Web industry

One of the earliest beneficiaries of data science was the web industry. Empowered by the collection of user-specific data from social networks, firms around the world employ algorithms to understand user behavior and generate targeted ads. Google, one of the earliest proponents of targeted ad marketing today, earns most of its revenue from ads, more than $95 billion in 2017. (Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/266249/advertising-revenue-of-google/). The use of data science for web-related businesses is ubiquitous today and companies such as Uber, Airbnb, Netflix, and Amazon have successfully navigated and made full use of this complex ecosystem, generating not only huge profits but also added millions of new jobs directly or indirectly as a result.

• Targeted ads: Click through ads have been one of the prime areas of machine learning. By reading cookies saved on users' computers from various sites, other sites can assess the users interests and accordingly decide which ads to serve when they visit new sites. As per online sources, the value of internet advertising is over $1 trillion and has generated over 10 million jobs in 2017 alone. (Source: https://www.iab.com/insights/economic-value-advertising-supported-internet-ecosystem/).
• Recommender engines: Netflix, Pandora, and other movies and audio streaming services utilize recommender engines to understand which movies or music the viewer or listener would be interested in and make recommendations. The recommendations are often based on what other users with similar tastes might have already seen and leverage recommender algorithms such as collaborative, content-based, and hybrid filtering.
• Web design: Using A/B testing, mouse tracking, and other sophisticated techniques, web developers leverage data science to design better web pages such as landing pages and in general websites. A/B testing for instance allows developers to decide between different versions of the same web page and deploy accordingly.