3 ms·

Yeah. A few other things come to mind: Chrome OS, Android, most search engines, nearly all news channels and coverage, the vast majority of television shows, ma

Yeah. A few other things come to mind: Chrome OS, Android, most search engines, nearly all news channels and coverage, the vast majority of television shows, magazines, most so-called "'blogs," for that matter, most online content, most newspapers, etc. One could argue that that's just how many of them are staying alive, injecting a bit more life into their business model, which is a reasonable analysis, but I can't help but think it's still sucking the soul out of it. How likely would they be to, say, run a story that will almost certainly cause their biggest advertiser to pull their funding? Or, put another way, if they pulled the ads out and charged a subscription, would people value it enough to pay, or are they more just a part of the stream of noise, largely indistinguishable from the rest of it? It's sort of unreal how much we all just accept it, and may not even notice it. Call me crazy, but when I see some historical photos, it make me sad that most clothing worn now is either advertising or advocating something, and good luck finding a town largely free from the visual clutter of commercialization, and so on. And the only cities I've seen that aren't yet like that are in places like North Korea, or places recently like NK.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
Cowen 14y ago
Chrome OS doesn't ship with ads. Chrome OS only has ads because the internet has ads.
- CrankyPants 14y ago
  Yeah, that's fair, but shipping with ads isn't the point. The point is to replace desktop apps that aren't capable of serving their ads or contributing to data that will improve their ability to monetize said ads. That, and to prevent someone else from doing the same. I agree that it's not a the most overt of plays, but for that matter, it's not like Android injects ads into the home screen. Google's smart enough to know they'll kill the goose that way. It makes the default search engine theirs, the browser theirs, location data theirs, any usage data–however aggregated and non-personally identifiable–theirs, encourages you to store your files with their cloud service (vs. doing it yourself or using someone else's who can't leverage it for ad revenue, e.g., SpiderOak's), and so on, all things that will drive up competitive CPCs and CPMs. It's about the land-grab that's going on right now, with the major players afraid of seeing the potential future balance of power shifting heavily to someone else, and with the downsides so high, they all want to get in while they can. Think of it as online advertising's own little cold war (but without the awesome fighter jets, spaceships, and submarines!). Nearly all of Google's revenues still come from ad dollars, and everything they're doing is to make sure they make progress on two fronts: expanding reach, and mitigating the fact that the growth of mobile is killing the revenue they could previously made from desktop activity. I had dinner with a Google exec last week, and he said to me, "the meme the made the rounds is right: we hate Facebook, but really only for what it's made us become. I miss the days when we all focused on search."
  - Cowen 14y ago
    Oh, I completely agree. I was just standing up for Chrome OS. :) I love the products Google provides (disclosure: I've been a heavy user of Google products since GMail was invite-only) but I have no delusions that they're providing all of these products in part to drive people back through their advertising revenue stream.
jobu 14y ago
Between AdBlock in Firefox and Chrome I don't usually see any ads on the web, so the ads can be a big shock when I try to use Internet Explorer. I suppose if the the ads become too obtrusive in the OS itself I'll have to start modifying my router to block the them: http://www.howtogeek.com/51477/how-to-remove-advertisements-with-pixelserv-on-dd-wrt/ http://www.howtogeek.com/51477/how-to-remove-advertisements-...
- CrankyPants 14y ago
  Yeah. I love AdBlock, and I've donated. But it still can't filter out pay-to-play content (which, working in the industry I can tell you is far more prevalent than even the most cynical of people think), or anything of that ilk. And the same thing's true of filtering: I also block all ad, social, and various other tracking networks from my entire network, but that's not going to change the fundamental dynamics at play, unless a really large number of people vote with their eyeballs, wallets, cookies, browser data, referrer data, and so on. And if enough people did, the stakeholders would just move on to the next gateway (as if they haven't already).
- bloaf 14y ago
  HostsMan says that it works on windows 8, just use that: http://www.abelhadigital.com/hostsman http://www.abelhadigital.com/hostsman
rogerbinns 14y ago
It should be noted that on the mobile Android and iOS devices you do not see ads on the homescreen, nor in system apps (eg settings). You don't even see them in vendor provided apps like News and Weather on Android and Weather on iOS. The only way to see ads is to deliberately install an app, or use a web browser. Windows 8 is crossing that line by showing you ads through no additional action of your own. The real debate amongst commenters here seems to be whether this is a major line, or just another one in the long list of those already crossed. You can visit many parts of Europe to find less visual clutter. Even here in the US my county bans all billboards except one, so it is quite jarring being elsewhere in the country and seeing how prevalent they are. I must admin being astonished at American's tolerance of advertising. Somehow people are averaging 5 hours of TV watching a day, yet the broadcasts seem to be non-stop advertising briefly interrupted by snippets of programming. Web pages seem to be substantially similar.
- CrankyPants 14y ago
  Yeah. Please see my other comment. It's not about putting ads on the home screen like we all assumed in the 90s to be the logical conclusion of where we were headed ("one day your car will be free, but it'll be covered with Marlboro inside and out!"), but mobile device usage is increasing and cannibalizing at blinding rates, and the more they can control every aspect of the experience, the better they'll be able to stop the bleeding (which will happen, however good their takeover is), and position themselves for the future. The last thing Google wanted was to watch was Apple and Microsoft slug it out in the mobile OS business, add a dominant share of mobile use to an already dominant share of desktop use, watch mobile become the new desktop (and they touted those stats internally for years before they announced them publicly), and almost certainly wind up the next Yahoo: a company all but a handful of others would be happy to be, but no longer the dominant player, or even a terribly influential one, at that. (And what county is that, if you don't mind my asking? Sounds like paradise, right about now!)
  - throwaway64 14y ago
    its not about putting ads on the homescreen? they have done exactly that with xbox already, 50% of the homescreen is composed of ads https://d35lb3dl296zwu.cloudfront.net/uploads/photo/image/5051/microsoft-xbox-e3-2012-_0410.jpg https://d35lb3dl296zwu.cloudfront.net/uploads/photo/image/50... Whats more they try to justify it with sickeningly transparent lies like ads being "Content users are demanding" now.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

Cowen 14y ago

Chrome OS doesn't ship with ads. Chrome OS only has ads because the internet has ads.

