Category: Random Thoughts

The general category for posts on this blog.

Advertising in Web 2.0

Random Thoughts

Web 2.0 is all about user generated content and collaboration.  From YouTube to Facebook, from blogs to Twitter, the big thing is social sites that let people do their own thing, with each other.  And yet, all of them fail in exactly the same place: making money.

You would think that a site which has millions of people looking at it, all day long, would manage a way to get advertising dollars.  And yet, according to this Time article, they suck at it.  Let the armchair quarterbacking begin!

I think the failure is that while the content of these social sites is embracing the Web 2.0 phenomenon, their advertising models are still stuck firmly in Web 1.0. Want to know why advertisers aren’t paying to be on Facebook?  According to the Time article, and I agree, its because there is no target.  Its just a big bunch of “users” and not smaller slices of that group which fit their demographic.  Why buy an ad on Facebook just to have 99% of the people who see it have no interest at all?  The content of these Web 2.0 sites is all about sharing and community and being part of something, but the ads are still being shoved at you with little or no input or control on your part beyond installing an ad blocker on your browser.

That’s why advertising needs to embrace Web 2.0.  And no, I don’t mean user created ads.  I mean allow the users to specify their demographic.  What if, on Facebook, there was a page you could go to that listed Advertising Categories, and you could drill down into them, and select just the ones you would see ads from?  Of course, selecting zero categories would be the same as selecting all of them.  But what if the only thing I cared about were video games? and PC games at that?  I could go in, drill down in the “Games” category, drill into “Video Games” (as opposed to “Board Games”), and then deselect “Mac”, “PS3”, “Xbox360”, etc, leaving only “PC” selected.  Save my options and from that point on I would only see ads in the “Games->Video Games->PC” category while on Facebook.  (And I’d see new categories if they were subcategories of things I already had selected, and maybe get an email once a week/month letting me know about new categories.)  I know I’d be happy.  Even more so if I could drill in to “PC” and select some other things, like deselecting “Gold Farming.”

While from the user aspect you’d be able to control what ads you see, from the site’s side they’d be able to more accurately sell demographics.  Right now, buying an ad on Facebook means you have access to 175,000,000 or so people, and I’m sure you get some control, but its likely to be as simple as their own advertising page illustrates: location and age groups.  That’s all well and good, but even TV gives you better definition than that.  The people who watch Heroes aren’t just an age group, they are fans of a genre.  Imagine if you could say to a potential advertiser, “We have 13 million users who see ads for PC Games, and given the rates of page views and category loads we can guarantee that they see, on average, 1 PC Game ad per five minutes, and if you buy at this level, we’ll guarantee that they’ll all see your ad, at least once, within a 24 hour period…”  So, not only are your users seeing ads they might actually care about, but your advertisers are getting hard numbers about how often their ads will be seen by people who actually care about their products.

I just played around in Facebook for a bit.  I went to my home page, I went to some applications, the usual stuff, only for once I actually paid attention to the ads… and I was reminded why I started ignoring them in the first place.  I got ads for Netflix (I’m already a subscriber, so not interested in ads for them), for a church, for workout secrets, a room for rent, goth clothing, free credit reports, tax services and an ad offering me a free MacBook if I just buy at least two offers from their page of offers.  In over half an hour I didn’t see one single ad that I cared about, so I’ll go back to ignoring them.  The other thing that was clear from looking at the ads: no big companies.  The biggest thing there was Netflix, but they advertise everywhere (I must close a popup from them at least four or five time a day).  And the only option I had was to vote an ad up or down.  I voted Netflix down with the reason that I am a subscriber and don’t need to see their ad, and yet it was still the most frequent ad I saw even hours later, proving that I have no real control at all over the ads.

Internet advertising has always been a bit of a cesspool of scams and bait-n-switch offers, but it doesn’t have to be that way if effort is put into the tools for allowing users to identify and categorize themselves.

Anyway… that’s my thoughts, but what do I know… I’m just the consumer…

If you run a company, and decide to steal this idea, let me know, I might be interested in helping you implement it.

