If I could ask Google one favor, it would be to please, please spare me when their information portals lock down and their control of the internet and our identities is irretrievably complete.
If I could ask Google a second favor, it would be to please, please spare me their useless, non-sarcasm-sensing Google Ads.
I’m generally a fan of all the blogspots and typepads out there. I like that, in theory, an average dude can speak his mind and have his voice heard by a few family members, coworkers, and ex-girlfriends.
I can also understand and appreciate that the millions of folks maintaining such sites focus on what they feel most strongly about. But it’s an unfortunate given: those folks being human, and this being an unfiltered amoral void of interconnection, bloggers usually feel most strongly about that which they hate.
Now, from my expert understanding, Google Ads work by scanning the subject matter of the sites where they’re placed, and displaying a handful of links relevant to what’s been written. Right? Sure? Whatever.
But I can guarantee you that the people who visit this site are not interested in downloading Nickelback’s newest album, or getting tickets to Larry The Cable Guy’s next show (unless they're cheap).
One of two things is happening:
1) This is a genuine loophole. And Google needs to figure out a way to have their little money-grubbing sidebars also acknowledge additional words in sentences, like “sucks” and “I hate” and “is so lame” and “would rather pour acid in my ears than listen to.” If you do this, Google, I promise that your click-throughs will go up.
2) This is an active choice. Perhaps our benevolent Googlords are trying to make us write about what we enjoy—about our genuine hopes and dreams, and not that which we fear (‘Til Death) and despise (Carlos Mencia). It’s all about conditioning. Actions and rewards. ‘Cause when we do write about all those hateful things…BAM. That’s when we’re punished and surrounded by them.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Does Anyone Know Where I Can Score Any LtCG Tix?
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4 comments:
<sarcasm>How about a new HTML tag?</sarcasm>
Perhaps now is a bad time to tell you that I only read this site for the hilariously tongue-in-cheek ads. Larry the Cable Guy Tickets, indeed!
understanding sarcasm and humor is extremely difficult, though putting together sentences and knowing that "sucks" is a bad thing, and it applies to "Larry the Cable Guy" isn't actually that difficult.. there's lots of work in computer science going on in understanding not just the topic of a set of articles (larry the cable guy) but also the sentiment of those articles (ltcg sucks).
it'll happen.
like k, though, i must admit that the ads are quite amusing. :)
The thing is, though, that Omar's right - parsing sentences for tone is not *that* hard, parsing paragraphs arguably probably easier, and they're choosing not to do it.
They make a skrizillion dollars off of those ads, and I've actually bought them in the past to great effect, so I'm prepared to argue there's someone out there who had the ability and authority to do this and didn't; perhaps you're drawing in some Nickelbockers who Googled and found your site and became incensed enough to click through, or people who were just generally looking for "comedy", for their family to see, didn't like your site, but LOVED seeing the Dane Cook click ad on the right bar?
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