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Advertising is only annoying when it isn't targeted enough. Perfectly targeted advertising will be indistinguishable from any other piece of information in the

Advertising is only annoying when it isn't targeted enough. Perfectly targeted advertising will be indistinguishable from any other piece of information in the near future with advanced recommendation engines. Once everyone is online (in some sense), and that data is made open and accessible (perhaps Semantic Web)... then advertising will still exist. But you will pay a small amount for your message to go out to the exact people that you want it to go out to, in this case, bakeries. And the message won't blanket-out to every bakery, only those that don't already have a fancy bakery business app... plus it will focus primarily on bakeries which hint at a need for such an app (based on their online postings).

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
Stormbringer 16y ago
Wrong. Ads are only not annoying when they are fun or entertaining. Also, the diminishing marginal returns are pretty steep. Let's say you make an ad with a cat burping. It's pretty funny. Everybody laughs the first time they see it. No one will be laughing the 100th time they see it. By the 1000th time they se it, they will change the channel rather than see it again. Now, people in other countries will hear about it, so they will seek it out because it's allegedly funny, and they haven't seen it yet. // begin bitter But it will be hard to find, because for some strange reason people in the US don't think that people in other countries buy products, they believe we all live in mud huts and make all our goods out of mud. Oh, and let me say, it is a royal pain in the butt making an iMac out of clay and twigs, though wireless is really easy when you don't have any wires to start with. You should see the shiny rock I pretend is my Android phone... such a beautiful touch interface, so smooth and durable! // end bitter Anyway, when you do finally track down the ad, it will be on Hulu, and Hulu will block you from seeing it, because seeing the ad and then not buying the product is theft, or piracy, or something like that. #&%#$% HULU. // really end bitter this time
srean 16y ago
Ads can be made less annoying by targeting them well. But the major problem is that annoying advertisement and spam works. Even though a bulk of them fall on deaf ears, the benefit, that a small percentage of them initiates a sale, more than compensates for the costs. That, followed by the other property that ads can persuade people to buy things that they dont really need, makes it unlikely that annoying ads are not going to go away soon. Companies will continue to have an incentive to show ads to people who don't really need that stuff or have interest in that stuff. Effectively, the target becomes not that population who will not be annoyed, but the population that can be persuaded to buy with a profitably high probability. The operating point will largely be dictated by the cost of delivery and probability of conversion. Competition sort of guarantees that the former is driven lower and lower. So far, the loophole has been that the advertisers are not charged an annoyance fee that is over and above the delivery cost. But as treelovinhippie suggests once they start getting charged, things will change.
reinhardt 16y ago
Advertising is only annoying when it isn't targeted enough. Perfectly targeted advertising will be indistinguishable from any other piece of information in the near future with advanced recommendation engines. I'd be curious to know how will this perfectly targeted advertising find its perfect targets for, say, selling V1aGra.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

Stormbringer 16y ago

Wrong. Ads are only not annoying when they are fun or entertaining. Also, the diminishing marginal returns are pretty steep. Let's say you make an ad with a cat burping. It's pretty funny. Everybody laughs the first time they see it. No one will be laughing the 100th time they see it. By the 1000th time they se it, they will change the channel rather than see it again. Now, people in other countries will hear about it, so they will seek it out because it's allegedly funny, and they haven't seen it yet. // begin bitter But it will be hard to find, because for some strange reason people in the US don't think that people in other countries buy products, they believe we all live in mud huts and make all our goods out of mud. Oh, and let me say, it is a royal pain in the butt making an iMac out of clay and twigs, though wireless is really easy when you don't have any wires to start with. You should see the shiny rock I pretend is my Android phone... such a beautiful touch interface, so smooth and durable! // end bitter Anyway, when you do finally track down the ad, it will be on Hulu, and Hulu will block you from seeing it, because seeing the ad and then not buying the product is theft, or piracy, or something like that. #&%#$% HULU. // really end bitter this time

srean 16y ago

Ads can be made less annoying by targeting them well. But the major problem is that annoying advertisement and spam works. Even though a bulk of them fall on deaf ears, the benefit, that a small percentage of them initiates a sale, more than compensates for the costs. That, followed by the other property that ads can persuade people to buy things that they dont really need, makes it unlikely that annoying ads are not going to go away soon. Companies will continue to have an incentive to show ads to people who don't really need that stuff or have interest in that stuff. Effectively, the target becomes not that population who will not be annoyed, but the population that can be persuaded to buy with a profitably high probability. The operating point will largely be dictated by the cost of delivery and probability of conversion. Competition sort of guarantees that the former is driven lower and lower. So far, the loophole has been that the advertisers are not charged an annoyance fee that is over and above the delivery cost. But as treelovinhippie suggests once they start getting charged, things will change.

reinhardt 16y ago

Advertising is only annoying when it isn't targeted enough. Perfectly targeted advertising will be indistinguishable from any other piece of information in the near future with advanced recommendation engines. I'd be curious to know how will this perfectly targeted advertising find its perfect targets for, say, selling V1aGra.