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You pretty much lost all credibility when you quoted this: >Harvard – one of the most prestigious universities – awarded an MBA to George W Bush. A man many of

by blhack 14y ago

You pretty much lost all credibility when you quoted this: >Harvard – one of the most prestigious universities – awarded an MBA to George W Bush. A man many of us wouldn’t trust to sit the right way round on a toilet. As a reason not to trust Harvard. The world gets it. Those republicans surrreee are dummies. /puke The rest of your article is a bit naive. Computational linguistics is not considered a solved problem yet. Yes, twitter might have 26,000 or some odd tweets from you, but that doesn't mean that they "know" anything about you. It's dumb text. In fact, now that you've tweeted at the sun newspaper, how is twitter to know that you aren't interested in that newspaper? You're interacting with it, of course you would want to see ads from it, right? This [meaning targeted advertising] works for facebook (although arguably well since the meme is that facebook ads don't perform) because of the "like" system. I target ads at people who have "liked" things, not at people who have talked about them.

edent 14y ago
Hullo, Author here. I don't think Republicans are dumb - but I'm not convinced I'd want to invest in a company run by Bush http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/05/13/president.2000/jackson.bush/ http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/05/13/presid... On to your main point. Sentiment analysis is still imprecise - but seeing as the majority of my (news) links go to The Guardian or Independent, and none go to tabloids - it's not a stretch to say I'm unlikey to visit a News International title. I've never (knowingly) Tweeted or otherwise interacted with The Sun. That's one example out of many. At one point, I was sent targetted tweets about attending a conference in the USA - I live in the UK. If they were blindly targeted, it wouldn't feel so offensive.
- blhack 14y ago
  What on earth does Bush running a company have to do with your article about twitter's advertising practices? This is the laziest form of writing I can think of and it makes you look juvenile. I have trouble taking anything you say seriously after that sort of nonsense, and I'd suspect that a big chunk of your readers are the same. -- Okay, you didn't tweet the sun, but you linked to a picture of somebody else who did. I'm sorry I don't know who you are well enough to recognize that handle as not yours. This is a serious question: how would twitter know what you're interested in? It's not a computational linguistics engine, it's a datastore. Explain to me how you would draw these connections if you had access to all of twitters data.
  - edent 14y ago
    May I politely suggest you read the article. I am suggesting that Twitter is being run by MBAs and that (some) MBAs are as useless as French Windows on a submarine. I don't know where you get the impression that I linked to someone who did tweet The Sun. I linked to a screenshot I had taken. Finally, Twitter is selling itself to advertisers as knowing about its users. If it doesn't, it better get to some of the fancier universities around the world and snap up the computational linguistic majors.
    - blhack 14y ago
      Yes, clearly because I disagree with your premise I haven't read your article. Somehow I magically knew what it was about enough to engage you in a conversation...about an article I didn't read. >I am suggesting that Twitter is being run by MBAs and that (some) MBAs are [...] useless Then say that. The pointless jab is just that: pointless. >it better get to some of the fancier universities around the world and snap up the computational linguistic majors. Is this a joke?
    - ryanhuff 14y ago
      Just as "(some) MBAs are as useless as French Windows on a submarine", so are (some) programmers, and (some) doctors, and (some) <insert profession here>. Did you think that bashing on people with an MBA degree was going to lend credibility to your opinion?
- stfu 14y ago
  Can I clarify this once again: You feel offensive, because Twitters' data analysis isn't sophisticated enough to understand your personal interests well enough? I want to give you my heart felt apologies. I am one of these people responsible, who try their very best to sabotage these profiling systems and putting effort into creating distortion and unrelated data. I hope you can wait a little longer for that day, your when all the ads shown to you are echo-chambering your believe set and reaffirming any (political) biases you have.
