[projectvrm] "Dodge-the-Algorithm"

[Don Marti < >]

A social site user story...

  "I mostly encounter three types of ads online:
  weight loss, beauty products, and online degrees
  from shady for-profits. “They” know I’m
  a woman so they serve me an endless stream
  of predatory ads which play on gendered—and
  economic—insecurities. I choose not to block all
  ads partly because it’s useful to my research
  to see how things work online, and also partly
  because I thought this had little to no effect on
  me, personally.

  Except, you know, when I actually needed to lose
  weight after an ankle injury immobilized me for two
  months and I wanted to ask my smaller online social
  network for advice. Unfortunately, my smaller social
  network online mostly lives on Facebook, where I
  get the worst, ugliest and most predatory ads...."

  
https://medium.com/message/how-to-lose-10-pounds-while-playing-dodge-the-algorithm-88237cd02f95

So, that's one point of view.

The other POV is from the advertiser side...holy
shizzle, targeted ads are a fun game.

Imagine all the wordplay fun of playing _Balderdash_
with the strategy-game fun of playing _Plague Inc._ 
That's ads.twitter.com.

If you thought social sites were an endorphin rush
from the _user_ side, man, the advertiser side is
even more so.  And you can talk people into letting
you play at work without getting in trouble, and the
in-game purchases are -> company money <-.  It even
gives a little bit of productivity warm-fuzzies,
if you have a comfortably stretchy definition of
productivity.

I have no idea where I'm going with this.  Maybe I
should just post some random links and call it done.

More progress toward the 2-logo Lumascape...
  
http://www.adexchanger.com/data-driven-thinking/facebook-and-google-are-bringing-walled-gardens-back/

"Brain-dead advertisers keep feeding the fraud machine"
  
http://adcontrarian.blogspot.com/2014/10/amazing-tale-of-online-ad-fraud.html

-- 
Don Marti                    
http://zgp.org/~dmarti/