Small Towns, Wisconsin Southwest Region Winter 2014 | Page 32

A New Web Way!
Today’s internet world has evolved over the last decade. It is a different place, provides
different capabilities and poses different concerns. Atop the list of concerns is the
public’s concern for privacy. Every post, email, web search and user click on select
sites is reportedly poured into a user profile. Often, this information is sold or utilized
internally. As a result, we the users are then spoon-fed results during new searches.
We receive advertising on search result pages and social sites based on what is
deemed a match for us, given our history, based on our profiles. Do we the users get
to make up our own minds anymore? Or search, discover and decide something new
for ourselves?
In this ever-changing technological landscape, we have also gone ‘smart’. With smart
phones, anyway. So much so, that smart phones now outsell PCs and have become
the primary means to access the internet. This presents new challenges for consumers
and businesses: small screens, private personal devices and limited screen real estate
on which to display crowded advertising. Today’s consumer is saying, “keep ads off
my small screen!” Businesses are asking, “how do we reach our consumers?”
Precisely these pain points drove the developing minds of Wild Critter Media to
devise a solution, to craft an ans