5 ms·

I don't think I've actually bought a novel product because of an ad (but perhaps brand awareness has worked to remind me to consume things one time or another)

I don't think I've actually bought a novel product because of an ad (but perhaps brand awareness has worked to remind me to consume things one time or another) -- but I still find it a lack of imagination to think there's absolutely nothing you could discover. Never had your friends show you an interesting product, tool, website? It could be an automated ad network showing it instead. Moreover, our individual experiences do not generalize well to the rest of the population if we're particularly frugal.

a3n 11y ago
> but I still find it a lack of imagination to think there's absolutely nothing you could discover. Perhaps. But the world is huge, and I still haven't worked my way through everything that I'm aware of on my own. > Never had your friends show you an interesting product, tool, website? Yes, all those things have happened. Even from ads. > our individual experiences do not generalize well to the rest of the population if we're particularly frugal. Absolutely. I'm an anecdote of one, just expressing my thoughts. The thing is, though, I'm not frugal for frugal's sake. I'm not frugal on purpose. It's just that in a universe of interesting things, there's enough interesting things outside the store doors that I personally don't need to go in to be interested. But that's me.
Nadya 11y ago
If the product is good enough for my friends to tell me about it by word-of-mouth, it's probably worth buying. People rarely give praise of things they buy unless it's a good thing. If the company trying to profit from selling the product is advertising the product - why should I trust them? Ads catered to me are surprisingly garbage. They assume because I like X, Y, and Z that I'll like a similar X, Y, or Z product. It's hilarious that, after buying a can opener, Amazon thinks I want to purchase more can openers. Or I bought a nice jacket so it suggests me more jackets. If I play one life-consuming MMO, Google suggests me more MMOs that I don't have time to play. If these services could make more intelligent assumptions, it might be worth disabling my ad block from time to time. But if you go browsing for a new car - you're going to get car ads. Even after you've purchased your new car. For weeks. (You need another car, right?)
- a3n 11y ago
  > It's hilarious that, after buying a can opener, Amazon thinks I want to purchase more can openers. Or I bought a nice jacket so it suggests me more jackets. If I play one life-consuming MMO, Google suggests me more MMOs that I don't have time to play. If these services could make more intelligent assumptions, it might be worth disabling my ad block from time to time. Interesting observation. It reminds of the story that pops up here occasionally of how analysts in WWII figured out that the best place to add armour to returning/surviving bomber planes was not where the survivors had damage, but where the survivors had no damage. http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/01/21/selection-bias-and-bombers/ http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/01/21/selection-bias-and-... So if I bought a jacket, maybe specifically I shouldn't see jacket ads for a year; that would be innovative targeted advertising. Maybe instead I should see random things like can openers that I haven't bought or expressed an interest in. Or complementary things. Jacket? Sunglasses. Hats.
  - Nadya 11y ago
    "Frequently purchased together" is a metric Amazon already uses. I also find it bad, a majority of the time. Often because I already have the other item and am buying the complementary item. For example - I already had some weights and was looking for an Olympic bar. When I purchased weights it suggested buying an Olympic bar with them. The largest issue is that I make offline purchases and purchases on other platforms. So Amazon had no idea of knowing that I already had an Olympic bar. This is, of course, ignoring any privacy concerns. [0] [0] http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targe...
  - darkmighty 11y ago
    This strategy (showing more of what was searched) is certainly not optimal; but it's quite simple, and I'd say it's almost certainly better than showing random products. Ideally the ad provider should collect enough data to infer the most likely buy given the view history -- but this requires a vast dataset to provide a robust estimate, s.t. a decent approximation may be this strategy of just showing more of the same. It's an interesting design point for me what the ad providers actually want to maximize. On one hand, they want to maximize the number of 'clicks', which is usually the direct revenue criterion -- but if those clicks don't generate sales their long term value is lost. But they also might not want to maximize sales exclusively: after all, they have multiple customers, and if they provide a large increase in sales for just a few of them, their overall service might see less demand on the long run. And finally, there are the consumers for which they also might want to maximize value -- otherwise they will be alienated on the long term (i.e. even the most naive user wont fall for one weird trick ads more than once). This should all come into play in the design of good ad decision system. I believe all successful ad providers in the long run will have to give an overwhelming priority to customer value.
DanBC 11y ago
I liked the site "cool tools". http://kk.org/cooltools/ http://kk.org/cooltools/ I submitted "MicroMuff" (a small windmuff for DSLR cameras) and they now list it. http://micromuff.com/ http://micromuff.com/ (Micromuff was created by a friend of mine).
- a3n 11y ago
  cooltools, cool site. Glancing over the front page, I saw this infinitely adjustable belt: http://kk.org/cooltools/archives/24536 http://kk.org/cooltools/archives/24536 I actually made something similar a few years ago. I went to a surplus store and bought a length of backpack strap with a friction lock on the end, cut to a reasonable length. I use it as a belt almost every day. The one on cool tools looks kind of nice. I might ... ahem ... buy it.

