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The negativity is really uncalled for. You could simply say "I don't understand, and haven't bothered to Google for 5 seconds what some of these confusing terms

The negativity is really uncalled for. You could simply say "I don't understand, and haven't bothered to Google for 5 seconds what some of these confusing terms mean--can someone please clarify?" This stuff is all geared at advertisers who want better tools for designing ads and landing pages, and publishers who want to create ad supported sites more easily. So they are using industry jargon that people in the space (like myself) will be familiar with. Yes it is "marketing to marketers" (not sure about the lesser remark), but that doesn't make it any less specific. I'm not sure which specific page you are referencing, but this is all technical advertising jargon that means very specific things. "Viewability" is a technical term referencing whether an impression is viewed by a user. As advertisers increasingly demand more transparency around ad inventory quality from publishers, viewability is a newer metric that the industry looks at. Here's a good starting point from the IAB for how they classify it [1]. Determining whether an ad has been in view has some technical challenges which you might be familiar with if you know much about front-end stuff. At a quick glance of your quote, this references improving the way a pages viewability of ads is measured on mobile by removing the need for Flash for sites to signal "hey, this ad impression is viewable (and thus more valuable)!" Flash bad, this good. Here's some further reading[2] on the technical challenges from a company that handles inventory where these metrics are a factor. Look, we get it, you don't like marketing. And yeah, my industry can lay it on thick sometimes, but this is about as poor an example of that as it gets. [1] https://www.iab.com/guidelines/state-of-viewability-transaction-2015/ https://www.iab.com/guidelines/state-of-viewability-transact... [2] http://productblog.appnexus.com/evolution-of-viewability-measurement-brought-to-you-by-the-death-of-flash/ http://productblog.appnexus.com/evolution-of-viewability-mea...

JustSomeNobody 10y ago
Given the current state of the web, are you sure a little negativity isn't called for?
- shostack 10y ago
  I think the general trends we're seeing need to be course corrected, and that publishers by and large have dug their own graves. That said, this is largely about decrapifying the web (getting rid of Flash is a good thing right?) and the parent also crapped all over a profession and industry while proving to be rather uninformed about it. So no, a little negativity isn't called for.
ssharp 10y ago
I think people like the poster above don't really understand what marketing is. It's essentially impossible to create something for other people and not involve marketing to get it out to people, even if you don't realize you're taking part in marketing activities. What happens is people only associate advertising with marketing, which is really only one piece of it. Furthermore, they take one type of advertising, with data-hungry and sometimes intrusive online ads, and extrapolate their negative feelings towards that to ALL of marketing. Thus, anyone involved in marketing is a lesser person than them.
FussyZeus 10y ago
So since you're either a marketer or someone who works closely with them at least, I have a serious question. Why can't you guys be happy with simple, unintrusive text ads on websites? Why do you need to bombard people with autoplay video, audio, etc. and annoy them to death? I have never heard of a single consumer who enjoys this experience yet it's employed by everyone.
- Le_SDT 10y ago
  I'm no marketer but nobody want to read an ad for fun. You have to shove it onto their face. Even if you are angry, now you know about the product and the idea of buying it might get to you later on. I guess it is something along those lines.
  - FussyZeus 10y ago
    See now I disagree with that, when it comes to for example, podcast ads, I don't mind them. They're usually read by the host of the podcast, it's done in a very clear "this is an ad, this company is helping us make this thing," it's not an attempt at trickery, it's not a lie, it's just there. And it's over and done with and I'm %10,000 more likely to follow up on one of those products (not to mention they're usually pretty relevant to the audience of whatever podcast). Advertising itself is not a bad thing, it's a critical part of any capitalist society. I just don't understand how we got to the point where seemingly every ad is as annoying as it could possibly be, that every ad company is just in a race to the bottom of "how can we be as intrusive and unsubtle as possible."
    - Le_SDT 10y ago
      There must be some kind of reward for doing this. Maybe there's a study about this kind of behaviour. But I get what you're saying. I feel the same. But like I said, there must be a reason.
- Daviey 10y ago
  Nobody enjoys getting email spam, but it is still very popular.. why? Because it still works. Marketers aren't dumb.. they wouldn't invest so heavily in this if it wasn't effective.
username223 10y ago
It's pretty clear what "viewability" means, and why people like you want it. It's also unclear to me that you should be allowed to have it. The reason most mail clients don't load remote content by default is to prevent spammers/marketers from getting "viewability" information. It's sort of a bummer that Google is apparently trying to push it into the HTML spec.
- NoGravitas 10y ago
  I normally use Firefox, but is there a way of blocking this on the occasions I use Chrome?
knicholes 10y ago
I also want to add page 13 of http://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/VAST4.0_Updated_April_2016.pdf http://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/VAST4.0_Update... to your list. I had the pleasure of reading all of the VAST specs recently, and right now viewability is a mess. Often people will pay IAS for a flash client that supports viewability for VAST 2.0 because that's what most publishers support. Being able to do this without that extra request for a flash container that then later grabs your actual video xml is going to help a ton.
Gracana 10y ago
> The negativity is really uncalled for. You could simply say "I don't understand, and haven't bothered Well... That didn't last long.

