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Thoughts on web-advertising

According to FOXNews.com, Facebook has unveiled plans to target advertisements by injecting them into its members’ conversations.

Facebook is giving users some control over whether to share information on their buying habits and other online activities with friends.

For the program announced Tuesday to work, enough users must actually say “yes” so advertisers can show users their pitches in the guise of friends’ endorsements.

It seems that Facebook is trying to make money out of its sudden success, but not exactly know how. It feels that its creators are shooting to all the directions, without success…

To tell the truth, web-advertising is a just another form of spam. If my Firefox plugin would have been only slightly better, I wouldn’t have any adverts on at all when browsing. Its a great spam filter.

But like with spam mails, I learned to ignore the adverts, and just mark them as spam, without even readin the content. I hardly ever go to advertised links, and it only happens by mistake, or because Google placed them in a strategic location at the top of my search results.

The major problem with spamdvertising is when heavy, loud, video adverts are appearing on certain news sites, jamming my bandwidth and crashing my browser. But I’m not sure that Google Adwords are doing any better.

I think web based companies should find other ways to make money than spam their users with advertising. Of course they might make good money of adverts, but the users don’t appreciate it a s good-will gesture, will not press on the proposed link (or doing it unknowingly), and will not remember the name of the brand. Slowly, we will just learn to ignore it.

Companies need to find a better way to advertise their products (examples 1 and 2). An simple ideas is that a marketing person will post the link on his (Facebook) page and will share it with his friends. If its good, his friends will share it with their friends and so on. This is lovable unspammed advertising (unless if its done excessively)

But how will the site (Facebook) will generate money of it?

Maybe the advertised company should donate money to the site after a succesful campaign? Maybe the site should create a pro version for their site (works for Flickr)? And maybe the site should sell T shirts and other products…

I know its difficult to generate money online, but can you please move on from web spamdverising and leave our reading space alone?

Smartphones patented — A minute later everyone got sued

Could it be right? It almost sounds like a joke.

For me, it is just another point to prove how ridiculous the world, and more accurately, the capitalist world, has become.

Slashdot reported that US Patent and Trademark Office issued a really broad patent for a “mobile entertainment and communication device“.

“It’s a patent for a mobile phone with removable storage, an internet connection, a camera and the ability to download audio or video files. The patent holding firm who has the rights to this patent wasted no time at all. At 12:01am Tuesday morning, it filed three separate lawsuits against just about everyone you can think of, including Apple, Nokia, RIM, Sprint, ATT, HP, Motorola, Helio, HTC, Sony Ericsson, UTStarcomm, Samsung and a bunch of others. Amusingly, the company actually first filed the lawsuits on Monday, but realized it was jumping the gun and pulled them, only to refile just past the stroke of midnight. “

Did anyone ever patented the wheel? I need to check that. Could be a good way to pay my student debt.

This is so annoying: Netflix, DRM and HDTV clash!

David Freeberg’s says:

I recently purchased a new HD monitor, but when I installed it, I lost the streaming capabilities on Netflix’s website. When I tried to troubleshoot the issue, I had to agree to let Netflix “reset my DRM” by destroying my Amazon.com files. After talking with Netflix’s technical support, I learned that the real issue had to do with the HD capabilities of my PC setup. Because Hollywood wants to punish people for using technology that is outside of their protocol, they are denying me access to low resolution internet videos until I downgrade my monitor to standard definition.

As if DRM isn’t evil enough already, I now have to give up access to files I’ve already bought and even then might not be allowed access unless I have specific approved HD equipment that allows Hollywood to control how I consume my media content. I understand that content owners want to be able to charge for their content, but something is wrong when their DRM won’t even allow you to pay to use their product.

I don’t have another word to say except for: Arrrrrrrgh!!!!

[Via BoingBoing]

Why everything on a PC is so complicated?

I started working as an intern for a creative agency lately. It’s great and I love the experience.

I have only one problem – I’m working on a PC again.
I didn’t miss it.

For instance, the simplest thing: adding another keyboard language to the OS.
I have the permissions to do it, but Hebrew doesn’t exist on that system, I probably need the special Middle Eastern version.
On Apple’s OS X, it comes as standard. I can be anywhere in the world and I’ll be able to write in Hebrew.

