Has any one of the folks posting comments actually read the article, let alone bothered to sign up? Have any of you looked at the popularity of applications like Umundo or Abuzab that let users post images from their cell phones to their social network profiles in real time? It may not strike adults as all that appealing but the popularity across social networks is such that more images a day are displayed on MySpace via these tools than are uploaded to flickr.
The application does ride on MMS. That's because MMS is the lowest common denominator for the phone. Try some fancy form of video, say streaming MPEG4 and you immediately lock out most of your audience.
Secondly, the application is much more than simply pushing video around. One application is similar to Nokia's very popular LifeBlog however with the richer context of video allowing you to create a tapestry of events in your life. Since you can tag it, create titles for each video and organize them chronologically, by tag, or by group association there's a lot of flexibility in the platform that lets the user maintain granular control of lots of archived video.
From simply taking a quick inventory for your homeowners policy (That is now safely stored off site) to getting advice on an outfit (or a second opinion from a physician), I can see a huge number of business uses that make Veeker compelling. My suggestion to all is to at least take a reasonable look at the application before trashing it - you might be surprised at the depth of thinking that's gone into creating it.
Incidentally, while I am the author of the blog post that was referenced, I have no association with Veeker beyond having interviewed them for the post.
I can hear the dog-napper's voice now... uh, yeah, I might have your doggie... he says as he unbuckles the little blinged out phone from fifi's studded Louis Vuitton collar... "what did you say the reward was for her safe return again?"
and then a few days later...
"oh dear, Fifi seems to have lost an ear...maybe you'd better increase that reward a little before something bigger comes loose..."
Okay, so assuming that people (or pets that really like to gossip) are going to buy these things, what say the carriers? Is Sprint going to pick this up and if so, do pets qualify for the "friends and family" plan? Are they friends? Or family? Or can the pets pick their own friends (which might even be other people's pets?) Can I block 976 numbers so they don't call doggie porn lines? I mean the heavy breathing was bad enough but the heavy panting has got to go...
Oh yeah, and does anyone know if these are CDMA or GSM? I can see the Qualcomm lawsuits already; they'll claim HSDPA (howling spectrum dog polarization amplifier) is infringinging on their CDMA (Cats Don't Modulate Amplitude) products. One thing's for sure, it's still cats vs. dogs and it's gonna be ugly.
I'm surprised that we've not heard more from the artists themselves on this front. You'd think that those whose CDs were clandestinely infiltrated by this technology would have opinions. After all these people make thie money directly from the sales of those CD's too and you can pretty well bet that not a one of them was told about or consulted in advance of the decision to rootkit these cds.
I'm curious to know if on top of Sony's problems a rash of lawsuits will be filed by attorneys representing artists that either had their work defiled by the rootkits or those that want out of their contracts because Sony's miserable judgment will result in substantially reduced sales for any artist on a Sony label.
Well, what about if Google (and all other hi resolution, high accuracy mapping programs and even physical maps) simply introduces about a 3% error into either latitude or longitude or both? (randomly of course) I mean it's not like you really need to know exactly where anything is unless you plan to land a plane or guide a missile right?
The fact is, most of us don't have a clue exactly where things are now, so this would simply give us a good excuse...
Did Amazon's lawyers even bother to look at the prior art here?
http://www.neom.com/Neomedia Technologies has just about every patent you could think of related to taking pictures of bar codes and getting information sent back to your phone.
I would be really surprised if Amazon gets anything here, though just recently (as in the last day or so) a higher court upheld a lower court's verdict http://www.mobilecents.net/juryaward.asp of $128 million to the company that holds the patent for prepaid wireless cards! (as if that wasn't obvious).
It makes you wonder if the same people that let me get through the airport security with a five inch metal corkscrew (accidentally)- the TSA - are also pulling shifts at the USPTO.
Perhaps the worst violater of sending unsolicited SMS messages is the company SMS.ac out of San Diego, California.
They've got a track record of trcking users into giving up their passwords to AOL and Hotmail accounts and then using the addresses those accounts contain to send messages to your friends and family that appear to have been sent by the unsuspecting victim. In one case Joi Ito was compromised and when he pubilshed his troubles on his blog they threatened him with legal action!
