My tweets the past few days have been coming at weird times because I was in Rome from Thursday through this morning for the IFA Global Press Conference. That’s a small spring event hosted by the organizers of the IFA tech trade show that runs in Berlin each summer. They invite a few hundred journalists and analysts–covering their travel costs–and put on a program of product introductions and a panel discussion or two. I’m not quite sure about how this works for the hosts as a business model, but for me it affords an advance look at some interesting gadgets (look for my writeup of Sharp’s pitch for 8K television soon) and quality networking. And, sure, the chance to spend a few days in a pleasant location.
4/16/2018: How advertisers target you on Facebook, Yahoo Finance
I’ve been meaning to write a longer explanation of how exactly Facebook lets an advertiser target its users (you’ve read short versions of that here), and the confusion many members of Congress expressed in their questions to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave this topic a handy news peg. I also used this story to get some firsthand acquaintance with Facebook’s “Custom Audiences” feature, which lets you upload a customer list and have Facebook show ads to users it matches up with the data in your list.
4/18/2018: Tech News in Washington, D.C. with Rob Pegoraro, Tech Policy Institute
I was a guest on this think tank’s Two Think Minimum podcast, discussing the history of tech policy and tech lobbying in D.C. with TPI communications director Chris McGurn and TPI fellows Scott Wallsten and Sarah Oh.
4/18/2018: Facebook tracking at other sites, Al Jazeera
The Arabic news channel had me do a Skype interview from home about how Facebook tracks people–and in particular, those who don’t have Facebook accounts–at other sites. My takeaway: While Facebook tracking people who aren’t on Facebook can sound creepy, that’s what every ad network does.
Updated 4/23/2018 to add TPI’s podcast. I’m blaming jet lag on making me forget to include that yesterday.
Rob Pegoraro 
Rob, your last point, “what every ad network does”, reminded me of a years back congressional hearing where an exec from one of the credit reporting agencies lamented to the members that tracking they’d been doing for years to sell to marketers was now more known to everyone bec of social media! Perhaps as a followup to your 4/16 piece would be to try to carve out what social media companies do that is the same as what credit reporting agencies having been doing for years albeit less visibly, and which NOT.
Hey, could we book you for your regular summer appearance at the Pi?
Pingback: Weekly output: YouTube in standard definition, tech and the coronavirus | Rob Pegoraro