I just tried out the new PrivacyFix extension, which checks your privacy settings and also estimates how much Facebook and Google make off me each year.
Turns out, my privacy settings are pretty decent already. And, it looks like Google makes less than a dollar per year off me. Facebook makes nothing. The guy that wrote the article on Ars Technica clocks in at $700 per year going to Google, through advertising etc… Wow.
I’m running PrivacyFix, in addition to Ghostery and AdBlock, on all computers that I use.
Darren wrote up a post to discuss the idea that ad blocking software (like the Adblock Firefox extension I’m running right now) are potentially going to kill the current business model of the Web. That advertising would collapse if we all used Adblock and the like, and that free content (which is at least partially compensated for by viewing ads) would degenerate into the noisy crapfest of Geocities.
The point is a good one – we can’t have our cake and eat it too. If we want to get content for free, we should expect to pay something, in terms of viewing ads or something similar.
But the problem isn’t ads, per se. It’s evil advertisers. I use Adblock to kill the “punch the monkey in the nuts and win a free iPod” and “viagra makes you so huge that she’ll love you long time!” annoying/evil ads. I have no problem with tasteful, creative, even thoughtful ads. But the “You have an error! Click here!” vibrating fake-Windows-error-dialog bullshit has got to go.
That’s where Adblock comes in. If advertisers want to maintain relevance, at least to myself, they need to abandon the annoying flashing animated banner ads, and, oh, I don’t know… be creative? tasteful? interesting? relevant? funny? etc…
Disclaimer: I do run Adsense ads on this blog, but they should only be visible on old content, and only by people referred to the site by Google. Basically, if you are a regular, you shouldn’t see ads (if you do, there’s a bug in the system – let me know, and I’ll try to fix it).
I've been following the TED Talks videos as they're published – recordings of the various presentations at the 2006 TED Conference/Symposium. There are some absolutely amazing presentations, ranging from Al Gore, to Nicholas Negroponte, to Mena Trott (and many others).
TED Talks in iTunes
The video production and publication is sponsored by BMW, who are hoping to be associated with the innovation and Deep Thinking presented at TED, and I think it's a great example of how online advertising can work.
BMW's last big online advertising campaign was with their series of awesome original episodes starring Clive Owen, and directed by many Big Director Types. Very cool stuff. I watched every one several times over, and it just fueled my craving for the Ultimate Driving Machine.
But BMW's sponsorship of the sharing of these TED presentations is much more important and meaningful. By helping to bring these sessions to a wider audience, they've done a great thing.
I've been following the TED Talks videos as they're published – recordings of the various presentations at the 2006 TED Conference/Symposium. There are some absolutely amazing presentations, ranging from Al Gore, to Nicholas Negroponte, to Mena Trott (and many others).
TED Talks in iTunes
The video production and publication is sponsored by BMW, who are hoping to be associated with the innovation and Deep Thinking presented at TED, and I think it's a great example of how online advertising can work.
BMW's last big online advertising campaign was with their series of awesome original episodes starring Clive Owen, and directed by many Big Director Types. Very cool stuff. I watched every one several times over, and it just fueled my craving for the Ultimate Driving Machine.
But BMW's sponsorship of the sharing of these TED presentations is much more important and meaningful. By helping to bring these sessions to a wider audience, they've done a great thing.
One of the things that Blogbridge has allowed me to do is rather dramatically increase the number of feeds I actively track. That includes re-subscribing to Scoble’s new Wordpress.com blog.
Yesterday, something came through Scoble’s feed that sent a chill through me. He was talking about how he finally understands “Attention” as described by Steve Gillmor. He proceeds to outline what can only be described as Big Brother, watching everything you do online, for the sole purpose of placing better advertising to beg you to click on links.
You’ve bought some binoculars, and you’re surfing something about football, and Skynet figures out you’re interested in going to a football game, and BOOM it pulls in all kinds of ads for you to click on.
He describes a system of user activity monitoring and analysis so amazingly complex that it could estimate what you’re going to eat for breakfast next Wednesday, and figures the best way to put that to work is to place advertising.
Never mind the privacy issues this raises – the last thing I want is eBay, Google, Amazon.com, Flickr, Blogbridge, and gods know who else conspiring to share what they know about me so that they can attempt to know everything for the purposes of ad placement.
When that happens, I think I’ll just drop off the grid. I’ll have to go through a pretty heavy withdrawal period, and perhaps some kind of Betty Ford clinic would be required, but I’d rather unplug than put up with that kind of invasive (even if only behind the scenes) tracking of my “Attention”. Also, they’d have to keep an eye out for Arnold, trying to take out Skynet before it gains sentience…
Also, Scoble mentioned that he’s “starting to get scared by this kind of world” – and clarifies in the comments that he’s not scared of the implications of this stuff – just that Microsoft may not be in the game. Holy. Crap. Yeah – That’s what I’m scared of. There’s a global network watching me, and Microsoft feels it needs to have it’s finger on the pulse…
One of the things that Blogbridge has allowed me to do is rather dramatically increase the number of feeds I actively track. That includes re-subscribing to Scoble’s new WordPress.com blog.
