I'm interested in people's opinions. What is so terrible about directed marketing (NOT SPAM), but advertising targeted at a particular group of people?
The problem is abuse. As markets move quicker and faster still, marketing budgets increase in orders of magnitude, as a company that has no name recognition for a product it's been selling for six months is basically screwed.
The problem is that marketing knows only to match what the industry does - grow. We've seen many cases where a particular company staked out into uncharted territory and was richly rewarded for it...but on the other hand, we've seen tenfold or more cases where they were either scorned, slow, selfish, or stupid. Marketing in brute force is a proven tactic because even the worst product has a buyer somewhere who is stupid enough to fall for it.
My problem with it is that marketing yesterday, today, and tomorrow is *all* about mindshare. Companies consistently bombard me with ads for a product that I either have already, don't have money for, or have no interest in altogether. I've been seeing banner ads all over the place for my DSL provider. I already have an account with them, so this ad is a waste of money for them. However, if targeted advertising wasn't a pipe dream, and if they had competition in my area (they don't), then their competitors would be bombarding me with ads day-in and day-out until I switched. And then what? I'll get the same treatment back from my old provider. If Coke knows you buy Coke and agrees tos top sending you ads, then what do you think Pepsi is going to do? Suppose you change to Pepsi. Then what?
The problem is bigger than marketing. The problem is that, in the eyes of the industry, we have mutated from homo sapiens into homo emptoris.
"Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation--and their ideas from suppression--at the hand of an intolerant society," wrote Justice Bender.
Q. Will your product be upgradeable to GPRS? A. Yes. In the second half of the year, Handspring plans to offer a software upgrade that enables Treo to work on GPRS networks. The upgrade will be available from Handspring's web site. The current hardware in Treo is GPRS-ready.
Q. What version of GPRS is the Treo communicator going to use?
A. The Treo communicator will support GPRS Class 2, which will provide two channels down and one channel up (otherwise know as "2+1").
'System and method for influencing a position on a search result list generated by a computer network search engine'.
Specifically, the patent covers a bidding process in which link owners compete in a bidding process to show which bids are highest. Though, in this case, Google is only using this data for the ads on the right sidebar of searches. GoTo.com used the bidding process to insert paid links within its regular search results. The free links would appear afterward.
The application of the technique is where this differs, but this is yet another case of an overly broad patent.
She is angry that Sony Online Entertainment, which owns EverQuest, won't give her the answers she desires.
In other words, she'll appeal and appeal until Sony caves in and settles.
"The manufacturer of EverQuest purposely made it in such a way that it is more intriguing to the addict,"
Well, *duh*. Entertainment is supposed to be enjoyable...And *newsflash!* Enjoyable things are addictive! Like sports...taking walks...shopping...sex! If it wasn't, then we as humans wouldn't seek it out so often, and it wouldn't enrich our lives - We'd turn into very dull people.
Not only that, but it's in Verant/Sony's financial interests to make the game enjoyable and addictive. Since it's on a subscription-based model, they need people to *want* to continue to play, so that THEY can to continue to make money.
*FWAP* - The sound of 1,000,000 Slashdot readers simultaneously slapping their foreheads in disgust...
Are you sure you didn't get ripped off? I think you got burned by someone who relabeled Barnstorming as Airwolf.
And you're gravely mistaken with your quote about Zelda. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link was a decent game, but it was *not* Link's Awakening, as you said. Many, many people will argue that Link's Awakening was one of the best, if not the best in the series (I would disagree personally).
And as some people have mentioned in other posts, it's General Leo that everyone wants to be able to revive, not Cid.
This is *totally* different. The difference is that Verisign isn't really telling you that you're switching, other than in the teeny tiny fine print. By your logic, this is akin to MCI sending you a bill for your AT&T service, indicating underneath your signature line that you'll be authorizing them to take over your service. There are laws against this now that specifically require you to say something along the phrase of "I agree to have *** as my long distance provider" on the phone where they can record it, as well as citing some personally identifiable information, so that the telco can prove that you authorized the change in proper sound mind and body.
