Advertisements are geographically targeted, that's one of the reasons radio is so popular for advertisers. Put an ad on a radio station, you know EXACTLY where those ads are going to run, in which market, how many listeners are likely to hear it, etc.
Geographical targeting is still a fantasy on the net for banner ads; for streaming ones it doesn't exist, not in widespread use at least.
I think it's lame, but I DO understand the reasoning behind it. For fun go to nhl.com and listen to a hockey broadcast sometime, then revel in all the ads for restauarants/companies/products/services that aren't offered where you live. You are at that point truly listening to the game for free, since the advertising's completely wasted on you.
The NHL does it because they're hard-up for fans (Despite hockey being the best goddamned game on the planet!) and the possible 'wasting' of advertisements is recouped (Hopefully) in greater exposure to the game overall.
Given the choice between unregulated, suspect information and regulated, supposedly 'proven' information, I'll take the former any day of the week.
Good article, bad premise.
on
Lawsuits Suck
·
· Score: 1
The article (As most do on Suck, I've found) takes great delight in lambasting people or ideas inconstructively, preferring to use emotion-laced terms ('caterwauling'? Please.) to get their point across. The author gets the opportunity to cloak his disgust for the Internet communities' response to litigation in ostensibly a wake-up call format, while spending most of the time making fun of 'geeks'.
That having been said, the article does bring up some interesting points. I happen to think he's wrong on many of them, and believe the author needs to spend less time insulting people and more time researching history.
I see two major flaws with the article:
First, the concept that the Internet's response to things such as the deCSS ruling should have been an immediate grass-roots lobbying effort. I will point out to Mr. Knauss that throughout history it has taken more than a year or two's worth of bad judgement on the part of our judiciary or legislature to spur the American people to action, online or off. One needs only to look at the history of civil rights, women's sufferage, the drug war, and more recently civil asset forfeiture to see that in fact moral outrage takes time to build, and even more time to organize. This situation is complicated by the fact that, as Mr. Knauss himself points out, the 'right' decisions were being made for some time, giving those of us who are aware of these issues the impression that perhaps the old adages of personal freedom, privacy, and free speech would be applied as appropriate to the online sector. I, for one, fault no one for still resting on their laurels after the CDA decision and subsequent judgements based on it's precedent sent a clear message that freedom of speech would not be infringed in any forum, online not just included but especially.
Mr. Knauss implies but does not say explicitly what he means about lawyers ruling the world -- He means CORPORATE lawyers. The online community is as complacent as it is because nearly every attempt by the US goverment trying to shape the Internet to it's desires of privacy and anti-pornography on it's own have failed. Only when corporate America jumped into the fray with an alacrity that no one would have forseen did the whole landscape flip upside-down, and seemingly black-and-white issues become greyed by back-alley lobbying and special interest groups.
Which brings us to my second main problem with the article: What exactly does Mr. Knauss expect the online community to do? Is he under the (mistaken) belief that there's a large number of lobbying groups out there that exist solely for preserving free speech? Does he have evidence that in the past, in response to outright threats against freedom of speech or consumer's rights, massive grass-roots efforts have sprung forth with millions of dollars behind them to battle the corporate America behemoth? When the RIAA fought succesfully to impose tariffs on recordable media, when CD price-fixing investigations shockingly came up empty, when the FCC bowed to pressure and reversed their recent decision on lower-power FM broadcast licenses, when the laws were changed to allow even greated radio monopolies in geographic areas, did the teeming millions rise up to fight these threats?
No, they did not. Why? Because, just like now, they didn't know it was happening, nor did they understand the implications of it -- What it meant to *them*. Educating the American public is a difficult if nigh-impossible task, particularly when the powers-that-be have a vested interested in their continued ignorance both in general and on a specific issue, and whining (And make no mistake, he IS engaging in the very sort of behavior he mocks) about it in insignificant online magazines certainly isn't going to change that. Neither is posts to Slashdot, or letters to Time magazine.
The Internet is, at it's core, a forum for speech. As such, it responds to threats against it with the *only* tool it has -- More speech. Americcan is FOUNDED on the notion that from such speech can come action, and that the more public debate, discussion, and strategizing there is about issues that affect us the better off we are. We are, in effect, betting on the future legitimacy of the Internet as a lobbying tool in and of itself, with the capability of tapping into the public's thoughts on various subjects and acting on them accordingly without big dollars needing to be spent. No, it's not working. No, it may not ever work. But I wouldn't even consider belittling those who are relying on it, as a fundamentally American method of getting your voice heard -- Talking.
Corporate America will, as they always have, have their way the the people judicially and legislatively. Attempting to fight the combined marketing, lobbying, and financial power of these giants is a waste of time, and history proves this absolutely. The war will be fought in the courtooms, as it has been, and the war will be lost at first, as it's always been. Whether we will win or not time will tell, but I for one will contribute to the effort as Mr. Knauss did -- With speech.