If you haven't heard about this, you really should take a few minutes to check out the scam. The lure is free sms messages...they claim 5 per day, but what happens is shortly after you sign up you begin receiving "friend requests" not dozens, but four or five a day. This doesn't seem like much but if your premium sms charge is 0.50 and you get 5 per day times 30 days per month well...most people on/. can handle that math.
I signed up to do an investigation for my blog and discovered some support for the complaint that these "friend requests" are company originated. Over the course of 3 months I had probably at least half a dozen requests by different screen names with the same photos as well as multiple requests by the same screen name.
Now if there are the millions of members they claim, what are the odds of two people scraping the same images? And of course two different people with the same screen name is an impossibility.
Adding insult to injury (I mean besides the couple hundred bucks I shelled out to verify this) the company actually had the audacity to post a "Cellular Bill of Rights" in my opinion, this is like the fox being left to guard the chickens.
Of course unlike Voice Spammers that are paying to place and terminate their calls, the folks at SMS.ac obviously aren't paying much if anything. Complicit in this, though to what degree they're aware of the issue is Qpass http://qpass.com/ and their m-Qube system for non-operator originated mobile wallet billing.
Personally, I believe enough complaints to Qpass would put a dent in SMS.ac's evil ways. Believe me, they are evil. People lose their phones over this, and it's the one's that can't afford it...kids that didn't know any better who get hurt. Read the complaints for a while and you'll be as indignant as I was when I wrote about their Cellular Bill of Rights http://technorati.com/search/sms.ac%20complaints
Please see my prior response to this same sentiment in an earlier comment. Essentially the difference is relevance. Prior companies had no clue what you were interested in. If the matching to your interests is exceptional, the advertising might not be painful, but interesting or enjoyable. You browse computer catalogs, don't you?
I can think of a few reasons. Skype is only free on-net and for now, mostly tied to a PC.
Not everyone thinks that mobile calls are cheap and some people just enjoy saving their money. If you're not one of them, clearly this isn't for you.
Third lots of stuff was tried before Google came and reinvented it. The key is relevance. If Google is supplying you with advertising related to things that interest you, it changes the dynamic from an intrusion to an offer you might consider.
Google's ability to deliver highly personalized and useful advertising is unparalleled and will become even more refined as they tune the messages to meet with your taste.
Lastly, Google has a pile of cash to burn. It may well be worth it to them to lose a couple hundred million to capture a few million or more phone numbers that are tied to people using other Google services.
Don't you think that mining that data is going to be the most lucrative activity of all for Google at some point? Or perhaps selling it to other companies?
Sooner or later the value of that data will force Google to take advantage of the resource. You don't sit around and twiddle your thumbs when you've got a more valuable asset than any you're currently selling while it slowly expires.
In short, there's more to this idea than free phone calls. A lot more. Sure, it's pure conjecture, but there is logic to the idea and it is already clear that Google is looking towards voice and mobile...doesn't that equal cellular? Or at least VoWIFi?
I don't know where people got the idea that Google was creating InetDos...Om Malik's article talks about dark fiber and free WiFi hotspots, not internet backbone. He even goes so far as to mention the fact that Google has been working with Feeva, a company that provides free Wi-Fi hotspots and suggests that Google build a large broadband network. He never says replace the Internet.
"What if Google (GOOG) wanted to give Wi-Fi access to everyone in America? And what if it had technology capable of targeting advertising to a user's precise location? The gatekeeper of the world's information could become one of the globe's biggest Internet providers and one of its most powerful ad sellers, basically supplanting telecoms in one fell swoop." -Om Malik
If you think about it, replacing the Internet makes no sense for Google. Not only are they not an infrastructure company they aren't set up to service this kind of business. Have you ever tried to get customer service from Google?
Besides, Google's model works better the more open an environment is. More pages = more space in which to display their advertising inventory.
It seems to me that Google's real play is voice...advertising subsidized voice.
Think about it; you just signed up for GoogleTalk via SMS. Google now has your cellular number and knows everything you search for.
