Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Tumblr Follows Instagram - Reveals Plan For More Ads

Posted by Unknown on from the share-this-tired-memevertisement dept.

cagraham writes "Following close on the heels of Instagram's advertising announcement last week, Tumblr has signed an agreement with analytics firm DataSift to provide info to advertisers on user behavior. According to Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, who oversaw the recent $1.1 billion purchase of Tumblr, advertising on the site will become increasingly prevalent throughout 2014. DataSift will provide advertisers with info on the 5.5 billion interactions that occur on the site each day. This makes Tumblr the latest in a slew of recent tech companies to turn towards targeted ads in an attempt to generate revenue." Twitter is another customer of DataSift.

47 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Sigh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I'm too old to care about tumblr or Instagram... Or what people share on them.
    And I don't get why people find it interesting?

    Now get of my lawn. :D

    1. Re:Sigh by plover · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And nothing of value was corrupted.

      --
      John
    2. Re:Sigh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Texting replaced email because texting is much more transient in nature and the younger crowd have the attention span of a goldfish.

      Instagram is 'texting' for image sharing. I can't remember the name of the 6 second video clip platform that's popular right now, but it's very transient in nature too.

      Facebook is so "permanent" and these youngin's don't want to remember what they did last week let along see their entire timeline.

      Of course this whole "done and gone" mentality does not bode well for things in 10 years when this group has responsibilities and commitments.

      Abe Simpson: We're doomed I tells ya! Dooooooooomed!!

    3. Re:Sigh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      tl;dr

    4. Re:Sigh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      tl

    5. Re:Sigh by RaceProUK · · Score: 1

      I can't remember the name of the 6 second video clip platform that's popular right now

      Vine

      --
      No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
  2. D: D: D: by pseudofrog · · Score: 3

    my feels! i can't...

  3. targetted ads by themushroom · · Score: 2

    Does this mean we'll start seeing something semi-worthwhile on Radar rather than what American Apparel mistakenly thinks kids should buy or the latest flash-in-the-pan Fox TV drama?

    --
    Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
  4. Allow me to reveal my plan for Tumblr use by JoeyRox · · Score: 2

    The plan is to use it less. So let's call it a wash.

    1. Re:Allow me to reveal my plan for Tumblr use by Great+Big+Bird · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There are many things about tumblr that are nice from the interface that is ideal way to present those things. But the ads will kill it. Somebody will reproduce it if it is that good, or forget it if alternatives come.

    2. Re:Allow me to reveal my plan for Tumblr use by interkin3tic · · Score: 2

      Aw, but now where am I going to go for porn?

      Oh, right, the rest of the internet. Never mind.

    3. Re:Allow me to reveal my plan for Tumblr use by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Just install AdBlock and the usual privacy enhancing add-ons for your browser.

      I wonder if they try to detect the number of users blocking ads and factor it into their decision to increase advertising or not.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    4. Re:Allow me to reveal my plan for Tumblr use by neverwhere9 · · Score: 1

      Really? They annoy me. I can see they try to get the Tumblr crowd, but normally I find the efforts kind of embarrassing, like an old person in a Lana del Rey T-Shirt trying to talk to a group of young hipsters.

  5. the irony by themushroom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Yahoo getting targetted ads on Tumblr to find out what its users want... then ignoring when users on Flickr try to tell Yahoo what they want.

    --
    Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
  6. driving the coffin nails by themushroom · · Score: 2

    The moment we heard Marissa was buying Tumblr, we all knew death was imminent. Flickr's the test case to prove it.

    --
    Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
  7. Selling data to advertisers? by swillden · · Score: 3, Informative

    I really, really dislike that model for targeted advertising, and I'm surprised Mayer would sign up for it, rather than using the Google model of keeping the data in house and doing the targeting themselves, so that advertisers never see it. At least that way you only have to keep your eye on one possible misuser of your data (well, plus government agencies who decide to target you for their user data requests).

