Showing messages 1 through 9 of 9.

• The advertising
  2005-04-10 09:29:14  b_ [Reply | View]
  
  
  When you promote your books in bookstores you know in advance that it will be on a shelf with books by other authors all around it.
  
  When you're emailing a customer of your website about a new product, sale, special offer or whatever you're making a private communication to someone who's expressed an interest in hearing your offers.
  
  Google appending competitors advertisements to that private communication is very different to a store putting your product on a shelf next to others.
  
  "Anyone who relies on being the only offer that people face mustn't have a lot of other business advantages."
  
  Why should businesses expect their own communications and advertising campaigns to have offers from competitors?
  
  I don't see Dell advertising HP's latest deals in the catalogs they send me every month.
  
  I don't see Coke saying check out Pepsi on their marketing campaigns.
  
  I don't see Nike's site offering me a link to discount Reeboks.
  
  I also don't see O'Reilly recommending I buy a similar book from the SAMS range instead of their own.
  
  Private communication between a business and a customer or potential customer is not to let them know they can get a better deal somewhere else. That has NEVER been the purpose of private communication between businesses and their customers, regardless of the medium.
  
  Postal services could decide they want to put a sticker on every envelope being mailed, advertising a pile of companies.
  
  Printing companies could decide - you get your letterheads printed, and we'll use the back of your page for advertising.
  
  Obviously this behaviour would not be tolerated in these industries, or any other for that matter.
  
  So why allow Google to do it?
• The advertising
  2005-04-11 08:32:13  Marfig [Reply | View]
  
  
  I just did a quick test.
  
  I sent myself a message with the title "Testing Nike shoes" and the message "Do I like Nike shoes?"
  
  The sponsored link results were all but one Nike related. Only the last link was from a general sports shoes shop.
  
  So, from the industry PoV this is more than acceptable. I don't think what you say is happening.
• The advertising
  2005-04-10 11:57:08  b_ [Reply | View]
  
  
  It's occured to me that this isn't actually unprecedented - and that it was met with huge disfavour on previous attempts by other companies too.
  
  Adware was tolerated only till people realised it wasn't normal to be bombarded with unsolicited avertising, and got software to remove it.
  
  Then there was Verisign with their unregistered domain hijacking last year or the year before - every domain people entered that didn't exist went to a page they advertised on. That was shut down days after it launched.
  
  Funnily enough, Microsoft tried to get into the game too, and developed software or plans for software that would scan web pages you're viewing and change key words to links to advertisements. And that fell through too.
  
  So, historically speaking (in terms of the internet) this is not the first time a company has tried to hijack content or peoples experiences. And really, gmail is just email hijacking.
  
  Google's "don't be evil" became a moot point when they floated. They have a legal obligation to their shareholders to make money, and to make more of it. Their hijacking of emails is purely about money.
  
  The sad thing really is the businesses who will suffer in the interim period (while Google profits) until Google are simply required (whether by public pressure or courts) to remove targeted advertising from email messages.
  
  It may seem from my arguments that I'm against Google and I'd like to clarify that I'm not - I use Google every day (just not gmail), and I like it.
  
  But I have no sympathy for their decision to push their advertising revenue even further under the guise of providing a better (or new?!???) service for the public, while doing or risking irreparable damage to business/client relations before they even get a chance to form.
  
  Aside from that, Gmail really doesn't offer anything new to consumers. It's been engineered from day 1 purely as a way to deliver more advertisements and generate more money. Marketing hype over the "search your email / 1gb of email" have made public perception regard it as far more than it really is, which is a throw-away expense dwarfed by the profit of advertising on every email that hits its servers.
  
  
• The advertising
  2005-04-11 08:23:09  Marfig [Reply | View]
  
  
  Considering the amount of advertisement I witness being thrown at us every single day on newspapers, magazines with 1/3 to 2/3 of their entire content, big flashing boards and screens while i'm driving, on the radio cutting my favorite song, and on tv on a constant basis even on channels i'm paying for, I cannot but watch with my mouth open at the way some people look at Google Ads. Especially considering 90% of the time I don't even remember they are there.
  
  If the idea is for a free-ad internet, forget it. That will not be. Take your ideals elsewhere. Those times are gone, if they ever were here in fact.
  
  But if your idea is for a responsible context based, non-intrusive ad system, then look no further than what google has been offering so far.
  
