockmelt recently attracted
a lot of attention? Perhaps because it’s
currently backed by Mark Andreessen,
co-author of Mosaic (the “original” web
browser) and co-founder of Netscape,
and now a multi-millionaire software
engineer, investor, and startup coach.
Andreessen is a big name in Silicon
Valley, being a member of the Board Rockmelt Beta
of Directors for Facebook, eBay, and
HP, and one of just six members in
the World Wide Web Hall of Fame, so
it’s no wonder that people are paying
attention to Rockmelt.
While currently still in beta, it will
be interesting to see how Rockmelt
reacts to the feedback of its users
and changes accordingly up until its
final release. Most web users will
probably prefer to stick with their
favorite trusted browsers—Firefox, IE,
Chrome, Safari, etc. But for the many
social web junkies who practically live
on Facebook and Twitter, Rockmelt
could be a real winner.
vol 2 issue 3 acm communications | 5
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