    I suppose making effective use of the data yourself is a lot harder than selling it. But, as I understand it, Google's ability to use the data more effectively than advertisers themselves would is a big part of Google's success. I guess Mayer doesn't think Yahoo! has the know-how to do it as well.

    (Disclaimer: I work for Google, which may bias me here. I don't think it does, because I felt the same way before I started working for Google, but it's possible.)

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    1. Re:Selling data to advertisers? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yahoo hasn't done anything well in house for a while now and that's essentially the nucleus of its dysfunction.

      Google does a lot of good work in house and the sad thing is that Marissa Mayer isn't showing any signs of bringing that over to Yahoo. So far her management has shown signs of being superficial. As CEOs go, superficial management is about par. You can do worse, but Yahoo needs better than average to come out of its malaise.

    2. Re:Selling data to advertisers? by 0ld_d0g · · Score: 1

      Google model of keeping the data in house and doing the targeting themselves

      FYI: You guys share Google Analytics data with "others" (Whoever pays Google I guess) after supposedly anonymizing it. I wonder how many people are actually aware of it. https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397?hl=en

    3. Re:Selling data to advertisers? by swillden · · Score: 1

      Yes, aggregated, anonymized trend data is sold. It's a minor, but not trivial, revenue source for Google. I don't think that's what DataSift is doing though. They appear to be selling individual user information.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    4. Re:Selling data to advertisers? by swillden · · Score: 1

      Google's ability to use the data more effectively than advertisers themselves would is a big part of Google's success.

      The only big part of googles success was buying Doubleclick.

      Google was hugely successful long before buying Doubleclick, and the impression ads business is still much smaller than the click ad business.

      BTW How much do you people get paid to post on slashdot? I'd imagine an advertising company like google has special employees for "social media outreach".

      Google does have PR people, but I'm not aware of anyone who does "social media outreach". Of course, I hardly know about everything. Personally, I get paid to write code. I do post on /. during business hours, but, just like the rest of you, it's time taken away from what I'm supposed to be doing.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    5. Re:Selling data to advertisers? by 0ld_d0g · · Score: 1

      Yes, aggregated, anonymized trend data is sold. It's a minor, but not trivial, revenue source for Google.

      Well I don't really know about other divisions. I just happened to run into this because I setup a google adwords account recently for our company and managed to catch this setting and turn it off. More importantly, the terms of service allows google to sell any data to anyone.

      For e.g.

      ----------------
      Your TOS states:

      "When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content."

      And your privacy policy states:

      We do not share personal information with companies, organizations and individuals outside of Google unless one of the following circumstances apply:

              We provide personal information to our affiliates or other trusted businesses or persons to process it for us, based on our instructions and in compliance with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.

              We may share aggregated, non-personally identifiable information publicly and with our partners – like publishers, advertisers or connected sites. For example, we may share information publicly to show trends about the general use of our services.
      ----------------

      Not exactly comforting. Though I suppose for any online advertising company, such things are boiler plate legalese stuff to avoid future lawsuits. When things are going good user privacy is important from a PR perspective but when things go bad and wall street/investors/other idiot MBA types turn on the pressure, most companies fold and will sell out to make money.

      I don't think that's what DataSift is doing though. They appear to be selling individual user information.

      Maybe but why would individual user information be useful to anyone? I mean .. if I was trying to sell a product, I'd want to target an entire class of people conforming to certain criteria rather than specifically Bob or Sally.

    6. Re:Selling data to advertisers? by swillden · · Score: 1

      And your privacy policy states:

      We do not share personal information with companies, organizations and individuals outside of Google unless one of the following circumstances apply:

      We provide personal information to our affiliates or other trusted businesses or persons to process it for us, based on our instructions and in compliance with our Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.

      We may share aggregated, non-personally identifiable information publicly and with our partners – like publishers, advertisers or connected sites. For example, we may share information publicly to show trends about the general use of our services. ----------------

      Not exactly comforting.

