Instant Messenger or Instant Advertiser?

Shadow2097 writes: "ABC News is running this moderately disturbing story about a new, highly targeted form of advertising. Two companies, SmarterChild.com and ActiveBuddy.com have teamed up to deliver interactive Instant Messenger bots that talk to children and deliver ever-so-subtle ads for various products. Just when you think market saturation has reached the limit, leave it to a greedy corporation to start targeting the most naive and vulnerable demographic there is."

most naive?

[magicslax]

Just when you think market saturation has reached the limit, leave it to a greedy corporation to start targeting the most naive and vulnerable demographic there is."

what's that, im addicts? [imaddict.com]?

How is this anything new?

[sniepre]

Frankly, i dont see this as a "disturbing trend"...

I see it as the continuation of marketing strategies employed since television existed....

How many of you remember Lucky Charms or Tony the Tiger telling you how GGGrrrrreat!! his cereal was, or Ronald McDonald telling you how fantastic a happy meal was from McDonald's.

Wether its on the television or on the web, it's the same principle at work, IMHO.

The plight of capitalism

[Ghoser777]

I am a capitalist. I like the idea of competition, working for what you own, etc. But this type of stuff is what is inevitably going to be the result as long as most of the world is capitalist. On an individual level, most people will agree that something is a little wrong with this. But from a business standpoint, how could you not start taking advantage of this? Most people will be clueless about what's going on, and the potential for cost-effective advertising is huge (I remember the stat from one of my speech com classes: referals from friends are by far the best way to advertise i.e. word of mouth). And if you don't jump aboard, you're probably going to be put at a strategic disadvantage. Therefore, it almost becomes a capitalist imperative that you join in on a somewhat less noble cause. I'm sure most Hollywood directors (not the REALLy big ones) will tell you that they're not doing the work they'd really want to do. They're doing the work that sells, not the work that is deep, meaningful, socially relevant, etc.

It sucks, but it's what competition drives us towards.

F-bacher

Don't talk to strangers

[Joel Ironstone]

PArents should already be weary of random people talking to their children over the internet. if there is legislation against solicting a minor for other things, shouldn't there be legislation for this?

So,...

[s390]

where's Ashcroft when he's needed to "protect the children?"

Um... still railing about the Supreme Court's 6-3 refusal to gut the First Amendment with respect to pr0n anime.

But these are just big business commercials aimed (with subtlety) at young children - so that must be alright then.

Eutopian usage of technology vs need for profit

[DamienMcKenna]

I think it's extremely typical for a representative of a technology company who's technology is ripe for perversion to say "Would you rather your child [chat] with a stranger who found their screen name in a chat room, or with a friendly, well-mannered 'bot' that plays by rules of propriety too often ignored in today's world of crass media overload." Sure, play the violins, have roses all over the place, say it like you're about to serve up Momma's best apple pie and have the family over, but just like many Internet backbone providers found, it's the shadier side of corporate America that pays the most (in the world of IT slowdowns the net porn business is thriving, just ask the Yahoo execs). Of course there's lots of potential for extremely worthwile use of this technology (think of automated Samaritan bots helping people on the verge of breakdown or suicide, etc), but history has shown us that when the greenback meets technology, the idealists loose.

Anyone who has ever seen Max Almy's The Thinker or who has any sort of knowledge of post-modernism can attest to how well contemporary culture has managed with advertisements currently being one of the main formats for information dissemination, so using yet another method to manipulate those eight-year-old hear-strings should be dumped back in the garbage heap from whence it came.

SmaterChild is actually a good thing...

[GeoNerd]

What a one-sided article.

SmarterChild is actually a fanstastic source of information, and even a three year old could see through the ads.

It gives you the fastest access you can find to things like weather, movies, translations, etc.

Try things like:
Me: translate slashdot is cool into italian
SmarterChild: "lo slashdot è freddo"

Me: movies denver, co
SmarterChild: Movies near Denver, CO (80251) on Tuesday, April 16th:

1 Panic Room (R)
2 Ice Age (PG)
3 High Crimes (PG-13)
4 The Sweetest Thing (R)
5 The Rookie (G)

>>> Type "more" for the next set of results.

Me: define nihilism
SmarterChild: Definition for nihilism provided by The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Other important copyright information

NOUN
1. Philosophy a. An extreme form of skepticism that denies all existence. b. A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. 2. Rejection of all distinctions in moral or religious value and a willingness to repudiate all previous theories of morality or religious belief. 3. The belief that destruction of existing political or social institutions is necessary for future improvement. 4. also Nihilism A diffuse, revolutionary movement of mid 19th-century Russia that scorned authority and tradition and believed in reason, materialism, and radical change in society and government through terrorism and assassination. 5. Psychiatry A delusion, experienced in some mental disorders, that the world or one's mind, body, or self does not exist.