What would you say if they offered to subsidize your cellular calls in exchange for LISTENING to brief targeted messages served to your phone prior to placing a call? If the ads were relevant and the exchange was fair; say 10 minutes calling per ad served don't you think a few million minutes of calls would be delivered this way?
Certainly it is obvious that Google has recognized the significance of the small screen to the future of search. They understand the value of connecting an advertiser to an interested customer and vice versa. They've created maps and mapping tools to help you locate what you want. It only makes sense that they take themselves off the PC and into the MOBILE in the most pervasive way the consumer that will allow. You watch; turn by turn directions over your cell phone to the location of your choice, all courtesy of GoogleNav is not far away.
It's easy enough to make light of this situation or make flippant comments. I spent a year doing HIV research and what you don't read in the journals and what the advertisements for the protease inhibitors and the anti-retroviral meds don't show you and what the few of you idiotic enough to post ANYTHING ABOUT DESERVING HIV/AIDS really NEED TO EXPERIENCE FIRST HAND is the suffering this disease causes. Imagine having diarrhea every day for five years...or not being able to eat beacause you are so sick but having to eat because if you don't eat you can't tolerate your medications which are making you sick.
Imagine people afraid to touch your possessions or even hug you because of idoicy, fear and lack of education. What someone with HIV needs (besides more research into cures not treatments) is compassion and understanding and a world in which there isn't ANYONE who is assinine enough to make a comment about deserving HIV.
No ONE deserves what this illness does. If people knew first hand believe you me, they'd change their thinking quite quickly. Before I did this work I was fairly cavalier...hetero male, mostly monogamous, very low risk group. F. that...hang with someone dying for five years and you won't play with fairly or low.
Anyone who is still confused about this and thinks people no matter HOW they contracted this illness somehow deserve it can join me for a tour of a clinic.
Actually, people are misunderstanding and mischaracterizing this ruling, which, in my opinion is flawed on a number of levels. First, the ruling has NOTHING to do with making a direct comparison in your AdWords Ad. It has to do with using the word GEICO as one of the words you pay for such that when someone types GEICO into the search bar, Your non-Geico AdWords Ad is displayed. Your ad in fact probably wouldn't say Geico at all.
Thus, the ruling relates not to the content of the advertising but the CONTEXT. This is a vital distinction. I faced a similar situation last year with AdWords. I was marketing a product called RU-21 for Hangovers. The most popular product in the category is called Chaser, and I was bidding on that word to have my ad displayed when someone searched Chaser. About a month after starting the campaign, I received a VERY UNPLEASANT and threatening letter from Chaser's corporate council...
What makes this a really important issue is that a large percentage of the really successful AdWords campaigns are predicated upon buying keywords that are the names of your competitor's products.
Google is undoubtedly going to appeal, but should they lose this will change the name of the game quite considerably both for the advertisers AND for Google
I've been using SecureMyWiFi by WiTopia (same guys that founded Full Mesh Networks), basically they create provide the Radius authentication within their secure servers (WPA2-Enterprise) and so long as you have compatible gear it's reasonably easy to set up.
It might not be perfect, and certainly someone here could find a way to defeat it eventually (potentially), but for the price and convenience it's a heck of a lot better than anything else I've come across. You can see for yourself at their website.
*Caveat, I HAVE NO AFFILIATION TO WITOPIA OR FULL MESH, just have had good results personally.
There are two sides to every coin. At a conference, I might want to have the ability to connect with people in a common field via a bluetooth profile broadcast, however, I value my privacy as much if not more than most.
In my opinion, a big part of the problem lies with users that fail to fully understand the technology that they've purchased; and then they're the first to complain when their own failure to take simple steps to secure their equipment and thus personal information leaks out into the big bad world.
The same people that are making a big deal about things like this bluetooth profile tool are the ones that are screaming and yelling about Murdoch and Co buying MySpace.
It wasn't like they cared about privacy when they put all their personal information and photos and blog posts detailing every intimate moment of their lives on the Internet for the world to see, or when they went about "collecting" friends so they could feel popular, but they, God forbid, a "company" buys MySpace out (by the way did you all think TOM was really your pal? I had an extended conversation with the man about providing a service for members, so I can tell you first hand he didn't work on MySpace cause he loved everyone) and everyone screams murder...
