sweasel.com

Some of those clickbait traps are sort of interesting…some are pretty gross (plastic surgery gone horribly wrong, for eg).

I was skeptical about getting on Facebook because it seemed both useless to me and of questionable security. Plus, as I do for all software, I looked for how to uninstall/deregister before installing/signing up and… total blank. Couldn’t find anything at all. No thanks.

Every single story I’ve read about Facebook since my decision so many years ago looses another flood of relief that I never signed up. Of course, I’m not free of their privacy breeches since others on FB who also have my contact info could have provided a back door to the data sneaks, but it’s at least not a big present I’ve personally wrapped up with a bow.

I signed up for FaceBook cuz I had to for work…a douche at the company I work for was totally pumped about promoting on FB. It was a totally useless exercise…at least I used an alias and didn’t give it any real info.

It *is* sorta fun for the pix…

Facebook is evil. Like EVIL evil, so bad you have to pronounce it “E-vil”. The fru-it of the dev-il.

Over-valued is what I would call it.

Apologies for color.

http://postimg.org/image/yqeq4zbxn/
http://postimg.org/image/3q33u2qb7/

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Internet Lists are the road signs along the way.

It is a universally acknowledged truth that a young man in possesion of a fortune is in search of a oops! Advertising Works. Certainly nothing else can account for the success of Coca Cola, said to be 20% water, 4% sugar, 1% flavoring and 75% advertising. The problem is that, like other ‘dismal sciences’ like sociology and economics, no one is quite sure how to make desired results happen twice in a row. The only seeming surety is that continual exposure to a brand -if consistently presented- can build a brand image. BMW and Mercedes do this well; Cadillac, through inconsistent messages does it poorly. So, a clever single ad can create a fad, but no matter how powerful a single punch, it takes a steady stream of jabs to succeed long term.

The problem for those buying advertising is that, while convential wisdom acknowledges that only a long-term barrage can be effective advertisers want to be paid now, for two reasons: first, of course, every business requires cash flow. No one can wait a year to be paid at the conclusion of a successful campaign. Second is that advertisers really can’t be sure that any given campaign actually will work. Anyone can get a lucky hit now and then – the trick is stringing together three or four in a row. Better to get that cash right away please before statistics can show their revolutionary new campaign did nothing to sales.

So, how to pay advertisers? If we can agree that exposure works, even while acknowledging that it will be a long time before we can measure the success of any individual approach, buyers will agree to pay for exposure. Before Digital Video Recorders, TV advertisers could claim that an advertisement played was an advertisement seen and bill accordingly. Newspapers still work on this premise. My newspaper delivers a (smaller) free paper every day to everyone in my neighborhood so they can claim that they reach xxx,xxx number of households to advertisers. It is more profitable to give the newspaper away and charge advertisers than to sell the paper to readers. Now, finally, we come to the internet, and specifically Facebook. Facebook, sells advertising, and through their data analysis of YOU claims to sell targeted advertising.Facebook knows everything about you and your friends, and family, and habits, and can promise to deliver advertisers defined demographics suited to their product. (If you are seeing a lot of KY Jelly ads, I would like to be invited to your parties).However there is already enough historical data to show that merely putting an ad on a page does not guarantee anyone noticed it. Thus we come to the advertisers requiring “click-throughs” or forcing you to see an ad before continuing to content. These little scum-muffins like the guy mentioned above are selling ‘views’ and claiming that views equal exposure and that exposure sells. So, Marks and Spenser is not really trying to sell you trousers, but an impression of Marks and Spenser – so you will come to think of them as the Mercedes of retailers. Will it work? Well, who knows, but pay me now. Eventually, this will be shown not to work but, like TV advertising and newspaper ads will continue because no one can offer anything that is proven to work better.

So, Marks and Spenser is not really trying to sell you trousers, but an impression of Marks and Spenser – so you will come to think of them as the Mercedes of retailers.

That’s why I think this is such an awful approach. I now associate Marks and Spencer with sleazy clickbait.

Well, I don’t. They’re a good store and I know it. As you say, it takes many small exposures to build a brand. But they have just added something to my impression of M&S, and it isn’t something good.

So, Marks and Spenser is not really trying to sell you trousers, but an impression of Marks and Spenser – so you will come to think of them as the Mercedes of retailers.

That’s why I think this is such an awful approach. I now associate Marks and Spencer with sleazy clickbait.

Well… Mercedes IS a common stripper name… Or so I’m told 🙂

He is still alive.

This proves that in the future I will not develop both time travel, and the ability to kill people with my mind.

Semi-unrelatedly: http://drboli.com/2015/06/05/the-top-ten-numbered-lists-you-wont-find-on-facebook/

Ad blockers. I’m big on blocking unneeded crap from my sensorium.

I actually failed to notice this when you posted it because my mind automatically filters shit with titles like that out. It’s like the mental blocks we all developed back in 1998/9 to any 480×70 image.