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Banner Ads on Your Cell Phone
James Ensor writes, "I'm sure you'll all be just thrilled to hear that Ericsson has developed and is implementing a way to do targeted ads on Internet enabled cellphones. They envision TV-like FMV commercials in the future. I can hardly, umm, wait."
This brings up some important philosophical issues, but if it can keep local mobile call charges unbilled here in London it'll be well worth it.
Remember MAME being ported to the Kodak digital camera? Just think, Linux on your cell phone! If it takes a really stupid idea to get the phone makers to put some decent CPU power into a cell phone, then so be it. Who cares what software they load into it. Nuke it. Linux it. Be happy. Laugh at corporate droids.
Its well known that click through rates on banner ads on web sites are already quite low for the number of people visiting the sites.
Now if we see ads on the web, and we see them on the phone, and we see them on billboards, and we see them in public lavatories and we're already ignoring them....
What gets me is that you pay to use a cell phone; is there going to be an I don't want banner ads switch or do I have to hack my cellphone-OS.
I wait for the day they microwave the banner ad right into your brain on the cell phone carrier wave ;-)
Very insightful. Bravo!
Why, installing WebPhone software (voice over IP) on the phone, of course!
Are those banner ads really effective though? When was the last time you clicked on a banner ad, or even looked at it? There is one going by at the top of the screen now, but had I not wrote this message on banner ads, I wouldn't have even glanced at it. They're stupid - just like TV commercials. Everybody just hits 'mute' and ignores them. On the internet it's the same thing, they scroll past them and hardly give them a second glance. Maybe Americans are more easily influenced by corporate propaganda...
So you make a habit our of poundin' down a few brewskies on the road 'eh? Hope you dont live around me.
well ericsson just lost a potential customer.. i'm currently just a wireless subscriber, and when i do decide to switch to wireless web, i'm sticking with nokia
Search engine tip: always add "and not sex" to your searches. It filters out a surprising amount of crap, pr0n, and sites that wedge /usr/dict/words into the meta tags of their home page.
One night some friends and I smashed the waveguides on a sprint tower. we also beat the hell out of some small connection pedestals but i still laugh to this day when i remember smashing those waveguides. no one really cares either except the phone company because everyone hates them.
I dunno, he's not that bad. Some of his non-spam posts are somewhat amusing. Not to feed the trolls, but there is an interesting troll poll over here
. Most of the regulars seemed to score pretty high. Although the poll didn't include DMG, or the natalie portman guy.
i hate 'em.
Funny... damn funny.
He He, Pretty funny.
when advertisers start paying for my internet usage and not to some lame free ISP. The way I see it, I'm paying for this low quality and slow POTS shit and I don't want to download fucking banner ads. Sorry if it hurts some sites but with my shitty dialup worthless connection banner ads have to be blocked. I don't have time nor tolerance to wait for some shit to download that I don't give a rat's ass about. If you want to blame someone for this, then direct it at the telephone company.
All it takes to build your own paging service is an old FM business band radio, a decent antenna, a sound card, some software to encode POCSAG (there's a couple of DOS packages and I'm sure multimon on Linux can do this) and you're set. Sure this won't work outside a certain radius, but most people I know generally stay well within that radius.
its not like it costs them anything other than the initial investment.
And join a "fight club" near you.
then why do i still have no choice but POTS or some shitty cable company which filters packets on certain ports?? government intrusion into these assholes buisinesses would be very welcome.
The irony of that is overwhelming. The cell phone was created so we could talk to each other while not at home. Now we're gonna install WebPhone on our phones so we can talk on the internet as if it were a phone?? aak, I just confused myself. -_-;;
What's the deal here? Does the moderator who rated this flamebait actually think ~$1000/mo is reasonable for a T-1 or something?
... or a big brochure. It's not a "store" or an zone for "e-commerce". It's primary attraction is that it had got information on it - and, sure, forms you can fill out in order to have things delivered or have music downloaded or whatever.
But don't the marketing gurus realize that having ads as part of the "brochure" is just distracting and ineffectual? It's like having "picture in picture" running on your TV with ads streaming by on both channels. No one is fucking paying attention you morons.
Nokia makes better phones. They're niceer looking, easier to use. But then, I'm sure they'll eventually have ads too, so I guess this is a pointless argument. How can they have ads on a 2" screen? Oh well.
The typical mobile phone screen is about 3 by 2 cm, and can pretty much only display very basic text. It has no convienient method of data entry (well, except for Ericcson's mini-keyboard available at extra cost) either.
What they need to doing is a handled Internet access device - with phone , rather than Phone with Internet access - make the PHONE secondary! A decent Nokia Communicator or Palm-style screen is the minimum possible solution, IMHO.
From an advertising point of view, ain't going to happen either. Online text links are being used less and less. Why? Not good ROI. It's just not really going to happen.
Umm... someone (Pizza Hut??) bought one of those already... gee, a year or two ago now. From the Russians, I think.
Actually, it's time everyone had decent food and water. I'm sure Mozambique is desperate for cell phones right now :-P
Stop complaining porn ads are just what guys like, particularly hackers.
I've been studying crack sites on the web. It's amazing hoe much porn is associated with crack sites. The "warez" ones, you know. I'm not sure if I understand why this is the case. Any guesses?
> What's next, adversisement on spaceships? The moon?
Actually, someone has already thought of this. I remember seeing an article a few years ago about someone who wanted to make a satellite billboard. It would be lanched and then upen up once in orbit into a huge sheet (on the order of 2 miles by 3 miles, IIRC). It was being touted as perhaps a way to lower the costs of launching satellites. Fortunately the technological hurdles to accomplish something like this have not been overcome. If they are, it is scary, because no one can regulate space. Even if the United States decided against such a move, there's nothing to provent some other country from doing it. (Hey, perhaps Star Wars wouldn't be such a bad idea after all!)