Hey~if you're so upset, don't build a profile. Don't put up a blog with photos of your house and kids, don't put your credit card numbers in your cell phone, and for pete's sake, stop blaming technology for you own inability to read the freaking instructions!
I used to live halfway between Big Sur and Carmel, which meant that a trip to town for anything meant at least a half hour each way on winding US 1. My leadfoot habits resulted in a number of citations being issued, not a one of which stuck.
Here's why:
All were on Radar.
This is how I won each time:
First I plead not guilty
Second I made a formal discovery request via the court to the officer who issued the citation.
In the request I asked for (some of this is relevant, some is not depending upon the situation and the make and model of radar gun in question)
A copy of the current calibration report for the gun dated the same date as the citation
A certified copy of the officer's traning certification for that make and model of gun
A statement that the gun was calibrated using the tuning calibration equipment that had a serial number identical to the radar gun
A statement that this calibration equipment was kept in the manufactuter approved container at all times prior to the calibration event
A survey of the section of highway in question, no older than 5 years, conducted by an independent engineering firm that gave maximum recommended safe speed in weather conditions comprable to those the date the citation was issued.
(There's more, but you get the point)
When I show up in court I move for a mis-trial on the grounds that my requested discovery materials were never provided.
Usually the judge will ask to see the list so be sure to have a copy of the discovery request.
the last time I did this, it was to the same officer that had cited me a few months prior. Just as he saw me coming to the courtroom I overheard a fellow officer say to him: "it's an easy day today, isn't it?" The cop gestured towards me and said, "not if you cited that jerk"
Obviously this made my day...
(By the way, this won't win you any friends with the local officers of the law, and I've heard that the judges give them a hard time about not complying with the discovery requests)
At the same Slashdot posted the cellular records story I received a query to my blog (The Mobile Technology Weblog) by a reader of the AdRants Forum asking about getting spammed by sms marketing messages. In response I authored two posts, an excerpt of each is here:
here's another scenario that could drive you bonkers...imagine that your personal phone records are being sold to be mined for data...they create a "consumer profile" for you based upon the kinds of goods and services you obtain with phone calls; call Dominos, it's on your record, reserve an airline ticket by calling United's 800#, same deal.
Now imagine getting calls or text messages offering you discounts on competing services. Think it's far fetched? Pay attention to Google AdSense and how sensitive the advertisements are to the context of the pages on which they appear. Now imagine the same kind of system, only driven off the calls you made or the calls others have made to you. It's pretty ugly, isn't it?
At it's worst this could degenerate to the point that:
Out of control unsolicited messages to the consumer could render the phone a useless physical "pop-up" buzzing mindlessly in your purse or pocket, interrupting your calls, your thoughts, and your conversations to attempt to hawk goods and services that you don't want, don't need and probably will find offensive.
I think it is critical that groups such as Slashdot readers take immediate initiaive and decry this practice as loudly as possible before it's too late. We can put a stop to this but not if we're hesitant, or lazy.
As a forum that I understand is read frequently by mobile marketing minded people, I'd be very pleased if folks that read this post and have ideas, opinions or suggestions would post comments in the related topic on the blog (stats indicate we get around 2500 hits a day, a fraction of here, but the concentration of readers focused on mobile marketing is significant.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, at least we know that it - like the Internet[s]- is not a dump truck.
Check out http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8136240710 964892606&q=%22kennedy+assasination%22 for your answer. The Zapruder footage has it clear as day.
But how can we hope to rise up against our despotic leadership when they have nukular weapons?
"people should not fear their governments, governments should fear their people... V from V for Vendetta
Has any one of the folks posting comments actually read the article, let alone bothered to sign up? Have any of you looked at the popularity of applications like Umundo or Abuzab that let users post images from their cell phones to their social network profiles in real time? It may not strike adults as all that appealing but the popularity across social networks is such that more images a day are displayed on MySpace via these tools than are uploaded to flickr.