CrankyPants 14y ago
Yeah, that's fair, but shipping with ads isn't the point. The point is to replace desktop apps that aren't capable of serving their ads or contributing to data that will improve their ability to monetize said ads. That, and to prevent someone else from doing the same. I agree that it's not a the most overt of plays, but for that matter, it's not like Android injects ads into the home screen. Google's smart enough to know they'll kill the goose that way. It makes the default search engine theirs, the browser theirs, location data theirs, any usage data–however aggregated and non-personally identifiable–theirs, encourages you to store your files with their cloud service (vs. doing it yourself or using someone else's who can't leverage it for ad revenue, e.g., SpiderOak's), and so on, all things that will drive up competitive CPCs and CPMs. It's about the land-grab that's going on right now, with the major players afraid of seeing the potential future balance of power shifting heavily to someone else, and with the downsides so high, they all want to get in while they can. Think of it as online advertising's own little cold war (but without the awesome fighter jets, spaceships, and submarines!). Nearly all of Google's revenues still come from ad dollars, and everything they're doing is to make sure they make progress on two fronts: expanding reach, and mitigating the fact that the growth of mobile is killing the revenue they could previously made from desktop activity. I had dinner with a Google exec last week, and he said to me, "the meme the made the rounds is right: we hate Facebook, but really only for what it's made us become. I miss the days when we all focused on search."
- Cowen 14y ago
  Oh, I completely agree. I was just standing up for Chrome OS. :) I love the products Google provides (disclosure: I've been a heavy user of Google products since GMail was invite-only) but I have no delusions that they're providing all of these products in part to drive people back through their advertising revenue stream.

jobu 14y ago

Between AdBlock in Firefox and Chrome I don't usually see any ads on the web, so the ads can be a big shock when I try to use Internet Explorer. I suppose if the the ads become too obtrusive in the OS itself I'll have to start modifying my router to block the them: http://www.howtogeek.com/51477/how-to-remove-advertisements-with-pixelserv-on-dd-wrt/ http://www.howtogeek.com/51477/how-to-remove-advertisements-...

CrankyPants 14y ago
Yeah. I love AdBlock, and I've donated. But it still can't filter out pay-to-play content (which, working in the industry I can tell you is far more prevalent than even the most cynical of people think), or anything of that ilk. And the same thing's true of filtering: I also block all ad, social, and various other tracking networks from my entire network, but that's not going to change the fundamental dynamics at play, unless a really large number of people vote with their eyeballs, wallets, cookies, browser data, referrer data, and so on. And if enough people did, the stakeholders would just move on to the next gateway (as if they haven't already).
bloaf 14y ago
HostsMan says that it works on windows 8, just use that: http://www.abelhadigital.com/hostsman http://www.abelhadigital.com/hostsman

rogerbinns 14y ago

It should be noted that on the mobile Android and iOS devices you do not see ads on the homescreen, nor in system apps (eg settings). You don't even see them in vendor provided apps like News and Weather on Android and Weather on iOS. The only way to see ads is to deliberately install an app, or use a web browser. Windows 8 is crossing that line by showing you ads through no additional action of your own. The real debate amongst commenters here seems to be whether this is a major line, or just another one in the long list of those already crossed. You can visit many parts of Europe to find less visual clutter. Even here in the US my county bans all billboards except one, so it is quite jarring being elsewhere in the country and seeing how prevalent they are. I must admin being astonished at American's tolerance of advertising. Somehow people are averaging 5 hours of TV watching a day, yet the broadcasts seem to be non-stop advertising briefly interrupted by snippets of programming. Web pages seem to be substantially similar.

CrankyPants 14y ago
Yeah. Please see my other comment. It's not about putting ads on the home screen like we all assumed in the 90s to be the logical conclusion of where we were headed ("one day your car will be free, but it'll be covered with Marlboro inside and out!"), but mobile device usage is increasing and cannibalizing at blinding rates, and the more they can control every aspect of the experience, the better they'll be able to stop the bleeding (which will happen, however good their takeover is), and position themselves for the future. The last thing Google wanted was to watch was Apple and Microsoft slug it out in the mobile OS business, add a dominant share of mobile use to an already dominant share of desktop use, watch mobile become the new desktop (and they touted those stats internally for years before they announced them publicly), and almost certainly wind up the next Yahoo: a company all but a handful of others would be happy to be, but no longer the dominant player, or even a terribly influential one, at that. (And what county is that, if you don't mind my asking? Sounds like paradise, right about now!)
- throwaway64 14y ago
  its not about putting ads on the homescreen? they have done exactly that with xbox already, 50% of the homescreen is composed of ads https://d35lb3dl296zwu.cloudfront.net/uploads/photo/image/5051/microsoft-xbox-e3-2012-_0410.jpg https://d35lb3dl296zwu.cloudfront.net/uploads/photo/image/50... Whats more they try to justify it with sickeningly transparent lies like ads being "Content users are demanding" now.