      No? Perhaps we have different standards of comfort, but it seems pretty good to me. The first clause says that Google may outsource data processing, but that whoever they outsource to must follow the same rules as Google. The second says Google will only sell aggregated, anonymized data.

      When things are going good user privacy is important from a PR perspective but when things go bad and wall street/investors/other idiot MBA types turn on the pressure, most companies fold and will sell out to make money.

      Well, at least as long as Page, Brin and Schmidt are in charge, Wall Street and other MBAs don't have much say. Those three outvote the rest of the shareholders combined. And Google is pretty light on MBAs in general, especially in managerial and executive positions. It's very engineer-heavy all the way up to (and including) the top :-)

      I don't think that's what DataSift is doing though. They appear to be selling individual user information.

      Maybe but why would individual user information be useful to anyone? I mean .. if I was trying to sell a product, I'd want to target an entire class of people conforming to certain criteria rather than specifically Bob or Sally.

      What you really want is the contact details for all of the individuals in that class, so that you can advertise to them directly.

      Frankly, if that were all that was done, I wouldn't care. Given that I have to see ads (or find some other way of paying for content), I'd rather see targeted ads than shotgun ads. The problem is that once the data has been sold, there's no way to call it back, and no way to keep track of what was done with it. I also don't have a lot of confidence in the security practices of, well, most everyone. I was a security consultant for 15 years, working with all kinds of fortune 500 companies -- mostly financial institutions! -- and security practices are generally appalling.

      So, I'd much rather the data stay in house at Google, who does a good job of securing it, is willing to fight back against government intrusion, and even gives me the option of seeing what data they have collected (through the privacy dashboard) and allowing me to opt out and/or have my data deleted. And I'd rather that Yahoo! promise to keep what they collect on me in-house as well, rather than selling it, even if I don't have quite as much confidence in their integrity.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    7. Re:Selling data to advertisers? by 0ld_d0g · · Score: 1

      No? Perhaps we have different standards of comfort, but it seems pretty good to me. The first clause says that Google may outsource data processing, but that whoever they outsource to must follow the same rules as Google. The second says Google will only sell aggregated, anonymized data.

      I wanted to contrast the language difference between TOS and Privacy Policy. A TOS is something "I Agree" to whereas a Privacy Policy is just something Google tells me it might or might not do with my data. A huge difference. It is evident in the language too, TOS allows Google to sell personally identifiable data, while privacy policy states they wont. Privacy Policies are not legally binding - so its merely a PR thing. TOS gives Google rights - for e.g. to kick a user out of their service whenever they want - without giving the *user* any rights - other than what the privacy policy states they might do.

      Well, at least as long as Page, Brin and Schmidt are in charge, Wall Street and other MBAs don't have much say. Those three outvote the rest of the shareholders combined. And Google is pretty light on MBAs in general, especially in managerial and executive positions. It's very engineer-heavy all the way up to (and including) the top :-)

      Given the amount of personal info Google has, I hope that's true for everyone's sake.

      The problem is that once the data has been sold, there's no way to call it back, and no way to keep track of what was done with it. I also don't have a lot of confidence in the security practices of, well, most everyone. I was a security consultant for 15 years, working with all kinds of fortune 500 companies -- mostly financial institutions! -- and security practices are generally appalling.

      Well, nothing stops individual employees from leaking/spying on data anyway. And it has happened .. at Google/Facebook/etc, so all the security in the world will only stop external script-kiddies and other low-level information hackers but cant stop anyone who is motivated enough.

      So, I'd much rather the data stay in house at Google, who does a good job of securing it, is willing to fight back against government intrusion, and even gives me the option of seeing what data they have collected (through the privacy dashboard) and allowing me to opt out and/or have my data deleted. And I'd rather that Yahoo! promise to keep what they collect on me in-house as well, rather than selling it, even if I don't have quite as much confidence in their integrity.