  - edent 14y ago
    It's an interesting double-edged sword. On the one hand, I don't want to see adverts for dog food (not owning a dog), on the other hand, I don't (necessarily) want a company to know that I have a cat. If a company is going to do advertising - they should do it well. I'm not sure if you're British, but rejecting The Sun doesn't mean I reject their political viewpoint - it means I reject their sexist, homophobic, lying, and (allegedly) criminal actions.
    - answerly 14y ago
      >If a company is going to do advertising - they should do it well. You seem convinced that this ad being targeted to you was some massive failure of Twitter's ad product. I am not sure that is the case. Premium Twitter advertisers (of which the Sun is surely one) have a variety of targeting options that could explain why you saw this ad. The Sun may have simply targeted all accounts in the UK. Or, they may have targeted accounts that follow other UK publication accounts (it looks like you follow a few Guardian accounts for example). It is clear that you didn't want to be targeted by The Sun, but that doesn't mean that The Sun didn't want to target you.
    - rhizome 14y ago
      Actually it's not interesting; your perspective is merely another instance of the perfect being the enemy of the good. Reasonable minds will differ on the value of a particular perfection/good decision, but it's no sword of innovation.
  - shinratdr 14y ago
- tptacek 14y ago
  If anything, we're just glancing over the dumbness of the point you were making, because when you get past the Bush thing, what's left is a jab at MBA's and a weird equivalence being drawn between MBA's and advertising business models. What do MBA's even have to do with this situation? Dick Costolo isn't an MBA; he's a UMich CS grad. He's been running tech startups since I was in high school.
- dagw 14y ago
  At one point, I was sent targetted tweets about attending a conference in the USA - I live in the UK. So? I live in Sweden, yet I've attended conferences all over Europe and in Canada. A couple of years ago my girlfriend was in South Africa for a conference. We have these things called airplanes which makes that sort of this quite convenient. If there's an interesting conference in the US then why wouldn't I want to hear about it?
- mdonahoe 14y ago
  Did you just quote yourself?
bduerst 14y ago
I'm also curious to see what the author thinks about how Twitter should go about monetizing their model. Twitter is getting pressure to start making returns, and it is obvious that the author doesn't like advertising - but what does he think would be a solution? I've been noticing a trend in backlash towards advertising over "social" platforms (e.g. App.net), but other than the Public Broadcasting Station model, how else can they cover costs?
- stephengillie 14y ago
  I'm also curious to see what the author thinks about how Twitter should go about monetizing their model. Looking at the author's revision to the Twitter Quadrant at the bottom of the article, it may be this: 1. Fun!!! 2. ??? 3. Profit! --- I've been noticing a trend in backlash towards advertising over "social" platforms (e.g. App.net), but other than the Public Broadcasting Station model, how else can they cover costs? The bit.ly model is what the Twitter Quadrant reminds me of - providing service A for free, then providing service B (analytics of service A) for a price.
- edent 14y ago
  Actually, I don't mind advertising. I worked for a mobile ad start-up for a year. The problem is, the advertising isn't separate from the editorial. Having a promoted Tweet is the equivalent of a friend turning to you at dinner and say "Man! I could sure go for a Duff Beer right now. With its clean filtered taste and low alcohol rate - it's the Beer that keeps on giving. Duff!" I've sketched out some ideas in the comments here and on the blog. I'm but a lowly geek - I don't profess to have the cast iron formula to help Twitter get an ROI. I just know this way leave me (and many others) deeply dissatisfied.
- diego 14y ago
  Very simple: what is the cost per year per user? app.net started with a number of users that keeps the lights on. As they grow, there is no reason the cost per user needs to go up. The price of the service guarantees profitability as long as they maintain a minimum number of users. The problem with Twitter is that they grew to hundreds of millions of free users before figuring out a business model. At that scale, the only model that's proven to work is ads.

