Ok yes, the title is a reference to a song by Spoon (from their classic album Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga), but this is not a post about music. This is a post about advertising. More specifically, ads that target you. I'm sure you've seen them, on the sidebars of your Facebook page and even your email account, there are advertisements that seem to be perfectly fitted for you.
No matter what sport you play, instrument you play, or group you participate in, websites have a way of knowing exactly what you do. It's kind of scary actually. For me, I can open an email from Guitar Center and the top of my page immediately shows an ad about buying a new guitar. On Facebook, almost every ad I see is for new music. While it can be beneficial, because I am usually interested in the advertisements, it is just a little bit creepy.
I have begun to think about how these ads appear in the first place. I have tried to search for actual studies and explanations of these ads, however I cannot find any. The only logical explanation to me is that a website like Gmail, for example, scans the text within your email and recognizes key words, whether it be "baseball" or "knitting". It then takes those key words and looks through its database of sponsored ads (the ones that pay Google). Last, Google chooses an ad and places on one your screen. I feel that Facebook does this the same way, through your statuses and posts on your friends' "walls".
Can ads become even more personal? Well, Apple has developed ads for their products that are interactive. For example, you can watch a movie, play a game, or look at photos all within an ad. If Facebook could harness this power, I could be watching a new music video and purchasing the song without even realizing that my interest in the song was sparked by an ad in the first place. To me it would just seem like I was watching a video for fun. This to me is a little scary.
Is this an invasion of privacy? Well, the information in Facebook and Gmail technically belongs to them, and is on the web for the world to see, so legally it is not. But is it scary? Yes, yes it is.
Though it can be somewhat annoying to have ads constantly popping up on almost every website you go to, I do not mind the ads. For instance, Facebook scans my interests and likes. If Facebook sees in my profile that i like a certain band, they may give me a suggestion about a band that plays similar music. I know one of my favorite bands, Chevelle, I found through a Facebook ad on my profile. Also, in my email, i get ads that say things like "purchase Cubs tickets" since it knows that i like the Cubs. So even though these ads can be annoying, some of them are beneficial.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a good point, Soifer, that this targeted advertising can be rather unnerving as you don't know for sure how the advertisers got this personal information. However, I have to also agree with Reed that it can be beneficial. When I am on facebook, most of the ads on the side are for upcoming concerts of bands I like. As concerning as it is to me that advertisers which I am clearly not "friends" with can access my information about what bands I "liked" on facebook, I find this information about upcoming concerts and where to buy tickets pretty helpful.
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