      Your statement contains an implicit assumption that data *must* be collected. I am of the opposite view. Personal data should never be automatically collected, even in an anonymous fashion. All data collection must be done through a specific means (e.g. user submitted form) via an explicit opt-in event - not just clicking "I Agree" on some large wall of text that nobody can understand.

      and even gives me the option of seeing what data they have collected (through the privacy dashboard) and allowing me to opt out and/or have my data deleted.

      I have never seen any option of permanently deleting data. I assume deleted just means hidden from the user. One reason being google cant guarentee that the data is deleted from all the backups, and another reason is - even deleted data is valuable for targeting ads.

      I'm sure we disagree on most of the above since you work for Google :)

    8. Re:Selling data to advertisers? by swillden · · Score: 1

      Privacy Policies are not legally binding - so its merely a PR thing. TOS gives Google rights - for e.g. to kick a user out of their service whenever they want - without giving the *user* any rights - other than what the privacy policy states they might do.

      I think privacy policies are more meaningful than you imply. I believe they create promissory estoppel.

      Well, nothing stops individual employees from leaking/spying on data anyway. And it has happened .. at Google/Facebook/etc, so all the security in the world will only stop external script-kiddies and other low-level information hackers but cant stop anyone who is motivated enough.

      Actually, there is a lot that stops individual employees from leaking/spying. The article you mentioned was three years old, and it described things that happened earlier. There is a lot of infrastructure in place today to prevent unauthorized employee access that wasn't there 3-4 years ago. I happen to know that very well, because I design and build a lot of it -- and 95% of all of my effort is devoted to internal threats. Not because we believe that there are a lot of malicious Googlers, but because if you can guarantee that insiders can't get at the data, outsiders have no chance -- and to prevent examples like the one you cited (which AFAIK was the last such case).

      Of course, you'll note that the preceding paragraph was just reassurances with no details. Unfortunately, that's because I can't provide details -- which I actually think is a mistake on Google's part, and something I regularly bring up with management. Google has a really excellent security story, and I think we should be telling it. But since we aren't all I can say is: It's awesome, trust me :-)

      So, I'd much rather the data stay in house at Google, who does a good job of securing it, is willing to fight back against government intrusion, and even gives me the option of seeing what data they have collected (through the privacy dashboard) and allowing me to opt out and/or have my data deleted. And I'd rather that Yahoo! promise to keep what they collect on me in-house as well, rather than selling it, even if I don't have quite as much confidence in their integrity.

      Your statement contains an implicit assumption that data *must* be collected. I am of the opposite view. Personal data should never be automatically collected, even in an anonymous fashion. All data collection must be done through a specific means (e.g. user submitted form) via an explicit opt-in event - not just clicking "I Agree" on some large wall of text that nobody can understand.

      We disagree on the need for an explicit opt-in, and I do think that Google's business model is a reasonable one, and one that's good for users. Google can provide the array of great services that it does because of the trade it makes with users: You allow Google to collect data and use it to target ads to you, and in exchange you get all this stuff. You are free to opt out of this deal, but, frankly, Google wants to make it such a great deal that you don't want to -- and being responsible with your data, ensuring that you know that it won't be used for any other purposes and won't leak, is an important part of the deal.

      and even gives me the option of seeing what data they have collected (through the privacy dashboard) and allowing me to opt out and/or have my data deleted.

      I have never seen any option of permanently deleting data. I assume deleted just means hidden from the user. One reason being google cant guarentee that the data is deleted from all the backups, and another reason is - even deleted data is valuable for targeting ads.

      No, deleted means deleted. I don't think Google is goi

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    9. Re:Selling data to advertisers? by 0ld_d0g · · Score: 1

      I think we've gotten fairly off-topic here so I'll just let this be my last response.
      --

      I think privacy policies are more meaningful than you imply. I believe they create promissory estoppel.

      Its never been tested so we'll never know. Besides, the point is moot since nobody can expect an average user to sue giant corporations - given their army of lawyers.

      Google has a really excellent security story, and I think we should be telling it. But since we aren't all I can say is: It's awesome, trust me :-)

      Okay. I'll take that at face value.