by blhack 14y ago

edent 14y ago

Hullo, Author here. I don't think Republicans are dumb - but I'm not convinced I'd want to invest in a company run by Bush http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/05/13/president.2000/jackson.bush/ http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/05/13/presid... On to your main point. Sentiment analysis is still imprecise - but seeing as the majority of my (news) links go to The Guardian or Independent, and none go to tabloids - it's not a stretch to say I'm unlikey to visit a News International title. I've never (knowingly) Tweeted or otherwise interacted with The Sun. That's one example out of many. At one point, I was sent targetted tweets about attending a conference in the USA - I live in the UK. If they were blindly targeted, it wouldn't feel so offensive.

blhack 14y ago
What on earth does Bush running a company have to do with your article about twitter's advertising practices? This is the laziest form of writing I can think of and it makes you look juvenile. I have trouble taking anything you say seriously after that sort of nonsense, and I'd suspect that a big chunk of your readers are the same. -- Okay, you didn't tweet the sun, but you linked to a picture of somebody else who did. I'm sorry I don't know who you are well enough to recognize that handle as not yours. This is a serious question: how would twitter know what you're interested in? It's not a computational linguistics engine, it's a datastore. Explain to me how you would draw these connections if you had access to all of twitters data.
- edent 14y ago
  May I politely suggest you read the article. I am suggesting that Twitter is being run by MBAs and that (some) MBAs are as useless as French Windows on a submarine. I don't know where you get the impression that I linked to someone who did tweet The Sun. I linked to a screenshot I had taken. Finally, Twitter is selling itself to advertisers as knowing about its users. If it doesn't, it better get to some of the fancier universities around the world and snap up the computational linguistic majors.
  - blhack 14y ago
    Yes, clearly because I disagree with your premise I haven't read your article. Somehow I magically knew what it was about enough to engage you in a conversation...about an article I didn't read. >I am suggesting that Twitter is being run by MBAs and that (some) MBAs are [...] useless Then say that. The pointless jab is just that: pointless. >it better get to some of the fancier universities around the world and snap up the computational linguistic majors. Is this a joke?
  - ryanhuff 14y ago
    Just as "(some) MBAs are as useless as French Windows on a submarine", so are (some) programmers, and (some) doctors, and (some) <insert profession here>. Did you think that bashing on people with an MBA degree was going to lend credibility to your opinion?
stfu 14y ago
Can I clarify this once again: You feel offensive, because Twitters' data analysis isn't sophisticated enough to understand your personal interests well enough? I want to give you my heart felt apologies. I am one of these people responsible, who try their very best to sabotage these profiling systems and putting effort into creating distortion and unrelated data. I hope you can wait a little longer for that day, your when all the ads shown to you are echo-chambering your believe set and reaffirming any (political) biases you have.
- edent 14y ago
  It's an interesting double-edged sword. On the one hand, I don't want to see adverts for dog food (not owning a dog), on the other hand, I don't (necessarily) want a company to know that I have a cat. If a company is going to do advertising - they should do it well. I'm not sure if you're British, but rejecting The Sun doesn't mean I reject their political viewpoint - it means I reject their sexist, homophobic, lying, and (allegedly) criminal actions.
  - answerly 14y ago
    >If a company is going to do advertising - they should do it well. You seem convinced that this ad being targeted to you was some massive failure of Twitter's ad product. I am not sure that is the case. Premium Twitter advertisers (of which the Sun is surely one) have a variety of targeting options that could explain why you saw this ad. The Sun may have simply targeted all accounts in the UK. Or, they may have targeted accounts that follow other UK publication accounts (it looks like you follow a few Guardian accounts for example). It is clear that you didn't want to be targeted by The Sun, but that doesn't mean that The Sun didn't want to target you.
  - rhizome 14y ago
    Actually it's not interesting; your perspective is merely another instance of the perfect being the enemy of the good. Reasonable minds will differ on the value of a particular perfection/good decision, but it's no sword of innovation.
- shinratdr 14y ago
tptacek 14y ago
If anything, we're just glancing over the dumbness of the point you were making, because when you get past the Bush thing, what's left is a jab at MBA's and a weird equivalence being drawn between MBA's and advertising business models. What do MBA's even have to do with this situation? Dick Costolo isn't an MBA; he's a UMich CS grad. He's been running tech startups since I was in high school.
dagw 14y ago
At one point, I was sent targetted tweets about attending a conference in the USA - I live in the UK. So? I live in Sweden, yet I've attended conferences all over Europe and in Canada. A couple of years ago my girlfriend was in South Africa for a conference. We have these things called airplanes which makes that sort of this quite convenient. If there's an interesting conference in the US then why wouldn't I want to hear about it?
mdonahoe 14y ago
Did you just quote yourself?

bduerst 14y ago

I'm also curious to see what the author thinks about how Twitter should go about monetizing their model. Twitter is getting pressure to start making returns, and it is obvious that the author doesn't like advertising - but what does he think would be a solution? I've been noticing a trend in backlash towards advertising over "social" platforms (e.g. App.net), but other than the Public Broadcasting Station model, how else can they cover costs?

stephengillie 14y ago
I'm also curious to see what the author thinks about how Twitter should go about monetizing their model. Looking at the author's revision to the Twitter Quadrant at the bottom of the article, it may be this: 1. Fun!!! 2. ??? 3. Profit! --- I've been noticing a trend in backlash towards advertising over "social" platforms (e.g. App.net), but other than the Public Broadcasting Station model, how else can they cover costs? The bit.ly model is what the Twitter Quadrant reminds me of - providing service A for free, then providing service B (analytics of service A) for a price.
edent 14y ago
Actually, I don't mind advertising. I worked for a mobile ad start-up for a year. The problem is, the advertising isn't separate from the editorial. Having a promoted Tweet is the equivalent of a friend turning to you at dinner and say "Man! I could sure go for a Duff Beer right now. With its clean filtered taste and low alcohol rate - it's the Beer that keeps on giving. Duff!" I've sketched out some ideas in the comments here and on the blog. I'm but a lowly geek - I don't profess to have the cast iron formula to help Twitter get an ROI. I just know this way leave me (and many others) deeply dissatisfied.
diego 14y ago
Very simple: what is the cost per year per user? app.net started with a number of users that keeps the lights on. As they grow, there is no reason the cost per user needs to go up. The price of the service guarantees profitability as long as they maintain a minimum number of users. The problem with Twitter is that they grew to hundreds of millions of free users before figuring out a business model. At that scale, the only model that's proven to work is ads.