Slashdot Mirror
AdCritic To Return
jspectre writes "The Ad Age Group has acquired advertising archive AdCritic which was shut down last year and are bringing it back new and improved. They're also looking for comments on what people did and didn't like to help improve the site."
Don't force my browser window to resize. WTF is up with that?
Now I can peacefully go back to pretending that sports don't exist! I never did like sitting through a Super Bowl game waiting for the next new commercial. I say 'Bless you all!' to the folks behind this revival!
It's good their back. It was a great way to view stuff I'd never have a chance to actually watch on TV. Bandwidth costs must be HUGE!
It ain't gonna be the same ol' AdCritic... If you read their site, it is going to be geared to advertising professionals only. No general public consumption. Complete with membership subscriptions and everything. Which is all too bad in my book. I enjoyed that site. I sure as hell ain't gonna pay to watch their commercials.
Oh well...
Jason
He's totally creeping out the Great One, eh...
We're so steeped in our own commercialism now that we watch advertisements for entertainment on their own.
This scares me. Of course, I'm in front of the television for about two hours a week--but I don't get what the attraction is. They're trying to sell you stuff. Most likely, stuff you don't need and frequently stuff you wouldn't want if you knew the whole story behind it.
I guess this is one of those cases where I just smile and nod and go back to reading.
I hope the new site will be able to handle traffic better than the story link. There isn't even 6 comments posted yet and it is already dead. Nice work guys!
The only thing I can think of to really improve the old AdCritic would be to have given it more bandwidth. It just got severly overburdened most of the time. Especially when the superbowl commercials came out.
:)
I still laugh uncontrollably at the "Damn vikings!" Bud Light ad
http://www.adcritic.com/default.html
Like I said above... this ain't your old AdCritic...
Jason
He's totally creeping out the Great One, eh...
It will be good for that once-in-a-year time that you want to download a comercial and can't find it on a p2p. Besides that, commercials are pretty much unoriginal, not funny, and typically appeal to the Aly McBeal crowd (ie: super edumicated).
I hope they go for it. It would become the first large scale deployment of a non-mp3 centric p2p network.
This post was compiled with `% gec -O`. email me if you need the sources
I mean, if a wildly successful site in terms of visitors who's CONTENT is nothing but ADS can't make any money, then a lot of people are going to have to pick up their marbles and go home..
..don't panic
I have to cheer! This is great.
Now, let's just get the 24-hour Commercial Channel on cable, and I'm set.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
My major suggestion would be to support more media formats.
:-)
Some people cannot or do not choose to use Windows Media Player or Quicktime.
RealMedia isn't that horrible, and it has free players for Linux.
Although, Crossover plugins work nicely for viewing Sorensen-encoded Quicktime files in Linux.
But still, just make sure you guys allow EVERYONE the opportunity to check out some funny commercials
A Site I Visit Several Times A Day
Now finally, the average surfing session will get back to 90 minutes where it should be!
I think if some P2P program came out for websites, it would solve the bandwidth problem of alot of sites. For example, you go to a website, you start downloading a video file or whatever, but instead of downloading it from the main site, it would download from a bunch of differant people. Only certain sites would be allowed to put content on the network. Then once you get the file, people can download it from you. Anybody think somthing like this will actualy come out some day?
Hacker Media
It's a great site but there are too many ad's on it.
...
I haven't even found out what the content are about.
.. think
I liked adCritic because living in France, just makes it that much harder to see some good US ads. Of course we also do have a specialised weekly "advertisement" show (that is excellent IMO) that shows the world's best adds or just concentrates on a theme (more of a marketing show)...well to make a long story short, yes, people like watching adds. Why? Because a lot of time and money are put in to produce 30 seconds that are going to keep you riveted to the ad, you have humour, eye-candy, series...
I don't know if I'd actually pay to see ads (who would have thought)... but I'd be real pleased if adcritic were open again to the bigger public.
how does one change his
Its almost as bad as having your homepage changed from slashdot.org to http://buyaCheapPOSdigitalCamera.com
I DONT WANT A LITTLE CAMERA!!!
The thing that was wrong with AdCritic.com was that it wasn't about criticism of advertisements, either in general or of particular ads; people just went to watch ads.
The best thing they could do to improve it is give it to the AdBusters folks.
--------- http://www.ahref.com: a community for web developers http://www.piou.org: yet another blog ---------
Gee... Here's a freaking idea, how about making money off all those ads people download? That is the point of the entire damn website.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
Given how Ad Age does have ads but they CHARGE for viewing them, I suspect the new AdCritic will also try to charge. They may have very low quality versions of the ads for free and high quality versions if you pay.
But if they charge more than $1 a year for the pay service, I'm not going to be interested. I'm not going to pay large sums of money to watch ADS, even if some of them are funny.
