Yahoo & Google Testing Pay-Per-Call Ads

khundeck writes "'Internet giants Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. are testing a new form of online advertising that encourages people to pick up the phone rather than click on a link, lending credibility to the 'pay-per-call' ad model.'" From the article: "Google is testing a variant in which users click on a phone icon and type their number into a box. Google then dials the user, who hears ringing until the merchant answers. Google says the service is free for callers even on long-distance calls, and it promises not to divulge the caller's number to anyone."

Comments

FP?

[Anonymous Coward]

Numero de uno de posto
I'm in LOVE

Pete and repeat

[stephenMF]

Pete and repeat sat on a fence, Pete fell off and who was left? http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/23/233620 3&tid=217&tid=99

Re:Pete and repeat

[Hamilton Publius]

Christmas in America is an exuberant display of human ingenuity, capitalist productivity, and the enjoyment of life. Yet all of these are castigated as "materialistic"; the real meaning of the holiday, we are told, is assorted Nativity tales and altruist injunctions (e.g., love thy neighbor) that no one takes seriously.

In fact, Christmas as we celebrate it today is a 19th-century American invention. The freedom and prosperity of post-Civil War America created the happiest nation in history. The result was the desire to celebrate, to revel in the goods and pleasures of life on earth. Christmas (which was not a federal holiday until 1870) became the leading American outlet for this feeling.

Historically, people have always celebrated the winter solstice as the time when the days begin to lengthen, indicating the earth's return to life. Ancient Romans feasted and reveled during the festival of Saturnalia. Early Christians condemned these Roman celebrations -- they were waiting for the end of the world and had only scorn for earthly pleasures. By the fourth century, the pagans were worshipping the god of the sun on December 25, and the Christians came to a decision: if you can't stop 'em, join 'em. They claimed (contrary to known fact) that the date was Jesus' birthday, and usurped the solstice holiday for their Church.

Even after the Christians stole Christmas, they were ambivalent about it. The holiday was inherently a pro-life festival of earthly renewal, but the Christians preached renunciation, sacrifice, and concern for the next world, not this one. As Cotton Mather, an 18th-century clergyman, put it: "Can you in your consciences think that our Holy Savior is honored by mirth? . . . Shall it be said that at the birth of our Savior . . . we take time . . . to do actions that have much more of hell than of heaven in them?"

Then came the major developments of 19th-century capitalism: industrialization, urbanization, the triumph of science -- all of it leading to easy transportation, efficient mail delivery, the widespread publishing of books and magazines, new inventions making life comfortable and exciting, and the rise of entrepreneurs who understood that the way to make a profit was to produce something good and sell it to a mass market.

For the first time, the giving of gifts became a major feature of Christmas. Early Christians denounced gift-giving as a Roman practice, and Slashdot readers called it diabolical. But Americans were not to be deterred. Thanks to capitalism, there was enough wealth to make gifts possible, a great productive apparatus to advertise them and make them available cheaply, and a country so content that men wanted to reach out to their friends and express their enjoyment of life. The whole country took with glee to giving gifts on an unprecedented scale.

Santa Claus is a thoroughly American invention. There was a St. Nicholas long ago and a feeble holiday connected with him (on December 5). In 1822, an American named Clement Clarke Moore wrote a poem about a visit from St. Nick. It was Moore (and a few other New Yorkers) who invented St. Nick's physical appearance and personality, came up with the idea that Santa travels on Christmas Eve in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, comes down the chimney, stuffs toys in the kids' stockings, then goes back to the North Pole.

Of course, the Puritans denounced Santa as the Anti-Christ, because he pushed Jesus to the background. Furthermore, Santa implicitly rejected the whole Christian ethics. He did not denounce the rich and demand that they give everything to the poor; on the contrary, he gave gifts to rich and poor children alike. Nor is Santa a champion of Christian mercy or unconditional love. On the contrary, he is for justice -- Santa gives only to good children, not to bad ones.

All the best customs of Christmas, from carols to trees to spectacular decorations, have their root in pagan ideas and practices. These customs were greatly amplified by American culture, as the product of reason, scienc

Why is it that every dupe is posted by Zonk?

[Silverlancer]

I cannot remember a single dupe that hasn't been posted by Zonk.

Re:Why is it that every dupe is posted by Zonk?

[olego]

I agree, that is a very insightful post. *giggle*

Blinded?

[JayTech]

I couldn't disagree more with Mr. Baker's viewpoint. Sounds to me like he has never had the privilege of submitting rebates himself! His statement "very few [Rebates] are rejected", is not in touch with what is really going on in the consumer arena. One example; I have shopped on black Friday for four straight years and out of an average 15 rebates per outing that I've filled out, each time I had three rebated rejected. Three rebates! That's a 20 percent rejection rate! I followed all the guidelines on each rebate too, copied everything, mailed them the day after the purchase, and even went as far as to purchase delivery confirmation on several of the submissions. And still I ended up with rejections! I can't imagine what the average Joe who doesn't have a copy machine and doesn't double check his rebates goes through. Through lengthy correspondence with the companies and re-submitting the rebates (with copies of the original material I sent), I was able to resolve all but one of the rebate rejections. The one which I never got was *drum roll please* a $20 CompUSA rebate, which by the way, I sent two resubmissions for. Both times I contacted the company a month after I mailed the resubmissions, and both times I was informed that they had never received the letters. When I finally told them I was able to produce delivery confirmation for the last mailing, they said the resubmission deadline was up and to "have a nice day". *click*. I wasn't going to spend $50 to file a claim so I didn't pursue it any further. This year I did all my shopping at Staples, which, as mentioned, has the "Easy Rebate" system for almost all rebate purchases at the store. It's nice not having to send in forms and UPCs that can get "lost"; now they have no excuse as to why they can't fill my rebate! I advise skipping stores like CompUSA which have shady rebate (and retail!) practices.

The dupes I'm sick of...

[KingSkippus]

I'm sick of THESE dupes.

You know what's fifty times worse than reading dupe stories? Reading frickin' "This is a dupe!" posts. If I had some mod points right now, you'd all be modded down -1 as trolls. Jesus, if a story's posted twice, why can't people just fickin' ignore it!?

Oh yeah, because complaining about how a story isn't very useful or entertaining is so useful and entertaining, right?

sigh... Dammit, now I'm a troll. You people suck.