a3n 11y ago

> but I still find it a lack of imagination to think there's absolutely nothing you could discover. Perhaps. But the world is huge, and I still haven't worked my way through everything that I'm aware of on my own. > Never had your friends show you an interesting product, tool, website? Yes, all those things have happened. Even from ads. > our individual experiences do not generalize well to the rest of the population if we're particularly frugal. Absolutely. I'm an anecdote of one, just expressing my thoughts. The thing is, though, I'm not frugal for frugal's sake. I'm not frugal on purpose. It's just that in a universe of interesting things, there's enough interesting things outside the store doors that I personally don't need to go in to be interested. But that's me.

Nadya 11y ago

If the product is good enough for my friends to tell me about it by word-of-mouth, it's probably worth buying. People rarely give praise of things they buy unless it's a good thing. If the company trying to profit from selling the product is advertising the product - why should I trust them? Ads catered to me are surprisingly garbage. They assume because I like X, Y, and Z that I'll like a similar X, Y, or Z product. It's hilarious that, after buying a can opener, Amazon thinks I want to purchase more can openers. Or I bought a nice jacket so it suggests me more jackets. If I play one life-consuming MMO, Google suggests me more MMOs that I don't have time to play. If these services could make more intelligent assumptions, it might be worth disabling my ad block from time to time. But if you go browsing for a new car - you're going to get car ads. Even after you've purchased your new car. For weeks. (You need another car, right?)

a3n 11y ago
> It's hilarious that, after buying a can opener, Amazon thinks I want to purchase more can openers. Or I bought a nice jacket so it suggests me more jackets. If I play one life-consuming MMO, Google suggests me more MMOs that I don't have time to play. If these services could make more intelligent assumptions, it might be worth disabling my ad block from time to time. Interesting observation. It reminds of the story that pops up here occasionally of how analysts in WWII figured out that the best place to add armour to returning/surviving bomber planes was not where the survivors had damage, but where the survivors had no damage. http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/01/21/selection-bias-and-bombers/ http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2008/01/21/selection-bias-and-... So if I bought a jacket, maybe specifically I shouldn't see jacket ads for a year; that would be innovative targeted advertising. Maybe instead I should see random things like can openers that I haven't bought or expressed an interest in. Or complementary things. Jacket? Sunglasses. Hats.
- Nadya 11y ago
  "Frequently purchased together" is a metric Amazon already uses. I also find it bad, a majority of the time. Often because I already have the other item and am buying the complementary item. For example - I already had some weights and was looking for an Olympic bar. When I purchased weights it suggested buying an Olympic bar with them. The largest issue is that I make offline purchases and purchases on other platforms. So Amazon had no idea of knowing that I already had an Olympic bar. This is, of course, ignoring any privacy concerns. [0] [0] http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targe...
- darkmighty 11y ago
  This strategy (showing more of what was searched) is certainly not optimal; but it's quite simple, and I'd say it's almost certainly better than showing random products. Ideally the ad provider should collect enough data to infer the most likely buy given the view history -- but this requires a vast dataset to provide a robust estimate, s.t. a decent approximation may be this strategy of just showing more of the same. It's an interesting design point for me what the ad providers actually want to maximize. On one hand, they want to maximize the number of 'clicks', which is usually the direct revenue criterion -- but if those clicks don't generate sales their long term value is lost. But they also might not want to maximize sales exclusively: after all, they have multiple customers, and if they provide a large increase in sales for just a few of them, their overall service might see less demand on the long run. And finally, there are the consumers for which they also might want to maximize value -- otherwise they will be alienated on the long term (i.e. even the most naive user wont fall for one weird trick ads more than once). This should all come into play in the design of good ad decision system. I believe all successful ad providers in the long run will have to give an overwhelming priority to customer value.

DanBC 11y ago

I liked the site "cool tools". http://kk.org/cooltools/ http://kk.org/cooltools/ I submitted "MicroMuff" (a small windmuff for DSLR cameras) and they now list it. http://micromuff.com/ http://micromuff.com/ (Micromuff was created by a friend of mine).

a3n 11y ago
cooltools, cool site. Glancing over the front page, I saw this infinitely adjustable belt: http://kk.org/cooltools/archives/24536 http://kk.org/cooltools/archives/24536 I actually made something similar a few years ago. I went to a surplus store and bought a length of backpack strap with a friction lock on the end, cut to a reasonable length. I use it as a belt almost every day. The one on cool tools looks kind of nice. I might ... ahem ... buy it.