Why Gay Men Are Worth So Much To Facebook 270
Barence writes "PC Pro has a feature on how social networks sold your privacy, which includes some interesting comparisons on the value of different demographics to Facebook. For example, an advert that targets everyone within a 10-mile radius of a medium-sized British town (Dorking) is valued at 28p per click by Facebook's advertising tool. However, targeting single gay men in the area with a preference for nightclubbing raises the price to 71p per click — 2.5x the price of targeting the general public. Such precise targeting also raises other issues. Whittling down ads to target such precise demographics can result in ads targeting as few as 20 people, making it theoretically possible to identify those targeted. 'I think the worst scenario might be where someone who hates gays uses Facebook's targeting to identify gay users and later attack them,' says Paul Francis, scientific director of the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems."
Re:The math is simple (Score:4, Interesting)
Doesn't it work the other way too? Parents have kids, kids that need things, things that you might buy from diaperdepot.com if there were a link on your facebook page that is your only remaining connection to the independant young adult you once were.
Re:What about ladyboys/shemales? (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, it seems humorous to complain about how trans-erasure has kept people from acknowledging male-to-female transsexuals while also ignoring female-to-male transsexuals. At least trans-women are noticed because they are sexualized - trans-men seem almost wholly ignored in the populace.
But to answer your question more directly, the reason nobody talked about them in *this* article is because they are not a lucrative target market for advertisements. The homosexual male community is not targeted for advertisement because they are so numerous, but because the retail and marketing world believes that gay males spend a lot of money and, more importantly, influence the fashions and tastes of the heterosexual people surrounding them. Clothing stores see gay men as trend setters, so they believe that getting gay men to adopt their clothes will lead the heterosexual people to follow. Because of rampant discrimination and erasure, trans people are not perceived as having the same trend-setting appeal.
Re:What about ladyboys/shemales? (Score:4, Interesting)
The only thing making ladyboys "way more cuter" than actual females is your fetish for them.
No amount of surgery makes them look like actual females without extensive makeup and photo angles taken to compliment a feature or to exaggerate one.
I say this as someone who is not against gays or transgender people. In fact, I have many LGBT friends and even some in the family... so it's not a bias, just stating what I see. I guess much the same way you are, but your fetish is clouding your eyesight.
I can personally say that this is not true. Not based on some images on the internet, but real life experience. Granted, I do live in Thailand and the ladyboys here are generally more feminine and look more like women than in western countries, but the point stands. Of course, there are also many that don't really pass that, but then there are those true gems too. Just last week I met one ladyboy who I sure as hell wouldn't had recognized as such if it weren't for the established I was at.
It has nothing to do with general fetish towards ladyboys. For the most part they don't interest me that much. Which of course is true for many "real" women too. However, she had spent the time and effort to make herself look beautiful and she really was. Sat down, had a few drinks, kissed some, went back to apartment and had some fun. Her "special" parts didn't matter, and why would they. I know geeks like to put everything into binary code and either 0 or 1, but in real life it's not that simple. And no, I'm not gay - I just don't discriminate ladyboys just for the fact that they have at one time been men. It's stupid to limit yourself like that if you otherwise like someone or think she looks nice.