Anyway, I think our only hope for advertising relief is for advertisers to recognize the law of diminishing returns (of course, they have completely ignored that law when it comes to banner adds, so maybe there isn't much hope expect to find ways to block advertisements).
not true. when I'm in the urinal I always look at the guy's package next to me. I then pull my pants all the way down and bend over.
/me hate's 'em
http://www.mobileprofile.com
I keep meaning to check this out. Now I guess I can just read back here.
Is this comment really necessary? Grow up.
yeah, i'm sure Benjamin would be proud to see drunken retards like yourself excericising their "essential liberty" doing 90 on I95.
if i knew who you were, I'd kill you.
yep, use that bandwidth for fucking ads. nevermind that it could be used to provide better internet access to rural america.
...and now realize why the best selection is actually "I Won't Carry a Computer"
Let's say you're in a serious car accident and you need to call an ambulance. Will you have to wait for banner ads to cycle through before you're connected to 911? -Johan
Regarding: "(I can't *buy* a way to message my friends w/o advertisments - and the MSM/AIM thing killed development of IM for BeOS)" IRC is still ad-free (except the occasional /motd text ad for whatever isp the server is on). Pick an IRC network, get your friends on it, and dump ICQ/AIM/whatever..
We are the first company to deliver ads to cell phones in exchange for paying the consumers airtime.. http://www.adbroadcast.com cheers, john John Ferber CIO, Advertising.com
They do? I wouldn't know, as I installed Junkbusters a long time ago. Doesn't everybody do the same?
I've been hearing a lot about WAP these day, the wireless access protocol. I've even seen some WAP-enabled web sites. Overall, I haven't been impressed. Nor, has it made me go out and buy a wap-phone.
Here's an article from NetworkWorldFusion entitled Ericsson brings ads to mobile 'Net phones". It states:
The ad services will be delivered through Wireless Application Protocol and other wireless standards and networks, Ericsson said. With future higher bandwidth wireless network technologies on the horizon, the ads will be similar to today's television commercials, incorporating rich media, full-motion video and animation, Ericsson said.
Oh well, I never watch TV. I used to have a free ISP, but the ads kept making me dizzy, too much motion, and the ads were never targeted to my interests. One less thing for me not to get, even if they do become free or dirt cheap.
I really don't like this idea -- I want to use my phone as a tool, and don't want to bother with adds or anything else that will chew up my time.
As a consumer, you have a choice -- just don't buy it. I only hope that enough people vote with their dollars to make this a repeat of divx.
Dateline: New York, NY
UP/API press wire: At a press conference at their Manhattan headquaters, the advertising agency Dewy, Screwem, and Howe has announced that they have purchased the exclusive advertising rights on the inside of all American's eyelids. At the press conference, they were a bit unclear as to who they actually purchased those rights from, but were we quick to point out that was irrelivant, because "look, we brought donuts."
The partners at DS&H unveiled a plan to capitalize on their new found advertising space. "The total surface area of the eyelids of all Americans is over eight square kilometers, and people spend an average of 10 hours a day looking at the inside of their eyelids while sleeping and blinking. This is just too huge of an opportunity to pass up."
Starting next week, all American citizens will be required to undergo a surgical procedure involving the removal of the natural eyelids and the attachment of a 16 pound helmet-like device that replaces the eyelids and acts as the ad content delivery system. The device periodically sprays water on the eyes and scrapes dirt off with a small squeegee. Two small LCD screens play full motion video ads during those times that the wearer would ordinarily have his eyes closed.
At the conference, we were given the chance to interview "Bryce", one of DS&H's R&D staff, who had the ad delivery device implanted 2 months ago. When asked how he liked his new eyelids, he whimpered "The horror. Oh, my God... Please kill me. Take me now! I haven't slept in 2 months! I'm not human anymore!" Clearly he was enjoying life now, so I'm certainly looking forward to my implantation next week. We would have like to ask "Bryce" some more questions, but at that point the second tray of donuts had arrived.
Dewey, Screwem, and Howe is currently negotiating the same advertising rights in Europe, Australia, and the former Soviet Union. The rest of the world will be following shortly.
We already have a law in which it is illegal to get unsolicitated commercial phone calls to a cell phone. Don't these ads fall under that law?
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Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com." The purpose of that site was not known. -- MSNBC 10-26-1999 on MS crack
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
In related news, Junkbuster has announced ports of their popular ad-blocking software to several smart cell-phone platforms...
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
The url is adbroadcast.com/?jknox if you didnt get it.
Jeff
Jeff Knox
I am looking forward to it, as long as it brings the cost of cellular service down. If it can bring down the cost of a cellular phone to seriously compete with landlines, and motivate cell phones to be as popular her as in Finland (which 70% of people use cellphones, and an exspecteed 120% (yes thats more then 1 per person) is exspected within a few years). Cell phones are a very valuable resource to me, if everyone had them it would make communication much easier. Anyway, a company called AdBroadcast currently does this, and they pay you money, like 50 cents or something, to send you an ad to your cell phone. Personally, a few of these a day, and my cell phone bill is covered.
BTW. If you are thinking of buying a WAP enabled PCS phone, I suggest the Samsung SCH-3500, I love mine.
Jeff Knox
I know ads pay for lots of stuff, but this just further discourages me from wanting such devices.
So what you want me to do is go to a URL that just happens to include your name? :)
Well, the overall subject is unwanted advertising
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
It's one o' them love-hate co-dependent enabler type things.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
This rates a +1 Funny? I was right, the moderators are either under or over medicated.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Since I hate almost everything you post, it's only fair that I note that this particular post, though an off-topic troll, is still funny enough to deserve positive mod points as well. See, you don't have to be vulgar or annoying to be witty.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
...they'll patent it and save us all from ever seeing one of these ads. :)
--G
gee, that's your worst case scenario? not mine -- but then again I'm female in southside Berkeley, it's enough to make anyone paranoid. waiting for a minute to call a tow truck is ok. waiting for a minute to call the police/ambulance/fire trucks is NOT. the rapists aren't going to wait for the ads to finish...
