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Sunday, December 16, 2001
Subtractvertising 
| | Way back in an early DaveNet, Esther Dyson said "The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted." This and other hard-hitting clues have failed to budge media thinking about advertising, even here on the Web — as the growing trashstorm of e-spam and porn-inspired self-spawning Web page windows now demonstrate. |
| | The real problem is that the advertising is so intrusive that our minds try their hardest to find a pattern to them and block them out of our "scanning" routine. In fact, all advertising is intrusive. That's why people switch channels when the ads come on. And when people see banner ads, they block them out of their minds. |
| | I only disagree with the inclusive adjective "all." There are kinds of advertising that are not only welcome, but that we seek out. The problem is, they tend to be artless and ugly. At the top of the list are classifieds. In the same breed are yellow pages. In that same direction are truly informative ads in trade publications. |
| | For years Bill Ziff, wise old namesake of Ziff-Davis, labored mightily to clue advertising types about what readers wanted. Back when I was still in the advertising business, sometime in the late Eighties, Bill and his people treated the top technology advertisers and their agencies to a junket to Aspen. They put us up at the Jerome and brought us up to dinner at his mountaintop redoubt — one of the most beautiful homes I've seen anywhere. Somewhere in there he sat us all down and laid on a pile of truth none of us (except maybe the advertisers) were eager to hear. |
| | Pretty two-page ads that do nothing but "brand" do nothing for sales, he said. What technology readers want is hard information. There is zero correlation between beauty and effectiveness. What matters is information. Readers want advertising that's more like technology editorial content than like ads for liquor or other image-intensive products. Readers don't want to be assaulted by anything, or treated like anything other than readers, some of which might want to buy what the advertisers. Customers, basically. |
| | His voice still echoes in the wilderness. |
Goohad
| | The Google juggernaunt proceeds to give users what they want in unbending abundance. This week: catalogs. |
DuhSubtract
| | It has politely been pointed out to me that I failed to grok the obvious fact that SpamSubtract is developing first for Windows and does not at this point require input from users of other platforms (I was bummed that the company's survey only welcomed input from Windows users). To further assist hasty readers like me (as well as members of various Linux and Mac factions) the company has posted a helpful explanation. |
| | Again, I only hear good things about these guys. I wish them success, so they'll have the money to develop for platforms outside the Great Hegemony. |
Advice?
| | Looking for a relatively cheap scanner that'll run on Mac OS 9 and X. I like the form factor of the two Canons, but everything looks cheezy. I'd stick with my old Epson 1200C if it ran on USB and there were modern drivers for it, Still does a fine job, but it's SCSI. |
It's even worse than it appears
| | Spent way too much time in a toy store with a five year old today. Man, there are a lot of bad toys out there. Remote control trucks that only steer in one direction and only when they back up. Piece-o-shit electronic drum sets that make a sound .X seconds after you hit them, and only if you hit them slowly. Yo-yos that make noise but don't work. Keyboards that do everything but let you play your own tune. Knockoffs of knockoffs of knockoffs of creepy robot dogs. Assault tanks whose only moving parts are cannons that recoil. 9000-part Lego kits that do nothing but construct something that resembles nothing. Racetracks that require water. Chess sets in which all the pieces — normally white and black — are clear. Basketball hoops that fold under the weight of a Nerf ball. I could go on, but I'll only get more depressed. |
| | I've seen veins of coal that looked like more fun. |
The rap on rap
Making the country safe for necrokleptocracy
| | This from the Dallas Morning News: |
| | "I was in a lot of battles," said Mr. Akbar. "They asked us to fight anywhere, and we would go." |
| | Mr. Akbar said he and other front-line troops were well paid, but his love of gambling and fondness for hashish and heroin drove him to find new sources of income. |
| | "I looted a lot of homes," he said. "I stole 50 kilos of rice from one place, from a shop. When you go into a town, there are a lot of shops. Everybody did these kinds of things. It was a good way to earn money." |
| | He and his comrades discovered they could earn even more money by selling the bodies of Taliban fighters to their comrades or families, he said. The price a body would fetch depended on the nationality of the dead soldier and the condition of his corpse, said Mr. Akbar. |
Ho ho JOHO
| | David Weinberger is out with his latest JOHO, which is kind his longform slo-mo mofo blog. It's fulla good shit. Read it. |
'Tis the reason
| | Christmas is foreplay. Ever noticed that? |
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