I just got done reading an article from Google’s Official GMail Blog, entitled Serving Better Ads in Gmail. Scott Crossan, the GMail Product Manager, stated that GMail will now provide advertisements based on past emails if the current email doesn’t provide a good enough match. They are doing this in the spirit of giving you “more of what you’re interested in and less of what you’re not.”
This reminds me of all of the pregnancy ads I have gotten when my girlfriend calls me “baby” in an email. Thanks, Google. Your short-sighted view of what the Internet can be has created a situation in which we all either are forced to deal with the shockingly horrid “context-aware” advertising that reduces the subtlety and complexity of language to a pathetic hackjob of irrelevent and sometimes insulting drivel, or we can self-edit ourselves. Either way we lose, and so do you.
In systems of language, the meaning of words comes from the other words and concepts we associate with them. What happens to our language and methods of expressions when all of our words become predominantly associated with organizations that can pay to have a word associated with them? Take a word like “progress” for example. Type this in Google Search and you get Progress Lighting, Progress Software, and Progress Energy. In GMail you might get ads for Progressive Insurance or any other number of businesses who have chosen to create a brand for themselves based on the concept of “progress,” which is to move forward in a positive way.
Are we headed towards a future where our language is entirely constructed of meanings defined by companies and businesses? I could be argued that we are already there. And I don’t know what the solution is.
No Google, I don’t need advice on pregnancy.
I just got done reading an article from Google’s Official GMail Blog, entitled Serving Better Ads in Gmail. Scott Crossan, the GMail Product Manager, stated that GMail will now provide advertisements based on past emails if the current email doesn’t provide a good enough match. They are doing this in the spirit of giving you “more of what you’re interested in and less of what you’re not.”
This reminds me of all of the pregnancy ads I have gotten when my girlfriend calls me “baby” in an email. Thanks, Google. Your short-sighted view of what the Internet can be has created a situation in which we all either are forced to deal with the shockingly horrid “context-aware” advertising that reduces the subtlety and complexity of language to a pathetic hackjob of irrelevent and sometimes insulting drivel, or we can self-edit ourselves. Either way we lose, and so do you.
In systems of language, the meaning of words comes from the other words and concepts we associate with them. What happens to our language and methods of expressions when all of our words become predominantly associated with organizations that can pay to have a word associated with them? Take a word like “progress” for example. Type this in Google Search and you get Progress Lighting, Progress Software, and Progress Energy. In GMail you might get ads for Progressive Insurance or any other number of businesses who have chosen to create a brand for themselves based on the concept of “progress,” which is to move forward in a positive way.
Are we headed towards a future where our language is entirely constructed of meanings defined by companies and businesses? I could be argued that we are already there. And I don’t know what the solution is.
End of rant. For now.