Oh and one more thing. Someone was joking about double click and how they would be able to track your cell phone usage. Well it's more than that. GTE has a working system that can track a ESN to within a couple of feet by using the timing that signals return to base stations.
I believe that all the cell phone carriers legally have to be able to do this within a few years. no paranoid attacks here -- it's becasue there are so many 911 calls coming from cell phones, and they can't really trace where it's coming from without this sort of a system. I agree it can be misused, but for me, this is a VERY important feature. I'm not looking at cell phones primarily for convenience, but for safety.
Lea
About a year ago a San Mateo firm AtMotion proposed ad-subsidised cell service for any phone. Their pitch was based on being able to locate exactly where you were and send you voice ads (or mail, or WAP,...) for businesses you might be near. So you're walking by Macy's when you get the call, "now on sale..."
<gag, gasp,...>
So far as I know, they didn't go too far with that before they changed course. Now they're part of phone.com and focused on other things. I hope.
Great. Brain damage, cancer and car crashes...
...now commercials.
Another reason not to buy a cell phone.
signal, noise, to me it's all the same.
{laughs} Uhh... No.
InitZero
This is new?
In my area of the world (Orland, Florida, USA), Primeco has been sending us text ads for months.
This ain't cool.
InitZero
Idiot
"Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" - Benjamin Franklin,
Neil Stephenson was right. It can't be too much longer until we start seeing banner chopsticks with scrolling Kanji.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
Upon recieving this little blipvert, you go into the store to pickup your 6 pack. Happy that you've saved 1.25 on the price, you open a can as you drive and phone a friend to tell him about this wonderfull deal.
Don't forget, they'll also contact the police and tell them you're drinking and driving. More tickets!
--
Lab test show that use of micro$oft causes deadly cancer in lab animals.
If we do this, we can port xmms to it and hope they put enough memory in the thing to play a few hours of mp3's while we aren't talking on the phone.
Who needs a seperate portable mp3 player now?
--
Lab test show that use of micro$oft causes deadly cancer in lab animals.
I already have. There are a few public places that have gone to this model, and at school it's not uncommon to see a piece of paper in the restroom advertising some school function. Given how ppl tend to read in the bathroom, it really is a pretty natural extension. Now when they start collecting data about how many ppl use that restroom, and what they do there...I can just see the day when the bathroom monitors you, and if you visit more than x times in a day starts advertising Immodium, and if you spend longer than y minutes there, it starts telling you about laxatives.
Visit me on #weirdness on the Galaxynet.
(yes, I know I'm replying to my own message.)
Oh, and before anybody screams "THAT'S WHAT THE ARTICLE SAID$!$!#" at my face, I'd like to point out that the article says that the ads provide free cell phone *Internet* usage, and not airtime (i.e. time you can talk to a human being using).
Just a safety precaution.
Is to have "Free Cell Phone" service, where they pump ads at you all day in exchange for free airtime.
It's only a matter of time...
"Information wants to be free"...
"as long as it means me getting something".
Who says you own your shopping records? You walk into their store and use their equipment to purchase it.
"But they use it to send me ads". Why is this bad? They get to send you the ads you're most likely to respond to, and instead of random ads, you get ads for product genres you're interested in. I'd sure as hell be glad if I could say "I hate hyundai" and see no more hyundai adds on tv, and get targeted ads compared to the crap thar filters my way at the moment.
The bottom line is you're going to see adds. If you don't like it, move into the mountains or something. It is not bad to see ads you're more likely to be interested in, and tracking crap youbuy isn't a violation of your rights, it's how you pay for the convenience of your Visa and your fly-buys.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Just imagine... it could be the next generation of "punch the monkey" ads.
Oh. Punch. This whole time I'd been...well, you know. He was a bad monkey.
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then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel is just a freight train coming your way
And any website that includes these will be off my phone browsing list. That simple.
If you're so worried about this then you shouldn't have a mobile, plain and simple.
1) Is fairly obvious. Of course they know who you are.
2) They can get from other means - if you have a supermarket loyalty card, they can get it from that. If not, they can have a stab at it by combining credit card details with the unidentified till records that get sold. Note that the second option isn't necessarily legal in the EU as they can't guarantee the accuracy.
3) They can do already. There have been cases where mobile phone signals have been tracked and admitted as evidence of movements in court.
4) They can infer from 3)
5) They can already get if they really want and you discuss this sort of thing on your phone.
Sorry if this bursts a few bubbles, but they don't need this sort of tech to totally invade your privacy. They can do it anyway and if you're that worried, you should turn off your mobile phone now.
Greg
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
"I would agree that is is just an only extention to an already dificult problem. I would also agree that users have the ability to "live off the grid" if they truley value their privacy. What I would take exception with is the degree graularity offered by triagulating your traveling habits with a hard ID on who you are."
e s/bis0015/links/dpact98/index.html) as a good model?
This isn't anything new, though - they can do this anyway. Whether they do or not isn't relevant.
"Is it wrong for my store, on it's own, to know what I buy and when? No, as long as they seek my informed consent and compensate me for the release of this valuable information."
Informed consent is the key phrase here. I'm not sure it's present much of the time, which is why I refuse to have a supermarket loyalty card. They can offer this due to the value of the data, but the implications of this simply aren't understood by most people.
"Is it wrong for my cell phone company to triagulate my position as I use my phone? No, as long as they ask my informed consent, and compensate me for this valuable information."
Again I'd agree, but do we know what they do with these records? We know they can get them and it appears they can store them for a while as they've been used in legal cases. But d they do so automatically and, if so, what do they do with the data?
"It *is* wrong (as doubleclick is finding out) to passivly log byte crossing a network and selll this valuable information to anyone willing to pay."