The application does ride on MMS. That's because MMS is the lowest common denominator for the phone. Try some fancy form of video, say streaming MPEG4 and you immediately lock out most of your audience.
Secondly, the application is much more than simply pushing video around. One application is similar to Nokia's very popular LifeBlog however with the richer context of video allowing you to create a tapestry of events in your life. Since you can tag it, create titles for each video and organize them chronologically, by tag, or by group association there's a lot of flexibility in the platform that lets the user maintain granular control of lots of archived video.
From simply taking a quick inventory for your homeowners policy (That is now safely stored off site) to getting advice on an outfit (or a second opinion from a physician), I can see a huge number of business uses that make Veeker compelling. My suggestion to all is to at least take a reasonable look at the application before trashing it - you might be surprised at the depth of thinking that's gone into creating it.
Incidentally, while I am the author of the blog post that was referenced, I have no association with Veeker beyond having interviewed them for the post.
Oliver Starr
I can hear the dog-napper's voice now... uh, yeah, I might have your doggie... he says as he unbuckles the little blinged out phone from fifi's studded Louis Vuitton collar... "what did you say the reward was for her safe return again?"
and then a few days later...
"oh dear, Fifi seems to have lost an ear...maybe you'd better increase that reward a little before something bigger comes loose..."
Okay, so assuming that people (or pets that really like to gossip) are going to buy these things, what say the carriers? Is Sprint going to pick this up and if so, do pets qualify for the "friends and family" plan? Are they friends? Or family? Or can the pets pick their own friends (which might even be other people's pets?) Can I block 976 numbers so they don't call doggie porn lines? I mean the heavy breathing was bad enough but the heavy panting has got to go...
Oh yeah, and does anyone know if these are CDMA or GSM? I can see the Qualcomm lawsuits already; they'll claim HSDPA (howling spectrum dog polarization amplifier) is infringinging on their CDMA (Cats Don't Modulate Amplitude) products. One thing's for sure, it's still cats vs. dogs and it's gonna be ugly.
I'm surprised that we've not heard more from the artists themselves on this front. You'd think that those whose CDs were clandestinely infiltrated by this technology would have opinions. After all these people make thie money directly from the sales of those CD's too and you can pretty well bet that not a one of them was told about or consulted in advance of the decision to rootkit these cds.
I'm curious to know if on top of Sony's problems a rash of lawsuits will be filed by attorneys representing artists that either had their work defiled by the rootkits or those that want out of their contracts because Sony's miserable judgment will result in substantially reduced sales for any artist on a Sony label.
Anyone know about this or have an opinion?
Stitch
"There is no "I" in B-O-R-G"
Well, what about if Google (and all other hi resolution, high accuracy mapping programs and even physical maps) simply introduces about a 3% error into either latitude or longitude or both? (randomly of course) I mean it's not like you really need to know exactly where anything is unless you plan to land a plane or guide a missile right?
The fact is, most of us don't have a clue exactly where things are now, so this would simply give us a good excuse...
at http://demo.com/demofallDEMOfall 2005 someone cleverer than I said:
Google is the new Microsoft
Microsoft is the new Yahoo!
Yahoo! is the new Google....
Did Amazon's lawyers even bother to look at the prior art here?
http://www.neom.com/Neomedia Technologies has just about every patent you could think of related to taking pictures of bar codes and getting information sent back to your phone.
Their http://paperclick.com/demo.jspPaperclick demo shows just a fraction of what they've got patented.
They enforce their patents too. In the past few months both http://www.neom.com/press_releases/2005/20050629.j spVirgin and http://www.neom.com/press_releases/2005/20050712.j spAirClic have settled by doing licensing deals. That doesn't happen with weak patents. Further, Neomedia has protection in something like 15 other countries besides http://www.neom.com/press_releases/2005/20050524.j sp.
I would be really surprised if Amazon gets anything here, though just recently (as in the last day or so) a higher court upheld a lower court's verdict http://www.mobilecents.net/juryaward.asp of $128 million to the company that holds the patent for prepaid wireless cards! (as if that wasn't obvious).