Six Away

Random Thoughts

One of my goals when it came to working out and getting in shape was to see my weight fall south of two hundred pounds.  At my heaviest, I was probably close to 250.  I can only guess because once I crossed 240, weighing myself became too depressing.  Last week I finally decided to weigh myself for the first time since I started my new routines (Mid-December).  Previously I had weighed myself a couple of weeks after kicking caffeine and sodas, and I had been at 221.  Now I am down to 206.

In addition to dropping the weight, I also generally feel a whole lot better.  I have more energy and my back pain, which has been fairly constant for years, is much less, almost non-existent.

Currently, my workout goes like this:

  • First, I do some stretching.  This is a mixture of some straight muscle stretching and some yoga poses.  This, more than anything else, has led to me feeling a lot better.  Good stretching really opens you up.
  • Second, I do my push-ups.  I’m still doing them slow, and I have no expectation of speeding them up.  Fast isn’t the point.  Each one takes a little more than a second to complete, and I’m at the point now where I do five sets of twenty to make my 100.  A short (30 second to 1 minute) break between sets.
  • Thirds, I do my sit-ups.  Same at the push-ups.  Slow.  Sets of twenty.  Break between sets.  Five sets.
  • After that I do some more stretching and some breathing as a cool down.

I do want to put some leg work/cardio in my workout, but for the moment I’m happy because this is a workout that I can do anytime, anywhere.

Of course, I can’t attribute everything to the workout.  I’ve also been watching my diet.  One thing I’ve learned reading books and listening to trainers and specialists is that the most important element is portion control.  So I’ve been learning to eat leftovers and make sure I’m not stuffing myself at mealtimes.

All in all, I am very pleased so far and really looking forward to the day I get myself under two hundred for good.

Pride and Prejudice … and Zombies

Random Thoughts

I have never had a desire to read any of Jane Austen’s work.  Luckily in school there were always other options.  I have suffered through a couple of her books’ film adaptations, however, and based on that it only strengthened my desire to continue avoiding them.

Seth Grahame-Smith, author of such works as How to Survive a Horror Movie, The Big Book of Porn, and other humorous endeavors, has taken the original text of Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and filled in the “gaps” of the book with a battle for the survival of humanity against the hordes of the walking dead in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

I really couldn’t think of any way I would ever consider reading Austen’s classic book, but now I just might.  It hits Amazon on April 8th, but some book stores have already started stocking it on their shelves.

[amazon-product image=”510XXFxXXGL._SL160_.jpg” type=”image”]1594743347[/amazon-product]

Print is Dead

Random Thoughts

Personally, I’ve never been a big newspaper reader.  Mostly, though, its because I never wanted to spend the time reading the news, not for any dislike of newspapers themselves.  I wasn’t replacing the newspaper with TV, radio or websites, I just avoid most news outlets since they tend to report primarily bad news.  If I had the inclination and the time, I probably would subscribe to and read the newspaper, because I do like the format.

But like the title says, print is dead, or at least is dying.

The thing I like most about newspapers that is lost as they move to the Internet is that they are a snapshot.  You can go to a library and pull up a newspaper for 40 years ago, or even just a month ago, and see exactly what was considered news on that day, exactly what was fit to print.  Try doing that on CNN, or even the sites of print newspapers.  You might be able to gather a collection of stories that were published on the site a month ago, maybe piece together an idea of what was newsworthy on a particular day, but not really.  With news websites’ penchant for “updating” stories and new information breaks, often rewriting rather than just appending, news reported on a Monday might carry the date and time stamp of Friday when the story stopped developing.

I would absolutely love to see news websites that mimic print news papers.  Big publications of stories once a day, with an archive so you can always pull up a previous issue, and then maintain a “breaking news” blog type feed that puts out mini stories and facts and things happen throughout the day, all of which will be rolled up into full stories for the next day’s issue.  But I suppose, perhaps, I am in the minority about this, seeing as how every news website out there is following the CNN.com style layout of “news now” and anything that doesn’t make the front page that minute is lost to the search field, which even defaults to a web search instead of a site search.