Oh and they have to be in a format I can SAVE. I like to SAVE the funny ads.
A non-mp3-centric p2p network? must be you haven't tried all of them. I find this one has nearly any movie i'd want, but rarely has more than 5 songs by any artist. It does movies really well, with multiple (slow) simultaneous connections, I always get what i can find. However, finding an MP3 is not worth the work, although YMMV. don't forget to check out this site if you do decide to use the donkey.
-Dave
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
...over why they even took adcritic down in the first time. Are big corporations so stupid that they cant realize they are getting free publicity? Adcritic could of and should be a marketing execs dream. Mother fuck wasting hordes of money to get time on a large network during a popular show's timeslot... just make it funny, post it to the net, and let the word of mouth do the rest.. i swear, sometimes i think companies that go out of business do so not because of poor sales, but because of stupid,ignorant, closed minded people running them
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
They said a "low" monthly fee. How much? Any per-view charges? Hope not!
One thing, almost the only one, I did not like about the old AdCritic was the fact that you only had US ads. What about Canadian, British or Australian ads?
One thing I did like was the "what song is used for this commercial?" feature: that how I discovered Moby's Play album (yes, I know, where was I, yada yada yada...).
Lots of people complaining about the costs...of course it is a worthy cause so I did buy membership at the old AdCritic.
If it's worth it then buy it, ain't that the tr00th?
Also, the advertising professionals section (to which I subscribed) was quite worth it. Giving feedback on the ads (most of which were specatuclar) helped the industry and led to some ads that marketing execs thought were st00pid getting aired (success) and those that were st00pid not getting aired. You're not only helping others you're helping getting sn00ty marketing execs get fired.
internet like monkeys'
I'd just like to say that I hate tv commercials because of the fact you always get one thrown in the face just before you find out who killed the guy (movie generalization). I don't like the fact that it is pushed in my face.
HOWEVER, I do find some commercial witty, funny and sometimes refreshing. Just let ME decide when and which ones to view.
P.S. I also hate seeing the same damn commercial 2-3 times in the SAME break.
Why would "advertising professionals" pay lots of money to look at other peoples' commercials? Research? Historical reference? I guess, but I don't buy it. Which ad-pro role would be responsible for using this site, the CEO? The intern? Advertising people tend to know what has come before and what else is out there, since...you know...it's their job and stuff.
Advertising is about differentiation and identity, and unless New-AdCritic is aiming at the lowest common denominator AdCritic isn't going to be able to differentiate their own selves from basic TV (HBO/PayTV with commercials, but without content. SIGN ME UP!). The real point of this is that they're saying that "AdCritic is coming back...for a fee". That's all. Everything else is speculation on the demand they hope to plug into. Perhaps they'll try and snag a billionth of the advertising data market, but I'd say it's more likely that lusers will have access for a subscription fee and the advertising professionals will pay through the nose to get a peek at the demographics of commercial viewers. Gotta love that registration data, and I bet all of this would still come prepackaged with banner ads! If history is any indication and they latch onto the sales/marketing dweeb stereotype, they're overstating their importance and hoping that they can make *any* money off of people watching commercials and only commercials and telling their friends about commercials for hours on end.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Make it faster! The steaming video was fairly slow, if I remember correctly.
AdCritic was gone
But now it has come again
Get out your wallet
appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars
we want mpeg or mpeg4 files please.
none of this quicktime crap.
just because it was free to you does not mean that it didn't have costs for the agencies and their clients. actors get paid not just for their "session fee" but also for residuals. residuals are based, theoretically, on amount of exposure that the actor gets. so running an ad nationally is not the same pay for an actor as running an ad in spot cable. the recent SAG strike against the AAAA had a LOT to do with internet distribution and how the actors should be compensated for those viewings. so, if you're an agency who has to pay an actor residuals based on the number of online views, you don't just want to leave that up in the air and get stuck with a big bill.
also, when previously-published and popular music is bought for an ad, they sometimes don't negotiate in online runs. so that's another hidden cost. remember when apple forced adcritic to take down all of apple's ads and everyone screamed about how stupid it was of them? well, there are costs involved with talent and other licenses. it's not just like a commercial is made and all the costs are included so you can just clap your hands together a couple times and saunter off with a happy whistle.
consider for a moment the possibility that you don't understand all the factors that go into a decision like that and maybe you won't think everyone in the world is a moron besides you.
...there was even an Onion article about you...
considering about 95% of the ad business uses macintosh, i sure hope they're not going to do away with the quicktime format. if you don't like it, then start another advertising website with a different format. another case of choosing the tool which is best-suited to the job.
OK here is is so listen up!
There - "It's over there". Location.
Their - "It's their ball". Possesive.
They're - "They're nice people". Contraction of "They are".
Is everyone clear on this now? GOOD! I don't want to see you mess this up again, any of you...
A.C.