      We disagree on the need for an explicit opt-in, and I do think that Google's business model is a reasonable one, and one that's good for users.

      When I type google.com into a browser, I am not expressing any intent for Google to track me. Google is simply assuming that the fact that any packets are routed through their networks gives them the right to inspect and track/save them. What if every single internet backbone provider starting mining data packets? After all, when you go the route of implicit-authorization anyone can do anything. In my opinion recording data without permission should be illegal before companies really start testing the boundaries (and they will eventually). I've been online since 1996 and I remember the days when setting cookies or recording visitor IP addresses was considered invasion of privacy !

      What if Google decides that people who click on ads should have their traffic/service prioritized? I'm sure it makes great business sense - in fact - it makes perfect sense to simply do it without telling anyone. Once you create a successful business which relies primarily on user data/clicks/impressions - the only way to grow in a saturated market is to give the 1-2% "paying customers" who click on ads something extra.

      And I'm not even getting to what can happen if data is used to manipulate peoples psychology. Google can enable really evil advertising. e.g. If I was exchanging emails with my family regarding any personal health problems, Google is the perfect platform to show me an ad for some anti-depressant or some other pill especially if some automated algorithm determined I was in a vulnerable frame of mind.

      Ofcource it wont start out that way. Maybe some geek will come up with an automated algorithm to map the user into N-personality/mood dimensions and you can even run some kind of genetic algorithm to determine which category ads are successful for which state of mind.

      There could be some perfectly "nice" use case where I'm more likely to order a pizza online when I come home late and Google detects a change using some android gps location data or IP or what have you.

      I have simply too many fears of user exploitation.Its not restricted to only Google. I doubt I can be comfortable with any business that charges no money upfront for their products.

    10. Re:Selling data to advertisers? by swillden · · Score: 1

      Besides, the point is moot since nobody can expect an average user to sue giant corporations - given their army of lawyers.

      Class action. Or, alternatively, legislative action. Google is fully cognizant of both of those possibilities, and that at Google's size and public visibility one or both would happen.

      When I type google.com into a browser, I am not expressing any intent for Google to track me.

      Intent, no, permission yes.

      Google is simply assuming that the fact that any packets are routed through their networks gives them the right to inspect and track/save them.

      Do your packets get routed through Google's network? Not unless you're on Google Fiber, and if you are Google doesn't assume any such right.

      But you're not talking about packets which you're sending somewhere else which happen to flow through Google, you're talking about packets that you send to Google's data centers, expecting those data centers to do some useful work for you. The price for that useful work is targeted advertising and the tracking which supports it. Though, of course, Google being Google, the company does provide you with tools to opt out of that (aside: do you use the Google opt outs? I think you should, based on your expressed philosophy).

      What if every single internet backbone provider starting mining data packets?

      Sorry, but I think this is a red herring. That's a completely different situation. And, personally, I think you should encrypt all of your traffic to make it impossible for middlemen to see anything.

      What if Google decides that people who click on ads should have their traffic/service prioritized?

      Conceptually I don't see any problem with that. In practice it wouldn't gain Google anything, since any motivation to click other than interest in potentially buying the advertised product ultimately does Google no good. It increases clicks, but decreases the value of those clicks to advertisers, which in turn causes them to bid less. There's a good reason that Wall Street pays a lot of attention to Google's "cost per click" metric; higher values mean advertisers are bidding higher, which means that Google is providing more effective advertising.

      Another point to consider is that Google isn't an advertising company. Google is a technology company which has historically found that the easiest way to monetize its technology is through advertising. But Google's non-advertising revenues have been growing far faster than its ad revenues for some time now. They still only constitute 10% of total revenues, but that's up from 4% a couple of years ago.

      Once you create a successful business which relies primarily on user data/clicks/impressions - the only way to grow in a saturated market is to give the 1-2% "paying customers" who click on ads something extra.