Why?
I had NO problem whatsoever with DoubleClick until they started tying data to people. As long as it was simply an anonymous userID, I don't see that is was any different to plenty of other things.
For example, I mentioned earlier supermarket till rolls. They get sold without any linking to customers, as the raw information on sales volumes and patterns is still useful. Being able to identify categories of users is just as valuable as being able to identify individual users. Now, at first, that's all DoubleClick were doing. And if you regard that as fundamentally wrong then there's plenty of other issues you have to think about.
"The problem in this great nation at the moment is that there are no laws on the books from preventing this kind of profiling. It's wrong, and the laws of this great land need to be adjusted to give the user to "live on the grid" and have control over his own profile."
I have to admit, it mildly amuses me to see so much bitching about the American legal system or modern culture but still see references to this great land...
Anyway.
While I understand the potential dangers of profiling, I'm inclined to say you're overreacting a little. The American legal system DOES need updating here, but not by banning profiling. IT's just not that big a problem.
What you DO need is prpoer data protection legislation. Might I suggest the UK Data Protection Act 1998 (http://www.cs.mdx.ac.uk/courses/foundation/modul
Basically, all data has to be relevant, up to date and accurate. And as soon as the purpose for which it was compiled passes, you have to get rid of it.
Seems to be pretty good legislation which works well.
Greg
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Slashdot bitches about ads on cell phones. Slashdot posts ads on website. interesting.
Advertising is becoming ubiquitous, and really, it kind of sucks. I guess that's what happens when everything becomes a 'service'. No one would ever have thought of hardwiring advertisements into a PC, (well, people have, but they were never wide spread). But the monument something ceases to be a 'thing' and becomes a 'service' it gets plastered with advertisements.
Of course, dicking around with a cell phone is a good way to end up in jail, so good luck trying to disable this (unless they provide an option). I can see it now, DMCA style restrictions on "circumventing and advertising scheme". I wouldn't be to surprised, the way things are going now, and the way hardware companies are perfectly willing to stomp all over your rights if it means more money.
[ c h a d   o k e r e ]
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Oh, they can tell which way your head is turned, if you're making eye contact, and whether you are interested. See IBM's "BlueEyes" technology.
Advertising memes. Pesky little things.
the springtime.
Did you read it correctly the first time? Propably not.
Are you sure there isn't any sort of side effect? Ok, yours was only a common spell error, but it ironically illustrates the idea.
Ads everywhere? Think of it as some sort of "ad pollution". You can breathe polluted air for 10 years and survive, but in the end it will kill you. Pervasive Ad probably won't kill you, but surely doesn't make you feel better.
I wouldn't exactly like the idea of my subconscious being tickled all the time, even if this makes me save some money (perhaps). OTOH, if it becomes popular, contracts for cellular phones without ads are going to be more expensive in the long term (grrr...).
Sure, I'd prefer no ads at all - but look at it this way: If I'm going to have to look at ads, why not look at ones that might concern and/or interest me? Heck, if it was for something I like then I might even follow the link or even buy whatever product they're advertising (the AIBO ad at the top of my /. page right now comes to mind).
If they were submitting and tracking personal information, I'd be offended. But if I just tell them my interests and get to see interesting ads, I'd happily do so.
-- Imagine how much more advanced our technology would be if we had eight fingers per hand.
The new rca recorder can auto mark the ad sehment for you after the recording is finish. I don't watch live tv anymore, because I don't need to know which brand is better. I have internet :)
/_____\. .......|
vvvvvvv../|__/|
...I../O,O....|
...I./
..J|/^.^.^ \..|.._//|
...|^.^.^.^.|W|./oo.|
http://slashdot.org/articles/99/11/04/0912233.shtm l
Of course, the memory loss might not be what advertisers want...
... Unless our society is turning into a 30-second sound bite?
a windows based proxy that filters banner ads of varying sizes, annoying pop-up javascript windows, animated images and strips out any Referer info your browser tries to send.
Oh yeah, it's free non-commercially!
so if you're a windozer or you have windows running on a box near you, check it out. Version 2.0 should be available soon.
Let's look at an example. Say you've got one of these cellphones with targeted advertising and discount net access. You're walking by the candy aisle of the supermarket when it lights up with an ad for M & Ms, which you happen to see.
Now, before you saw that ad, you didn't want M & Ms - if you did, they'd already be in your cart, right? You know that they'll help rot your teeth, raise your blood sugar, and add to that spare tire around your middle. But now you have been influenced by that ad, you figure the sweet, sweet taste of chocolate is worth it. The M & Ms go into the shopping cart.
("But I don't let ads influence me!" you cry. That's what they all say, chief, and yet advertising is effective. It's influencing somebody.)
Up at the cashier, you pay for your junk food. And included in the price is a markup that's part of the Mars corporations advertising budget - you just paid for part of your phone's net access.
But you'll be paying more, of course: at the dentist's office, to treat the cavity that you wouldn't have gotten if you hadn't bought those M & Ms -and you wouldn't have bought them without the ad on your cell phone.
Let's get it straight, my friends: 90 percent of advertising wants to influence you into making unhealthy and wasteful choices. It is your enemy.
Think I'm parnoid? Read a few issues of Adbusters to find out what really goes on in the world of advertising, then decide if exposing yourself to more ads is really a good idea.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
If they are willing to give me a free phone + free service just for letting them display ads on my phone; count me in!!!
Who watches their phone anyway? And who the hell surfs the web on their phone?? You've got to have a bad addiction if you can't leave the web for that long.
Actually you don't need a GPS in a cell-phone (GSM). As its name suggest, a cell phone communicates within a "cell", a small area a few kilometers wide covered by an antenae. Since it is possible to know in which cell a phone is (even when you don't phone, as long as it is turned on) you can know where the owner is anytime with a pretty good precision. Pretty easy to do geographically targeted ads, but also services ("where is the closest bank ?", "I need a pizza delivered fast", etc...)
