Comments on: Facebook Beacon already forgotten by all but the blogOspheric chattering nonsense.

By: JoeDuck

JoeDuck — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 19:13:54 +0000

FG – Google still has the best “contextual matching” advertising algorithm. I remember talking a few years back with the Microsoft guy in charge of getting their contextual routine going and he was really impressed with Google’s work in this area. Yahoo’s challenges with their matching are part of the reason they make less than Google per page view. I think this is another example of Google doling an “OK” job pleasing users while doing “great” job pleasing advertisers and optimizing revenues. The best match for revenue purpose is NOT going to be the best match for the user, even though some would very speciously claim it is, arguing that over the long haul users will defect if they don’t get high relevancy or are bothered with irrelevant ads. I’d argue that this is only partly true – we are creatures of habit and therefore we are easy to manipulate.

I like your idea that it’s really “medium-casting” because it is very unusualy to really target somebody with a highly relevant item.

By: Fools Gold

Fools Gold — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 11:50:19 +0000

“Google initially frowned on advertising …but note how it took advertising to make them the key online player … Not a little advertising either – billions and billions and the prospect of billions more. ”
Are they the key online player because they supply good advertizing leads or simply that no one else can supply any advertizing leads at all. Not every clicker has to be a voracious consumer of material goods, there just has to be enough such clickers to make the various parties involved happy. I myself rarely read and even more rarely click on any google supplied targeted advertizing. For years TV ads were broadcast rather than narrowcasted. For years billboards visually accosted all passersby without any sort of narrow focus. Yet search engines and social network monetizers are claiming an ability to engage in narrowcasting of ads. I think its more appropriate to refer to it as “medium-casting”: neither broad nor narrow. Users get fed up with ads. Even new, interesting, relevant and entertaining ads simply become too much after awhile. There used to be jokes about water pressure spiked during the commercials as massive numbers of TV-viewers abandoned the tv-set for the bathroom, so Art Linkletter started doing the commercials as part of his show during non-advertizing timeslots. Social network marketing claims the ability to do about the same thing: deliver a consumer who is of higher quality and less annoyed by the ad. So okay: a poster on a forum about a particular automobile may be more interested than the average consumer, but does he really buy more cars than the average consumer? How much value is there in developing a site of car lovers? Does the site focus on the cars or the ads? The ads will always annoy the site’s users to some degree but a focus on the data quality of the site has to be paramount in order to attract and retain the users.

By: JoeDuck

JoeDuck — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:25:16 +0000

It’s all about collecting, aggregating, and monetizing as much information as they can get their hands on

Scott I certainly think you are right about that part, but I think this is the way companies are going to act whether we like it or not. I don’t think there will ever be companies that can have as a core value doing *everything* in the users best interest. This is just not a realistic expectation…

By: scott

scott — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 06:43:21 +0000

Facebook is either underestimating the intelligence of consumers or they are just evil. Remember Generation-X? We’re older and wiser now. The younger generations are even more cynical. If the endorsement is not genuine, consumers will see right through it. If Facebook’s actual motivation was what they said it was then they would have attempted to make the endorsements relevant. They didn’t. It was all a smoke screen. Beacon has nothing to do with endorsing products. It’s all about collecting, aggregating, and monetizing as much information as they can get their hands on. The more information they have the bigger monopoly they become. By abusing their users in such a condescending way Facebook is making the case for why something like Open Social will be a very attractive alternative to Microsoft 2.0.