Skip to main content
Amy Webb on Muck Rack

Amy Webb

  • Founder, Future Today Institute and Writer, Freelance
Argentina, New York
As seen in: LinkedIn, CNN, Medium, The New York Times, The Startup, Business Insider, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, Amanpour & Company and
Covers:  gender and media, emerging trends in data, gender and tech, emerging trends in tech, emerging trends in news, data and our personal lives, big data, security, the business of journalism, media, privacy
CEO of FTSG. Quantitative Futurist. Prof @NYUStern. 4x bestselling author. Competitive cyclist.
Back to Amy Webb’s profile

Amy Webb’s Journalist Portfolio

View as a grid

Hacking the Hyperlinked Heart

Hacking the Hyperlinked Heart

Wall Street Journal — I was 30 years old, just out of a long-term relationship and no longer interested in playing the field. It was time to settle down with the right man, get married and start a family. At the urging of several friends (and my worried mother), a strategy was settled upon: I joined Match.com and JDate, a website for Jewish singles. What followed was a series of bad dates worthy of a romantic comedy: stupid sexual remarks, too much...
Who shared?

Amy Webb: Big data, mobile payments, and identity authentication will be big in 2012

Amy Webb: Big data, mobile payments, and identity authentication will be big in 2012

www.niemanlab.org — Big Data Information is everywhere, and more than any previous year in our history, 2012 will be the year of data. We're recording our daily activity with BodyMedia arm bands and syncing our biometrics with our Android phones. Hacker-journalists are converting huge datasets for use by everyday newsroom reporters. Hyper-creative data visualization teams, such as JESS3, are creating stunning charts and graphs appealing to the non-geeky set. Untold amounts of healthcare, government, personal-location, business, academic and transportation data can be mined for research as well as to generate answers about our efficiency, effectiveness and productivity.
Who shared?

Everything Electronic You Own-iPhone to Subway Card to Power Strip-Can Be Hacked. So How to Defen...

Everything Electronic You Own-iPhone to Subway Card to Power Strip-Can Be Hacked. So How to Defen...

Slate — Wherever you're sitting right now, take a moment to note the connected devices around you. In your pocket or handbag, you probably have an electronic key fob and perhaps a rechargeable subway card embedded with RFID. You likely have a smartphone, which is connected to a Wi-Fi network and also has voice-mail service. You might be wearing a Nike FuelBand, or a Fitbit, or possibly even a new pair of Google Glass. Maybe you can spot a traffic light or an orange highway sign out of your window. A power strip is likely not too far away.
Who shared?

The future of news is anticipation

The future of news is anticipation

www.niemanlab.org — One of the most important trends going into 2014 is the wave of sophisticated algorithms and processes that will forever change how journalism is both created and consumed. They are inherently social, but not in the way you may think. And they rely on the vast repositories of data we generate each time we connect, whether that's searching Google for a restaurant, wishing friends happy birthday on Facebook, or posting an in-line annotation on Medium. This past year, we saw the first anticipatory computing opportunities in Google Now, which originally launched as part of the Android operating system, and an app called MindMeld, created by former MIT researcher and current Expect Labs CEO Tim Tuttle.
Who shared?

No One's "Snooping" on You: You Share Your Private Data with Corporations and Governments All the...

No One's "Snooping" on You: You Share Your Private Data with Corporations and Governments All the...

Slate — While you were tweeting an Instagram of your home-cooked tikka masala last night, we learned that the National Security Agency (NSA) has been collecting data on millions of Verizon customers. The Guardian published the full top-secret court order that forced Verizon to deliver customer information daily to the NSA. In essence, this meant that every time my 3-year-old daughter called to tell me that her imaginary friend Spiral Bunny just recited the alphabet, the NSA probably knew about it. It also knew that I was traveling on a high-speed train somewhere outside of New York City, and that she was sitting at her easel in our home.
Who shared?

Why data is the secret to successful dating

Why data is the secret to successful dating

Guardian — These days, we're promised true love via algorithm. Log on to a website, enter in some data and - voila! - our soul mate will automagically appear. Algorithm is really just a fancy name for the step-by-step process and calculations that are used while solving a problem. Think of an algorithm as you would a recipe for croissants. You need a set of ingredients: yeast, water, sugar, salt, flour, milk, oil, butter, and eggs. And you need a bunch of kitchen equipment: bowls, mixers, knife, baking sheet, oven, and some towels.
Who shared?

Why We Post Nothing-Nothing-About Our Kid Online. You Should Do the Same for Your Kids.

Why We Post Nothing-Nothing-About Our Kid Online. You Should Do the Same for Your Kids.

Slate — I vividly remember the Facebook post. It was my friend's 5-year-old daughter "Kate," (a pseudonym) standing outside of her house in a bright yellow bikini, the street address clearly visible behind her on the front door. A caption read "Leaving for our annual Labor Day weekend at the beach," and beneath it were more than 50 likes and comments from friends-including many "friends" that Kate's mom barely knew. The picture had been uploaded to a Facebook album, and there were 114 shots just of Kate: freshly cleaned and swaddled on the day of her birth ... giving her Labradoodle a kiss ...
Who shared?

Can Online Dating Lead to Love?

Can Online Dating Lead to Love?

Time Magazine — While some argue that online dating presents too much choice, it's actually an efficient way to meet a partner - if you use it correctly Alice, a marketing executive in her 40s, has been a member on and off of the Jewish dating site JDate.com for years; at her count, she's been on more than 100 dates with men from the greater Dallas region. But the more she lingers on the site, she says, the harder it is to settle on any one suitor. She blames online dating for her inability to determine who, precisely, qualifies as her perfect match.
Who shared?