A lot of people are already pissed about the intrusivness of technology into our lives. Although as geeks we tend to drool over cell phones, email transmitting pagers and PDAs, the rest of society aint. Given that we are already tethered to work via these devices, are we really going to accept unimportant irritations into our lives? Is there any more intrusive form of advertising than this, for you personal device to go off to let you know that twinkies are on sale?
I am kind of surprised that a European firm is advancing this. I think we generally tend to view Europe as having less intrusive advertising practices, as after all, some Scandinavian countries prohibt targeting children via advertising. Oh well.
When is the Junkbuster port going to be ready?
matt
I can see this as also being benificial. The adveratisements will probably lessen the cost of service, which is cool by me. It will go to further the spread of the technology, and it will become more common. We will all be more connected.
Please help! I'm stuck inside my virtual reality headset!
In the future, maybe these banner ads will make it affordable to Joe Slashdotter to have a satphone a few years ahead of time; And of course, Joe S. will immediately turn off the banner ads, thus removing the annoyance, while John Windozer calls tech support about the "premium no-advert" service for an additional $99.95 a month.
Anyways, so what? I personally avoid commercials and "news" (as in tv "news" shows); If I couldn't figure out how to shut off the ads or get a friend to do it free, I'd put a piece of duct tape over the banner. Problem solved.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
I read somewhere recently that it's not much effort to remove banner ads on the fly without downloading them. I didn't read how to do it because I surf from a 10-eth connection at school and I don't care (plus the school would get pissed if I started modifying their computers ;-)<P>
Anyway, If you're on a lowband (or pay per bit) connection, just don't download anything animated! And if that strategy blocks something you want to see, download it explicitly and view it already.<P>
Maybe this is a bigger dealt than I'm seeing here... But the second that phone is in my possession, away from employees of Ericson, it becomes MY tool, not theirs, and I can physically do anything to it that I think I can pull off (and so can anyone else).<P>
I'm less worried about stupid banner ads than I am about 100 windows opening every time I back out of the pr0n site I mean, vendor site I was surfing. How much of a pain will those windows be when your screen is the size of a matchbook?! C'mon, you know what I'm talking about... look! you're not even typing with two hands! Oh, sure, hunt and peck, I believe that... *snicker*
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
Take me for instance.
Paris in the the springtime
I didn't notice it the first time I read it, but my eyes instantly jumped back to the double "the" after reading it once... 'cause I'm anal about grammar. Imagine some right wing freak flipping out because his/her phone displays ads for night-life spots, bars, dance halls, gambling, pr0n...
At least, that's what I'm imagining, because I hate right wing dorx.
Lastly, just wanna say what I think will come of all this "ads everywhere" crap: eventually a portion of the population will get sick of it, band together, and build strong walls against all the bullshit that prevails on us daily. You think you've got e-spam problems today... imagine when the average link isn't a phone line, but a coax cable... ewww. When a ten year old can leave his/her 2.7Ghz pc on all night, sending chain letters and requests for hax0ring scripts, and all manner of garbage and virii.
be afraid, be very afraid... and hide behind a firewall and anonymous email addresses.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
[Error! Your connection to the net is not optimized!]
You know the ones. The purpose of any advertisement is to draw you one step closer to buying the product. In the future, ads will continue to evolve; I think we can predict a day when ads will trick you into thinking they are not ads, but rather something else (the something else is where the ad companies get creative... OS errors, browser windows, java progs..). More amazingly though, perhaps ads will someday resort to ACTUALLY TELLING YOU SOMETHING F**K**G USEFUL, as an enticement to click.
As for bonding a computer to my brain, you'd better believe anything hooked directly into *my* brain is gonna automatically ignore ads, and place a muuuch higher priority on doing what *I* tell it to than what the page I just browsed told it to do. Plus the security on that thing is gonna be as good as I can make it, and not based on anything so widely used as to be the target of major cracking attempts by the underground. Hell, by the time I can afford something like that I'll probably be able to write the drivers for it myself anyway.... ;-{>
It's not Capitalism I hate, it's Commercialism, Capitalism's child. And Usury pisses me off in general.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
Even if this service keeps your information private, even if they don't tap your calls, you ought to think twice about all these free services for advertising. These services only have individual short term gains.
Although these services seem free or it maybe seems like you're getting free money, you as the general consumer are going to pay for it somewhere down the line. Both advertising, and the services you receive have cost. This cost doesn't disappear when you receive a free product, it just gets reallocated to some other product (making other products more expensive).
Corporations are not idiots. Most have accountants and analysts that can do math much better than any of us. Perhaps a few startups are giving away products and services right now for very little, but by and large most of these free-service-in-exchange-for-advertising deals will only cost you more than the original cost down the line. The market very rarely forgets about costs. There are very few free rides. You are either screwing over yourself, or someone else (assuming everyone's a consumer) in the future.
For instance, consider the a situation in which company 'A' gives away a product away for "free" with advertising stipulations (eg., banner ads) attached sponsored by Adv. Agency 'B'. "Great," you say. I get a product from company A for free and I only have to see ads sponsored by company B! Wrong. There is a hidden cost to you if you're a consumer, ie. if you're a participant in the market.
That is, every ad that Adv. Agency B puts on A's product costs money. Advertising Agency B passes that cost (with normal advertising costs) along to 'Paying Advertising client C'. And unless client C is just plain stupid, they'll pass that cost on to their products and onto you, the consumer. That is, client C will see advertising costs as normal overhead, and just like any sensible business will adjust the cost/price of their product to reflect that.