Ridiculous.

Every other browser renders correctly

Yesterday Firefox 2.0 was released. I think it is a moment to celebrate the take over Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Even if it is a way to make Microsoft update IE in a “satisfying” way.

With IE 7.0 out, it is going to be harder to make people appreciate the other browsers.

 

Within the last week, two new browsers have been released. The good news is that both browsers have seen some significant enhancements in three key areas: user experience, security and web standards. The bad news is that one browser still has better features and standards support than the other.

(Wired News: A Tale of Two Web Browsers)

It is so hard to transform a netuser who just surfs. Most people just use the software that comes with their PC/Mac. For Mac its OK. Safari is a great companion.

But IE… I just hate Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. For web-designer it’s the worst thing that could ever happened. Nothing works correctly with it while with all the other browsers the design will work just fine. Most people don’t know the behind the scenes of creating web pages. It’s a big headache – esspecially when you need to twick the design to fit the different browsers.

“Every other browser renders correctly”

(Stopdesign | The IE Factor)

So true. This is a detailed story from a designer’s perspective.

 

With my website, for the moment, I don’t care about Microsoft, IE, or their users. I will recommend to Transform! My website will look nicer on Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc. and your satisfaction will be priceless…

 

Modding my Mac (and yours too)

Almost as long as I remember myself Apple Macintosh were part of my household.
It started when my mum got a computer for her graphics works back in 1988: Mac SE, stacked with 8″ monochrome screen, internal HD and 4mb RAM.

Later I received my own first computer with the 1st generation Power PC (PPC 7200 with system 7.0). At that point I started learning about modding my Mac. SuperClock! was the first addition (back then the OS didn’t come with a built in clock). Kaleidoscope was the second, a utility panel to change the looks of the Finder.

I don’t remember the rest of the stuff that I installed (it was more then 10 years ago), but even now, when I’m working on PowerBook With OS X Tiger on it, I still like to mod my mac.

For the benefit of other Mac users, I’m writing about the plugins I likes the most, and of which, I think most of the users should look at.

First, we’ll look at the Menu Extras and some other Finder helpers.

Objectpark’s MenuCalendarClock is a replacement for the clock originally resides in the Finder. It adds a date and a pop-up calendar and is compatible with your iCal or Entourage. It makes life a lot easier, and checking the date doesn’t involve pressing on the clock and there are a lot more features to it. (Advanced features $18.95, basic features for free).


MenuMeters, created by Alex Harper, is a control panel for those of you who like to be in control of what your Mac is up to. It adds a CPU, memory, disk, and network monitoring tools to the menu. It helps to see if your network is online or if you are using all of your memory. (Free / Donation).

Colin Henein’s SlimBatteryMonitor is a replacement menu item for the normal Apple laptops battery menu. It gives the option to control the look and color of the different symbol (charged, charging, battery power, etc.) and can take less space on the menu. It is great for those who have too many items in the menu. (Free / Donation).

Ejector is a small menu item that adds an ejector button to the menu bar. You can eject any disk (e.g. iPod, external hard drive, .dmg or CDs/DVDs). (Free / Donation).

Quicksilver is an amazing application and you can do a lot with it. You can call any application with just a press on a key, or control iTunes with the keyboard from any application. You can check for a contact’s phone number, search the web, you can trigger any application to do anything. It is the best companion for the Finder and the Dock, and it can even replace them altogether. (Free / Donation).

Growl is becoming a standard notification system for the OS X. With Growl you don’t have to go to the Mail app in order to see the new mail. Growl will notify from whom the new mail has arrived with a short description. It also works with Quicksilver, Skype, Adium and iChat (with Chax). (Free / Donation).

More apps and handy plugins, later this week.



On my menu bar I have (from left to right): Quicksilver, Ejector, Amua, Menuet, ShuttleXpress, Salling Clicker, SlimBatteryMonitor, MenuMeters (Network, Disk, Memory, CPU), Airport, Bluetooth, Langauge, MenuCalendarClock, Spotlight.