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Google Envisions Free Cell Phones For All
Posted by
Zonk
on Mon Nov 13, 2006 04:20 AM
from the i-have-no-friends-you-insensitive-clod dept.
from the i-have-no-friends-you-insensitive-clod dept.
Salvance writes "Google's CEO Eric Schmidt envisions a day when all cell phones are free if the user agrees to watch targeted ads. While he provides no specific plans for Google to give away phones, the implication is that he expects such moves in the future given Google's current pilot successes with delivering text ads on phones." From the article: "Schmidt also said his company was working on how to allow users to maintain basic control of their personal data. Currently, Google stores consumer data on hundreds of thousands of its own computers in order to provide additional services to individual users. The company is looking to allow consumers to export their Web search history or e-mail archives and move them to other sites, if they so choose."
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When your only tool is a hammer (Score:5, Interesting)
When your only revenue is advertisments, everything looks like sticky eyeballs.
Re:When your only tool is a hammer (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:When your only tool is a hammer (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:When your only tool is a hammer (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
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I don't think you read that right. It's that our sticky eyeballs are hammers for Google's Nails of Advertisement. Or something like that.
Anybody else here think eyeballs wouldn't make the greatest hammers?
Re:When your only tool is a hammer (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
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Call the Free??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Right now,phone calls don't cost much. With all the competitive pressures they'll just come down. Let's say your life is worth $60/hour or $1/minute. How much of your life are you prepared to throw away to get that free phone call?
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KFG
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Everybody has a price. You may not know yours yet.
How much money are you willing and able to pay for one hour more life? That's your price.
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I am perfectly capable of conceiving of situations in which I would be willing to simply "toss away" all that remains of my life for no money at all. I can even conceive of situations in which I might pay someone to end my life.
I do not measure the value of either my time or my actions with a balance sheet, nor do I hold my mere life, in and of itself, to be the highest value.
In the long run we are all dead. Make your l
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Actually, I hope ads play during a conversation. Say, call your friend and tell him to pick up a case of Pepsi, and all of the sudden you and your friend hear a chime and an ad for Pepsi starts streaming to both of your phones.
Or maybe the cellphones they're making have the same sensors as the Wii remote and all of the sudden a holographic ad appears in front of you to PUNCH THE MONKEY AND WIN A FREE IPOD
X1 data traffic charges (Score:3, Interesting)
Never mind your time, the whole approach neglects the outrageous fees some telcos associate with data vs voice traffic. At the rate I get billed for data transfers, it would be far, far cheaper to buy a cell phone every six month than it would be to pay for the data transfers of advertising.
Especially if it goes beyond SMS ads.
Ads on phones? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Ads on phones? (Score:5, Interesting)
Carriers can already determine your phone's location (thanks to the Wireless E911 [wikipedia.org] mandate), and third-party companies like Navizon [navizon.com] are already beginning to do the same thing independently of carriers.
Now, imagine you're Google, and you own the service. You notice that it's lunch time and the user hasn't stopped for lunch, but they're near a fast food advertiser. You could send an SMS with a coupon to the user.
Now, I don't know that they'll necessarily follow this model, but there's plenty of things to analyze and target without being much more invasive than current carriers.
Parent
Just the "device" ? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not to say I'd go long with this anyway. I'd be very annoyed if my phone beeped every 10 minutes, only to discover that I've received an advertisement.
What the hell (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only person who hates advertisements? I don't want to see ads while I browse the internet. I don't want to see ads while I'm watching movies or TV. I don't want to hear ads on the radio. And I sure as hell don't want ads on my cell phone.
Charge me for your product or service, then leave me the fuck alone.
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Insightful)
- still buy a mobile phone that doesn't have advertisements?
- get pay-tv where you can watch movies without interruption (at least here in the netherlands)
- become a slashdot subscriber and NOT see the ads anymore.
This is a new businessmodel, for those of us who don't want to pay for the product or service but instead want to view ads. If you don't like it, don't use it. There are (and will be) plenty alternatives for you.
Parent
You're lucky (Score:2)
And you wonder why it accounts for 30% of all net traffic...
Re:What the hell (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, not in the USA really.
Our pay-per-view tv still has ads most of the time, thou fortunatly not interrupting the show, just at the begining, and sometimes at the end.
Even when you go and buy a DVD, there are generally ads packed at the start, and frequently set so you can't skip them.
Technically downloading here isn't suppost to be illegal, but i fear it soon will be, in addition to distributing and copying which already is illegal (regarding bittorrent downloaded shows, where you upload as well) and ripping a DVD to remove the ads (or atleast change it so they can be skipped) is definatly illegal.
Of course a large portion of us don't care about the fact its illegal, and do it anyway, but that's the only way to get ad free movies and shows these days in the US.
Yeay USA
Parent
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It won't work (Score:3, Insightful)
What kind of company? (Score:5, Insightful)
Google: organising the world's information (Score:3, Interesting)
I see where you're coming from, but that's a misuse of the term "advertising agency" [google.com]. They compete in no way with the likes of Saatchi & Saatchi. They are an advertising broker, being a middle-man between those who have ad-space and those who want to place ads (some of which will have been designed by ad agencies). Even that doesn't do them justice, though -- it's merely a description of their main source (AFAIK) of rev
time to wake up (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:time to wake up (Score:4, Insightful)
That is acceptable once a year, and it is during the superbowl, because the inherent manliness of watching it makes up for your minds freedom being sold for a day.
This post is brought to you by Dial anti viral vagina cream, Post(tm) Cocks and Mallow cereal, and the movie Junk Puncher, from the makers of The Matrix, premiers in a theater near you Friday...