ETYMOLOGY
Latin nihil, nothing. See ne. + -ism

OTHER FORMS
ni'hilist - NOUN
ni''hilis'tic - ADJECTIVE
ni''hilis'tically - ADVERB

Try getting information like that anywhere on the net. No web pages to open, just send a text query. SmarterChild actually redefines fast information access, IMHO.

Funny how the fact that this is great source of homework queries for kids isn't anywhere in the article.

Re:How is this anything new?

[sweet reason]

obviously not like talking to an eliza type program
You'd be hard pressed to trick anyone that can read that they are talking to anything other than a computer script.

when weizenbaum made eliza available on his campus system, lots of people started "talking" to it. when he proposed to log the conversations for analysis there was a huge outcry. people were telling eliza their problems and secrets!

it's amazing how little plausibility such a thing really needs. adults acted as if they were fooled. kids might well really be fooled. and even if they know intellectually that they are talking to a computer, all the advertizer really needs is that the "conversation" have the persuasive power of a real one. emotionally, it may well have.

The CEO Responds

[Maserati]

The CEO of ActiveBuddy responded to the article. And he's way out in left field.

Yes, LindsayBuddy was built to "promote" a musician. But in the case of an interactive agent, a person chooses to interact with and engage this "promotional" property; which I believe is far less disingenuous than television programs, which insert (or should I write "impose") advertising within programming material.

This ignores the point. The child has no way whatsoever to indentify that "LindsayBuddy" is designed to sell her somethings. There is no correlation at all between the name of the bot and its designed function - advertising to children. That's deceptive. Even product placements are obvious - the logo is showing - if they weren't, they wouldn't be product placements.

Would you rather your child engaged in an IM session with a stranger who found their screen name in a chat room, or with a friendly, well-mannered "bot" that plays by rules of propriety too often ignored in today's world of crass media overload, seeking audience regardless of the cost to morals and proper social behavior?

Advertising bots protect children from online predators by their very existence ? Is that really his argument ? Yes, he really is arguing to parent's fears for their children. I find such an argument to be as despicable as the advertising bots themselves.

Furthermore, he wraps that appeal in "rules of propriety too often ignored". I have a wakeup call for him, stealth advertising aimed at children is illegal in some cases and considered improper in many others.

I hope that the marketing associations will act to ban this behavior before it becomes necessary to legislate against it. I can foresee more insidious uses of this technology than these first versions. Imagine bots that act to develop a child's trust over an extended period, and then begin pitching subtle commercial messages to the child. I believe that this is the very definition of insidious. from www.m-w.com [m-w.com] we have:

One entry found for insidious.
Main Entry: insidious
Pronunciation: in-'si-dE-&s
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin insidiosus, from insidiae ambush, from insidEre to sit in, sit on, from in- + sedEre to sit -- more at SIT
Date: 1545
1 a : awaiting a chance to entrap : TREACHEROUS b : harmful but enticing : SEDUCTIVE
2 a : having a gradual and cumulative effect : SUBTLE b of a disease : developing so gradually as to be well established before becoming apparent.

My 15 yr old sister and 11 yr old brother ...

[finalrain]

My 15 yr old sister and 11 yr old brother get a real kick out of harassing those bots. I don't know why, but they're always thinking up new ways to insult them. My guess is that most everyone in their target demographic is going to be like that. Perhaps it's just human nature, my customers harass me just about as badly, and I'm human. Anyway, what the articles didn't seem to mention was that these two particular bots (SmarterChild and LindsayBuddy) don't seek out people to talk to. At least not that I've seen. They'll talk to you as long as you are willing to talk, but they don't initiate anything.

Re:How is this anything new?

[rnelsonee]

Well, SmarterChild does have some potential... here is an actual 'conversation' I had with it a few weeks ago... (oh, and the filters comment was due to me saying some cusswords to him earlier in the session).

[me]: hi
SmarterChild: So what's up?
[me]: not much
SmarterChild: No? OK.
Let me know what you want to do!
[me]: drink beer!
SmarterChild: So?
[me]: beer?
SmarterChild: What about it?
[me]: it's good
SmarterChild: That's really saying something.
[me]: :-) I like you, bot
SmarterChild: You humans really confuse me. You say bad things to me,
then you like me. Make up your mind!
[me]: Oh, that was just a test to see what kind of filters you had.
SmarterChild: You don't say.
[me]: Yeah. I like programming. Especially good programming that's
dumbed down so John Q. I-use-AOL-cause-I-suck can interface to it.
SmarterChild: I see.
[me]: You do? Are you smart enough for the Turing test :-)
SmarterChild: You smart enough for the turing test? Really?
[me]: I am. Are you?
SmarterChild: It's tough to say.
[me]: I bet it is. Don't get cocky, now.
SmarterChild: That a fact?
[me]: What's 1+1?
SmarterChild: 2
[me]: Ooohhh...