So maybe you will get your "free" cellphone which has coupon ads for discounted beer at the supermarket. But it isn't free. The supermarket which advertises on the cellphone, has to pay for those ads. So while you may see your beer discounted, your milk and bread will start to cost more as the supermarket has to account for costs and the adjusted cost will reflect the cost of both the free cellphone service you're getting plus the cost of normal advertising, not just normal advertising. You will pay somewherer down the line
So, to simplify:
Your annual consumer spending without free services for ads ={normal product cost}
Your " " with free services for ads = {the service cost lumped into other product cost} + {advertising}
Eventually you'll being paying not only for the "free" service, but also for the advertising costs that go along with that service. Consider if you really want to support that before more of these so-called "free" services take root and become a staple of our economy. The only ones who will actually be making any money will be advertisers, and everyone will be stuck with ads plastered to everything. Is this a world you want to live in? Ponder being stuck in some traffic bottleneck with nothing to do but stare at some gaudy animated translucent ad embedded in your rear view mirror and dashboard.
I'm really surprised consumer advocacy groups and folks like Ralph Nader haven't taken a firm stance against this free ad crap. Don't be suckered in, everyone!
I remember reading about this a while ago. One potential use could be a gas station could broadcast some special to everyone in the area to boost sales. I'm worried if some hacker created a device to make these broadcast, and then we all get porn advertisements. Another possibility is the phone companies charging more to block ads.
Great Minds Think Alike
:)
_________________________
As interconnectivity slips it's way into more and more devices surounding everyones daily lives in this country, it's important that it's implemented with the users libertys in mind.
Is it wrong for my store, on it's own, to know what I buy and when? No, as long as they seek my informed consent and compensate me for the release of this valuable information. Is it wrong for my cell phone company to triagulate my position as I use my phone? No, as long as they ask my informed consent, and compensate me for this valuable information. It *is* wrong (as doubleclick is finding out) to passivly log byte crossing a network and selll this valuable information to anyone willing to pay.
The problem in this great nation at the moment is that there are no laws on the books from preventing this kind of profiling. It's wrong, and the laws of this great land need to be adjusted to give the user to "live on the grid" and have control over his own profile.
_________________________
Imagine, if you will, as you drive past a grocery store, you recieve an instant e-coupon for $1.25 off a 6 pack of bud.
Upon recieving this little blipvert, you go into the store to pickup your 6 pack. Happy that you've saved 1.25 on the price, you open a can as you drive and phone a friend to tell him about this wonderfull deal.
Ericsson and any other company considering this, should think twice.
The problem with this technology, is that if the advertizement in the above example came from DoubleClick, they would have a complete track of who-what-where-when-and why
1) WHO I am from the cell phone billing information (linked together with older buying habbits).
2) WHAT I buy from the grocery store records.
3) WHERE I am at all times thanks to triagulating the cell phone signal.
4) WHEN I was driving to the store from the time/date stamp on the location log.
5) WHY I bought the beer from the "Eshilon style" key-word based logging of my conversation in order to give the advertiser feedback.
The problem with this is that it closes the "last mile" of the trust model.
I've got news for Ericson and anyone else considering squeezing a blipvert onto my pee-green-screen-underpowered static box you call a cell phone.
NO!
_________________________
First of all, PCS phones don't have that large of a screen, so I'm not sure how they'd have banners, unless its like TV, where you stop and take a break for adverstisements... but anyway, i'm guessing this is how it'll go...
you'll be able to have internet, on your cell phone, as today, without ads, but you still have to pay
or you'll be able to sign up for services such as netzero, bluelight... et al, for your wireless phone, where you have advertisements, but then you get cheaper, or free internet service.
Of course, I track frequency of feminine hygene and baby products as a simple method of knowing whether I should be watching any given TV Show or not. "Ally McBeal" is right off the charts...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Not only that, but when you have your GPS enabled cellphone, they'll be able to track where you are, figure out what shops you are close to, and....
Oooh, the possibilities. Right now I'm thinking about 'Intelligent Agents' for both the advertising company, and the individual merchants. I can see the negotiation now:
ADSYSTEM534 : HELO SEARS284
...
.. etc
SEARS284 : ACK ADSYSTEM534
ADSYSTEM534 : CUSTOMER 32ft x 270 degrees, 2mph
SEARS284 : ACK - LEATHERandFOOTWARE Quotient
ADSYSTEM534 : INCOME 65000, MARRIED, LEATHERandFOOTWEAR 83.6, last purchases: 8mo self, 6mo spouse, 2 and 3 mo children
SEARS284 : ACK BARGAIN
ADSYSTEM534 : 2.3 cents initial, comission 5 cents per 60 seconds linger
SEARS284 : ACK NEGATIVE, comission 3 cents per 60 seconds linger
ADSYSTEM534 : ACK STANDBY
ADSYSTEM534 : HELO EDDIEBAUER86
EDDIEBAUER86: ACK ADSYSETM534
Well, as long as they can't tell what direction my head is turned...
I remember reading an article on dot.com advertising. They were saying that the space above a urinal at a night club was actually a hot property. Because at a urinal, guys look straight ahead and nowhere else.
Or better yet, get two free cell phones, and when one is loading an ad, use the other :)
Two things... 1) I'm not going to get my mother on IRC 2) IRC serves a different function than IM
I have a friend who when he was feeling angst, would sit alone in his room blasting Nine Inch Nails music. And that's kind of what I'm feeling right now.
I agree that advertiser supported services, such as TV, Internet, and magazines, may have lower prices. However, I'm becoming more and more annoyed at the distractions. I don't watch MTV anymore because I can't stand the spinning logo in the corner. I always throw a window over the top of IM because I don't want to see blinking ads. I use The Proxomitron to kill animated GIFs.
I never really had a problem with advertisments until they started interfering with my focus and my time. Sometimes I'd rather just outright pay for content instead of having to waste time and energy on an ad.
Some might say that we have a choice. Unfortunatly that is just not true anymore. Like any other mass consumer good, the majority will always win, and the majority wants cheap at any cost. (I can't *buy* a way to message my friends w/o advertisments - and the MSM/AIM thing killed development of IM for BeOS).
