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>quality ads I've seen this term for years but I still don't understand what it means. I don't want to see ads. There are no 'quality' ads. All ads are designe

>quality ads I've seen this term for years but I still don't understand what it means. I don't want to see ads. There are no 'quality' ads. All ads are designed to sell me things period. I don't need anyone telling me about what I might want. I understand ads exist to make money and if they didn't we wouldn't have the internet etc. But there's no 'quality' to them, they're a necessary evil i've come to accept and adapt to over my life. I dislike them, I have no need for them, there'll never be a time I say 'well gee, sure am glad I seen that ad, it showed me just what I didn't know I needed.' Ads exist to sell crap to people, they're not good or bad, they just are. Some are invasive, some are reasonable, but they're all shit.

milesvp 7y ago
You may have never seen a good ad then. There was a period of time I would actively look at ads on penny-arcade, because the owners of the site only ever allowed ads (mostly for games) that they themselves could at least tangentially endorse. This meant I basically got hand curated ads for products I was genuinely interested in, by people who’s taste I understood if not agreed with. That said this ended up being the exception to proof the rule about ads being mostly noise, and I agree the world would be better with less of them. And almost certainly the current state of algorithmic ad serving is a disaster.
- ksaj 7y ago
  Just like the guitar mags I grew up with. I looked at all the ads, and even bought stuff based on what I saw in competing ads along with gear reviews. For that matter, the same goes for motorcycle magazines, and just about every other kind of magazine that caters to a niche market. Those kinds of ads can be great, even.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  Okay, but did those ads contribute anything beyond reading Penny Arcade's reviews of games? For you as a user, how does the ad improve your experience?
clairity 7y ago
it's really not hard to define what a "good" ad might be--a product (or service) you don't know about but that solves an immediate problem without an immediately obvious solution. it'd anticipate your need, without invading your privacy. fwiw, i generally don't want to be subjected to ads either, particularly for the privacy-invading aspect, but also the time- and attention-wasting aspect too. most ads are absolutely horribly conceived and targeted, especially spray-and-pray email spam.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  You gave examples of what I assume you consider "bad" ads. What would be examples of "good" ads in your opinion? I mean, examples matching the definition you gave: Anticipating needs of person X, (and serve person X an ad), without any foreknowledge of person X.
  - clairity 7y ago
    another poster gave a good example--offering related merchandise on a interest-based website/forum. a made-up example might be a customer at best buy spending time in both the tv and pc departments and then having an ad pop up on a nearby screen for an intel NUC and/or apple tv (making the assumption you want a tv-connected computer). the ad didn't need to know any personal characteristics about you other than limited, directly observable behavior in the store. i'm sure people who focus on this every day (i.e., not me) can provide better examples.
    - bilbo0s 7y ago
      To be fair, the example you gave require facial recognition wouldn't it? You'd have to recognize the face and track it prior to displaying the ad.
      - clairity 7y ago
        well, face recognition is more specific than you'd need in this case. if you went that route, you could get away with simpler person recognition (height, width, clothing color, accessories, etc.). or you could just track phones and other devices via wifi/bluetooth (and presumably uwb in the near future). but you could also just have salespeople on the floor doing the recognition & ad placement part of it, for a lower-tech solution. i'd actually bet trained salespeople would have better hit rates over algorithmic solutions, where access to large amounts of dislocated data is the main advantage (at the cost of our privacy).
listenallyall 7y ago
Your hard-line position that all ads are bad, always, is laughable. If you search for "cheapest gasoline" it's not unreasonable that an ad for an electric car might be interesting. Or if you search for "Orlando hotels", an ad for generally less expensive hotels in Kissimmee (the next town over) is more valuable than a perfectly literal result. And if you search for "k8s cluster deployment tools" then you probably want as many ads as possible, so your evaluation doesn't fail to include a comprehensive set of options. Perhaps you're saying I already know about electric cars and Kissimmee and kubernetes, to which I'd respond, yes, probably via ads. Maybe a commercial or sign or web ad, but also maybe through a TV news spot (pr campaign) or magazine review (expenses paid) or web article (with affiliate link).
- SquishyPanda23 7y ago
  > Your hard-line position that all ads are bad, always, is laughable. This doesn't seem especially civil. > If you search for "cheapest gasoline" it's not unreasonable that an ad for an electric car might be interesting. Interesting to whom? The parent comment doesn't want to see ads. So no it's not likely to be interesting in this context. > Or if you search for "Orlando hotels", an ad for generally less expensive hotels in Kissimmee (the next town over) is more valuable than a perfectly literal result. For me, personally, no I would find that to be an annoyance. > And if you search for "k8s cluster deployment tools" then you probably want as many ads as possible, so your evaluation doesn't fail to include a comprehensive set of options. Again no, I would want 0 ads in that case. Have you read about k8s cluster deployment tools? It's hard to find any useful information because even the results that aren't literally ads are fluff blog posts with little content. I don't want the fluff posts, but I can comb through them. I certainly don't want the ads. > Perhaps you're saying I already know about electric cars and Kissimmee and kubernetes, to which I'd respond, yes, probably via ads. There are ways to learn about things without someone paying for the right to say them at you when you don't want them to.
  - listenallyall 7y ago
    OK Mr Literal, you're saying when you search for "Las Vegas hotels" you want the results to exclude the entirety of the Strip, "Dallas football stadium" to exclude where the Cowboys play, and "American airlines reservations" to provide the web site or phone number for Delta (which is, technically, an American airline.)
kerkeslager 7y ago
"Quality" in this Peretti's context would be "effective in selling a product": i.e. it's what advertisers consider to be quality. I agree with your point though: from a user's perspective there's no such thing as a quality ad: ads are inherently bad.