It makes you wonder if the same people that let me get through the airport security with a five inch metal corkscrew (accidentally)- the TSA - are also pulling shifts at the USPTO.
-Stitch
"there is no "I" in B-O-R-G"
the last link in the final sentence should be: http://www.mobile-weblog.com/50226711/smsac_launch es_cellular_bill_of_rights_so_wrong.php
man...lack of sleep can F*** you up...
Perhaps the worst violater of sending unsolicited SMS messages is the company SMS.ac out of San Diego, California.
They've got a track record of trcking users into giving up their passwords to AOL and Hotmail accounts and then using the addresses those accounts contain to send messages to your friends and family that appear to have been sent by the unsuspecting victim. In one case Joi Ito was compromised and when he pubilshed his troubles on his blog they threatened him with legal action!
A search on Technorati http://technorati.com/search/sms.ac%20complaints will reveal an astonishing number of people that have been victimized by this company.
If you haven't heard about this, you really should take a few minutes to check out the scam. The lure is free sms messages...they claim 5 per day, but what happens is shortly after you sign up you begin receiving "friend requests" not dozens, but four or five a day. This doesn't seem like much but if your premium sms charge is 0.50 and you get 5 per day times 30 days per month well...most people on /. can handle that math.
I signed up to do an investigation for my blog and discovered some support for the complaint that these "friend requests" are company originated. Over the course of 3 months I had probably at least half a dozen requests by different screen names with the same photos as well as multiple requests by the same screen name.
Now if there are the millions of members they claim, what are the odds of two people scraping the same images? And of course two different people with the same screen name is an impossibility.
Adding insult to injury (I mean besides the couple hundred bucks I shelled out to verify this) the company actually had the audacity to post a "Cellular Bill of Rights" in my opinion, this is like the fox being left to guard the chickens.
Of course unlike Voice Spammers that are paying to place and terminate their calls, the folks at SMS.ac obviously aren't paying much if anything. Complicit in this, though to what degree they're aware of the issue is Qpass http://qpass.com/ and their m-Qube system for non-operator originated mobile wallet billing.
Personally, I believe enough complaints to Qpass would put a dent in SMS.ac's evil ways. Believe me, they are evil. People lose their phones over this, and it's the one's that can't afford it...kids that didn't know any better who get hurt. Read the complaints for a while and you'll be as indignant as I was when I wrote about their Cellular Bill of Rights http://technorati.com/search/sms.ac%20complaints
Please see my prior response to this same sentiment in an earlier comment. Essentially the difference is relevance. Prior companies had no clue what you were interested in. If the matching to your interests is exceptional, the advertising might not be painful, but interesting or enjoyable. You browse computer catalogs, don't you?
I can think of a few reasons. Skype is only free on-net and for now, mostly tied to a PC.
Not everyone thinks that mobile calls are cheap and some people just enjoy saving their money. If you're not one of them, clearly this isn't for you.
Third lots of stuff was tried before Google came and reinvented it. The key is relevance. If Google is supplying you with advertising related to things that interest you, it changes the dynamic from an intrusion to an offer you might consider.
Google's ability to deliver highly personalized and useful advertising is unparalleled and will become even more refined as they tune the messages to meet with your taste.
Lastly, Google has a pile of cash to burn. It may well be worth it to them to lose a couple hundred million to capture a few million or more phone numbers that are tied to people using other Google services.
Don't you think that mining that data is going to be the most lucrative activity of all for Google at some point? Or perhaps selling it to other companies?
Sooner or later the value of that data will force Google to take advantage of the resource. You don't sit around and twiddle your thumbs when you've got a more valuable asset than any you're currently selling while it slowly expires.
In short, there's more to this idea than free phone calls. A lot more. Sure, it's pure conjecture, but there is logic to the idea and it is already clear that Google is looking towards voice and mobile...doesn't that equal cellular? Or at least VoWIFi?
I don't know where people got the idea that Google was creating InetDos...Om Malik's article talks about dark fiber and free WiFi hotspots, not internet backbone. He even goes so far as to mention the fact that Google has been working with Feeva, a company that provides free Wi-Fi hotspots and suggests that Google build a large broadband network. He never says replace the Internet.
