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What Happens Next Will Amaze You

idlewords.com

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121–130 of 292 posts

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#121

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

Of all the recommendations in this piece, I think the right to be offline is by far the most necessary. I simply do not trust my devices not to track me without permission. I have no way of knowing whether or not my mic and webcam are on at any time and if someone in Maryland is staring at my bloodshot eyes staring at the New York Times.

Every Internet-connected device should have a hardware off switch, same for cameras and microphones. I would be interested to hear the opinions of people who disagree.

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#122

Post by kasey_junk »

keyme wrote: post #69
x4m wrote: post #55

Just laught a bit on Red Flag. I'm from Russia (: Kind of "been there, done that"... Jolly Roger FTW

And the guy says he's Polish. I guess we're at a point now where todays 25 year-olds have never seen what socialism can deteriorate into.

I don't want to speak for him but from his other writing I think idlewords has a fair idea (from personal experience) of what old fashioned central planning communism looks like.

For the record, there are lots of places on the socialism spectrum and many of them haven't deteriorated at all, and some of them look quite lovely...

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#123

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

jonstokes wrote: post #119

Ok, this is a fantastic piece that says a lot of useful and thoughtful things, some of them critical about the priorities of the SF startup scene. And what are a nontrivial portion of the HN comments doing? Complaining that he was unfair to Elon freaking Musk!! This is exactly the sort of techno-douchebaggery that the author is writing about, so way to prove his point, nimrods. The one redeeming quality of such comme…

It's easier to call out the author on a nitpick than to thoughtfully refute his arguments for the sake of racking up more imaginary internet points.

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#124

Post by kasey_junk »

Let me start by saying I love idlewords writing and largely agree with his proposed rules (even if he did demonize something like 1/3 of my working life with 1 sentence).

> Ban on Third-Party Ad Tracking

My experience in finance makes me skeptical that this will play out the way that he hopes. Most of the financial regulation in the world started with laws "average people can understand". Things like Banks should have enough risk free capital to cover outstanding deposits and banks shouldn't make "speculative investments". But it turns out that the devil is in the details with these sorts of things. What is a "speculative investment" etc? And there are dramatic financial mismatches between the people trying to work around the laws and the people trying to enforce them.

So when I hear "information the site has about the visitor" being the only thing a publisher can share with the ad network, I have to wonder

a) can publishers share data with each other? If not how does that impact things like open ids, publisher networks etc.

b) doesn't this rule simply give even more of a stranglehold to giant companies like facebook and google? How does having a couple of giant extra-governmental tracking agencies make our lives better than having a huge network of them? If advertisers can only serve the ads they want on facebook/google, won't that mean that publishers will be levered into only using those sources for publishing? How do you break out of that cycle?

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#125

Post by jonstokes »

idlewords wrote: post #117
jonstokes wrote: post #111

This is a great piece, but I have to post a correction for this: "It boils down to this: fake websites serving real ads to fake traffic for real money." There are, in fact, also real websites serving real ads to fake traffic for real money. When publishers promise an advertiser impressions or downloads or some other metric on a campaign, and then the traffic fails to materialize, the marketing department can always c…

Thank you, I appreciate the correction! That tactic hadn't occurred to me.

Drop me an email and I can tell you all about it :) (my first name at my full name dot com).

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#126

Post by j2kun »

mozumder wrote: post #2

The correct answer is to never use programmatic ads. Ever. If you own a site, just curate a set of ads on your site that actually enhances your sites appeal. A fashion site should have matching fashion ads. A tech site should have matching tech ads. A local site should have matching local ads. Reach out to advertisers to get these ads. Never use an algorithm. You, as an editor, should be better than the algorithms. A…

I would love to do this on my personal blog, but how? I'm just a guy with a niche Wordpress blog who doesn't have the time to negotiate and search for ad deals.

What I really want is a service that can match me with advertising firms based on the content of my site, and do the negotiations for me. And give me a means with which to contest ads if I find they're not appropriate, or the matching itself if I discover my matched company is doing something immoral.

There are a few minor, but significant differences between this and programmatic ads. Do those differences make it good, or at least neutral? Does such a company exist?

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#127

Post by juretriglav »

mtbcoder wrote: post #110
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can very easily implement eye tracking to determine where they are looking.

Possibly, but that doesn't seem like it would produce very reliable data though.

It wouldn't, but one can sense some logic behind that question in this context. Additionally, advertisers are very familiar with dealing with heaps of unreliable information.

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#128

Post by t2015_08_25 »

krisdol wrote: post #89
mozumder wrote: post #2

The correct answer is to never use programmatic ads. Ever. If you own a site, just curate a set of ads on your site that actually enhances your sites appeal. A fashion site should have matching fashion ads. A tech site should have matching tech ads. A local site should have matching local ads. Reach out to advertisers to get these ads. Never use an algorithm. You, as an editor, should be better than the algorithms. A…

Intent-driven ads are far more relevant to a site's audience than hand-picked, static ones. They have much higher CTR and conversion rates, when done right. You're asking sites to remove sources of income that people find relevant in exchange for ads that some higher up in marketing thinks relates to its users. Not all publishers subscribe to the low quality Google AdExchange. In fact, they typically have a variety o…

> remove sources of income that people find relevant in exchange for ads that some higher up in marketing thinks relates to its users.

Yes, that's a move toward integrity and away from endangerment and excess income.

If "some higher up in marketing" doesn't understand their users, the problem is they're out-of-touch and that should be corrected, as opposed to endangering user's privacy.

Currently, my tiny site operates this way, with hand-chosen Amazon ads and no google Adwords.

Re: What Happens Next Will Amaze You

#130

Post by [deleted] »

colordrops wrote: post #30

From the article: > In a television interview this week, Musk said: "I'm trying to do useful things." Then he outlined his plan to detonate nuclear weapons on Mars. > These people are the face of our industry. It's hard to take the rest of the article seriously when the author is purposely misquoting people to make them look bad. The comment in question was said on Late Night with Stephen Colbert, when asked what the…

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