They only have their name in one place on the mailing, and it's not on the mailing service. Given how Verisign advertises their business as if they're *the* Internet company, it's not surprising that people might actually see the Verisign logo and think that it's either a safety/security measure, or that they're partnered with Go Daddy to conduct the renewals processing.
Woe betide he who does not read the fine print.
On a separate note, where do you legally draw the line between deceptively stealing customers and "slamming"?
Well, there are plenty of toys like that anyway - CNN/Headline News ran a medical article about two weeks ago showing six or seven of them, just following some medical press release that said that getting approx. 10,000 steps in a day was equivalent to your daily needed exercise.
I've just got this to say...
on
Chase the Rabbits
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
32 comments by the time I post this one...I'd be willing to bet 25 of them didn't read the article, as that was *damn* long, and very insightful.
Some specifics would have been a little nice. I'm sure the vast majority of the Slashdot readerbase is sitting above the ideal weight zone, after all, and I'm kinda curious what Pete's before/after weights were.
Is Google going to fight the good fight then? Or are they challenging the Church of Scientology, believing that the stakes are too big for them to try and pick a fight?
Broadband service is so desparately trying to compete with the low cost of dialup, that it's not making the margin it needs. Of course it doesn't scale linearly, as a 128kb DSL connection doesn't cost 32x a 4kb dialup, but a 128kb DSL connection for only 2x or 3x the cost of that dialup sure isn't making the DSL provider the same margin as the dialup gives the dialup provider.Shouldn't that be 4KBytes, not 4Kbits? Or is your connection just *really* slow? With that in mind, following your logic, a 128Kbit DSL connection should cost four times as much as a 32Kbit dialup connection, which, it does. Your average local ISP pricing is between $16 and $20. Your average broadband pipe is about $55-$65. That's about a 3.5x pricing difference.
Technically, by earning referral dollars by referring purchases that they didn't actually have a hand in, they're at the very least stealing from the retailers. That's no different than taking commission on a retail sale you didn't actually make. And, if it's inserting referral IDs to make money, I doubt it's going to leave existing ones intact. To quote Star Trek II:
McCoy - "Suppose this device were to be used where life already exists..." Spock - "It would presumably destroy such life, in favor of its new matrix."
An afflicted browser will sense if a user is going to visit a shopping site like Yahoo! or Amazon, and secretly send them to a different site instead and then redirect them from this site to the user's intended destination.
The final destination is more or less the same. The difference is the intermediary. Morpheus isn't stopping me from going to Amazon by instead redirecting me to Borders.com...They're just stealing referral dollars.
Honestly, though...I wonder how long it'll be before these online vendors lock out Morpheus' referral IDs, or even worse, deny the connections altogether (since the most recent source IP will be Morpheus' proxy, not your own).
And I assume that if there's a pre-existing Referral ID, Morpheus will strip it out and replace it with its own. Doesn't this constitute actual monetary theft?
First, this is obviously a kneejerk reaction to Candyman.
Secondly, who's to decide what's what? Is the ISP supposed to just carte blanche kill off anything that even resembles child porn? What happens to people trying to look at Anne Geddes images? Who do you appeal to if an improper decision is made, and how does it work?
This seems like too much idealism and not enough rational thought.
Well, let's differentiate. I can understand if it was Windows 2000, since that's exactly what happens in Win2K. It crashes in NT and 2K, but actually ran in XP fine. Other people are reporting this too. I'm not sure what went on in your case...but it does work. Maybe consider switching to Worms World Party. Sure...it means you have to pay money, but the better network support is *more* than worth it. No more WormNet!
11.1 hours per day runtime is for the 120GXP, but Slashdot is really on the trailing end of this issue.
