101 posts tagged “advertising”

Now that Vox has fixed whatever bug it has and I can write again, I can tell you about the following find on Google, which Janette mentioned on her blog.
   On the one hand, I am glad Google has been transparent about this and told us that it has noted down our advertising preferences. There are countless other companies that track us through their cookies and have not been honest enough to tell us about them.
   On the other hand, it is disturbing what is being tracked about us online by Google and other companies.
   Mine are not accurate. You would expect that my interest in cars would be noted, but no. Here are the categories Google has associated with me, which are so off you wonder just how bad its technology is:

Arts & Humanities
Computers & Electronics - Programming
Computers & Electronics - Software
Computers & Electronics - Software - Audio & Multimedia
Computers & Electronics - Software - ... - Internet Clients & Browsers
Entertainment - Celebrities
Entertainment - Multimedia Content - Flash Content
Entertainment - Multimedia Content - Video Clips & Movie Downloads
Internet - Online Goodies - MySpace Codes & Graphics
Photo & Video - Photo & Video Sharing
Social Networks & Online Communities - Blogging Resources & Services

I admit I have checked for some celebrity news. One in eleven strikes me as an extremely poor understanding of my preferences. I am not a programmer, have little interest in software, certainly do not want multimedia content about entertainment, use MySpace four times a year, and only share my videos and photos with you here on Vox (though I do look at the Lucire videos from time to time). While I blog, I doubt I need to be advertised to since I am already set in my ways; and I do not recall seeing any ad for blogging resources lately.
   When I started removing the above, Google added some extra categories, including something to do with punk music and another to do with news from Korea! Very lame.
   I already think Google’s Adsense programme to be one of the worst I have ever encountered in what is a very mature industry in the US. I have no idea why it is so well regarded or why people speak so highly of it; it is the antithesis of Amazon.com, for instance, which has become a bit of standard when it comes to online shopping.
   I imagine Google Adsense is the online advertising equivalent of Microsoft Word: no one knows any better, so they assume that things are not that bad.
   I have since opted out of these Google cookies, as it seems Google will not serve relevant advertising in any case.

I wonder if Vox is fixing its problems. I have been trying all morning to get the compose screen up, and here it is, after a couple of hours (as opposed to days). The only problem is, two hours on, the inspiration for writing the post has kind of left.
   Let’s see what I’ve put up lately that I had an intention to mention: how about this guy in a Chevy Camaro Transformer costume? Watch on: there’s a bit of a surprise. (Thanks to Tanya for this one.)

Remember last year when I took the mickey out of these in the City Life newspaper?

   The first one is obvious: Melbourne is misspelt. The second one is also obvious: Circle is misspelt, there’s a missing apostrophe for the possessive, and capitalizing a definite article is technically incorrect. I remember we had a bit of fun with this as they were in huge letters, the former across the top of a tabloid-sized page.
   The question one has to pose is: did they get it right in 2009? Let’s see: Well, that’s a good start. Someone hired a proofreader at long last. Or turned the spellcheck on.
   Let’s see how the second one went: One fewer error, but still two to go. Note the prize money has reduced to a recessionary $150 this time around. The text, which also has a few issues (based around consistency of English usage), remains the same as last year.
   Any bets on the 2010 edition? Will the apostrophe for Winners’ be there? Or is there only one winner, in which case it’s Winner’s? I remain none the wiser.

I stumbled across this TVC by accident. It was Norwich Union renaming itself Aviva late last year, and features Bruce Willis, Elle Macpherson, Alice Cooper and Ringo Starr. The idea was that each of these celebrities changed their name before they became famous.
   I am not sure if the first two qualify: the first was born Walter Bruce Willis and from what I can tell, was just known as Bruce. I’ve a few friends in the same boat, where their families called them by their middle names. Elle Macpherson might have been Eleanor Gow, but Elle is a reasonable shortening of Eleanor, and Macpherson was her stepfather’s surname.
   Alice Cooper was indeed Vincent Furnier and Ringo Starr was Richard Starkey.
   I imagine Elton John, Cliff Richard and Michael Caine weren’t available.

For the record, I did not start a discussion on Flash Forward because ABC is advertising it on the Lucire site:

Though it is pretty cool that the ad is there. I never saw it last week, though I did happen across ads for other TV shows from this network.

A pity that John Hillerman is still putting on his English accent and Magnum, PI Higgins persona in this 1989 TVC. I expected to hear his original Texan drawl.

This probably means very little to others, but I thought it was interesting to see some of the fall 2009 US TV shows being advertised on the Lucire site. A couple of years ago, we had Ugly Betty and other shows being pushed heavily on our site; this time around, it’s Eastwick, Cougar Town and Californication, which are a little more adult:

Carrying on from a post that Jaklumen made on his blog, I went to look for the Lucy Lawless-headed Greenpeace campaign to reduce emissions. This is Lucy Lawless as Lucy Lawless, and her accent has changed a great deal since I saw her in the Shark in the Park episode ‘Double or Quits’. It has Americanized slightly, which is no surprise since she is married to an American and has a home in LA.

Darn it, Selma Blair has a heck of a great voice.