"What if Google (GOOG) wanted to give Wi-Fi access to everyone in America? And what if it had technology capable of targeting advertising to a user's precise location? The gatekeeper of the world's information could become one of the globe's biggest Internet providers and one of its most powerful ad sellers, basically supplanting telecoms in one fell swoop." -Om Malik
If you think about it, replacing the Internet makes no sense for Google. Not only are they not an infrastructure company they aren't set up to service this kind of business. Have you ever tried to get customer service from Google?
Besides, Google's model works better the more open an environment is. More pages = more space in which to display their advertising inventory.
It seems to me that Google's real play is voice...advertising subsidized voice.
Think about it; you just signed up for GoogleTalk via SMS. Google now has your cellular number and knows everything you search for.
What would you say if they offered to subsidize your cellular calls in exchange for LISTENING to brief targeted messages served to your phone prior to placing a call? If the ads were relevant and the exchange was fair; say 10 minutes calling per ad served don't you think a few million minutes of calls would be delivered this way?
I wrote more about this here: http://www.mobile-weblog.com/50226711/images/googCertainly it is obvious that Google has recognized the significance of the small screen to the future of search. They understand the value of connecting an advertiser to an interested customer and vice versa. They've created maps and mapping tools to help you locate what you want. It only makes sense that they take themselves off the PC and into the MOBILE in the most pervasive way the consumer that will allow. You watch; turn by turn directions over your cell phone to the location of your choice, all courtesy of GoogleNav is not far away.
It's easy enough to make light of this situation or make flippant comments. I spent a year doing HIV research and what you don't read in the journals and what the advertisements for the protease inhibitors and the anti-retroviral meds don't show you and what the few of you idiotic enough to post ANYTHING ABOUT DESERVING HIV/AIDS really NEED TO EXPERIENCE FIRST HAND is the suffering this disease causes. Imagine having diarrhea every day for five years...or not being able to eat beacause you are so sick but having to eat because if you don't eat you can't tolerate your medications which are making you sick.
Imagine people afraid to touch your possessions or even hug you because of idoicy, fear and lack of education. What someone with HIV needs (besides more research into cures not treatments) is compassion and understanding and a world in which there isn't ANYONE who is assinine enough to make a comment about deserving HIV.
No ONE deserves what this illness does. If people knew first hand believe you me, they'd change their thinking quite quickly. Before I did this work I was fairly cavalier...hetero male, mostly monogamous, very low risk group. F. that...hang with someone dying for five years and you won't play with fairly or low.
Anyone who is still confused about this and thinks people no matter HOW they contracted this illness somehow deserve it can join me for a tour of a clinic.
Actually, people are misunderstanding and mischaracterizing this ruling, which, in my opinion is flawed on a number of levels. First, the ruling has NOTHING to do with making a direct comparison in your AdWords Ad. It has to do with using the word GEICO as one of the words you pay for such that when someone types GEICO into the search bar, Your non-Geico AdWords Ad is displayed. Your ad in fact probably wouldn't say Geico at all.
Thus, the ruling relates not to the content of the advertising but the CONTEXT. This is a vital distinction. I faced a similar situation last year with AdWords. I was marketing a product called RU-21 for Hangovers. The most popular product in the category is called Chaser, and I was bidding on that word to have my ad displayed when someone searched Chaser. About a month after starting the campaign, I received a VERY UNPLEASANT and threatening letter from Chaser's corporate council...
What makes this a really important issue is that a large percentage of the really successful AdWords campaigns are predicated upon buying keywords that are the names of your competitor's products.
Google is undoubtedly going to appeal, but should they lose this will change the name of the game quite considerably both for the advertisers AND for Google
Finally, an explanation of homeopathy I can understand!
*Caveat, I HAVE NO AFFILIATION TO WITOPIA OR FULL MESH, just have had good results personally.
There are two sides to every coin. At a conference, I might want to have the ability to connect with people in a common field via a bluetooth profile broadcast, however, I value my privacy as much if not more than most.
