So you want to try Ello, the new indie ad-free social network that boasts it won’t buy or sell your information. First of all, good luck getting into the network, which is currently invitation only, and second, what about your friends and your friends’ friends? Where exactly is all the content you go to Facebook to see going to come from and why would you spend any time on a social network without it?

What makes a social media network ‘social’ is the amount of people on them sharing content pictures and stories, and everyone is on Facebook sharing great content, approximately 829 million per day according to Facebook. That is why I say, like them or hate them – Facebook isn’t going anywhere soon and has nothing to worry about from other social networks, especially Ello.

What may be even more compelling is the number of mobile daily active users on Facebook.  Ello does not currently have a mobile app.  How on earth would Ello get people to replace Facebook with their social network when most of Facebook’s users are on mobile?

While the demand that Ello’s exclusivity is creating is palpable, what makes the web an interesting place is its interconnectivity. The internet takes interesting ideas and makes them visible regardless of previous constructs of popularity and exclusivity. People like it that way. Exclusivity doesn’t work in social networking, inclusivity does. Facebook has already gotten nearly a billion people to be social in the same place on the web. At some point Ello will probably be open to all, but think about what Facebook has done in the short time that it has existed.

Most people looking to share content in Ello will have to troll Facebook to find it, go back to Ello and share it. It won’t take people long to realize they could have just stayed on Facebook. The only people willing to keep up that charade are users trying to build up their social media profiles with friends and followers for no other reason than looking popular “statistically” which definitely does not represent the average social media user.

Isn’t that why Google Plus is such a boring lonely place? Tell me if this sounds familiar, you joined Google Plus and you waited for others to join you and share content, only when you looked back at Facebook – everyone was still over there sharing the stories and content you really cared about.

It reminds me of another exclusive social network “Netropolitan” that just launched offering services to rich people who can afford the service, which I think will also end up being a boring place to hang out on the web.

The internet of things is generating a ridiculous amount of data on people brave enough to use it. There is data on everything from what temperature someone likes to keep their house in the month of December to what’s in their fridge the night before the big game. Some would say all this data is a positive; it provides for a streamlined life where people can go about their day without worrying about the more mundane aspects of it. The data being generated isn’t only being used to make things easier for us of course, but also to sell things to us. One of the latest iterations of this trend seems to be health monitoring through wearable devices that analyze and upload health data to the internet.

Our health is one area that has mostly been considered sacrosanct in our society up until now. There are laws against doctors disclosing health information to anyone other than the patients. Hell, there are even laws against a doctor’s office leaving a voicemail with that information within earshot of someone other than the intended patient. But that pesky’ Internet Of Things’ is right around the corner threatening to chip away at our private sanctum of health by generating and collecting useful data that will inevitably end up leading to targeted ads for health related products.

Imagine this scenario:

You put a simple device on your wrist that measures your heart rate along with a pedometer which tracks how far and how fast you’ve been running every day for a year. You load that data into a program along with your weight over the same period along with a few other tid-bits of information, maybe diet or the amount of sleep you’re getting. A program analyzes that data and before you know it you are seeing advertisements about blood pressure medication, lower sodium food products, a pair of sneakers that help you run faster, or even new insoles– because the software has determined that you have flat feet based on your gate and the distance you could run before having to take a break. These tools essentially collect a lot of the same data that the Doctor might during various check-ups or stress tests.

Is using personal health data to target advertisements the 3rd rail of marketing?

There is some inherent danger for advertisers using the health data collected to market products to people, because people do very much consider their health information to be private. A few data points, i.e., blood pressure, pulse rate, diet and weight, may not seem to paint a full picture of a person’s health, but over time – this data will paint a compelling picture when weighed against a person’s activity which is also being collected. We also have to count on these tools getting more sophisticated. This information provides advertisers the ability to target very specific groups which is always of paramount interest to them. Asking them not to use it would be like asking a dog not to bark.

So what?

Well you might ask, if I hypothetically had high blood pressure, why then would a few ads suggesting a product that could help me be a bad thing? Answer: Maybe it’s not, but maybe there are some other considerations that your doctor could really understand better than some algorithm. Or maybe you start buying healthier products that end up really turning your health around which ends up saving your life.

The point is this:

However useful ‘Big Data’ is, it is also the enemy of privacy. Privacy was the idea that you could go through your life and not have to disclose any information about yourself, your habits, your location or whatever if you didn’t choose to do so. Privacy was the benefit to not having all this useful data generated about us 24/7. Privacy as it was once known is gone. People now have to constantly weigh the benefits of privacy versus the benefits of having all this useful data. Just remember, you put the device on your wrist.

To some people, dare I say most, the idea of dating has always been awkward. Whether we’re asking someone whom we just met to join us for a meal or going out with a total stranger on a blind date, sitting there in constant judgment of each other can be unnerving to say the least and downright painful if we’re going to be blunt. Lucky for us, we live in the age of the internet where many seemingly difficult aspects of life are made easier, quicker and hassle free in the digital domain, including meeting people and dating.