  Personaly I find it amazing that when someone tries to do it right, the self-righteous still come forward with their fundamentalist attitudes.
  
  As a side note Adware was not removed. It's alive and well. Many companies still rely on it. While some companies are responsible in its use, other are not. But it's out there and it is legal. As for Verisign... comparing an highly intrusive self-promoting system with GMail ads is i'm sure not what you wanted to do. Was it? Because they are clearly not the same thing.
  
  If you consider Gmail an email hijacker, say that next time you receive an email from someone using it and you see 0 (yes, that's right. Zero) ads. Or better yet, subscribe it yourself and start using it through your POP3 based email client. You got it, you will be able to check your emails with zero ads. Hijack that.
  
  
• The advertising
  2005-04-11 19:50:15  b_ [Reply | View]
  
  
  Marfig,
  
  You missed every point I made completely. Congratulations.
  
  First - I've not suggested anything about an ad-free internet.
  
  Second - I've not suggested context-based advertising is wrong.
  
  Third - Newspapers, Magazines, whatever. Those are completely irrelevant. Sorry.
  
  Adware I'll concede still exists.
  
  I have stated that context-based advertising inserted into private communications is wrong.
  
  I still believe it's wrong. I've explained quite clearly why it's wrong and potentially harmful.
  
  The issue is not about email sent by gmail users, it's that the emails they receive have advertisements relevant to the contents of the email.
  
  I get email every day from people using free email providers, and they have bits of text or whatever at the base, like "Find local movie times and trailers on Yahoo! Movies."
  
  Those people use free services and agree to have advertisements tagged onto their emails.
  
  The difference is - it's *their* email that gets an advertisement added, not the email being sent by an unsuspecting, unconsenting business or website.
  
  The test you did confirms what I've been saying. You sent yourself an email about Nikes and got 4 nike advertisements and 1 reebok ad.
  
  Now put yourself in the shoes of someone trying to make a living. Someone's come to your shoe-selling site and made an enquiry about a pair of Nikes you sell. You take the time to write a response answering their questions, and then *they* see the 4 nike vendors (your competitors) and the 1 reebok vendor (also your competitor).
  
  That is my argument with gmail Marfig.
• The advertising
  2005-10-18 11:14:14  anon2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  > I have stated that context-based advertising
  > inserted into private communications is wrong.
  
  First of all, it's not inserted into, it's added alongside of the email. There's a big difference.
  
  It's not wrong if the people who are seeing the context-based advertising don't mind. I actualy *like* seeing their ads because sometimes they alert me to products that I'm interested in. If you as an email sender really have that much of a problem with ads being put next to your email, then don't send mail to @gmail.com. It's quite simple. Gmail is not being covert about it.
  
  Also, you might eventually realize that businesses are always forced to deal with a changing world and the affect that the changes put on their business. I'm sure blacksmiths were not very happy when the automobile came along. Would you have had us outlaw cars to protect the interests of the blacksmiths? I think not. Businesses have to adapt to the demands of a changing marketplace. Those that don't get left behind. Those that do are successful.
  
  
  
• The advertising
  2005-04-13 10:18:08  Marfig [Reply | View]
  
  
  I think your last paragraph clearly ilustrates both the scope imposed limitations of the google mail service and its usability.
  
  Give it a thought. To start with, the advertisement was targeted.
  
  If they choose to reply to me, I will see none of the ads they saw. Their email service didn't send me (as a non gmail user) any kind of ads. Since I didn't subscribe to their service, why should I get targeted for their ads?
  
  This in my view is correct.
  
  Second, the email messages contents sent back and forth are ad free. There are no extra lines in the bottom (or top or middle) of the messages. There is no indirect advertisement. Throughout the whole conversation I can rest assured I will never be targeted by gmail advertisement system.
  
  This is also a correct way of doing it, as I see it.
  
  Now... The most important bit. The ad results for the gmail user to whom I replied.
  
  The fact he got 1 out of 10 ads not directly related to the brand being discussed (note it was not Rebook, it was a shoe shop ad), serves everyone. It serves my customer because he will have the opportunity to compare and choose. It serves me because the most of the results and the top results where related to my brand. That is what I payed Gmail to do.
  
