The forward wave

What if you were driving a boat and the wave you created somehow did not go backward, but forward? That’d be wild, right? I think the algorithms have taken the “next step” in their development and have started “rolling forward.”

I’ve been in a deep research phase on a “new to me” topic in the last two weeks. I’ve invested numerous hours on multiple devices under a few different logins across a set of platforms. Think of hundreds of searches that resulted in loading near a thousand or more web pages. And then… I started to get the sense that there was a forward wave being created. Wild. Really.

When I started to talk to friends about the topic many of them (3 of 7, each from different and distinct small groups) mentioned that they had recently started being served ads in their social feeds from one of the companies in the space I’d been searching. I can assure you, they were not also out talking about or searching this topic. Further, one person started receiving emails from one of the companies. No, they had not signed up for the email list nor had they ever heard of the company. I checked it. Nothing. But, they certainly did start receiving emails and social ads. Strange.

So, the wave. It’s algorithmically charged and seems to be rolling in front of you now. It sure seems like it’s telling your friends generally about what you and your other friends are searching via the ads from companies in those spaces.