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This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

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Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#201
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bang on! I don't think you are being cynical, you are being true! People across borders should stop being emotional over an advertisement by a multinational corporation. If they really have to become emotional, there is plenty of literature on this topic in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. And if they even want to take actions, there are many NGOs trying to ease up the visa procedure, raising awareness among the peopl…

Do you prefer the generic "people fiddling with their devices on a sunny day, female voice playing buzzword bingo in the background"? Props for Google for being ballsy. I also love how people throw in the "multinational" qualifier as if this makes a company that much more evil.

IMHO, there is nothing ballsy about an ad; at the end of the day it is profit vs you. There are selling, you are getting emotional and consuming, exactly what they want. :) Well, some people tend to interpret in whatever way it suits them, but I don't think I meant evil when I said multi-national. If you get it, I was just referring to the scale of the company.

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#202
post #198
post #197

So half a day later, and no one on HN noticed the most interesting fact about the ad was its THREE AND A HALF MINUTES LONG? I mean I've had mythtv and commercial skipping for I guess over a decade now and I adblock all browsers etc but do people "out there" really sit thru almost four minute long advertisements? Back when I used to watch them, commercials were long enough for a bathroom break, sounds like commercial…

There are plenty of long ads around. Sometimes they're good, and I don't mind sitting through them. There's one featuring a British Bi-Athlete (skiing, shooting). I have no idea what it's advertising. I looked up the gun he was using and they do a really neat laser & target system. Like Tin Can Alley but for adults. Long ads are much less impressive when they're repeatedly something I have zero interest in ("It's sho…

"I understand why other people would hate them and want to ad block them."

Its not hate so much as being an unactionable distraction that interferes with buy the perry the platypus wooden action figure it does nothing... oh wait see how annoying that interruption was and how little it added to the conversation?

Personally I prefer paid promotional product placement. So I was working on a S-100 circuit board in my basement "lab" last night using my Hakko model 937 digital temperature soldering iron with 1/16th inch tip (or whatever millimeters it is) and my Kester no-kleen #235 flux 0.02 dia solder (well you get the idea) Like how most hollywood computers happen to be Apples.

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#204
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and much of their problems are due Islam having such a central role in the identify of the country. Not really. The East Pakistan/West Pakistan war (which resulted in an independant Bangladesh) was between Muslim groups with little religious difference, but huge language, class, and cultral bigotry, with the Urdu-speaking West Pakistani-dominated millitary having a significant role. Islam was pretty irrelevant. And…

It brings me memories of the violent riots because certain stores were celebrating Valentines Day in India.

There were no such riots , citations please !

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#205

As a fellow Indian, I just want to point out that this video and any other efforts to develop people-to-people relationships between India and Pakistan have zero effect on the ongoing conflicts between the nations. Indians love Pakistani singers, cricketers, food, their language(Weird, I'm not a native Hindi speaker. But people tell me that Pakistani's speak better Hindi than most Indians). I've heard from Pak friend…

By that extension, lack of democracy in Saudi Arabia, and Egypt was the root cause of all Islamic terrorism. Saudi's actively promote a version of Islam that promotes religious discord in Muslim populations across the world.

I disagree with this statement. Saudi Arabia (& Egypt for that matter) can't be held directly responsible as one of the root causes of the current Islamic terror situation. Their idea to spread Islam by funding Islamic madrassas (schools that are usually near an Islamic mosque that typically teach the Quran in Classical Arabic) in places such as Afghanistan and Indonesia with their petro-dollars in the 70's up to the 90's was just a bit too idealistic. Of course, the fact that these schools (especially once Bin Laden was kicked out of Saudi Arabia and fled to Afghanistan) became ground zero for recruiting and training simple village kids into today's suicide bombers was something I doubt they could envision.

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#207
post #64

Colour me cynical, but when a corporation is under fire from consumers, regulators and activists, a soppy and heartstring-tugging ad is exactly what the doctors order . It is literally Google saying, "Oh look, cute puppies!" when faced with a global barrage of criticism about its disdain for user privacy or its own past promises.

Here is one real person driven to tears by the forced Google+ integration. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs

I liked the box that pops immediately saying how the problem was promptly resolved by Google's representatives.

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#208
post #197

So half a day later, and no one on HN noticed the most interesting fact about the ad was its THREE AND A HALF MINUTES LONG? I mean I've had mythtv and commercial skipping for I guess over a decade now and I adblock all browsers etc but do people "out there" really sit thru almost four minute long advertisements? Back when I used to watch them, commercials were long enough for a bathroom break, sounds like commercial…

The internet no longer has limits put there by broadcast TV. Made-for-internet programming episodes don't have to be 60-minutes-including-ads so they are now being produced in wildly variable lengths per episode.

Ads for the internet are the same - their length is restricted only by the viewer's attention span. Seems like this ad's producer nailed it.

Re: This Google ad has moved people to tears across India and Pakistan

#209
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with the Arabic and Chinese language families, different varieties of Romance languages are similar enough in syntax and vocabulary that speakers can kind of make themselves understood to each other if they speak slowly and choose their words carefully. Same with lots of closely related languages, e.g. German and Dutch. But they're not nearly mutually intelligible to the degree that American English and most varie…

I'm Romanian, as a kid in a few months I became fluent in Italian just from watching their TV channels, no dictionary involved. It was a mass phenomenon at the time since their TV channels were quite popular on cable.

It's exactly the same with English and American.
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