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Contextual Ads Based On Images 66

An anonymous reader writes "Technology Review reports on efforts to enable web ads to be targeted based on the content of online images, not text. All those user-generated photos on Facebook and Picasa could apparently be worth much more if it was possible to display adverts for pet food next to your snaps of your dog. Machine vision can apparently make that possible."
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Contextual Ads Based On Images

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  • by twisting_department ( 1329331 ) on Thursday July 22, 2010 @07:04AM (#32988254)
    Great. If all the world becomes a mirror of what I'm interested in, because it knows all about me and my interests, then how do I ever get to find anything new and/or different?
    • type "new and different" into the search engines and the advertisers will get the idea.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      there's a checkbox for that
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by thijsh ( 910751 )
      When they know what you like and create an heuristic 'other people that liked X also like Y' kinda system you can actually get useful *new* recommendations you will probably also like... But with an image system like this you can imagine all the stupid fuck-ups and jokes that will ensue... "Yo momma is so fat that the ad Picasa shows next to all her photo's is: 'save the whales'"

      Plus you can be damn sure that if this system is smart enough to be useful it will be gamed, and I'm not worried about companie
      • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by Thinboy00 ( 1190815 )

        When they know what you like and create an heuristic 'other people that liked X also like Y' kinda system you can actually get useful *new* recommendations you will probably also like... But with an image system like this you can imagine all the stupid fuck-ups and jokes that will ensue... "Yo momma is so fat that the ad Picasa shows next to all her photo's is: 'save the whales'"

        s/photo's/photos/

      • Fuck, there will be more horrors than you or I can imagine now... and I can imagine quite a lot...

        Why don't you try AdBlock?

    • If you happen to have access to Nature, this Philip Ball piece [nature.com] riffs on that topic.

    • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

      If all your world is media, you have bigger problems than targeted ads.

    • by TheLink ( 130905 )
      Allow you to choose an arbitrary demographic to view "the world" from?

      It may be useful for buying presents/gifts too.
    • Different? Different!?

      Conform, you mindless sheep drone! If you don't conform, you don't belong!

    • That a very insightful point. I detest most rap/hip-hop/spoken word, being a heavy/progressive metal fan. Yet I ran into Scroobius Pip [youtube.com] some time ago, and was struck by something very different than what I normally listened to. However, for the moment, we're both safe. There are places like slashdot where people will post links to things that you've never heard of, or haven't been exposed to. But the most important part is this:

      This is for Ads. Not for anything else. When was the last time an add introduced
    • You make an interesting point, but on the other hand, over time, I imagine the ads will introduce you to those new things, too, because what interests you may be more apparent to them than to you!

      I always remember how on Napster, when I found someone sharing a song I wanted, I would browse their collection since we had at least one common intersection of interest in music.  Got me into a lot of bands I would never have heard of, otherwise.
  • Evolution (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    1990s:
    People are tired of crapvertisement exploding, find efficient entertainment elsewhere, internet evolves

    2000s:
    The internets is a fun place, banners and popups are crap but they can be turned off, we have fun

    2005:
    "Non-intrusive" ads, they work well, people are spending money on things they want

    2007:
    Explosion of "non-intrusive" ads, so whored out by 3rd parties it becomes a chaos of irrelevant ads with alot of clickthrough to get to actual content.

    2009:
    After people found a "place online" to displ
    • Re:Evolution (Score:4, Informative)

      by somersault ( 912633 ) on Thursday July 22, 2010 @07:23AM (#32988384) Homepage Journal

      Don't know about you, but I just use an adblocker.

      • "Hi Somersault.

        You say you just use an adblocker. Maybe you have tried AdBlock Plus. We would like you to take a short 1-question survey: which filter list is more effective for English viewers - Fanboy's List or EasyList?"

        I really dread the rise of Micro-Audience ads, because if they're written smartly they'll be indistinguishable from Informative +1.

        • Why host your pictures with ads? Because it's free. So, spend $10 a year on a domain, and a couple of bucks a month for some cheap shared hosting, and be ad-free. You'll find all other sorts of wonderful uses - like running your own webmail that doesn't have ads in it. Putting up your own site, hosting your own files - all ad-free.

          Or if you're really cheap, check with your ISP - you probably have some disk space and a home page or two included with your plan.

        • > because if they're written smartly they'll be indistinguishable from Informative +1

          One could merely "string-out" the other side until one was convinced it was human, before actually answering / believing. This obviously will push AI further along as advertisers struggle to get more and more convincing bots. OTOH, that might not happen if a high enough percentage of the public just falls for it at the first iteration --- in that case, it would be more practical to transfer any real attempts at discourse

          • Heh. I had a weird conversation on MSN a couple of months ago. Someone messaged me out of the blue and I thought it was an awful lot like the spam messages I get in my email. I said something about thinking they're just a spam bot, and they responded with something like "haha no I hate spam too" or something. I thought they were real until I said something else or they sent a link and I realised I was indeed just getting canned responses.

