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Snapchat Will Introduce Ads, Attempt To Keep Them Other Than Creepy
As reported by VentureBeat, dissapearing-message service Snapchat is introducing ads. Considering how most people feel about ads, they're trying to ease them in gently: "Ads can be ignored: Users will not be required to watch them. If you do view an ad, or if you ignore it for 24 hours, it will disappear just like Stories do." Hard to say how much it will mollify the service's users, but the company says "We won’t put advertisements in your personal communication – things like Snaps or Chats. That would be totally rude. We want to see if we can deliver an experience that’s fun and informative, the way ads used to be, before they got creepy and targeted."
That's how it always starts. In a few years, more ads than content.
You are not the customer. You are the product.
Indeed. When were online ads ever "fun and informative?"
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
How did I miss this halcyon era when Internet ads were "fun and informative"?
Handful of friends and I use snapchat mainly to send stupid shit to each other. It's kinda fun, but none of us are really using it to chat or anything.
I might have considered paying a buck or two for the app (we've had some fun with it), but deal with ads, fuck that shit. The stupid random "live from Oktoberfest" shit that's been showing up lately is annoying enough.
I always wondered how they intended to fund/make money from this. I was kinda hoping for something more creative than "once it's popular, we'll show ads!".
Well on the way to monetize eh? Go get those eyeballs. I heard they have 35 employees. Thats an amazing ratio, 10B for 35. GPRO a week or so ago was 11B for 350. BRCM is 21B for 11300. Makes you wonder...
Key word is: supposed to.
Yes we all know it would be trivial to store every bit of data that goes through that service. There's no end-to-end encryption mechanism that I'm aware of or anything else that would prevent them from logging everything.
But there service is still predicated on their insistence that they don't. To sell advertising (especially if they sell it as targetted advertising) or to show targeted advertising to users (hey, I talked about dildo swings the other day, and here's an ad for one, what a coincidence!) would basically be admitting that they do keep stuff, which would probably cause an epic shitstorm.
I just don't understand how people that are a little bit tech savvy cope with ads. The first things I do on a new computer (mine or a relative/friend)is:
- install Adblock Plus on all the browsers that support it;
- tweak the host file to block know ads/malware domains
I haven't seen an ad in years, the web feels so quiet when you browse like that, without popups, flashes, animations, everyone crying for your attention...
Android? Rooted smartphone/tablet? No problem! Here is AdAway, basically tweaking the hosts file on the Android Linux, the same way that you do on a Windows PC.
Apple still eludes me, as my only iOS device, an iPad2 is not jailbroken, so I don't really know what's out there for it, so I still see lots of ads when browsing with it... Maybe that's the reason it's the device I do the least browsing with..
"A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"
The Snapchat team are really regretting that they were too prideful to take a $3B buyout. Now they get to enjoy the quick, flaming descent into being penniless refugees from a failed startup.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
I used to love punching the monkey, now all I get to do is choke the chicken.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
I've often wondered why services like Facebook, Google, Snapchat and others don't just give their users the option of paying for the service in order to be left free from ads and tracking?
My guess is that it's because if consumers ever saw the real value that these services and their customers (the advertisers) place on our attention and our personal information, we would be a lot more careful about giving it away.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Wait... ads can be ignored? When did this happen?!