Thanks to the recent Netflix pseudo-documentary The Social Dilemma and the coverage of how Facebook and Google make billions from it, people are more aware of the power of data.
But that awareness is just the beginning, Don Vaughn said. Dr. Vaughn is the head of product at Invisibly, a new platform helping people take control of their data while also making money from it.
A Ph.D neuroscientist, Dr. Vaughn said the human brain is no match for the thousands of supercomputers parsing our data and deciding which ads to sell us. That led him to Invisibly, a platform that inserts the individual in the middle of that transaction between advertiser and platform. Download the Invisibly browser extension and link your cards and social media pages – the more data sources they have the better (though they do not need such personal data as Social Security numbers, he cautioned). Invisibly then serves as your data agent, licensing it out to companies who want to message you or conduct market research.
The first step is taking control of your data and making money from it. Invisibly sees individuals making $1,000 or more every year. Plenty of companies talk about that. The next stage is using your data to help you build your reality the way you want it to be, not the way advertisers say it should be, Dr. Vaughn said. The more points you share, the more AI can work for you by providing what you want to see and blocking what you don’t.
“AI is useless without data,” Dr. Vaughn said. “AI only works because there is massive amounts of data. By you controlling the data, you control the AI to work for you and not against you.”
For a time a common refrain was people were happy to give some data in exchange for staying current on everyone’s Facebook and Twitter posts. That may have been the case at some point, but that has changed thanks to The Social Dilemma showing how we can be manipulated by algorithms and the awareness of how Google, Facebook and others are making billions off that process.
“Your data is yours and if that generates revenue in the future you should get a cut of it,” Dr. Vaughn said. “Everybody is an influencer and that needs to be accounted for.”
By streamlining this process, Invisibly is giving both advertisers and consumers more of what they actually are looking for.
“Why do companies want your data? It’s not your data they want, it’s relevant content,” Dr. Vaughn said. “If your data is all with Invisibly and curated Invisibly solves relevancy without sending companies the actual data.
“It sculpts the reality you want and makes you the best long-term you can be,” Dr. Vaughn said.