      Actually, Google's advertising market is far from saturated. Google owns a big chunk of online advertising, but online advertising is still small potatoes compared to total advertising. There's lots of room for growth.

      And I'm not even getting to what can happen if data is used to manipulate peoples psychology.

      Interestingly enough, while I disagree with you on this point, because I'm a cold-eyed libertarian who thinks people should be responsible for themselves, the vast majority of Googlers, including Google management, agree with you, that Google could but absolutely should not do anything like that. Not that my reassurances that Google is a bunch of bleeding hearts will really give you any comfort, because that could change.

      I doubt I can be comfortable with any business that charges no money upfront for their products.

      Suppose Google offered an alternative, a way that you could choose to make micropayments in lieu of seeing ads. Would you si

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  8. Re:Sick of hearing about Tumblr. by _merlin · · Score: 2

    How do you expect it to survive without a revenue model? People won't keep throwing capital at it forever. It needs to become profitable somehow or it'll be going away soon anyway.

  9. Re:Sick of hearing about Tumblr. by spire3661 · · Score: 1

    They are trying to monetize something that should be almost free. They are injecting ads to make money off something that should cost almost nothing to run. Its parasitic. They arent injecting ads to improve the service, but to leech cash. Its an economic model that should be mocked and derided at every turn.

    --
    Good-bye
  10. Re:Sick of hearing about Tumblr. by _merlin · · Score: 4, Informative

    It requires server hardware, data centre space, storage media, backups, power, bandwidth, system administrator time, and at least some development time for maintenance and bug fixes. Online advertising generates very little revenue because of low conversion from impressions to sales, so it's not like they're going to be making a fortune out of it.

    Honestly, how do you expect this to be funded? Would you be prepared to sign up for a paid subscription to read it? That never seems to go over well either. Should the writers pay some fee depending on readership? If it's close enough to free that advertising on it is immoral, why don't you set up a competing service for free?

  11. Re:Sick of hearing about Tumblr. by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

    Why don't you run it then? Hosting that much content, accessed by that many people takes some serious resources. You can't just spend $10 a month on a shared host and call it a day.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  12. Good ads vs Bad ads by rueger · · Score: 1

    It still makes me wonder: how come Google ads just don't irritate me*, and even actually interest me enough to click though on regular basis, but Facebook, Flickr, and everyone else seem to handle advertising in ways that just plain irritate me?

    Or that apparently waste advertisers' money because they're flinging ads at people who have utterly no interest in them.

    Kind of the same way that I can drop back into Amazon.com after a year or so, and it just feels good and somehow makes it really easy to buy stuff, yet 95% of e-commerce sites suck terribly.

    I guess it's that geeky drive to invent something brand new every time instead of just copying (or licencing) what already works well.

    *OK, YouTube ads are the exception

    --
    Three Squirrels
  13. Metastatic snooping by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Informative
    If it were just Tumbler, or Twitter, or Facebook or Google following their users, that might be at least people going there and knowing their every click was being monitored.

    Here's a little experiment. Y'all do have NoScript running right? rIght? Reset it to defaults. Prepare for an onslaught.

    Yahoo home page:

    go.com, fwmrm.net, facebook.net,media.net,sitescout.com, yieldmanager.com, interclick.com, yldmgirng.net .

    Now I thought Yahoo was bad - but wait, there's more

    Did a web search on "New York Times" on yahoo went to their site their site....

    adsafeprotected.com, googlesyndication.com, nyt.com, moatads.com, serving-sys.com, nytimes.com

    Now on the same page, I'll temporarily allow all those. Now we have more friends running scripts on the same page:

    Facebook.net, chartbeat.com, revsci.net, krxd.net, scorecardresearch.com, brightcove.com

    So Let's allow all those once again. Huh... another script:

    facebook.com

    So for just the NYT home page, there are 13 scripts hard at work.