The problem is most noteworthy on the 75GXP and the 60GXP - It's been around a lot longer than the 120GXP has...And the spec'd time for the 60/75GXP is shorter than 333 hours per month. Don't ask me to find it on the IBM webpage - I got that from HardOCP and some other place over a week ago.
I think part of the trouble here is that IBM is selling these drives as OEM parts, and not retail drives. OEMs generally don't sell systems to the enthusiast market (The group most likely to leave systems running all day). In your average Dell/Compaq/Cow computer, it's preset to go on standby after an hour or so, powering off the drive. Since all of us "power users" don't like those performance-detracting ACPI/APM functions, we always disable them.
Furthermore, the DeskStar isn't intended to be a server part - IBM makes the UltraStar for that.
So, in essence, it's buyer-beware with OEM parts. Just like with the ATI video card debacle - You're buying parts that aren't intended for *you* to use. It's your fault if you're tryin' to skimp a couple of bucks out of IBM/ATI/whoever by buying on the grey market.
Now, that said...it's pretty fscking ridiculous to be making these drives and all but marketing them as the fastest ATA drives on the planet. That's practically hyping it up to the enthusiast market right there. And I really think it's asinine to expect these drives to *only* be run 8 hours a day. Factoring in the average lunch break when the computer will most likely get left on, that means that the drives are generally running out of spec on a regular business day in your average workstation.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm interested in people's opinions. What is so terrible about directed marketing (NOT SPAM), but advertising targeted at a particular group of people?
The problem is abuse. As markets move quicker and faster still, marketing budgets increase in orders of magnitude, as a company that has no name recognition for a product it's been selling for six months is basically screwed.
The problem is that marketing knows only to match what the industry does - grow. We've seen many cases where a particular company staked out into uncharted territory and was richly rewarded for it...but on the other hand, we've seen tenfold or more cases where they were either scorned, slow, selfish, or stupid. Marketing in brute force is a proven tactic because even the worst product has a buyer somewhere who is stupid enough to fall for it.
My problem with it is that marketing yesterday, today, and tomorrow is *all* about mindshare. Companies consistently bombard me with ads for a product that I either have already, don't have money for, or have no interest in altogether. I've been seeing banner ads all over the place for my DSL provider. I already have an account with them, so this ad is a waste of money for them. However, if targeted advertising wasn't a pipe dream, and if they had competition in my area (they don't), then their competitors would be bombarding me with ads day-in and day-out until I switched. And then what? I'll get the same treatment back from my old provider. If Coke knows you buy Coke and agrees tos top sending you ads, then what do you think Pepsi is going to do? Suppose you change to Pepsi. Then what?
The problem is bigger than marketing. The problem is that, in the eyes of the industry, we have mutated from homo sapiens into homo emptoris.
"Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation--and their ideas from suppression--at the hand of an intolerant society," wrote Justice Bender.
Mr. Bender, would you please run for Congress?
From the Treo FAQ:
Q. Will your product be upgradeable to GPRS?
A. Yes. In the second half of the year, Handspring plans to offer a software upgrade that enables Treo to work on GPRS networks. The upgrade will be available from Handspring's web site. The current hardware in Treo is GPRS-ready.
Q. What version of GPRS is the Treo communicator going to use?
A. The Treo communicator will support GPRS Class 2, which will provide two channels down and one channel up (otherwise know as "2+1").
higher performance over 1.3
:)
Really? I guess we'll find out in just a few minutes exactly *how* much more performance 2.0 has over 1.3...
'System and method for influencing a position on a search result list generated by a computer network search engine'.
Specifically, the patent covers a bidding process in which link owners compete in a bidding process to show which bids are highest. Though, in this case, Google is only using this data for the ads on the right sidebar of searches. GoTo.com used the bidding process to insert paid links within its regular search results. The free links would appear afterward.
The application of the technique is where this differs, but this is yet another case of an overly broad patent.
