Don Marti

Wed 03 Dec 2014 07:13:48 AM PST

Nifty tech delivers ineffective crap at incredible speed!

Andy Oram: A small technological marvel occurs on almost every visit to a web page. In the seconds that elapse between the user’s click and the display of the page, an ad auction takes place in which hundreds of bidders gather whatever information they can get on the user, determine which ads are likely to be of interest, place bids, and transmit the winning ad to be placed in the page. (How browsers get to know you in milliseconds)

Bob Hoffman: The rate of clicking on banner ads is so tiny, that for a media genius to deliver the 100 clicks she promises a client she has to buy over 100,000 impressions. And so, in trying to achieve goals, an enormous amount of ads must be bought. And splattered all over everything we are trying to do online. Also, because they are so ineffective, they are ridiculously cheap. And they keep getting cheaper. The result is that every creepy company in the world can afford these things and annoy the shit out of us with them. (Display Advertising is Poison)

Hold on a minute. Online display ads are terribly ineffective, despite all the bleeding-edge technology being thrown at them?

Close. But not despite. Because.