    Going through some other pages on the same site, we get typekit.com, stats.com, ticketnetwork.com, insightexpressai.com, buzzfeed.com, doubleclick.net, google-analytics.com, pointroll.com, dl-rms.com, questionmarket.com

    Typekit.com, brightcove.com, and ticketnetwork.com are the only ones not specifically looking you over and tracking and or generating what you see by what you clickk on.

    But just on one website, we have at least 22 scripts designed to follow you around.

    I know a lot of people here use noscript, and this might be old news to them. But newcomers might benefit from what is happening.

    --
    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    1. Re:Metastatic snooping by TheSeatOfMyPants · · Score: 4, Interesting

      For Firefox users, Stanford research discovered recently that using a script-blocking extension actually isn't as effective at privacy protection as using privacy & ad-blocking lists with an ad-blocking extension (I use AdBlock Plus). I double-checked the domains you listed, and all of them appeared in at least one of the blocklists, either blocking everything from their sites or blocking things from being executed from another domain.

      If you're in Firefox (and have a *lot* of patience/time), you might like another whitelisting-based extension they labeled extremely effective, though:
      "Request Policy, a Firefox extension, takes the opposite approach: all requests to third-party domains are blocked, save those the user explicitly allows. While Request Policy offers nearly comprehensive protection from third-party tracking, properly configuring it requires substantially greater patience and expertise than the average user can reasonably be expected to possess."

      --
      Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)
    2. Re:Metastatic snooping by chihowa · · Score: 1

      Except Request Policy is funded by the ad networks themselves. Giving the benefit of the doubt, there might be noble intentions behind it...lol, nevermind, I didn't just say that.

      Do you have any evidence for that? It seems like RequestPolicy is just some guy and searching doesn't find any clear documentation of nefarious funding.

      Are you thinking of Ghostery, by chance? (Even Ghostery claim that their tracking is opt-in and sold anonymized, though I understand some skepticism there.)

      --
      If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
  14. The Myspace problem. by gallondr00nk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wonder occasionally if advertising is the next overinflated bubble fit to burst.

    Companies or investors are buying into these vast userbases (which is essentially what is being sold) on the broad assumption that somehow advertising revenue will return the investment. Yet in almost every case this has proved spurious as the trends are so volatile.

    Tumblr has never made a profit and yet is worth over $1 billion simply because people believe that advertising is worth that much. It seems to be an act of faith in much the same way as people believed that housing was an investment that always grew, or you couldn't lose buying technology stock in the late 90's.

    The foundations of this advertising collossus seem no more secure than those of the financial one, and we all know how well that ended up.

  15. Re:Sick of hearing about Tumblr. by _merlin · · Score: 1

    How do you expect it to survive without a revenue model?

    I expect them to make a value proposition that attracts a sufficient number of users to their service.

    But once they have the "sufficient number of users" how do they make money out of them to pay for provision of the service, and provide some kind of return on investment? Users alone don't represent ROI.

    Perhaps, adding ads is that proposition. I don't want to see ads, no matter how masterfully targeted. Ads are simply a non-starter as far as paying for a service that someone hopes I will use.

    The trouble is, the business model for these startups seems to be:

    1. Get venture capital
    2. Create cool new web site
    3. Get lots of users
    4. Bleed cash
    5. Sell out to Google/Yahoo/AOL/whatever
    6. ???
    7. Return on investment!

    No-one seems to have come up with a ??? that doesn't involve selling personal data or selling ads. If you try to charge users (whether content producers or consumers) they just move on to the next start-up who's still providing it for free on the back of venture capital.

  16. Re:Sick of hearing about Tumblr. by vux984 · · Score: 1

    It requires server hardware, data centre space, storage media, backups, power, bandwidth, system administrator time, and at least some development time for maintenance and bug fixes.

    The reality is that the price per user really is ALMOST FREE. But no, its not quite, and will never be completely free.

    However, 50 million users paying 50 cents per year? Do you think you could run it for $2 million+ per month? I'm thinking that's likely to be very doable.