All I want is a choice. I want a list of the expected return per advertisment, so that I can decided whether to pay off the company directly for use of their services.
My worst nightmare is being stuck on the side of the road at 2am and have to listen to an advertisement for Chucky Cheese before I can call a tow truck.
I realize that most of what I wrote is not directly related to web on cell technology. However, the reason that I would want such a technology is convience. Anything that lessens the convience of a cell phone can and will make me angry, especally if I can't decide to turn it off. And in today's slow speed cellular networks and with today's small screens, the impact of advertising will be especially annoying.
Oh and one more thing. Someone was joking about double click and how they would be able to track your cell phone usage. Well it's more than that. GTE has a working system that can track a ESN to within a couple of feet by using the timing that signals return to base stations.
Well, I guess there was no stopping this anyway... I guess now people will start making cracks for cellphones to get annoying stuff like this off the cell phone systems...
It's coming, just you wait.
Pretty soon we won't be able to blink without somebody, somewhere, somehow, advertising to us.
First newspapers, magazines, television, now Internet, cell phones, pagers. Thank god faxes are exempt.
What's next, adversisement on spaceships? The moon?
And this isn't healthy. All adversisements say is BUY MY PRODUCT!, and people are going to start reacting. They won't buy, they'll go nuts. And damage will be done. Hey, if twinkies can cause murder, why not ads?
Don't say I didn't warn you...
------------
"Okay, who taught the cat how to type ctrl alt delete?"
This is just what we as consumers need. Now we will be informed on the latest products available for our use and we will be exposed to that lovely thing known as propaganda. We will be brain washed. Ooh joy.
Wait what am I talking about. This has already happened.
Ads in general are a way to short circuit the free market economy. Instead of going out and buying something that is the best value, ads get people to go out and buy something based on advertising.
Where do you think that all the corporate phsychologists and socialogists are employed. In marketing and in public relations. As the above post says you have to pay for that advertising somewhere. Instead of spending money looking for ways to make products better and less expensive companies would rather spend money trying to get people to think that the product is a better value.
This isn't some big conspiracy theory. This is fact if advertising couldn't convince people to buy products companies wouldn't use it. We as consumers pay for all that advertising. When one goes out and buys a pair of Nike shoes one is paying more for the price of the advertising used to get you to buy the shoes, then the cost to make the shoes.
Companies are now in the position that they have to advertise. Just watch paid advertising on tv. Consumers wouldn't buy most of that crap unless they were fed it day and night. How many people really need those dehydrators, home bread makers, or the newspaper powered grills that sell so well. How many people would spend $120 on a pair of shoes made in China that won't last any longer or look any better then the pair you could get for $35 anywhere.
Later.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
Sounds a lot like me. More and more I seem to get depressed by all the advertising and hype and just plain ignorance of the media and the government. I listen to NIN to, and Metallica, Pantera, Godsmack, Type O Negative or just anything that's fast enough and loud enough to distract me.
I quit watching MTV years ago for some of the same reasons. I used to be a telemarketer and while I worked there I couldn't figure out why people were such jerks. I was just doing a job right? After working there and seeing some of the things that go on in the telemarketing buisiness. I realized that even if I was telling the truth and doing what I was supposed to do, others were all around me were consistantly lying to the public. They got rewarded and I just managed to keep my job by playing by the rules. I quit after only three months figuring that good pay wasn't worth the bad karma and stress. Since then I can't tolerate telemarketers. Whenever one calls I shut it(it is appropriate here) down. The constant battle for my money has left a bad taste in my mouth. At least the telemarketing improved my social engeneering skills ;).
I couldn't agree more but it's more then that it's the loss of freedom. Whenever I watch a movie or listen to the radio my privacy is invaded by some company wanting me to see the light and come buy something. Not to get to far off topic but it's not just advertising that distracts me. It's our society, the media, the government, and buisiness. I have to constantly hear about how my rights are being erroded and how politicians that wouldn't know a computer language for chinese are deciding what my future will be. And that's what it comes down to choice my friends. These things are all battleing for controll of what we think and do.
Again it's not just the media and advertising choice and free will are what all of this boils down to. This is just another syptom of a common ill in our society. We as a people have come to believe that we have no control or power to choose. Look at law. A women orders hot coffee spills it on herself what does she do sue the people that provided her with the coffee. She had no control over the circumstance it was obviously not her fault right. :( If you own land and some moron comes on your property and does something stupid to hurt themselves you are responcible because people can't be resonably expected to be intelligent or cabable of makeing the right decisions they have to be lead.
The government feels that it need more control and they are willing to do anything even trample our rights. Companies want more control over what we think and they will do anything in their power legal or not to get that control.
All I want is choice too. I want my freedom. I rights. I want to be responsible for what I do and think.
Oh, it's even more then that. Digital cell phones are going to be required to be trackable. GPS, or whatever. The government wants to know what we are doing when we are doing it and why. They will be more then happy to overlook or even change the law to allow companies to track/trace/know consumers.
This is my last post for tonight. I'm begining to sound really paranoid. I must need some sleep.
Environmentalists are their own worst enemy. ~tricklenews.com
didn't amazon patent banner ads too?- ----------
-------------------------------------------
Funny...I didn't notice that spelling error until you pointed it out. I probably filtered it out :)
Welcome to Slashdot. Please do not feed the trolls.
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
If i'm going to have to put up with Ad's on my Cell phone 24/7, At least make it so you get unlimited Access and Unlimited Calling as well as the Cell Phone for Free.
Then it might actually make some sense. Otherwise...
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
What's cools is the fact that both of us had the same thught with a completely different style. Oh well, that's what I get for going for humor.. No karma :) (like I care at this point...###! hehehe)
I'll admit it though. Eventually, they'll finally implant the cellphone in my head and the cam in my eyeball and sell my body to some large corporation who will still want me to maintain COBOL.