Yesterday, something came through Scoble’s feed that sent a chill through me. He was talking about how he finally understands “Attention” as described by Steve Gillmor. He proceeds to outline what can only be described as Big Brother, watching everything you do online, for the sole purpose of placing better advertising to beg you to click on links.
You’ve bought some binoculars, and you’re surfing something about football, and Skynet figures out you’re interested in going to a football game, and BOOM it pulls in all kinds of ads for you to click on.
He describes a system of user activity monitoring and analysis so amazingly complex that it could estimate what you’re going to eat for breakfast next Wednesday, and figures the best way to put that to work is to place advertising.
Never mind the privacy issues this raises – the last thing I want is eBay, Google, Amazon.com, Flickr, Blogbridge, and gods know who else conspiring to share what they know about me so that they can attempt to know everything for the purposes of ad placement.
When that happens, I think I’ll just drop off the grid. I’ll have to go through a pretty heavy withdrawal period, and perhaps some kind of Betty Ford clinic would be required, but I’d rather unplug than put up with that kind of invasive (even if only behind the scenes) tracking of my “Attention”. Also, they’d have to keep an eye out for Arnold, trying to take out Skynet before it gains sentience…
Also, Scoble mentioned that he’s “starting to get scared by this kind of world” – and clarifies in the comments that he’s not scared of the implications of this stuff – just that Microsoft may not be in the game. Holy. Crap. Yeah – That’s what I’m scared of. There’s a global network watching me, and Microsoft feels it needs to have it’s finger on the pulse…
Oh, man! I want to do this. Somehow, I think I’d get a citation or something. Sony dropped a bajillion superballs down the hilly streets of San Francisco to film an ad for their new Bravia line. Not in the market for a new TV, but the ad sure looks hella fun.
I’m sure glad I wasn’t on the cleanup crew for this shoot. First, The City has the roving bands of parrots on Telegraph Hill, now it will have mysterious roving bands of bouncing superballs for years to come…
Oh, man! I want to do this. Somehow, I think I’d get a citation or something. Sony dropped a bajillion superballs down the hilly streets of San Francisco to film an ad for their new Bravia line. Not in the market for a new TV, but the ad sure looks hella fun.
I’m sure glad I wasn’t on the cleanup crew for this shoot. First, The City has the roving bands of parrots on Telegraph Hill, now it will have mysterious roving bands of bouncing superballs for years to come…
I ranted recently about how having advertising on my blog made me feel dirty. After saying that, it’s been kind of bugging me, especially since someone whom I deeply respect provides marketing and branding creative for companies.
I’ve been thinking about it, and the part that made me feel dirty was because I had changed the rules of my blog. I’ve always considered it to be nothing more than just my own personal outboard brain – a core dump indexed by Google. Changing the nature of the beast to become a “monetizing engine” would have subtly altered what/how/when I posted. Perhaps not right away, and perhaps not even visibly (to anyone but myself – hey, another circular reference – if it’s primarily for me, wtf do I care what anyone else thinks? 🙂 ) but it would have altered it enough to become less useful to me. I would have started writing for accumulation of Google Juice™, rather than just documenting thoughts and actions.
Anyway, I just wanted to think out loud about this for a bit. Marketing and branding are important activities. It’s advertising for advertising’s sake that sucks out loud. The need to drive up ratings to sell more (or higher priced) ads is what makes TV and radio suck so badly. It’s what infested the ‘net with punch-the-monkey popups. Intelligent and creative marketing and branding shouldn’t have to be a zero sum game – it shouldn’t detract value from an experience in order to derive value for a company.
Maybe the whole iTunes/iPod video store, with high quality first-run TV shows available for a nominal fee without advertising, will act as a catalyst to help us emphasize and reward creativity rather than continuing on with a business model based on pandering to the lowest common denomenators of society.
There endeth the sermon 🙂
I ranted recently about how having advertising on my blog made me feel dirty. After saying that, it’s been kind of bugging me, especially since someone whom I deeply respect provides marketing and branding creative for companies.
I’ve been thinking about it, and the part that made me feel dirty was because I had changed the rules of my blog. I’ve always considered it to be nothing more than just my own personal outboard brain – a core dump indexed by Google. Changing the nature of the beast to become a “monetizing engine” would have subtly altered what/how/when I posted. Perhaps not right away, and perhaps not even visibly (to anyone but myself – hey, another circular reference – if it’s primarily for me, wtf do I care what anyone else thinks? 🙂 ) but it would have altered it enough to become less useful to me. I would have started writing for accumulation of Google Juice™, rather than just documenting thoughts and actions.
Anyway, I just wanted to think out loud about this for a bit. Marketing and branding are important activities. It’s advertising for advertising’s sake that sucks out loud. The need to drive up ratings to sell more (or higher priced) ads is what makes TV and radio suck so badly. It’s what infested the ‘net with punch-the-monkey popups. Intelligent and creative marketing and branding shouldn’t have to be a zero sum game – it shouldn’t detract value from an experience in order to derive value for a company.
Maybe the whole iTunes/iPod video store, with high quality first-run TV shows available for a nominal fee without advertising, will act as a catalyst to help us emphasize and reward creativity rather than continuing on with a business model based on pandering to the lowest common denomenators of society.
There endeth the sermon 🙂
