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I love picturing a room full of PhDs developing a crazy complicated algorithmic wonderland. Their celebrations at the complexity and genius of their work probab

I love picturing a room full of PhDs developing a crazy complicated algorithmic wonderland. Their celebrations at the complexity and genius of their work probably cut short, when users are targeted with ads telling them to buy something that they just bought. When human male user "Joe" purchases a women's bath robe 1 week before Mother's day, does he really need ads for women's bath robes for the next month? Of course I know this is nothing to do with the fault of the room full of PhDs.

ry_ry 9y ago
This has always bothered me too - guess they focused more on tracking users and building a strong graph rather than actually making good recommendations. Perhaps the coming A.I.pocalypse™ will give us better predictive suggestion algorithms before turning on us... Or the sentient networks just start recommending really dangerous products to wipe ourselves out with! ;( Chatting with friends, I've discovered FB are also really, really good at showing me adverts for what other people are buying my chums for Xmas, which is of limited use frankly.
- friendzis 9y ago
  I don't know how much does it have to do with advertisers choosing profiling criteria and profiling itself, but often it feels like ad targeting is actively trying to teach me to ignore the ads. Not really technical friend gets a smarthpone. We check specs on gsmarena, then check few other phones, read a bit more. Lots of hits over short time. Ad targeting: you must be searching for a smartphone, here get some ads for smartphones! I check various pages over few weeks, compare phones, check availability. Ad targeting: very rare hits, must be accidental. For the past few weeks I have been selecting a pair of products. Watching youtube, reading various forums, browsing manufacturer pages, browsing stores, comparing prices, usual stuff. A single ad for at least one of those two product categories? Nope, instead I see ads to subscribe to my current carrier.
smcl 9y ago
Courtesy of @kibblesmith on Twitter: Amazon is a $250 billion dollar company that reacts to you buying a vacuum by going THIS GUY LOVES BUYING VACUUMS HERE ARE SOME MORE VACUUMS https://twitter.com/kibblesmith/status/724817086309142529?lang=en https://twitter.com/kibblesmith/status/724817086309142529?la...
- DonHopkins 9y ago
  Nature abhors an empty vacuum.
nol13 9y ago
but is he 0.5% more likely to need a bath robe than [random internet user]?

ry_ry 9y ago

This has always bothered me too - guess they focused more on tracking users and building a strong graph rather than actually making good recommendations. Perhaps the coming A.I.pocalypse™ will give us better predictive suggestion algorithms before turning on us... Or the sentient networks just start recommending really dangerous products to wipe ourselves out with! ;( Chatting with friends, I've discovered FB are also really, really good at showing me adverts for what other people are buying my chums for Xmas, which is of limited use frankly.

friendzis 9y ago
I don't know how much does it have to do with advertisers choosing profiling criteria and profiling itself, but often it feels like ad targeting is actively trying to teach me to ignore the ads. Not really technical friend gets a smarthpone. We check specs on gsmarena, then check few other phones, read a bit more. Lots of hits over short time. Ad targeting: you must be searching for a smartphone, here get some ads for smartphones! I check various pages over few weeks, compare phones, check availability. Ad targeting: very rare hits, must be accidental. For the past few weeks I have been selecting a pair of products. Watching youtube, reading various forums, browsing manufacturer pages, browsing stores, comparing prices, usual stuff. A single ad for at least one of those two product categories? Nope, instead I see ads to subscribe to my current carrier.

smcl 9y ago

Courtesy of @kibblesmith on Twitter: Amazon is a $250 billion dollar company that reacts to you buying a vacuum by going THIS GUY LOVES BUYING VACUUMS HERE ARE SOME MORE VACUUMS https://twitter.com/kibblesmith/status/724817086309142529?lang=en https://twitter.com/kibblesmith/status/724817086309142529?la...

DonHopkins 9y ago
Nature abhors an empty vacuum.

nol13 9y ago

but is he 0.5% more likely to need a bath robe than [random internet user]?