A man can dream though…

Zombieland

Random Thoughts

It seems that a new movie about zombies is being filmed in and around Atlanta called Zombieland.  Woody Harrelson, Mila Kunis, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin (who adopted a puppy in Roswell)… if only I were still unemployed and could go hang around their sets in an effort to get in as an extra.

Well, at the very least its another film to look forward to, and I’ll get the added bonus of being able to say “Hey, I know where that is!”

Surfacing

Random Thoughts

With my last post being on February 26th, meaning that it has been over two weeks since my last post, I guess you can say that I went dark, or underground.  Of course, prolonged absences are not unusual for me and my weblog.  I’ve done months before.  But sometimes things happen…

So what happened?

Well, I got a job.  Nice place, good work.  I’m back at a small company again, and let me say that after four years working at BellSouth/AT&T I don’t think I ever want to go back to a giant corporation again.  Too much politics and middle management.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved my work, and the immediate team of people I worked with, and at the end of every segment of the project when the people who had been giving us hell and ulcers for months finally broke down and said they liked the work and looked forward to using it and copious rounds of attaboys for all it was sweet… but the bureaucracy of meetings and playing the blame game and jockeying around all the folks who want to make sure they get all of the credit with none of the responsibility… well… to be blunt, fuck that.  There are only so many times you can have someone hand you a problem they spent no time looking into and after you spend a few hours or days digging through it you discover that not only is it not your responsibility but that the only person with the ability and authority to fix it is the guy who passed it to you before you want to strangle someone.  But I’m out of that now, and I hope never to go back.  Getting a new job, though, does mean a bit of a learning curve as I feel out the new folks and the new company, get up to speed on the products and projects, so the first couple or three weeks are always a bit of a cram-fest.  After nearly four months of being unemployed, working feels good, especially in this economy.

On a non-work related note, a place where I normally hang out has become a place I don’t want to hang out anymore.  Have you ever had a group of people that you liked to be around, except for one guy?  Its always that one guy, the one who seems to want to be a part of the group, but doesn’t seem to know how to do it.  He joins in every conversation and drives everyone away, or into fits of anger, as he insists that he knows more or better than everyone else, despite repeated showings that he clearly does not.  Well, one of my favorite places to go has one of those guys, and in the past I have had varying levels of success in just ignoring him or putting up with his crap, but recently he just pushed a few too many of my buttons a few too many times, and as much as I love the rest of the people I just can’t handle the anger and frustration that I feel in having to deal with this monumental douchebag on a daily basis.  So, my choices are to continue to go there and feel pissed off all the time, or stop going.  It is depressing.  Perhaps I’ll return there after a nice long stay away.

All in all, however, life is good.  And I’ll be back to posting more soon enough.  I’m even going to bring back movie reviews since my idea for doing a movie review site didn’t really pan out like I hoped.  You’d think being unemployed would equate to having more free time… but looking for a job in a shitty economy is hard work and more thoroughly exhausting than actually having a job.

The Twenty-fifth Century

Random Thoughts

Thanks to Netflix and their streaming through the Xbox 360 feature, I’ve been watching the complete series of Buck Rogers.  The show is awesome… -ly bad.  The concept is there, but they threw in all this weird alien and spy stuff that detracts from all that the show could be.  I don’t blame them for making the show the way they did.  It ran from 1979 to 1981.

But it gets me to thinking… if I were to be in charge of production and make that show now, what would I do?

The first thing I’d do is take a cue from Battlestar Galactica in that a science fiction show can be serious.  I’d craft the tale like this: Buck Rogers is an astronaut, and while the first manned mission to Mars is being prepped, other scientists have been working on solutions for deeper space travel.  The field of cryonics has advanced and while tests have proven it can work on Earth and even in orbit, the final human test is that of prolonged space suspension.  Buck’s turn in the rotation has come up and his mission is to take a craft into space, park it in an orbit around the moon, and then seal himself in the cryonics chamber.  After one year, Buck is to be remotely revived and make his way home.

