Tag Archives: Business

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?

How did I change?

I took this test few years ago, when I joined StumbleUpon. I haven’t logged in to the site in a few years, until today, when I saw my result  and I decided to take the test again.

Its interesting to see the differences in me, from being creative to becoming managerial. Funnily, it happened in my job too…

Zohar in 2008:

ESTP (Extroverted, Sensing, Thinking, Perceiving)

content, emotionally stable, outgoing, social, group oriented, finisher, does not like to be alone, open, decisive, likes external praise, likes to be center of attention, frequently joking, adjusts easily, likes crowds, self confident, neutral moods, good at getting people to have fun, disorganized, messy, talented at presentation, not easily annoyed, does not like to be alone, enjoys crude jokes, likes to lead, likes sports, more likely to come off as masculine, risk taker, tends to dominate conversations, fearless, can handle criticism, hard to discourage

Favoured careers:

ceo, sports management, fighter pilot, marketing specialist, business manager, race car driver, supervisor, economist, airline pilot, bar owner, consultant, cia agent, security specialist, technician, businessman, mechanical engineer, public relations specialist, coach, manager, marketing director, sales associate, mechanic, politician, publicist

Disfavoured careers:
poet, artist, art teacher, novelist, bookstore owner, graphics designer, museum curator, librarian, freelance writer, author, florist, painter, school psychologist, songwriter, musician, professional college student, editor, philosopher, english professor

Zohar in 2005:

INFP (Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving)

creative, smart, idealist, loner, attracted to sad things, disorganized, avoidant, can be overwhelmed by unpleasant feelings, prone to quitting, prone to feelings of loneliness, ambivalent of the rules, solitary, daydreams about people to maintain a sense of closeness, focus on fantasies, acts without planning, low self confidence, emotionally moody, can feel defective, prone to lateness, likes esoteric things, wounded at the core, feels shame, frequently losing things, prone to sadness, prone to dreaming about a rescuer, disorderly, observer, easily distracted, does not like crowds, can act without thinking, private, can feel uncomfortable around others, familiar with the darkside, hermit, more likely to support marijuana legalization, can sabotage self, likes the rain, sometimes can’t control fearful thoughts, prone to crying, prone to regret, attracted to the counter culture, can be submissive, prone to feeling discouraged, frequently second guesses self, not punctual, not always prepared, can feel victimized, prone to confusion, prone to irresponsibility, can be pessimistic

Favoured careers:
poet, painter, freelance artist, musician, writer, art therapist, teacher (art, music, drama), songwriter, art historian, library assistant, composer, work in the perfoming arts, art curator, playwrite, bookseller, cartoonist, video editor, photographer, philosopher, record store owner, digital artist, cinematographer, costume designer, film producer, philosophy professor, librarian, music therapist, enviromentalist, movie director, activist, bookstore owner, filmmaker

Disfavoured careers:
business professional, manager, executive, administrator, business owner, supervisor, office manager, business analyst, financial analyst, public relations manager, ceo, executive assistant, judge, event coordinator, lawyer, office worker