Parent
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Advertising Works! (Score:3, Insightful)
CNN is driving me nuts lately with the Head On commercials. They even tried to make a joke of how obnoxious they are. Hate to break it to them but I switch the channel everytime they come on.
But you are now familiar with "Head On" as a brand. The average consumer is now far more likely to select Head On instead of some equally useless, but less familiar generic homeopathic headache remedy. I would guess that very few American consumers are even smart enough to research their headache remedy purchases i
Judging from my usualy phone calls... (Score:5, Funny)
Comments (Score:2)
How will they make sure people actually pay attention and just don't do something else for the 30 seconds or so?
Will there be a 911 and other emergy number exception?
If cell phone calls are so inexpensive, why not fund it through various other means? There are endeavours that require a vast amount of people. I think one of them involves identifying picture
Re:Comments (Score:5, Funny)
Almost. You'll get a YouTube ad for clips of Police beating up suspects.
Parent
I would rather pay a fixed amount... (Score:2)
Text message adverts... (Score:3, Funny)
I don't even watch TV anymore because commercials are so god damn annoying.
The last thing I want is some annoying bullshit ringing my phone while I am sleeping, roll over, cursing the fact that I haven't muted it, check out who sent me what...
"Best buy is having a sale on Kelly Clarkson: From church going babe, to cocksucking ho! And don't forget to watch 3LBS tonight, it's not exactly brain surgery... Actually it is!"
While "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is playing in the background...
Jesus Christ, that is some evil shit.
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Advertising Madness (Score:5, Interesting)
People don't want adverts. People do not want adverts on TV; that is why we used to have VCRs, before the advent of DVD+RW and Sky Plus. Anything worth watching got recorded, and the advertisements got the fast-forward button. With Sky Plus you can start recording, wait ten minutes or so (the total amount of advert breaks in the programme minus the anticipated amount of time spending re-watching good bits), start watching from the beginning, and fast-forward through the breaks.
People do not want adverts on the radio, which is why it's so good that Radio Two is the first station up from the bottom of the dial.
People don't want adverts in magazines and newspapers, and will turn the page and miss a good story rather than see an advertisement.
People don't want adverts on the internet. Hence the popularity of various advert-blocking and flash-blocking Firefox extensions, the use of "block images from this server" and {for the full-on geek} Squid. Even people without advert-blocking software will navigate away from a site which tries to bombard them with images.
I don't think I'm alone in saying that I would much rather pay cash up front for the phone calls I am going to make, than watch advertisements.
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On this side of the pond you have choices:
TV: There are a few channels without commercials, but very few, some people use DVRs and fast forward through them. I don't know that I agree with you on the VCR, I myself have never heard about somebody recording a show onto a tape just to get through the commercials (though I have known of people who recorded a movie and while doing so, edited
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Boom! It's a trap... (Score:3, Interesting)
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You have to charge for something (Score:2, Insightful)
I suspect that the person who makes this product that people are willing to spend money on is going to make a killing.
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Now, that was a great lapsus.
Talk about targeted (Score:5, Funny)
Let's see, we'll just dial here... Nine One One... Send..... "ring, ring... Your call will be connected shortly. Did you know, Kidde fire extinguishers come with a full lifetime guarantee...."
ARRGGHHH!
Hmmm, try again. Let's call a Corvette dealer.... dial the number here.... "ring, ring.... Your call will be connected shortly. Did you know that you can order Viagra from the privacy and comfort of your home? Press 69* for more information."
ads? No thank you (Score:3, Insightful)
Having Stuff be supported by ads is incredibly annoying. I use google instead of say... MSN(ha!) because I don't want my bandwidth sucked up by annoying ads, and I don't want to be clobbered over the head with pictures of pretty people. Frell That. And when I'm just searching, I don't look at the google ads at all. Sure, subliminals count for something... Sigh.
When I do shop, I use sometimes use google (when I don't go directly to a website I know and trust) though. Their ads are less annoying and intrusive. They grate less on my nerves. It's simple. When I want to shop, I'll go FIND the ads. They don't need to find me. Screw the impulse buy!
So, by being less annoying, google gets me to shop through them. Sometimes.
Thank the gods for Adblock and Firefox, or I'd have to browse in Lynx.
I've read Snow Crash. I've read The Selfish Gene. My mental anti-viral software is loaded.
Oh gods, I'm becoming a Luddite.
-T, who will always pay to avoid ads or go without.
This call brought to you by... (Score:3, Interesting)
*ring*
Me: Hello?
Phone: This call has been brought to you by....
Me: Argh!
Caller: Hello?
Me: Ah, ok.. I had an ad playing here. What's up?
Caller: It's you're father he is in the hospital with..
Phone: Interested in hospitals? Check these out...
Me: What the f**k?!?
Caller: What did you just say? you're father is in the HOSPITAL!
Me: Sorry, the phone just ran another ad.
Caller: Oh, I
Phone: Want to send flowers.......
Me: Let me call you back from my land line.
Phone: Need phon... *click*
Oh yea.. I can see it now...
people are becoming mute to it ... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's relatively easy when the medium is passive, like TV.
The next time your phone rings, however, try not answering. You'll reflexively pick it up anyway. You've been programmed to.
This has the potential to be astonishingly annoying to people like me, who use their cell phones for business and are acclimated to the idea that when the phone rings, it's important.
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*consider* picking it up. Time of day, mood, whether I'm in a noisy place or playing a
game are all factors. Plus my hate for the caller, of course
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How you use your phone is your business. No insult intended, but you're living in a different world. When my cell phone rings, it's important (or sometimes a wrong number). I don't give my cell phone number to people I don't want to talk to. (why would I?)
However, note that you agree with my point -- when your cell phone rings, you look at it. You don't need to answer it; it's cheaper for them if you don't. Congradulations, you're their target demographic.
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