-----
No Zen is good zen
- No click entry of your friends and family into your database. We'll track them for you as you call.
- Improved advertisement targeting. By tracking your cell phone location we can direct you to the stores nearest you.
- Improved emergency service. Why should you have to choose a tow truck service, we know your location, and can choose the service for you.
- Improved targeted incoming advertisements. For your convenience, our clients will call you with their best offers on your cell phone, regardless of what you're doing at the time.
- Telemarketer forwarding. Our database will insure that if your home or out at the movies, you'll never miss a valuable telemarketing call.
Doubleclick. We're there for you when we need you.-----
No Zen is good zen
I think your right though on the point that when, not if, this becomes commonplace and the cell contracts are driven by ads, it will run up the prices to the end consumers.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
Who knows, it may bring the price down a little with some of the targeted profit margin being met by the advertisers. At least on a cell phone, and later on Palm like devices, the screens are so small, the visual impact isn't all that annoying. Generally I only look at the screen on my cell when I'm dialing, then don't look at the display at all when I'm talking. Seems like a good trade off for lower air charges. Most of our society is numb to this anyway, look at radio ads, we just mentally tune them out. Heres an example.
What does this say:
Paris in the
the springtime.
Did you read it correctly the first time? Propably not. There are two "The's" in the phrase. Our minds generally just overlook or tune out what we instinctively think is irrevelant. In this case it was "the". The same is true for most ads, spam etc. We will just mentally tune the cell ads out just like we do on television. Hopefully lower prices will be the end result.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
Fuck this shit. I hate commercials enough already, and I don't buy anything because of a commercial, seriously.
Anyway, I already got rid of my mobile, they cause cancer, and now they will cause rage attacks.
You can't handle the truth.
If we could get the phone and calls for free or discounted rate, ala free i-net, it would be pretty cool. Currently I don't have a cell phone because of the costs. But I would probaly sign up for a service that offered me a free phone and discounted or free calls just for recieving ads over it. Now if those ads are matched up with my calls and my calls are tapped so they can match up the ads I'd have to think twice. That could be pretty bad. But assuming privacy is kept this could be quite a deal. I think ads will continue to permate (spelling?) our lives more and more. I think eventually we'll see ads in bathroom stalls and other places like that. It makes sense, it helps lower the cost to consumers.
Billy Transue
bill-transue@NOcoolmailSPAM.net
Open Source, Open Standards, Open Minds
I know exactly where that is.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
What next, huh? If/when neural interface technology is developed and becomes a common, everyday thing, will companies pump ads directly into our brains?
Just imagine... it could be the next generation of "punch the monkey" ads.
Can I disable cookies on my phone?
kwsNI
So why not let the cell phone prices come down a little bit so you might have to look at an ad every now and then? That doesn't stop you from watching TV, listening to the radio, reading a magazine or newspaper, or driving for that matter.
Ads make things cheaper and inform us and annoy us. So yeah I'm all for it.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
This is such a dumb idea.
Ahh.. What part of this idea is dumb? This sounds like an awesome marketing tool, and a good way for everyone to carry a free (or heavily discounted) cell phone. In this day and age everyone should have a cell phone, and this will promote that greatly.
Accept it, this is going to be how technology advances in the future - through corporate initiatives... not government etc. Remember on the movie 'star-ship troopers' where all the ships and such in space all had corporate logos on them? Well that is good fortelling of the future. Is it a bad thing? - certainly not. Technology will advance at a far greater rate through private funding and corporate initiative. In this manner we all have a choice when it comes to what service to use, and who to get it from.
----------------------------
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Esobofh - Currently drinking fresh mango juice.
To clarify..
When I said everyone should have a cell phone in this day and age... I don't mean we need more useless ninnies yacking it up on the subway, I meant that for emergency use, for women to have for security etc... This is a good thing. Now you don't have to scrimp on piece of mind because of the cost of a cell phone and it's associated service.
----------------------------
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Esobofh - Currently drinking fresh mango juice.
aww great who let the godamn hippy's in here - they ain't got water because they aint supposed to. Natural selection my friend, natural selection. Maybe we can use their dry withered bones to make more cell phones.
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Esobofh - Currently drinking fresh mango juice.
On the other hand the thing works a helluva lot better than any US cellphone I've had, and the caller ID does a great job matching incoming calls to numbers in my phonebook and displaying exactly who is calling. That way I know when to hit the deflect call button and just give them my voicemail....They also have 900/1900/1800 here so one phone works here, in europe and the us.
Often these phones charge by the minute. Will they charge you for banner adds you are subjected to as opposed to content we willfully download. I'm not paying $0.10 to download another "shop at E-bay" banner. Not to mention the blazing speed at which these phones go anyway.
When will companies wake up and smell the coffee? A reliable source that works for a media company told me that banner ads are worthless, they hardly generate any clicks that lead to purchases.
/. and Google, I still am very angry at all the slimy marketing/sales folk trying to cash in with the *stupidest* business ideas.
I am SO sick of the commercialization of the Internet. While it has brought about things like broadband and useful websites like
I hope one day there is a reward and recognition for a site that's "banner-ad free". I totally understand why they're useful for revenue now, but hopefully it won't always have to be that way.
They will all have them of course, just like like they all have adds today...except of course the small private ones, so if all you want to do is read about aunt magdas bowel movements then you are fine.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Do banners actually work on web-sites? Obviously commercials on TV have success. I don't know about this concept. If cellphone technology gets improved and they make it so that the digital phone that they said wouldn't suffer from dropped calls or interference (that I bought) actually doesn't drop calls or have interference...
As far as privacy goes... if you want to stay private in the US... good luck. You would have to get rid of your Social Security card, credit cards, grocery store cards, etc much less your cellphone to be anywhere near private.