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Google Mulling Video Ads In Search Results
Bombula writes to let us know that Google is "finally succumbing to the power of the almighty dollar" and getting ready to implement image and video ads in sponsored searches.
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Cool for them, now can someone recommend me my new search engine?
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
On a personal front, I will be pissed if I have to watch a video just because I searched for my favorite item.
Here's a more accurate title for this topic:
Google Mulling Over Giving Up Its #1 Search Engine Spot
Seriously: video ads? WTH?!
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
Thats right.
Even slashdot shows video adds on the comments pages.
If they put flash ads in, the only result will be another result in my adblocks blacklist.
text adverts are fine - they are unobtrusive most of the time ( apart from those linky popup-ads which i dont think google do ). Image ads are reasonable if static. animated ads are a no-no and video ads you can just forget about.
Google is "finally succumbing to the power of the almighty dollar"
The dollar is quite the temptress and very deceitful. Following the money has led many to the path of destruction. The record companies have tried to collude and through artificial scarcity kept CD prices way above reasonable. Sales have fallen as a result of completion even though i Pod sales skyrocket.
Google has command of the advertising market. If they follow the temptress and try to follow the money, then Google will become just another search engine.
It would be sad to see Google become another ad-laden site with no special attraction to the users. Is Google stupid enough to ditch tons of eyeballs to get a slightly higher price per ad?
Others are ditching the overburdening pages and imitating Google's success. Most of these pages now don't load their page with banner advertisements anymore and for good reason. They lost major market share to Google because of it. They have modeled Google.
http://www.altavista.com/
http://www.dogpile.com/
http://www.live.com/?searchonly=true&mkt=en-US
http://search.yahoo.com/
http://www.hotbot.com/
If Google gets tempted by the money, they may find themselves quickly in the company of almost dead search engines that they stomped. They know how the other search engines dropped to obscurity. Why are they even interested in putting on that well known way to the bottom of the search engines.
The truth shall set you free!
Google are a listed company - their main purpose is to succumb to the power of the mighty dollar - I'm pretty darn sure that the shareholders weren't under the impression that they were donating to a charity!
There is some impression that having better than average PR -ie writing intelligent blog entries / Apples Steve Jobs writing smart open letters means that they are genuine and open and not out to make lots of $$$ - this isn't the case!
The difference between "Evil" and "Not Evil" is only a matter of opinion. Some people would say all ads are evil. Others, text ads are acceptable. Others, would say images with no video. Some would say video is fine, as long as they don't display it overlayed on the content. Other people would have no problem with any ads.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Intent can be as important to determining the degree or label for a crime as the act. Think about it, most American state penal codes have 6-8 different crimes you can be charged with when you kill someone... First through third degree murder, first and second degree manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, etc., etc.
In fact, if you're defending yourself, you can kill someone and not be charged with a crime. But the action is always the same... you killed someone.
Furthermore, "evil" is a moral judgement, so, even if you're not buying into a societal definition, such as exists in a penal code, you're basing it on a religious definition. And the fun part is that the religious definition isn't based on a holy book, it's based on how your particular sect interprets that holy book. There are Muslims who think strapping a bomb to yourself and setting it off inside a school full of children is "evil", but there are others who think that this is what God wants. And, according to most moral codes, what God wants is inherently good.
So, actions are not good or evil in and of themselves. We interpret them as good or evil based on our value sets. Quite often we ascribe those value sets to God, because "God says this is right and this is wrong" carries a lot more power than "I think this is right and this is wrong, but it's just my opinion." Much as it is with beauty, Good and Evil can be in the eye of the beholder too.
- G
Start a happiness pandemic
If they are anything like the adsense ones they won't be too intrusive at all...
Google isn't filled with idiots who think that they can just put an ad box on the side of their results and not loose respect (and market share)
Personally, I like the sponsored results... I find that a lot of the time the sponsored results are more what I am looking for than the search results. I probably cost those advertisers a fortune by checking out every single one of the ads until I find one I like, but still...
I found my latest printer cartridge via adsense... the store I bought it from had a listing on the top and they were also the most competitive in the way of price... so they got my money thanks to an adsense ad. Of course, now I get emails every week from the store about printer cartridges... bah... stupid "opt-in-by-default" system
-nick
I haven't blocked google's ads yet. I will block any flash ads.
Web pages are static content, like newspapers. They are not TV. You put these things at the top of a page, they make it very difficult to read a page. I used to have to put my hand over them because it was so difficult. Can you imagine trying to read a newspaper with the ads blinking and moving?
who take money from Microsoft and play anti-Linux FUD on the front page.
Thing is, most Slashdot users don't even see it.. thanks Adblock.
How we know is more important than what we know.
It's OK to be importing an unprecedented amount of Chinese goods and exploit the cheap labor for every other aspect of the western economy, but Google is evil because they set up a satellite search service that institutes the required Chinese national policies?