JustSomeNobody 10y ago

Given the current state of the web, are you sure a little negativity isn't called for?

shostack 10y ago
I think the general trends we're seeing need to be course corrected, and that publishers by and large have dug their own graves. That said, this is largely about decrapifying the web (getting rid of Flash is a good thing right?) and the parent also crapped all over a profession and industry while proving to be rather uninformed about it. So no, a little negativity isn't called for.

ssharp 10y ago

I think people like the poster above don't really understand what marketing is. It's essentially impossible to create something for other people and not involve marketing to get it out to people, even if you don't realize you're taking part in marketing activities. What happens is people only associate advertising with marketing, which is really only one piece of it. Furthermore, they take one type of advertising, with data-hungry and sometimes intrusive online ads, and extrapolate their negative feelings towards that to ALL of marketing. Thus, anyone involved in marketing is a lesser person than them.

FussyZeus 10y ago

So since you're either a marketer or someone who works closely with them at least, I have a serious question. Why can't you guys be happy with simple, unintrusive text ads on websites? Why do you need to bombard people with autoplay video, audio, etc. and annoy them to death? I have never heard of a single consumer who enjoys this experience yet it's employed by everyone.

Le_SDT 10y ago
I'm no marketer but nobody want to read an ad for fun. You have to shove it onto their face. Even if you are angry, now you know about the product and the idea of buying it might get to you later on. I guess it is something along those lines.
- FussyZeus 10y ago
  See now I disagree with that, when it comes to for example, podcast ads, I don't mind them. They're usually read by the host of the podcast, it's done in a very clear "this is an ad, this company is helping us make this thing," it's not an attempt at trickery, it's not a lie, it's just there. And it's over and done with and I'm %10,000 more likely to follow up on one of those products (not to mention they're usually pretty relevant to the audience of whatever podcast). Advertising itself is not a bad thing, it's a critical part of any capitalist society. I just don't understand how we got to the point where seemingly every ad is as annoying as it could possibly be, that every ad company is just in a race to the bottom of "how can we be as intrusive and unsubtle as possible."
  - Le_SDT 10y ago
    There must be some kind of reward for doing this. Maybe there's a study about this kind of behaviour. But I get what you're saying. I feel the same. But like I said, there must be a reason.
Daviey 10y ago
Nobody enjoys getting email spam, but it is still very popular.. why? Because it still works. Marketers aren't dumb.. they wouldn't invest so heavily in this if it wasn't effective.

username223 10y ago

It's pretty clear what "viewability" means, and why people like you want it. It's also unclear to me that you should be allowed to have it. The reason most mail clients don't load remote content by default is to prevent spammers/marketers from getting "viewability" information. It's sort of a bummer that Google is apparently trying to push it into the HTML spec.

NoGravitas 10y ago
I normally use Firefox, but is there a way of blocking this on the occasions I use Chrome?

knicholes 10y ago

I also want to add page 13 of http://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/VAST4.0_Updated_April_2016.pdf http://www.iab.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/VAST4.0_Update... to your list. I had the pleasure of reading all of the VAST specs recently, and right now viewability is a mess. Often people will pay IAS for a flash client that supports viewability for VAST 2.0 because that's what most publishers support. Being able to do this without that extra request for a flash container that then later grabs your actual video xml is going to help a ton.

Gracana 10y ago

> The negativity is really uncalled for. You could simply say "I don't understand, and haven't bothered Well... That didn't last long.