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Smart Billboards
djdanlib writes "The New York Times ran this story Sunday about the Mobiltrak smart billboard system. It works by detecting what radio station you're listening to as you pass by a billboard, then displaying advertisements targeted at that station's demographic. It's kind of like a real-time Nielsen Ratings system for radio. And it's entirely passive, requiring no special hardware in your car - it receives the faint tuning signal generated by your radio." We've mentioned these before.
uh, people who want traffic reports? People who want to listen to the news or weather?
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
"Is the Howard Stern show still on the radio these days? That could get dangerous."
How about the flip side? I listen to NPR a lot, and if enough people are listening to non-corporate radio, it'll be really interesting to see what kinds of ads are displayed.
Of course in Phoenix, almost all of the corporate stations are running extremely frequent ads for adult stores like "The Castle Boutique" and "Fascinations", or ads for participating in medical studies, so the content could get rather lewd or strange if these advertisers take to the billboards...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Yum - federally funded radio! I can see the ads now:
"Vote for this politician, who is just like the other one, except for his stance on the death penalty!"
"Support our drive to change this wholly irrelevant government policy! Ignore the $=power equation, and the fact that you=$0!"
"Vote! Cloak the government in the mantle of legitimacy!"
"Vote twice! Cloak the government in the Mantle of Legitimacy +2!"
Corporate sponsorship is fundamentally no different from federal sponsorship. Both sponsors want you to be a good sheep. Both hold up the threat of mutton to encourage you to permit your fleecing.