Now the courts get to make the laws w/o checks+balances from Congress/president?
And, more importantly, the people.
She is angry that Sony Online Entertainment, which owns EverQuest, won't give her the answers she desires.
In other words, she'll appeal and appeal until Sony caves in and settles.
"The manufacturer of EverQuest purposely made it in such a way that it is more intriguing to the addict,"
Well, *duh*. Entertainment is supposed to be enjoyable...And *newsflash!* Enjoyable things are addictive! Like sports...taking walks...shopping...sex! If it wasn't, then we as humans wouldn't seek it out so often, and it wouldn't enrich our lives - We'd turn into very dull people.
Not only that, but it's in Verant/Sony's financial interests to make the game enjoyable and addictive. Since it's on a subscription-based model, they need people to *want* to continue to play, so that THEY can to continue to make money.
*FWAP* - The sound of 1,000,000 Slashdot readers simultaneously slapping their foreheads in disgust...
However, the reason I got a PS/2 was mainly down to the social aspects.
:P
Really? I got a PS/2 and let me tell you...my social life went in the shitter after that...Stupid jocks...
Are you sure you didn't get ripped off? I think you got burned by someone who relabeled Barnstorming as Airwolf.
And you're gravely mistaken with your quote about Zelda. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link was a decent game, but it was *not* Link's Awakening, as you said. Many, many people will argue that Link's Awakening was one of the best, if not the best in the series (I would disagree personally).
And as some people have mentioned in other posts, it's General Leo that everyone wants to be able to revive, not Cid.
Significant enough that JPL has expressed an interest in using the technology to swim in Europa's seas.
Funny...I remember reading an edict a few years back that went something along the lines of:
"All these worlds are yours, except Europa. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE."
"Switch to MCI/Sprint from AT&T, it's better!"
"Switch to Linux, it's better!"
This is *totally* different. The difference is that Verisign isn't really telling you that you're switching, other than in the teeny tiny fine print. By your logic, this is akin to MCI sending you a bill for your AT&T service, indicating underneath your signature line that you'll be authorizing them to take over your service. There are laws against this now that specifically require you to say something along the phrase of "I agree to have *** as my long distance provider" on the phone where they can record it, as well as citing some personally identifiable information, so that the telco can prove that you authorized the change in proper sound mind and body.
They only have their name in one place on the mailing, and it's not on the mailing service. Given how Verisign advertises their business as if they're *the* Internet company, it's not surprising that people might actually see the Verisign logo and think that it's either a safety/security measure, or that they're partnered with Go Daddy to conduct the renewals processing.
Woe betide he who does not read the fine print.
On a separate note, where do you legally draw the line between deceptively stealing customers and "slamming"?
Well, there are plenty of toys like that anyway - CNN/Headline News ran a medical article about two weeks ago showing six or seven of them, just following some medical press release that said that getting approx. 10,000 steps in a day was equivalent to your daily needed exercise.
32 comments by the time I post this one...I'd be willing to bet 25 of them didn't read the article, as that was *damn* long, and very insightful.
:D
Some specifics would have been a little nice. I'm sure the vast majority of the Slashdot readerbase is sitting above the ideal weight zone, after all, and I'm kinda curious what Pete's before/after weights were.
And now I know I've *gotta* get a SportBrain.
That's right - The Department of Energy in 2008 will post a new RFC, and within seconds, it's already got five comments, each saying "Frist Psot!"...
Is Google going to fight the good fight then? Or are they challenging the Church of Scientology, believing that the stakes are too big for them to try and pick a fight?
Broadband service is so desparately trying to compete with the low cost of dialup, that it's not making the margin it needs. Of course it doesn't scale linearly, as a 128kb DSL connection doesn't cost 32x a 4kb dialup, but a 128kb DSL connection for only 2x or 3x the cost of that dialup sure isn't making the DSL provider the same margin as the dialup gives the dialup provider.Shouldn't that be 4KBytes, not 4Kbits? Or is your connection just *really* slow? With that in mind, following your logic, a 128Kbit DSL connection should cost four times as much as a 32Kbit dialup connection, which, it does. Your average local ISP pricing is between $16 and $20. Your average broadband pipe is about $55-$65. That's about a 3.5x pricing difference.