    If we could get a decent micro-payments infrastructure together we would easily fund these things "ad-free" and "tracking-free". Who out there would REALLY balk at 50 cents a year for that?

  17. Re:Sick of hearing about Tumblr. by _merlin · · Score: 1

    If we could get a decent micro-payments infrastructure together we would easily fund these things "ad-free" and "tracking-free". Who out there would REALLY balk at 50 cents a year for that?

    That's a very big "if" and no-one's managed to do it so far. Meanwhile they still need money to operate while waiting for this ubiquitous micropayment system to become accepted. It would be nice if you could run things this way, but it doesn't seem to work in real life.

  18. Nothing's free. by steve.goldsby · · Score: 1

    Figure out what tax you're willing to pay for "free" stuff. The human brain is good at ignoring ads.

  19. No by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

    Hulu makes me watch 6 30-second commercials several times an hour like normal TV. Haven't done Hulu in a year and a half.

    If tumblr does anything besides the occasional in-line ad as part of the tumbling scroll wall, forcing me to stop and watch, bye bye.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  20. Re:Sick of hearing about Tumblr. by gagol · · Score: 1

    You can, but it will suck badly. Over time it gets cheaper and cheaper to operate such simple services.

    --
    Tomorrow is another day...
  21. Re:The more ads people place by gagol · · Score: 1

    Internet became available to the general population instead of being restrained to the scholars and researchers. I say it is not a bad thing. Maybe its time to create a new slashdot without the AC shit.

    --
    Tomorrow is another day...
  22. Re:The more ads people place by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    And roads were better too before cars became commonplace.

    Before: no dust, no smoke, no risk of getting every bone broken by someone losing control at 120mph, nice wide sidewalks with trees and flowers alongside...
    After: choking with dust and smoke, lots of sidewalks two people can barely walk side by side, dead grass and dusty bushes, reckless drivers, drunk drivers...

    Yeah. Better before.

    Everything was better before! Now git off mah lawn *shakes walking stick*

  23. Re:Sick of hearing about Tumblr. by xenobyte · · Score: 1

    Actually it would make sense to have the users pay a one-time signup fee of $10-$15. That's over two years of 50 cents a month membership, minus the monthly administration. Should be both possible and a good idea.

    --
    "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
  24. Google's Stephen Elop? by aNonnyMouseCowered · · Score: 1

    Well the superficial changes she's made so far makes Yahoo more and more like Google that I'm beginning to think Mayer is Google's equivalent of Stephen Elop. She's not exactly running Yahoo to the ground the way Elop did but then again Google tend to have more finesse than Microsoft's embrace and extinguish approach to the competition. Google's fine with coop-tition so long as you don't threaten their bread-and-butter ad-nalytics business. So there you have Google happily funding Mozilla's yearly operations while pushing its own Chrome browser and making practically no moves to further eat into Safari's dominance of the Apple browser space.

  25. Re:You call that "bizarre subculture porn"? by eek_the_kat · · Score: 1

    rule 34

  26. Re:Sick of hearing about Tumblr. by vux984 · · Score: 1

    pay a one-time signup fee of $10-$15. That's over two years of 50 cents a month membership

    Take Facebook, which is one of the largest and most complicated products out there -- compared to say twitter or tumblr which are a lot simpler.

    It's got about $6B in annual revenue, and claims 1.15B monthly active users. FB claims ~25% profit margins. Meaning it needs $4.50/user/year to break even. So yeah, $10-$15 for two year memberships would ABSOLUTELY fund a facebook without facial recognition, profiling, advertising, data mining etc.

    I think we could get a FB style platform down to $2/year/user. I believe an awful lot of money is going into data mining and advertising related tech.

    (And facebook would be a much simpler product without all that crap so the costs would drop even further.)

    And for an instagram or a tumblr or a slashdot, those are FAR simpler products, and I think the annual cost per user drops down to sub 1$ per YEAR for image hosting or discussion forums, down even to 50 cents per user per year. $10 will buy you 2 decades.