Computer Support Network

For years Google has used its search engine and custom applications to match products and services to keyword content. Up until now this has consisted largely of simple keyword advertisements. Type “shoes” in Google, for example, and you will get advertisements from shoe company partners. Last week Google proposed to change all this with their plan to make ads “more interesting.”

The idea behind the content shift is that keyword advertising is not always relevant to the interest of the user. A person who conducts research on houses in Africa probably still doesn’t want to own one. The same applies to all keyword searches. The new behavior ad program intends to change this by compiling interest instead of keyword searches. Through the use of monitor based algorithms Google will be able to tell how many times you go to a website, what parts you visit most often and custom tailor ads based on this information.

Now most people who read that are likely to do so with a look of horror. The idea that all of your web interactions will be monitored in an effort to sell you more goods is one that scares a lot of people. The fact is though that whether or not it was used almost all of this information has been tracked for a long time. Everything from time spent on a webpage to your browser version number (all you readers with IE6; please update) is easily recorded. The only difference between those stats, and the ones now utilized by Google, is that the before mentioned are privately held by which ever website they are taken from. With the new system Google will instead blanket this sort of information to all of their advertising partners.

From my perspective I suspect that this change over will result in a lot of hot air which will quickly dissipate. No one likes their personal information revealed but in the long run a few more ads are unlikely to change your life. But because privacy is a hot topic subject I am interested to learn what others think. If you have an opinion on this subject, post it, and let’s get a global perspective on the issue.

- Richard Keene
IT Computer Support of New York
Design and Optimization Department

Most people are familiar with the traditional forms of media advertising; the billboards, the TV advertisements and all forms of web based marketing. Quite recently a new trend has been emerging among advertisers who focus on the 18-34 demographic. Online gaming. This might seem a strange outlet for advertising dollars but recent trends have shown this to be anything but.

In recent years the American games industry has grown to surpass Hollywood as a financial producer and is poised to make even more gains in the coming years. Among the forerunners of this trend is the Blizzard Entertainment title, World of Warcraft, a game that requires a monthly subscription and allows people from around the world to play and quest with each other. Currently World of Warcraft has over ten million subscribers, each one paying $15 a month to play in the online world. What’s this mean? Well for starters this one game generates roughly $150 million dollars; that’s per year. WOW has been running for four years and going strong. Compare that to some of the highest grossing movies, Titanic ($601m) and StarWars (460m) and you can see the public has spoken. They like their games.

Many big name corporations have taken notice of this and started to pursue it. A number of online games have been renting out virtual advertising space as a means of reducing cost. Currently some of the biggest participants that have signed on are Coca-Cola, Comcast’s G4TV, Dunkin’ Donuts, Universal Music Group and Verizon. Additional advertisers such as Target and Wal-Mart have also shown interest in pursuing online game advertising in the future.

One reason why this form of advertising has picked up is the fact that it’s non conspicuous to viewers. These are not the crudely constructed games of ten or even 5 years ago. Many have come to a point where photo realistically rendered cities and characters are common place. Seeing an advertisement for Coca-Cola on a billboard in a virtual city seems as natural as in a real one.

With more and more companies jumping on board and with hundreds of millions of viewers around the world this is one advertising venue that is unlikely to die down.

- Richard Keene
IT Computer Support of New York
Design and Optimization Department