2002-03-28 08:08:57 AdCritic is coming back ... Wooo Hooo! (articles,news) (rejected)
...
:-)
I would love to see a Slashdot feature that shows the rejected articles. It'd bring back the fun in posting
This is truly a miracle!
And now, for a sig that's a complete copout.
I was just searching on Gnucleus for that "What are YOU doing?!" Budweiser commercial, thinking what a tragedy losing AdCritic was, when up comes the best news I've heard all week! Sweet, I can't wait!!!
putfwd.com - 1GB Free file storage with a twist
Also more sizes. For people who have high bandwidth it would ber nice to be able to see the clips at about 640x480 or something larger.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Well, ok, I actually ment non-copyright-infrigement centric. Today, p2p networks are currently being used for massive civic disobedience againts the sad state of copyright laws. I fear that, if p2p doesn't justify its existance soon, it might be declared illegal before it has a chance to. After all, the ratio of legal to illegal uses today is near zero. It is concivable congress will write a gun control type law for p2p code.
Thanks for the links though. Creating the edk2 links (based of file hashes) is a big step ahead in usability. I need to find out more about the protocol, who developed it and who owns it.
This post was compiled with `% gec -O`. email me if you need the sources
You get that much "a pop," either your raking in BOATLOADS of cash, or the "suckers" are about a year apart in frequency. JUST TO TELL YOU IF THE AD IS INTERESTING? Yet 90% of the TV ads SUCK?
If that's all true, well then here is my resume! I'm well educated and extremely critical by nature!
With all due respect, I'll listen to you guys when it comes to tech stuff
Oh, BTW, for you, that's going to cost "10M a pop" from now on. Consider each Slashdot page load "a pop." My lawyers will contact you shortly.
PS: VMS is an OS, and an old one... Good luck trying to call it!
Who cares about what the ad business uses. This site is for the home-user who is 92% windows, 7% Linux and 1% something else. I do not want to view my commercials through a program that bitches at me to buy a pro version that I have no intention of purchasing. Furthermore, QuickTime is a proprietary codec and you know what us slashdotters think of proprietary codecs.
exactly how much are you willing to wager on that? Your company CAN do better than a 1-10 "is this hot or not" online rating scale? Are you REALLY willing to take that gamble with your money? With your companies reputation? If so, then, contact me to layout the conditions... I'm sure there are 1000's of "skript kitties" that will do set it up for free.... gimme a legit chance to put in the bandwidth and promotion it deserves (say 1 month, and $25,000 which is a fraction of the time and money an ad firm will charge), and we'll test your theory!
_IF_ you were in advertising, you broke so many rules here by exposing what a "racket" it is, and how much empty BS is really involved to justify the money.
Oh, BTW, if any of this guy's client's are out there, your welcome to contact me to try this "experiment" as well!
I wrote in with my suggestions, basically these--
1) Allow local saves of the videos, both because it'll please visitors of the website, and because it'll SAVE YOU MONEY on bandwidth costs. Streaming a video 1000 times because some guy likes those Victoria's Secret commercials is just wrong, and won't turn a profit.
2) Provide higher quality video content; work with the advertisers to get these high quality copies (I know there's some red tape involved, but really-- what advertiser DOESN'T want free advertising? Especially to people who WANT to see their ad?). Every year, compile all the ads that can fit on one DVD together, and release it at a profit-getting price ($25-35 seems reasonable here). Or use two DVD's, if need be. I can think of atleast 1-2 ads I'd like in a permanent format to view at my leisure (or show to friends) that would make it worth the money to buy such a collection (especially if they were high-bitrate, high resolution versions).
I can't really think of anything else worth suggesting, someone mentioned adding more available formats, and if I had my way, they'd be distributing MPEG1 or MPEG2 files instead of ASF/WMV/MOV. That'd be about the only thing I left out. =)
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
best comment I've read in a very long while - wish I had gotten here in time to mod it up myself!
but PLEASE, for the LOVE OF GOD no more quicktime! It freezes my computer, or makes the whole screen flicker with each frame. It takes too long to load some videos, and while it's loading, if I want to close it, I have to end task! Forget subscriptions. I'll send them money RIGHT NOW if they promise to use good old no-problems, compatability-across-the-board MPEG!
Here were my comments to them:
"I will not be pushed, stamped, filed, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered! My life is my own." - The Prisoner
and it should be FREE!
I'm not sure how an audio/video site can afford to store all their content three times over, and while we're at it different bit rates too, so the 56kinda people can use it.
What I'd like to see is something that could encode a media clip in realtime as the user downloads it for whatever player they're using. Pretty far fetched, admittedly, having converted stuff between formats before (and having uncompressed and then recompressed it) but is storage more expensive than CPU time?
Use Evolution instead of Outlook? Bewa
These people are obviously nothing but consumers. Disgusting.