        • I really dread the rise of Micro-Audience ads, because if they're written smartly they'll be indistinguishable from Informative +1.

          I really dread the rise of Slashdot-Audience ads because they're not written smartly, so they're indistinguishable from Slashdot articles.

    • by selven ( 1556643 )

      2015:
      People are tired of crapvertisement exploding, find efficient entertainment elsewhere, Freenet explodes

      2020:
      Freenet is a fun place, banners and popups are crap but they can be turned off, we have fun

      2030:
      People are tired of crapvertisement exploding, find efficient entertainment elsewhere...

  • Great idea (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Devout_IPUite ( 1284636 ) on Thursday July 22, 2010 @07:12AM (#32988310)
    Because then someone is going to put a life insurance ad on your family portrait... GREAT!
  • can it also be used to break CAPTCHAs?
  • No examples (Score:5, Funny)

    by Thanshin ( 1188877 ) on Thursday July 22, 2010 @07:25AM (#32988404)

    This would be Epic if they add Clippy-like messages.

    "I see you've got a very ugly gf. Do you want to hire a prettier one? Click on me for today's special promotions".

  • I wonder if there will be some clever souls who try to see how "interesting" they can make the connection between the image and the advertisement, perhaps using Photoshop and specific combinations of images.

    It won't be me, because I'll use adblock or ghostery or whatever is available to thwart these ads.

    • Sign me up!

      I wanna see the ads next to today's Fark article "Zombie Porn Movie banned from film festival".

  • 90% (Score:3, Funny)

    by Fizzol ( 598030 ) on Thursday July 22, 2010 @07:45AM (#32988548)
    will be contextual adds about boobies.
  • Working out some bugs, got ads for pet food next to pics of my wife!
  • You know, if all the time and effort spent on finding new and interesting ways to annoy people with advertising were spent on something more important (like, say, curing AIDS, or even sleeping) we'd all be a lot better off.

    Screw you AND your ads. Adblock ftw.

  • People don't want invasive ads. I like the ads of yesteryear. All they did was provide information. Nowadays I've got ads that try to appeal to my emotions. It's ridiculous. Why such the rampant ads with children? Their only purpose is to attract women into buying said items. It appeals to the mother in them. For men,they see lots of commercials about young boys and baseball. Also young girls and how they are princesses. Appealing to emotions, I think is going to far. Why would I want an emotional re

    • You say you don't want an advert for a funeral home appearing next to your picture of grandma, but then, what -is- the right context in which to advertise a funeral home? Next to a picture of people smoking and drinking? Your beautiful mountain landscape? The picture of -grandpa- in a casket?

      Or, do people not need to know about what funeral homes are around and available? The purpose of the ad might not be to get you to buy two caskets now, but instead to get you to remember the funeral house when t
      • When the time comes, you will seek them. Most people just look in the phone book. That's where the ad should be. If anything, having such an ad when your grandma is not doing well is actually a turn-off. It depresses people. I'm fine with TV ads but when you have a picture of your own grandma and then an ad for a funeral home, that just goes over the line. It's like having pics of young men with accompanying ad for beer or condoms. Or a teenage girl and an ad for birth-control. The ads are fine where t

    • Regular ads at least kept a respectful distance, but using personal photos is just sleazy and lame, and the whole tactic smacks of cluelessness. I can't wait to see which companies are stupid enough to try this. It's like a honeypot for marketing idiots.
      • It'll be really fun when they start actually integrating your photos into the ads. Grandma's Pancake Mix -- hawked to you by your very own grandma! I wouldn't doubt for a second that Facebook's TOS allow this.
        • by Tim C ( 15259 )

          Actually Facebook already advertises stuff at you using your friend's pictures - e.g. "$user, Try Friend Finder - $friend1 and $friend2 found friends using the Friend Finder. Give it a try!". I don't know if that extends to third party advertising, I usually kill it with AdblockPlus and/or Greasemonkey, and only noticed it today when I accidentally disabled Greasemonkey.

  • And, once again, the magic of the computer knowing what is actually in the image is accomplished by combing through huge databases of similar images and gleaning human-inputted tags. What could possibly go wrong?
  • The slow-ass image recognition shit will run client side, either in javascript, flash, or some HTML 5 canvas hell (which nerds will jerk off to).

  • On Chatroulette: Penis Enlargement Ads

    On Facebook: Clearasil, weight loss

    On Playboy: Penis Enlargement

    On Twilight Fan sites: Psychologists

    On BMW and fancy cars: Penis Enlargement

  • Based on normal browser usage, 90% of the ads will be for viagra and it's herbal relatives.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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