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Google Ad-words Poetry Project
hecticjames writes "Cute idea - buying google adwords to place poetry. The site also includes google's response." The page is a really interesting look into Google's
text ad service, and has a lot of interesting statistics about the relative
value of art and porn. It's really worth a read.
Uh huh.. And in other Google news, did you notice the spellchecking and automatic search of correctly spelled query?
The thing I like about those poems is their subversiveness. How often have you just ignored advertising around you and then suddenly, one anti-advertisement catches your eye? When we surf or even search, we are skimming and go through a lot of things using our peripheral visions.
I once wrote a satirical piece that individuals would need to buy words before they could have the right to use them. So common words like pronouns and sex and friend and give would be too expensive for most people to afford, while words in other minor languages would be considerably cheaper.
Having an auction for words would be interesting and probably add variety to self-expression. Perhaps it is a far-fetched idea, but with Hollywood and content providers placing copyright lassos over so many things, will it be only a matter of time before corporations own the rights to certain words? Also, wouldn't it result in vast new vocabularies being created with every new day? I'm sick of using the word "sex." Why not use the word "glorb" instead?
By the way, if you want an absurdist meditation on words, buying, selling, etc, read The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster .
Robert Nagle
Robert Nagle, Idiotprogrammer, Houston
As some uninformed person once said,
"I may not know art, but I know what I like."
And personally, I don't like the first "poem" listed.
The first one says:
Words aren't free anymore
bicornuate-bicervical uterus
one-eyed hemi-vagina
www.unbehagen.com
This is supposed to be a poem? Come on, it's childish gibberish at best, and at worst it is a verbal attack on women. And since it is is response to the keyword "symtom", what relevence is it?
The second one says:
Follow your dreams
Did I just urinate ?
Directly into the wind
www.unbehagen.com
Again, childish drivel, in response to the keyword "dream".
the third one actually is redeeming:
mary !!!
I love you
come back
john
While not great literature, very emotive. In response to "mary", by the way.
And the last:
don't ever do that again
aaargh !
are you mad ?
ooops !!!
This one is in response to the keyword "money". so while it isn't as tasteless as the first two, what relevence does it have?
While I do support artistic expression, even the ones I find offensive or dimwitted, I also support the right of companies to limit their services as they see fit. If Google decides that these "poems" are offensive to their normal audience, they have the right to stop them. At least suspend them pending further review, and possibly see where the artist is going with it.
If these "poems" (I can't even legitimately call them poems, so yes the quotes are needed.) contained racist comments, they would be pulled in the same way. Since a large number of people may find at least the first two offensive, Google can pull them if they like, or if their legal advisors deem it appropriate.
I haven't read the whole page, just the top part, so I don't know where the porn ties into it, but this doesn't seem as big a deal as the submitter makes it out to be. If I searched for "dream" and got a link about peeing into the wind, I wouldn't be to impressed with the service.
The main rules of this new world are not ethic rules. As you can read in the emails I received, my happening has been censored by Google not for moral reasons but for economic ones.
Google provides their adword service so that related topics can be displayed next to real live search results. Making sure the ads returned are related to the search performed makes sense for google, its users, and its adword advertisers.
This guy wants to force unrelated poetry into your view instead. As a result, no one was clicking on his adword because it wasn't related to their search, and google's automatic ranking system lowered his ads due to the very low click-through rate. The guy could keep his ads on google, they just would very rarely be displayed due to their not being related to the searches.
A self-correcting system that makes sense.
Google rules.
I don't agree with the reasons why I was censored. I believe that the censorship rules of Google are not in accordance with the power and the importance of the tool they have created.
But it's NOT censorship! (Even ignoring for a moment that 'censorship' is really only when THE GOVERNMENT prevents you from saying something, not a PRIVATE COMPANY!)
Such a tool should be used more freely and should be self-regulated.
How the fuck could google be "self-regulated," since mySELF doesn't have control over google?
They are a private company, not your personal tool for serving poetry.
"And like that
Since I'm bored and have an adwords account already, I checked for the cost of this phrase. Result: $300/day. Meanwhile, "straight sex" results in $12/day....
What if Microsoft bought Google? Or, a scarier thought: What if Google became the next Evil Empire?
"Anything is better than IE, and you can quote me on that." -- Wil Wheaton.
Can't buy it.
See post on alt.religion.scientology
Well, you probably could buy it, you just can't set your ad link to xenu.net.
"At this time, we are not running ads for sites that promote hate against another group or business."
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Freaky. A few days ago (Sat, April 13, I think), I search google for QuantaBot. Google said I misspelled Quantiblot and gave me results for that instead (did not say how many results were returned for the original search term). I headed straight to their "Quality form" to bitch that I had NOT misspelled anything and resented them giving me results on something else instead. Today, I tried the same search and was told
"Your original search: QuantaBot was misspelled and returned 0 results.
The corrected search: Quantiblot was done instead and the results appear below."
Wow. Could it be that someone at an internet-based company actually uses customer feedback!?
Sincerely,
The Slashdot Automated Performance Monitor
The SAP Monitor... I like it.
Correction:
Slashdot Performance Automated Monitor
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Over at Kuro5hin, the site is pretty much paid for by user placed ads.
The difference between user text ads and corporate ads is amazing. There is a lot of fun in the top-left corner of the screen, where the ads sit. You can also comment on most ads (there is an option to prohibit commenting, but it is rarely used), as if they were stories.
We Kuro5hin-ers are quite happy with our ad system.
because their "spell check" is not a dictrionary, but the web itself.
Conceivably, if a majority of indexed webpages began using "pron" then the next time you type "porn" google will ask
did you mean "pron"?
When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand.
You really want to know? I have an account:
Keyword Matches vi
16,300 impressions (these are per-day)
Estimated cost per day: US$244.50
Keyword Matches emacs
17,200 impressions
Estimated cost per day: US$258.00
Keyword Matches joe
50,400 impressions
Estimated cost per day: US$756.00
Keyword Matches word
94,300 impressions
Estimated cost per day: US$1,414.50
Keyword Matches koffice
200 impressions
Estimated cost per day: US$3.00
Keyword Matches gnome
15,700 impressions
Estimated cost per day: US$235.50
Keyword Matches kde
15,200 impressions
Estimated cost per day: US$228.00
Keyword Matches fvwm
0 impressions
Estimated cost per day: US$0.00 0 impressions
Keyword Matches linux
523,200 impressions
Estimated cost per day: US$7,848.00
Keyword Matches windows
690,300 impressions
Estimated cost per day: US$10,354.50
Keyword Matches bsd
6,900 impressions
Estimated cost per day: US$103.50
--------------------
So, in summary, BSD really is dying, emacs just barely beats vi, KDE and gnome are neck and neck, and no one uses fvwm. Oh, and if you ask someone what koffice is, they will look at you funny.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.