Slashdot Mirror
This won't work.
Advertisements are geographically targeted, that's one of the reasons radio is so popular for advertisers. Put an ad on a radio station, you know EXACTLY where those ads are going to run, in which market, how many listeners are likely to hear it, etc.
Geographical targeting is still a fantasy on the net for banner ads; for streaming ones it doesn't exist, not in widespread use at least.
I think it's lame, but I DO understand the reasoning behind it. For fun go to nhl.com and listen to a hockey broadcast sometime, then revel in all the ads for restauarants/companies/products/services that aren't offered where you live. You are at that point truly listening to the game for free, since the advertising's completely wasted on you.
The NHL does it because they're hard-up for fans (Despite hockey being the best goddamned game on the planet!) and the possible 'wasting' of advertisements is recouped (Hopefully) in greater exposure to the game overall.
Given the choice between unregulated, suspect information and regulated, supposedly 'proven' information, I'll take the former any day of the week.
The article (As most do on Suck, I've found) takes great delight in lambasting people or ideas inconstructively, preferring to use emotion-laced terms ('caterwauling'? Please.) to get their point across. The author gets the opportunity to cloak his disgust for the Internet communities' response to litigation in ostensibly a wake-up call format, while spending most of the time making fun of 'geeks'.
That having been said, the article does bring up some interesting points. I happen to think he's wrong on many of them, and believe the author needs to spend less time insulting people and more time researching history.
I see two major flaws with the article:
First, the concept that the Internet's response to things such as the deCSS ruling should have been an immediate grass-roots lobbying effort. I will point out to Mr. Knauss that throughout history it has taken more than a year or two's worth of bad judgement on the part of our judiciary or legislature to spur the American people to action, online or off. One needs only to look at the history of civil rights, women's sufferage, the drug war, and more recently civil asset forfeiture to see that in fact moral outrage takes time to build, and even more time to organize. This situation is complicated by the fact that, as Mr. Knauss himself points out, the 'right' decisions were being made for some time, giving those of us who are aware of these issues the impression that perhaps the old adages of personal freedom, privacy, and free speech would be applied as appropriate to the online sector. I, for one, fault no one for still resting on their laurels after the CDA decision and subsequent judgements based on it's precedent sent a clear message that freedom of speech would not be infringed in any forum, online not just included but especially.
Mr. Knauss implies but does not say explicitly what he means about lawyers ruling the world -- He means CORPORATE lawyers. The online community is as complacent as it is because nearly every attempt by the US goverment trying to shape the Internet to it's desires of privacy and anti-pornography on it's own have failed. Only when corporate America jumped into the fray with an alacrity that no one would have forseen did the whole landscape flip upside-down, and seemingly black-and-white issues become greyed by back-alley lobbying and special interest groups.
Which brings us to my second main problem with the article: What exactly does Mr. Knauss expect the online community to do? Is he under the (mistaken) belief that there's a large number of lobbying groups out there that exist solely for preserving free speech? Does he have evidence that in the past, in response to outright threats against freedom of speech or consumer's rights, massive grass-roots efforts have sprung forth with millions of dollars behind them to battle the corporate America behemoth? When the RIAA fought succesfully to impose tariffs on recordable media, when CD price-fixing investigations shockingly came up empty, when the FCC bowed to pressure and reversed their recent decision on lower-power FM broadcast licenses, when the laws were changed to allow even greated radio monopolies in geographic areas, did the teeming millions rise up to fight these threats?
No, they did not. Why? Because, just like now, they didn't know it was happening, nor did they understand the implications of it -- What it meant to *them*. Educating the American public is a difficult if nigh-impossible task, particularly when the powers-that-be have a vested interested in their continued ignorance both in general and on a specific issue, and whining (And make no mistake, he IS engaging in the very sort of behavior he mocks) about it in insignificant online magazines certainly isn't going to change that. Neither is posts to Slashdot, or letters to Time magazine.
The Internet is, at it's core, a forum for speech. As such, it responds to threats against it with the *only* tool it has -- More speech. Americcan is FOUNDED on the notion that from such speech can come action, and that the more public debate, discussion, and strategizing there is about issues that affect us the better off we are. We are, in effect, betting on the future legitimacy of the Internet as a lobbying tool in and of itself, with the capability of tapping into the public's thoughts on various subjects and acting on them accordingly without big dollars needing to be spent. No, it's not working. No, it may not ever work. But I wouldn't even consider belittling those who are relying on it, as a fundamentally American method of getting your voice heard -- Talking.
Corporate America will, as they always have, have their way the the people judicially and legislatively. Attempting to fight the combined marketing, lobbying, and financial power of these giants is a waste of time, and history proves this absolutely. The war will be fought in the courtooms, as it has been, and the war will be lost at first, as it's always been. Whether we will win or not time will tell, but I for one will contribute to the effort as Mr. Knauss did -- With speech.