If the digital chatter flying around global computer servers and networks at this moment were visible, it would be difficult to move without bumping into it.
With every Google search we type, every email we send, every pass through a toll booth, and with every loaf of bread we pick up at the supermarket, we add more weight to our bloated digital dossiers - the numerical profile that help predict what we’ll buy, how we’ll vote, our potential for productivity or criminal behavior, and who we’re likely to date. Companies like Yahoo and Google are harvesting an average of 2,500 details about us every month. So who is looking at all this information?
Writer Stephen Baker calls them the Numerati. They are the numbercrunchers who read the minds of the people based on the ones and zeros we send flying around the Earth. His new book combs through what the Numerati look for - not just to target us, but to change our behavior. Stephen Baker has been writing for BusinessWeek for 20 years, and he joins us now to talk about his new book, The Numerati.
Watch Stephen Baker introduce The Numerati:
(Photo by curly_exp( l)osure)
