Topic: A thought on ad widgets

I understand that Chumby Industries would like to make money some day.  I wholeheartedly vouch for this notion.  At the same time, I've been feeling ambivalent about what these ads would look like when they finally made it to me.

Disclosure:  I've had a little involvement in the online ad world.  I helped launch the T-Mobile Sidekick with Publicis USA, a campaign that won an award from Ad World.  I've got friends at W&K and Avenue A/Razorfish.  I can recognize the work of Tokyo Plastic with one viewing.  I'm definitely a spectator... but I think about ads more than a lot of people.

It seems to me that an advertising firm, at this stage in the Chumby's development, might value the "focus group" nature of the Chumby pool.  I'm not sure that Chumby Industries knows what the ads should look like; I sure don't.  But if you guys are figuring out a way to make those ads positive at best and non-invasive at worst, enlisting our help could be beneficial.

I'm assuming you have some way to track what ads will be served to us.  Why not give us a way to rate them?  If you gave us somewhere on the control panel where we could go back and review the ads we'd been served and give them a simple "Hot or Not" rating, you (and your advertisers) would learn what we'll tolerate... while we, the users, would get that all-important sense of control.  Because really - I think that's my main objection to advertising.  It'll just sneak in, uninvited, to a gadget that I otherwise feel I have total control over... and not only can I not do anything about it, I can't influence it in any way, shape or form.

Obviously, we could click "I hate it" on every single ad.  That, however, wouldn't do us any good - particularly if the ads kept coming.  But if I click on "ads" when I have a spare moment to purge my queue, not only will your advertisers *know* I saw every single one of them, they'll *know* whether their message was received positively or negatively.  I would think that the data-mining algorithms to turn that into valuable data would be simple to implement and easy to modify.

In my past life of designing systems for public works projects, I learned that the *illusion* of control is often more valuable than control itself.  If I can sit on the couch, watch a little TV, give the chumby a squeeze and say "Hated it, hated it, hated it, loved it, hated it, loved it, done" suddenly those ads are much less of a bother to me.  Because I know they're *my* ads.

Hey - it works for Netflix...

Seth

Slave to the Light, Inc.
Los Angeles & Seattle USA
www.slavetothelight.com

Re: A thought on ad widgets

That is a very interesting take on the subject. Depending on the products and services promoted, advertisers might be willing to pay more for instant feedback.

King Nacho

T.C.A.R.

Re: A thought on ad widgets

Great idea -- we've been talking about this kind of thing.  Definitely appreciate feedback from the Forum on this topic.