Although, it wasn’t too long ago that people found online dating an intimidating prospect, the theory being anyone you met on the internet would undoubtedly turn out to be psychotic . That time has come and gone, and today people from every demographic have gotten comfortable with the idea of online dating. It’s almost to the point that the online dating pool at least mirrors the off-line dating pool, but it’s quite possible that the online pool dwarfs it.

Still, not everyone is dating online, so there is still a lot of market share to grab for all these competing dating services. But one online dating site, or should I say app, in particular seems to be getting a lot of attention, and that app would be Inter Active Corp’s (IAC) Tinder.  Tinder is like a game where you can interact with pictures and browse other people’s interests with the swipe of a finger, in fact according to a survey conducted by Session M, 30% of Tinder user’s like it for that reason. It works at the break-neck pace of the modern attention-span and the swiping action can be kind of addicting.

According to Tinder, 90% of their user base was between 18 and 24 in the beginning, but today that number is closer to 51%. Twenty-five to thirty-two year olds make-up 32% of users, thirty-five to forty-four year olds are about 6.5%, and interestingly albeit kind of scary, 7% of the user base is made up of thirteen to seventeen year old kids. That’s .5% more than adults over 44. While older folks are more likely today to trust online dating apps than in the past, the fact is that younger folks are more likely to trust the technology and are also the largest market.

In my opinion, Tinder is becoming the preeminent dating site recognized by the younger demographic and could end up providing an amazing value to investors. With that market in place, and their addicting swipe feature (that brings up the next possible suitor), the monetization opportunities through marketing and ads are astounding. Barclays is predicting that Tinder’s valuation could reach $1.1 billion by the end of next year.

Online dating apps provide a unique and very valuable service. These apps basically help people out of an awkward situation by creating a pre-text for people to meet that can be fun. They allow people to get to know each other before they get know each other, which is a good thing. Tinder just so happens to be the one that is the most fun, mobile and therefore valuable.

In 1994, I chose to move down to South Jersey to attend college because I felt drawn to the area with its proximity to the beach and booming casino industry.  At school, I became friends with a lot of casino employees who worked second and third shifts while taking classes during the day, and I came to better understand the pulse of the region.

Atlantic City Boardwalk at night

At that time, the vibe of Atlantic City (AC) was very positive as more and more new casinos entered the fold. There were trade schools that not only taught people casino dealing, but also guaranteed job placements! The help wanted ads were filled with casinos and restaurants that were hiring. Donald Trump even became a local icon with three casinos, two of which still bear his name.

When the competition got to be too much between casinos in and around Atlantic City, the local economy started to decline as crime increased and jobs began to disappear. The Revel project certainly brought hope back to the area with a concept of creating a casino that spared no expense. But even the completion of that project drew shaky support, and I began to realize that the key to Atlantic City’s survival was not to build another casino to continue to cannibalize the industry further, but to turn Atlantic City as a whole into a true destination that could attract people that lived beyond a 120 mile radius of the city.  This would have required a different approach to marketing, which was totally neglected.

For one, the marketing efforts related to Atlantic City never evolved with the rise of the internet and changing methods people used to choose where to visit next. While Vegas became famous for “What Happens in Vegas…stays in Vegas”, Atlantic City became more viewed as a crime ridden location that wasn’t safe to venture around in.

A few months after the Revel had opened, I had clients in from Texas that were very interested in going to the Revel and having our meetings there, but they were deathly afraid of Atlantic City. They feared that they would be shot the second they set foot inside the city perimeters. Obviously that was far-fetched, but these were intelligent, savvy travelers who felt this way. Clearly the reputation that preceded Atlantic City was poor, but nothing was ever really done to change that.

Most of the casinos themselves have also made a very poor transition to the internet – and now more importantly, to the mobile expansion. Booking functions are clunky and slow and digital marketing efforts are limited.

While clearly there are a lot of areas that contributed to this recent downturn in Atlantic City, if we were to tie Atlantic City’s downfall exclusively to competition in other markets we’d be missing many aspects of what truly happened, and I strongly feel that Atlantic City’s lack of ability to adapt to the landscape of the changing times and evolve into a stronger web based presence has hurt the city immensely.

Four of Atlantic City’s twelve casinos are closing this year. I currently live in Ocean City, NJ (about 15 minutes outside of Atlantic City) and I have family members who are impacted by these closures. I worry about the impact these closings have on the real estate market in the area, the economy in the area and most of all, what happens to the displaced employees.

Some Casinos have continued to thrive, but the overall tone right now is very somber. If Atlantic City makes a come-back, I feel strongly that marketing efforts to avert the current notion that Atlantic City is a “dead zone” will play a large part of those efforts. The timing of this is critical as the situation will only get worse if some forward thinking and new insights don’t come in to play. Today, even Donald Trump is suing to get his name off of the two casinos that are “in such a state of disrepair” they’re no longer worthy of his name. That’s right, Donald Trump is suing to get his name OFF of something!

Cate McNabb Cosmetics challenged WebiMax to take the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge over Facebook.  Ken Wisnefski accepted the challenge and in turn challenged NJ Icon Bruce Springsteen and Steve Carell of the hit T.V. series The Office.