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I don't think the ads were the problem. The language that bothered me was the phrase "user-enhancing" when describing ads. Call a spade a spade

by sheetjs 12y ago

kijin 12y ago
I agree. I don't have a problem with unobtrusive ads, but people are seriously deluding themselves when they think ads enhance the browsing experience. It almost feels like a case of Stockholm syndrome. We're stuck with ads anyway, so why don't we come up with silly reasons to like them . . .
- Spittie 12y ago
  I'll quote a guy from a different site: I installed Nightly on Friend's computer yesterday, and there were "suggested sites" on the new tab page. And you know what? I was grateful. A few of them were frequently visited by him, so I was able to simply pin the items already there (which had recognizable icons instead of thumbnails) instead of having to browse around and manually click and drag. http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?100100-Mozilla-Decides-Against-Ads-In-The-New-Tab-Page&p=416438#post416438 http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?100100-Mozilla... I do think that ads can be useful when done right. For example, ads about tickets/cd of a band when I'm browsing Last.fm. Or ads about the stream/box of TV Series/movies when I'm browsing IMDB.
  - kijin 12y ago
    According to the article, the ads in the New Tab page will be selected before Firefox knows anything about the user's browsing habits. So there's no guarantee that they will actually be useful to him/her. If they do turn out to be useful, that's merely by chance. Mozilla could try to ramp up the usefulness of the ads by selecting a bunch of popular sites like Facebook, Twitter and IMDb. But since those sites are already so well known, they won't have much incentive to pay for the privilege of being on the New Tab page. Many of them can already be selected in the Search bar. Useful ads need to be contextual, but contextual ads require tracking the user's browsing habits. As a result, it is very difficult to display useful ads while respecting the user's privacy as Mozilla wants to do.
- jasonlotito 12y ago
  > but people are seriously deluding themselves when they think ads enhance the browsing experience. That's because people tend to think of ads as one thing, when in reality, paid for features that enhance the browsing experience is something that people are quite happy with. Firefox already does this with the search bar, and with default new window screen, both of which advertise for Google. It happens to also provide a service people find useful. It sounds like Mozilla is seeing how it can apply this type of advertising to other parts of the browser. > We're stuck with ads anyway, so why don't we come up with silly reasons to like them HN supports ads. We just don't see it as ads because it's highly targeted and something we are interested in. Is it any less an ad because you want it?
userbinator 12y ago
The title of this article also contains some obfuscatory language: "Moving Ahead"? "Sponsored Tiles"? What's wrong with a simple "Mozilla Will Add Adverts to Firefox New Tab Page"?
- sheetjs 12y ago
  Mozilla announced the product with obfuscatory language in the first place: > Excited to share the launch of @mozilla @firefox Tiles program, the first of our user-enhancing programs http://awe.sm/q55cA http://awe.sm/q55cA https://twitter.com/dherman76/status/433320156496789504 https://twitter.com/dherman76/status/433320156496789504 More generally, https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-transformation-with-users-at-the-center/ https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish... oozes with doublespeak and obfuscatory language

I don't think the ads were the problem. The language that bothered me was the phrase "user-enhancing" when describing ads. Call a spade a spade

by sheetjs 12y ago

I don't think the ads were the problem. The language that bothered me was the phrase "user-enhancing" when describing ads. Call a spade a spade

kijin 12y ago

I agree. I don't have a problem with unobtrusive ads, but people are seriously deluding themselves when they think ads enhance the browsing experience. It almost feels like a case of Stockholm syndrome. We're stuck with ads anyway, so why don't we come up with silly reasons to like them . . .

Spittie 12y ago
I'll quote a guy from a different site: I installed Nightly on Friend's computer yesterday, and there were "suggested sites" on the new tab page. And you know what? I was grateful. A few of them were frequently visited by him, so I was able to simply pin the items already there (which had recognizable icons instead of thumbnails) instead of having to browse around and manually click and drag. http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?100100-Mozilla-Decides-Against-Ads-In-The-New-Tab-Page&p=416438#post416438 http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?100100-Mozilla... I do think that ads can be useful when done right. For example, ads about tickets/cd of a band when I'm browsing Last.fm. Or ads about the stream/box of TV Series/movies when I'm browsing IMDB.
- kijin 12y ago
  According to the article, the ads in the New Tab page will be selected before Firefox knows anything about the user's browsing habits. So there's no guarantee that they will actually be useful to him/her. If they do turn out to be useful, that's merely by chance. Mozilla could try to ramp up the usefulness of the ads by selecting a bunch of popular sites like Facebook, Twitter and IMDb. But since those sites are already so well known, they won't have much incentive to pay for the privilege of being on the New Tab page. Many of them can already be selected in the Search bar. Useful ads need to be contextual, but contextual ads require tracking the user's browsing habits. As a result, it is very difficult to display useful ads while respecting the user's privacy as Mozilla wants to do.
jasonlotito 12y ago
> but people are seriously deluding themselves when they think ads enhance the browsing experience. That's because people tend to think of ads as one thing, when in reality, paid for features that enhance the browsing experience is something that people are quite happy with. Firefox already does this with the search bar, and with default new window screen, both of which advertise for Google. It happens to also provide a service people find useful. It sounds like Mozilla is seeing how it can apply this type of advertising to other parts of the browser. > We're stuck with ads anyway, so why don't we come up with silly reasons to like them HN supports ads. We just don't see it as ads because it's highly targeted and something we are interested in. Is it any less an ad because you want it?

userbinator 12y ago

The title of this article also contains some obfuscatory language: "Moving Ahead"? "Sponsored Tiles"? What's wrong with a simple "Mozilla Will Add Adverts to Firefox New Tab Page"?

sheetjs 12y ago
Mozilla announced the product with obfuscatory language in the first place: > Excited to share the launch of @mozilla @firefox Tiles program, the first of our user-enhancing programs http://awe.sm/q55cA http://awe.sm/q55cA https://twitter.com/dherman76/status/433320156496789504 https://twitter.com/dherman76/status/433320156496789504 More generally, https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-transformation-with-users-at-the-center/ https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish... oozes with doublespeak and obfuscatory language