In my opinion, a big part of the problem lies with users that fail to fully understand the technology that they've purchased; and then they're the first to complain when their own failure to take simple steps to secure their equipment and thus personal information leaks out into the big bad world.
The same people that are making a big deal about things like this bluetooth profile tool are the ones that are screaming and yelling about Murdoch and Co buying MySpace.
It wasn't like they cared about privacy when they put all their personal information and photos and blog posts detailing every intimate moment of their lives on the Internet for the world to see, or when they went about "collecting" friends so they could feel popular, but they, God forbid, a "company" buys MySpace out (by the way did you all think TOM was really your pal? I had an extended conversation with the man about providing a service for members, so I can tell you first hand he didn't work on MySpace cause he loved everyone) and everyone screams murder...
Hey~if you're so upset, don't build a profile. Don't put up a blog with photos of your house and kids, don't put your credit card numbers in your cell phone, and for pete's sake, stop blaming technology for you own inability to read the freaking instructions!
Peace, out.
-Oliver
http://qconverge.blogspot.com/
I used to live halfway between Big Sur and Carmel, which meant that a trip to town for anything meant at least a half hour each way on winding US 1. My leadfoot habits resulted in a number of citations being issued, not a one of which stuck.
Here's why:
All were on Radar.
This is how I won each time:
First I plead not guilty Second I made a formal discovery request via the court to the officer who issued the citation.
In the request I asked for (some of this is relevant, some is not depending upon the situation and the make and model of radar gun in question)
A copy of the current calibration report for the gun dated the same date as the citation
A certified copy of the officer's traning certification for that make and model of gun
A statement that the gun was calibrated using the tuning calibration equipment that had a serial number identical to the radar gun
A statement that this calibration equipment was kept in the manufactuter approved container at all times prior to the calibration event
A survey of the section of highway in question, no older than 5 years, conducted by an independent engineering firm that gave maximum recommended safe speed in weather conditions comprable to those the date the citation was issued.
(There's more, but you get the point)
When I show up in court I move for a mis-trial on the grounds that my requested discovery materials were never provided.
Usually the judge will ask to see the list so be sure to have a copy of the discovery request.
the last time I did this, it was to the same officer that had cited me a few months prior. Just as he saw me coming to the courtroom I overheard a fellow officer say to him: "it's an easy day today, isn't it?" The cop gestured towards me and said, "not if you cited that jerk"
Obviously this made my day...
(By the way, this won't win you any friends with the local officers of the law, and I've heard that the judges give them a hard time about not complying with the discovery requests)
At the same Slashdot posted the cellular records story I received a query to my blog (The Mobile Technology Weblog) by a reader of the AdRants Forum asking about getting spammed by sms marketing messages. In response I authored two posts, an excerpt of each is here:
here's another scenario that could drive you bonkers...imagine that your personal phone records are being sold to be mined for data...they create a "consumer profile" for you based upon the kinds of goods and services you obtain with phone calls; call Dominos, it's on your record, reserve an airline ticket by calling United's 800#, same deal.
Now imagine getting calls or text messages offering you discounts on competing services. Think it's far fetched? Pay attention to Google AdSense and how sensitive the advertisements are to the context of the pages on which they appear. Now imagine the same kind of system, only driven off the calls you made or the calls others have made to you. It's pretty ugly, isn't it?
At it's worst this could degenerate to the point that:
Out of control unsolicited messages to the consumer could render the phone a useless physical "pop-up" buzzing mindlessly in your purse or pocket, interrupting your calls, your thoughts, and your conversations to attempt to hawk goods and services that you don't want, don't need and probably will find offensive.
I think it is critical that groups such as Slashdot readers take immediate initiaive and decry this practice as loudly as possible before it's too late. We can put a stop to this but not if we're hesitant, or lazy.
As a forum that I understand is read frequently by mobile marketing minded people, I'd be very pleased if folks that read this post and have ideas, opinions or suggestions would post comments in the related topic on the blog (stats indicate we get around 2500 hits a day, a fraction of here, but the concentration of readers focused on mobile marketing is significant.
Posts referenced are HERE
and HERE