milesvp 7y ago

You may have never seen a good ad then. There was a period of time I would actively look at ads on penny-arcade, because the owners of the site only ever allowed ads (mostly for games) that they themselves could at least tangentially endorse. This meant I basically got hand curated ads for products I was genuinely interested in, by people who’s taste I understood if not agreed with. That said this ended up being the exception to proof the rule about ads being mostly noise, and I agree the world would be better with less of them. And almost certainly the current state of algorithmic ad serving is a disaster.

ksaj 7y ago
Just like the guitar mags I grew up with. I looked at all the ads, and even bought stuff based on what I saw in competing ads along with gear reviews. For that matter, the same goes for motorcycle magazines, and just about every other kind of magazine that caters to a niche market. Those kinds of ads can be great, even.
kerkeslager 7y ago
Okay, but did those ads contribute anything beyond reading Penny Arcade's reviews of games? For you as a user, how does the ad improve your experience?

clairity 7y ago

it's really not hard to define what a "good" ad might be--a product (or service) you don't know about but that solves an immediate problem without an immediately obvious solution. it'd anticipate your need, without invading your privacy. fwiw, i generally don't want to be subjected to ads either, particularly for the privacy-invading aspect, but also the time- and attention-wasting aspect too. most ads are absolutely horribly conceived and targeted, especially spray-and-pray email spam.

bilbo0s 7y ago
You gave examples of what I assume you consider "bad" ads. What would be examples of "good" ads in your opinion? I mean, examples matching the definition you gave: Anticipating needs of person X, (and serve person X an ad), without any foreknowledge of person X.
- clairity 7y ago
  another poster gave a good example--offering related merchandise on a interest-based website/forum. a made-up example might be a customer at best buy spending time in both the tv and pc departments and then having an ad pop up on a nearby screen for an intel NUC and/or apple tv (making the assumption you want a tv-connected computer). the ad didn't need to know any personal characteristics about you other than limited, directly observable behavior in the store. i'm sure people who focus on this every day (i.e., not me) can provide better examples.
  - bilbo0s 7y ago
    To be fair, the example you gave require facial recognition wouldn't it? You'd have to recognize the face and track it prior to displaying the ad.
    - clairity 7y ago
      well, face recognition is more specific than you'd need in this case. if you went that route, you could get away with simpler person recognition (height, width, clothing color, accessories, etc.). or you could just track phones and other devices via wifi/bluetooth (and presumably uwb in the near future). but you could also just have salespeople on the floor doing the recognition & ad placement part of it, for a lower-tech solution. i'd actually bet trained salespeople would have better hit rates over algorithmic solutions, where access to large amounts of dislocated data is the main advantage (at the cost of our privacy).

listenallyall 7y ago

Your hard-line position that all ads are bad, always, is laughable. If you search for "cheapest gasoline" it's not unreasonable that an ad for an electric car might be interesting. Or if you search for "Orlando hotels", an ad for generally less expensive hotels in Kissimmee (the next town over) is more valuable than a perfectly literal result. And if you search for "k8s cluster deployment tools" then you probably want as many ads as possible, so your evaluation doesn't fail to include a comprehensive set of options. Perhaps you're saying I already know about electric cars and Kissimmee and kubernetes, to which I'd respond, yes, probably via ads. Maybe a commercial or sign or web ad, but also maybe through a TV news spot (pr campaign) or magazine review (expenses paid) or web article (with affiliate link).

SquishyPanda23 7y ago
> Your hard-line position that all ads are bad, always, is laughable. This doesn't seem especially civil. > If you search for "cheapest gasoline" it's not unreasonable that an ad for an electric car might be interesting. Interesting to whom? The parent comment doesn't want to see ads. So no it's not likely to be interesting in this context. > Or if you search for "Orlando hotels", an ad for generally less expensive hotels in Kissimmee (the next town over) is more valuable than a perfectly literal result. For me, personally, no I would find that to be an annoyance. > And if you search for "k8s cluster deployment tools" then you probably want as many ads as possible, so your evaluation doesn't fail to include a comprehensive set of options. Again no, I would want 0 ads in that case. Have you read about k8s cluster deployment tools? It's hard to find any useful information because even the results that aren't literally ads are fluff blog posts with little content. I don't want the fluff posts, but I can comb through them. I certainly don't want the ads. > Perhaps you're saying I already know about electric cars and Kissimmee and kubernetes, to which I'd respond, yes, probably via ads. There are ways to learn about things without someone paying for the right to say them at you when you don't want them to.
- listenallyall 7y ago
  OK Mr Literal, you're saying when you search for "Las Vegas hotels" you want the results to exclude the entirety of the Strip, "Dallas football stadium" to exclude where the Cowboys play, and "American airlines reservations" to provide the web site or phone number for Delta (which is, technically, an American airline.)

kerkeslager 7y ago

"Quality" in this Peretti's context would be "effective in selling a product": i.e. it's what advertisers consider to be quality. I agree with your point though: from a user's perspective there's no such thing as a quality ad: ads are inherently bad.