This is really too bad. Adcritic was one of those sites that I enjoyed, but never to the level of regular visitation. I suppose that is why they shut it down. I mean, seeing funny commercials you don't get at home is interesting, but for the average joe out there, who would want to pay for it? Not this joe. That's for sure.
Ya know what... I think this here internet thing is still evolving...
Jason
-- He's totally creeping out the Great One, eh...
Re:a problem waiting to happen
by
ncc74656
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I always thought of adcritic as a problem waiting to happen. On one side, there's the potential legal problems of showing copyrighted content (i still can't belive they never got sued)
What company, in its right mind, is going to complain about someone running its ads for free? They ordinarily pay big bucks to get the word out...AdCritic runs (OK, ran) their ads whenever someone wants (um...wanted) to see them.
-- 20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
A need for Distributed Content Storage
by
Starship+Trooper
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
This is just one example of why peer-to-peer distributed systems like the Freenet project need to be developed. The Web is limited in that there needs to be somebody willing to maintain and update the servers on which data is stored, and that when a huge central resource like this can no longer afford to maintain their service, gigabytes of data can be potentially lost forever. What we need is a distributed system, where content is automatically propagated between nodes and can be downloaded from any one node, independent of venture capital and ad revenues.
Freenet does much of this, but still falls short of the ideal and still needs a lot of work to become viable. "Unpopular" data on Freenet is automatically destroyed to make room for more popular data, which makes it unsuitable for prolonged archival. There still isn't a decent search engine; finding data requires that you obtain the "key" from somebody who knows where to find it, which is inefficent and makes it hard for new Freenet users to locate data. If Freenet data could be made more permanent and easily searchable, or if somebody else could develop and promote a P2P network that isn't just a haven for warez and stolen music, it would become a great alternative to the struggling Web.
-- Loneliness is a power that we possess to give or take away forever
Re: When will Slashdot fall? (Troll -1)
by
daviddennis
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Doubtful. The thing saving Slashdot is that it has a clear, identifiable audience that spends big bucks on stuff. The audience also includes many people who are heavily in demand, even in this economy. So you get lots of employment ads, and lots of gadget, hosting and Linux server ads, and that should be enough to let them pull through.
Bandwidth is probably their greatest expense, but it's almost pure text and thus not enormous. Granted, it's a lot of pure text, but one 30 second video is bigger than any Slashdot story will ever get to be.
Finally, you have something like five people running the site. I know Rob makes $90k a year, and everyone else probably makes correspondingly less. So it just doesn't take that much to keep it up and running, compared to (say) Salon, who has maybe 25-50 professional writers to feed.
D
apple.com/trailers
by
foobar104
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
(Hope this isn't redundant; I just skimmed the comments at 3 before posting. That's right, baby. I'm bad.)
I visit apple.com/trailers pretty regularly-- at least once a week. Apple uses it to showcase QuickTime technology, and I'm sure there's some arrangement between Apple and the movie studios to get those trailers out there.
I wonder if Apple would be interested in picking up Ad Critic's yoke? I mean, the infrastructure is already there; Apple's got their content for the trailers site akamai'd all to heck, so it's as immune to the Slashdot effect as a site can be. And I'm sure agencies would like to get more eyeballs in front of their ads, especially now when PVRs are just starting to give viewers a viable choice to watching them on tee vee.
(Uh-oh. I mentioned Apple, QuickTime, and advertising all in one post. From the time I click "submit" we'll have about two minutes to reach minimum safe distance.)
Will you distribute my bandwidth?
by
Saeger
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
we became so popular so fast that we couldn't stay afloat!
Too bad. Another victim of their own success; trampled to death by an insane bandwidth bill (judging from their content).
You know what would keep guys like these afloat? When somebody finally comes up with a viable P2P system that acts as a basic "userland akamai" for 'non-profit' fansites. As the audience size grows, the members continue to support the whole (well, at least when it comes to large, static pieces of content), instead of the site being crushed under the weight of its popularity.
Slashdot Mirror
This is really too bad. Adcritic was one of those sites that I enjoyed, but never to the level of regular visitation. I suppose that is why they shut it down. I mean, seeing funny commercials you don't get at home is interesting, but for the average joe out there, who would want to pay for it? Not this joe. That's for sure.
Ya know what... I think this here internet thing is still evolving...
Jason
He's totally creeping out the Great One, eh...
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Freenet does much of this, but still falls short of the ideal and still needs a lot of work to become viable. "Unpopular" data on Freenet is automatically destroyed to make room for more popular data, which makes it unsuitable for prolonged archival. There still isn't a decent search engine; finding data requires that you obtain the "key" from somebody who knows where to find it, which is inefficent and makes it hard for new Freenet users to locate data. If Freenet data could be made more permanent and easily searchable, or if somebody else could develop and promote a P2P network that isn't just a haven for warez and stolen music, it would become a great alternative to the struggling Web.
Loneliness is a power that we possess to give or take away forever
Doubtful. The thing saving Slashdot is that it has a clear, identifiable audience that spends big bucks on stuff. The audience also includes many people who are heavily in demand, even in this economy. So you get lots of employment ads, and lots of gadget, hosting and Linux server ads, and that should be enough to let them pull through.
Bandwidth is probably their greatest expense, but it's almost pure text and thus not enormous. Granted, it's a lot of pure text, but one 30 second video is bigger than any Slashdot story will ever get to be.
Finally, you have something like five people running the site. I know Rob makes $90k a year, and everyone else probably makes correspondingly less. So it just doesn't take that much to keep it up and running, compared to (say) Salon, who has maybe 25-50 professional writers to feed.
D
(Hope this isn't redundant; I just skimmed the comments at 3 before posting. That's right, baby. I'm bad.)
I visit apple.com/trailers pretty regularly-- at least once a week. Apple uses it to showcase QuickTime technology, and I'm sure there's some arrangement between Apple and the movie studios to get those trailers out there.
I wonder if Apple would be interested in picking up Ad Critic's yoke? I mean, the infrastructure is already there; Apple's got their content for the trailers site akamai'd all to heck, so it's as immune to the Slashdot effect as a site can be. And I'm sure agencies would like to get more eyeballs in front of their ads, especially now when PVRs are just starting to give viewers a viable choice to watching them on tee vee.
(Uh-oh. I mentioned Apple, QuickTime, and advertising all in one post. From the time I click "submit" we'll have about two minutes to reach minimum safe distance.)
Too bad. Another victim of their own success; trampled to death by an insane bandwidth bill (judging from their content).
You know what would keep guys like these afloat? When somebody finally comes up with a viable P2P system that acts as a basic "userland akamai" for 'non-profit' fansites. As the audience size grows, the members continue to support the whole (well, at least when it comes to large, static pieces of content), instead of the site being crushed under the weight of its popularity.
Fat chance?
--
Power to the Peaceful