Since the suppression of information is happening regardless of Google's presence, that should clarify that the root of the suppression is not due to U.S. companies agreeing to Chinese government demands, but is the Chinese government itself.
Frankly, it's also better for U.S. interests to have a "bubble" of Google servers that have a set of blacklisted/censored material for the time being, instead of watching Google lose out entirely in the fastest growing economy to the Chinese domestic engines (e.g. Baidu)
These politicians who (while it was a popular subject) wanted to crucify Google don't have any qualms about continuing to support China by importing their cheap goods and exploiting the cheap labor costs.
Hypocrits.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. -- James Klass
Arent all gods fictional?
Anyone who says ads are evil has a whacky moral compass, and they're diluting the term.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Not if the entity is the definer of all that is good.
The entity would then be permitting evil to occur despite having the power to prevent it. That in itself is evil (see Luke (10:25-37). Allowing evil to occur makes God an accomplice in vile acts, and therefore not pure good.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
If many people block everything they will just add more ads, and more annoying ads. Like ads that refresh every 10 seconds (I encountered that today at www.techarp.com actually.). Better to have tolerant ads than no independent websites.
Teasing the nobles, and rightfully so!
Do you seriously think Google meant "evil" as in Hitler or Jeff Dahmer or Vlad the Impaler? They used it in a very common way, which in their case "don't be evil" basically meant "don't be a bad internet citizen."
Language changes, deal with it.
First off, I agree to a large extent...
False dichotomy. Maybe you're too young to remember, but there was a time when most sites didn't have ads.
And there was a time before web sites existed at all too, but someone is paying for a site in ALL cases.
Heck, there are still many sites that don't rely on ad revenue.
Sure, but SOMEONE is paying for it. The question is WHO is paying for it? There are sites paid for by "good will", such as a company hosting an open source project, and marketing sites, which is just an advertising expense (the entire site is a giant ad,) but every site costs something, and someone is paying.
The reality is that the content consumers really want isn't free to deliver. Because so many people want it, the site needs some sort of revenue stream to pay for itself due to the hosting costs.
Also, web hosting is getting cheaper and cheaper every day.
Yes, but the number of users is increasing faster than hosting is getting cheaper. It's still fairly expensive to host anything that gets any significant traffic at all. Yes, you can get $5 / month hosting, and no, you can't run YouTube off $5/month hosting.
If a site is really that valuable to me, I'll pay (micropayments?) for the content.
There we go. That IS the ultimate solution - however, we don't have a viable micropayment system right now. Instead, all we have are sites want some sort of monthly / yearly subscription. The situation sucks. Like you however, I found some of the ads out there so intrusive that I now block all ads, and all javascript / cookies by default.
> The entity would then be permitting evil to occur despite having the power to prevent it.
/mode maxwell_smart on /mode maxwell_smart off
Preventing it would lead to injustice.
The old "let's change rules halfway the game as we're winning" trick.
An universe without a god is always fair: what happens is the result of some kind of rules the universe is stuck with (for whatever reason, it's irrelevant), evil and good being only rationalizations of some living species.
When the christian God idea enters the picture, it says justice will be made, but in one particular moment, the judgment.
Which adds to the inherent fairness of the universe, if such god exists (which is not the objective of my criticism)
Blaming god or consider the concept impossible for lack of intervention to stop evil makes two logical mistakes:
1) Continuous justice as the only form of justice, instead of the justice at the end which also settles things. See the parable of the weeds (Matthew 13).
2) Asking god for injustice: If you want continuous justice from a god you want an universe that is either inconceivable, or hasn't life in it, because life is not a continuously just process (heck natural selection or, in intelligent design wacky theories, the race for the faster sperm cell to the egg are deeply unjust, the other sperm cells didn't choose to be slower, poor 'em). Or it's asking a god to maintain a threshold by which it's ok for unjust events to lead to the creation of you, and it's not ok to see you suffer. Changing the rules halfway the game, as I said.
OT Another thing i don't usually get: "the christian god is omnipotent and fair" doesn't constitute proof of the existence of god. It's theology, that is, it assumes god has revealed itself and proceeds to try and rationalize things about it. What implication does trying to disprove the fair assertion have? You don't disprove god through it, you just assert you have a different opinion of the universe than a possibly existing god. Which is independent of the existence of him. Yet many atheists go to great lengths to build on such arguments.
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"Anyone who says ads are evil has a whacky moral compass, and they're diluting the term."
You obviously have no idea what you're talking about, ads have HUGE influence on culture. This doesn't mean all ads are evil, but I've worked with girls who have serious body image issues due to a lifetime of being bombarded with unreal images of beauty. Saying we have a "wacking moral compass" is ignorant. We a right to criticize ads and ad messages since they are cultural creation / pollution centers just as much as anything else.