Here is an article about the Walmart and DoD RFID deployment in the NY Post, or at least the online edition. I found three things about this article remarkable. First is that the story is breaking in this mainstream news publication, second they label the PR around using RFID to make food and terrorists traceable as spin by the RFID/EPC industry to counter privacy concerns, and lastly that they sold links to RFID/EPC companies off the page.
RFID stories have made their way into most major periodicals- the NY Times and USA Today have had both features and editorials on the technology and its implications.
I believe the advertisements on the pages were through Google's Adwords program (http://www.google.com/adwords), where Google serves as a merchant that matches advertisers with targeted content using automatic categorization algorithms.
Posted by: John Wehr at January 6, 2004 05:12 AMThanks for the pointer to Google adwords. It's an interesting service. Still, it is noteworthy when the advertising in a publication is driven by the content, no matter the technology. There is always some link between money and content, as publications have to pay their expenses, but we hope that "the news" is not for sale.
As for RFID being covered by major publications that's true enough. However, there was no event which precipitated the NY Post story, nor was it a particularly novel in-depth feature, leading me to think that the editors felt this was a new issue needing airing before their readership.
Posted by: Henry Holtzman at January 6, 2004 07:41 AM