Technically, by earning referral dollars by referring purchases that they didn't actually have a hand in, they're at the very least stealing from the retailers. That's no different than taking commission on a retail sale you didn't actually make. And, if it's inserting referral IDs to make money, I doubt it's going to leave existing ones intact. To quote Star Trek II:
McCoy - "Suppose this device were to be used where life already exists..."
Spock - "It would presumably destroy such life, in favor of its new matrix."
An afflicted browser will sense if a user is going to visit a shopping site like Yahoo! or Amazon, and secretly send them to a different site instead and then redirect them from this site to the user's intended destination.
The final destination is more or less the same. The difference is the intermediary. Morpheus isn't stopping me from going to Amazon by instead redirecting me to Borders.com...They're just stealing referral dollars.
Honestly, though...I wonder how long it'll be before these online vendors lock out Morpheus' referral IDs, or even worse, deny the connections altogether (since the most recent source IP will be Morpheus' proxy, not your own).
And I assume that if there's a pre-existing Referral ID, Morpheus will strip it out and replace it with its own. Doesn't this constitute actual monetary theft?
First, this is obviously a kneejerk reaction to Candyman.
Secondly, who's to decide what's what? Is the ISP supposed to just carte blanche kill off anything that even resembles child porn? What happens to people trying to look at Anne Geddes images? Who do you appeal to if an improper decision is made, and how does it work?
This seems like too much idealism and not enough rational thought.
Well, let's differentiate. I can understand if it was Windows 2000, since that's exactly what happens in Win2K. It crashes in NT and 2K, but actually ran in XP fine. Other people are reporting this too. I'm not sure what went on in your case...but it does work. Maybe consider switching to Worms World Party. Sure...it means you have to pay money, but the better network support is *more* than worth it. No more WormNet!
I've seen an XP-user unsuccessfully trying to run Worms Armageddon, so it's not that "easy peasy".
And I *have* successfully run Worms Armageddon on Beta 2, RC2, and XP final. No hacks or anything required. So check your user again...
For those of you that notice that 333 / 30 != 8, please read this link.
11.1 hours per day runtime is for the 120GXP, but Slashdot is really on the trailing end of this issue.
The problem is most noteworthy on the 75GXP and the 60GXP - It's been around a lot longer than the 120GXP has...And the spec'd time for the 60/75GXP is shorter than 333 hours per month. Don't ask me to find it on the IBM webpage - I got that from HardOCP and some other place over a week ago.
I think part of the trouble here is that IBM is selling these drives as OEM parts, and not retail drives. OEMs generally don't sell systems to the enthusiast market (The group most likely to leave systems running all day). In your average Dell/Compaq/Cow computer, it's preset to go on standby after an hour or so, powering off the drive. Since all of us "power users" don't like those performance-detracting ACPI/APM functions, we always disable them.
Furthermore, the DeskStar isn't intended to be a server part - IBM makes the UltraStar for that.
So, in essence, it's buyer-beware with OEM parts. Just like with the ATI video card debacle - You're buying parts that aren't intended for *you* to use. It's your fault if you're tryin' to skimp a couple of bucks out of IBM/ATI/whoever by buying on the grey market.
Now, that said...it's pretty fscking ridiculous to be making these drives and all but marketing them as the fastest ATA drives on the planet. That's practically hyping it up to the enthusiast market right there. And I really think it's asinine to expect these drives to *only* be run 8 hours a day. Factoring in the average lunch break when the computer will most likely get left on, that means that the drives are generally running out of spec on a regular business day in your average workstation.