  I cannot honestly expect to be the sole result of google ads within the context of my business. The fact that someone named my brand on a message and my brand got 9 out of 10 results and they were the top ones, is much much better than what I get with contracts signed with TV stations and that cost much more. Take for instance a look at how many different brand shampoo commercials you can see in one ad break alone.
  
  I advise you to read the contract you sign with Gmail when purchasing ad space through their system.
• The advertising
  2005-04-13 11:48:37  b_ [Reply | View]
  
  
  You're confusing the manufacturer with the retailer. If someone buys a pair of Nike, Nike's happy. I'm sure they don't mind which retailer sold the pair.
  
  I'm sure the retailer who lost the sale is filled with joy because someone else got the sale and the profit, but the person still bought Nike!
  
  You're correct in saying you can't expect to be the only person out there selling whatever you sell, but it is not unreasonable to expect to be able to communicate privately with your customers without exposing them to a number of your competitors.
  
  Just like you do on the phone, by regular mail, in person and by leaflets/brochures/catalogues.
  
  When a client reaches the stage of entering their email address on a business's site, or contacting the business with an enquiry, they've already gone through the search/see the competitors ads process, and they've made a decision to consider going to or through your business.
  
  The fact that the advertisements are not actually embedded in the email is probably because AdWords uses a spider (program which reads pages to see what's on them) to determine which ads get displayed - and the spiders would simply be denied access to the non-gmail users' email ...
  
  The only way television advertising could be compared would be if tv stations suddenly started doing "picture in picture" of advertisements, showing you the main advertisement + 5 smaller ads running down the side of the screen. I'm sure any tv station game enough to try a stunt like that would find themselves pretty poor, pretty quickly ...
  
  The contract you mention is interesting ... what contract? Businesses need to sign a contract with Google before they email a gmail user? They certainly should. They should be fully informed and aware and consenting to their emails being used to push their competitors ads.
  
  Google should really be auto-responding to every address who emails gmail users making them read and agree before actually allowing email through to the gmail user.
  
  Before you say that's impossible or unfeasible - a very similar process is already done with various anti-spam services.
  
• The advertising
  2005-12-15 18:26:54  lucidentropy [Reply | View]
  
  
  b_, I think you bring up a valid point, and I agree with you in regards to "Gmail sponsors competitors in personal transactions". It doesn't seem like a 'good guy' thing to do.
  
  However, It's nothing new. It would seem plainly obvious based on my experiences with other email services that they too, do the exact same ad-targeting of emails as gmail does. The only difference is that Gmail is very obvious and open about it, to develop trust in its users.
  
  Google is not some magical fairy out to 'rid the world of evil' with its great free services. It may try to appear that way, but a pleasant corporate image isn't a new business technique. It is a business and I think some supporters fail to see that and provide baseless support for Google. Gmail's ad targeting is not violating new territory, or going into the bounds of the unacceptable. Their methods are not unusual, it's their target that is different, and has people all stirred up.
  
  The conventional business platform, down to its very core, relies on targeting a very specific characteristic of it's consumers : ignorance. I think Google saw this, and saw how saturated the current markets were with this and felt it's success would lie in trying something new. So instead they targeted consumer's 'Trust'. I think Google's approach is to avoid the standard practice of reaching in peoples wallets and taking money before they know whats going on, and instead, invite them into the warm comfortable house of Google, where you won't want to leave. Nobody else wants to risk trying this approach because trying to go after consumer's trust, requires you to be... well... trustworthy, What business wants to do that? Since Google did this from the beginning, they have been able to uphold this image, at a huge financial investment I can imagine.
  
  As a business, if I were to feel Gmail sponsors my competitors, I would come to one conclusion : I need to advertise with Google instead. I don't believe this is strong arming the market, or underhanded trickery to end users, I think its a solid business platform that Google is banking on.
  
  Sure, it may just be a gimmick of their 'good guy' image, but it works better for me as an end user as well as those who have invested in Google's adsense service. I like to think of it like the practice of coupons. The end user gets a discount, and the retailer gets your business. Both parties are happy.
  
  In the long run, big business like Yahoo, and Microsoft, are not running scared crying for mommy at the sight of Google. Worried?, yes, Scared?, No. Ignorance will always been marketable, regardless of the alternatives. This holds true even in the ecommerce world. There will always be money to be made as long as the blind consumer desires for things they do not have.