While Buck’s tale is the foreground story, in the background elements of global problems are evident.  Global warming, overpopulation and starvation.  The Mars mission is becoming more important as initial studies of water and other elements found on the planet make it possible to terraform it, but it needs to happen sooner rather than later.

Buck’s launch happens and he makes his way to moon orbit.  Shortly before settling in the ship suffers a mechanical malfunction and begins losing its oxygen.  It is decided that Buck needs to seal himself in the cryo-chamber to save his life and that another craft will be sent to recover him as soon as possible.

500 years later, Buck’s craft, long since off its lunar orbit, is discovered by a salvage crew working the “Earth Junk Ring”, a collection of satellites, crafts and other objects left to hang in orbit around the planet.  Reawakened on Earth, Buck discovers that after he was frozen a few small wars broke out, mostly over the need for food, and that his rescue mission was lost in the shuffle of taking more resources to the Mars missions.  Eventually, years later, a private organization did send up a shuttle to look for him and didn’t find him in lunar orbit.  (Buck learns from his own computer readouts that another failure caused one of his attitude jets to fire, altering his course and sending him tumbling through space.)  Eventually, after ecologic and economic disasters and more small wars, large wars broke out.  Everything collapsed.  More than a hundred years later when countries began to reform out of the rubble, many of them turned to computers and logical models for decision making.  Birthing schedules based on workforce needs and food supplies, etc.  The human race are not slaves to the machines, but they are cared for and controlled by them.

At the time of Buck’s awakening, Earth, or at least the city state he has found himself in, is finally seeing constructive advancement into retaking the damaged parts of the world, the wastelands created by chemical and nuclear warfare, and looking at moving into space again, mainly in an effort to reconnect with the lost Mars colonies.

The crux of the series would be Buck learning about and from the mistakes of the past, while the people around him learn about all the things they lost and the control they’ve given up to the computers.  The world is full of people who have only known logic and survival, and Buck is from a world where many people never thought about survival.

I wouldn’t want to have this series run very long.  In fact, a couple or three twelve episode seasons would probably do just fine (or even be too much) to breath life back into humanity, settle differences, and reconnect with the “Martians”.  You could even end the series with Buck, who has finally come to terms with his 500 year shunt through time but still feeling like this isn’t his world, captaining the first deep space exploration cryo shuttle headed for a distant star.

Anyway… those are my thoughts on the subject… but what do I know?

Good Reads

Random Thoughts

Several of my friends have been using Good Reads for a while now, and I finally decided to sign up.

This is me.

I’ll still be keeping my book list and reviews here on this blog as well, but hopefully Good Reads will turn up a recommendation or two for things to read in the future.

100 Sit-ups

Random Thoughts

It has been a bit over a month since I started my most recent run at getting in shape.  Phase 1 was 100 Push-ups, and at this point I am actually doing my 100 within ten to fifteen minutes.  I’m still a bit away from my goal of going it in three minutes or less, but I have definitely seen huge improvements.  So, I feel it is time to institute Phase 2: 100 Sit-ups.

Now, doing sit-ups is both going to be easier and harder for me.  My abdominal muscles are actually in pretty good shape… however, I have cleverly hidden them under a plump gut.  See, I actually use my abs quite a bit, getting on and off the couch, lifting things incorrectly, and other stuff, much more than I use the muscles in my arms (as a computer geek, my arms spend a lot of time resting on the desk while my fingers do all the real work).  That said, I did my first 100 Sit-ups last night in well under an hour, probably less than half an hour, but they were more crunches than sit-ups.  That gut covering my six-pack does a decent job of preventing me from completing the full sit-up (and I can’t touch my toes either).

I see getting through Phase 2 much more quickly than Phase 1, so I already need to start looking for a Phase 3… I’m thinking it is going to be some form of cardio… I do own an elliptical machine, so I might as well start using it.  The key here is that I am not currently in any life-threatening danger, but I do want to make sure I never am, so I want to add and make changes to my life a little at a time.  Small changes are easier to keep than drastic ones.