Google's Reach Hits Your Tivo 98
accido writes "As reported by The LA Times, Google has now decided to expand its marketing and data collection to include what you watch on your Tivo. The data collected would help Google, who sells TV ads, show who watches which commercials and who skips right over them. The article outlines how this could be bad for networks that cash in whether you watch the ad or not. Does this mean fewer commercials for viewers? Not likely, but one can hope."
Weather they stop the ads? (Score:3, Insightful)
The article outlines how this could be bad for Networks who cash in weather you watch the ad or not
They have ads there too? Sunny and a 50% chance of Cialis?
I wonder when this arms race for our eyeballs will peak. I'm not angry with targeted ads, overall it makes for a smarter consumer when after a generation or two we learn to identify market-speak at the cost of the last company to the block's poorly-spent campaign. In the mean time there's a greater likelihood I'll chance across something that is actually valuable to me, or a funny Geico ad :)
-Matt
Block data collection (Score:2, Insightful)
These days, is there anyone left who does NOT block all these data collection and tracking things?
The trouble is that they invent them fast enough that it's hard to keep up. Web bugs, cross site scripts, I block everything I know about, but it takes a little bit of diligence to keep up with it. And some, like TIVO, you can see coming a mile off, so are easy to never start using in the first place.
If we don't stick up for a shit-free internet, soon it will all be commercialized into uselessness. TV 2.0!
Thankfully, unlike TV, it's in OUR hands, and it can only go to crap if we let it. So just block attempts at tracking everyone's every move, and problem solved.
Yes, it takes a little bit of sacrifice. But so does anything that's worth while.
Re:Who the fuck still watches TV? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who the fuck still watches TV? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, alot of people don't realize how much better life is without TV. When I moved out for the first time I didn't have the cash for cable, it was something I could live without. After 1 month of no TV I began to realize how much more time I had for things I always wanted to do. I took up sketching, I go stargazing, even started programming side projects.
TV just brings you down, even if you only watch it for an hour, after that hour you feel lazy and you just want to go to bed or play video games. It ends up ruining the whole evening. Without it, I feel obligated to DO something. Usually its absense will help me dedicate that half an hour to chores, and then I will want to do something more creative, like write a song.
Anytime I'm over visitting someone else's place, and they have the TV on, 99% of the time I can't stand what is on there, because its SO trashy. The only channel I would even bother watching now is discovery, for Mythbusters and such.
Re:Who the fuck still watches TV? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, who the fuck still watches TV? There hasn't been anything good on any channel for years now, not that there was much good on in the first place.
All your neighbors. TV has become a "necessity". I overheard a guy complaining about his cable being out. I quote, "My children haven't had TV in two weeks!" I really had to stifle a laugh.
Go see a play at the local theater, watch a live band at a nearby pub, go for a walk, or read a book. Those are all much more enlightening and entertaining options.
Google will eventually have a system where as you enter the pub, you show your ID, and then that information will go into a database. Read a book? Google will collect the data from Visa and MC and AMEX to see what books you're reading and then use that data to market other shit to you. Local theater? Buy those ticket and well, you have to show your ID for pickup - again, data in the database. Live band? Show ID at the door and pay for those drink with your credit card? There you go.
It's not big brother. It's Google and other companies - Orwell was close. It's not the state that will spy (directly at least), it's going to be corporate American.
The state will just buy the information and technically do nothing wrong.
Technology - making life better for all.
Re:Who the fuck still watches TV? (Score:1, Insightful)
You do, and your Onion-esque attempts to pretend you don't aren't fooling anyone.
TiVo for 6 years now (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm sure 99% (Score:4, Insightful)
The shows, on the other hand, are usually terrible.
Re:Weather they stop the ads? (Score:3, Insightful)
In the mean time there's a greater likelihood I'll chance across something that is actually valuable to me
In all honesty, I don't think I have ever seen an ad that was of value to me. Maybe I'm just weird or something, but I start with a need and then seek out a solution in a product or service to fulfill it, usually through reviews and such. I never see an ad and then suddenly decide I need the product or service.
Never mind. I forgot about porn.
Re:Who the fuck still watches TV? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Anytime I'm over visitting someone else's place, and they have the TV on, 99% of the time I can't stand what is on there, because its SO trashy."
Unless the TVG is holding a gun to your friends heads, it's really your friends you need to think about, not the TV.
After 8 year of no TV, we just got satellite, and it's freakin' awesome. I really enjoy having TV.
Next year we get a TiVo.
TV is just a medium. what you do with it is what counts.
"after that hour you feel lazy and you just want to go to bed or play video games."
where you hittin' the pipe at the same time?
Re:I'm sure 99% (Score:3, Insightful)
That's true, in part, but the difficulty is that I don't get to choose what commercials I watch. So even though there are some truly horrific shows out there, I just don't watch them. Even if the worst commercial ever produced is only 1/10 as bad, it could still play during a show I do watch, therefore exposing me to it (unless I have a DVR). Therefore, of what I see (rather than TV in general) commercials are usually the worst part. And that's not even getting in to how repetitive they become...
Re:The choke hold of google (Score:3, Insightful)
If Microsoft had done this, it would have been hoarsely cried upon from rooftops with evil and big brother thrown in liberally. When Google does it, there is a positive spin given to it saying that it could mean fewer commercials.
Oh the duplicacy....
The above one is the only comment that I have seen crying foul, others all skip the issue in different ways. And the score was 1..
Nowadays I read slashdot with the same perspective that I read the inquirer or fox news or msnbc knowing that I should take every sentence that they write with a pinch of salt, with lots of skepticism and knowledge of the fact that these are zealots and will distorts facts. Sad. Pretty soon I will stop reading it as it is not news, but slant propaganda