New Technology May Force Ad Viewing

[Blodrast]

tell us, tell us !!

[Catiline]

It won't happen, it's too reactionist a technology.

What will happen is ther way we pay for 'TV' will change. Currently we take the ads becuase it pays for the TV, and a huge majority of TV is still not watched on TIVO/PVRs. When you watch live TV you're stuck with ads. You cxan be clever and start watching stuff late, but the miajority won't. They'll settle down in front of LOST and while away the extra 10 minutes because they want to talk about it tomorrow at work. As long as that ethos exists, advertising revenues will flow.


Technologically however. htat's unsustainable. All of us here are to some extent of a generation where by TV is not naturally an on demand medium. We have bred and nurturedtolerance to advertising. Next decades generation won't have that tolerance., They'll grow up on IPTV and Video on Demand. The concept of a channel in our sense will be alien to them. At that point hte Foxs and ITVs of htis world are screwed. And htey're shitting themselves over it ( this is a good hting, since it makes me rich writing conferences ).

To be conspiratorial about it, even the govt are in on the act, hence the loosening, in the UK at least of the product placement laws. We'll still be pitched to. It'll just be subtler

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Muting won't work. Any code/hardwiring combination that freezes your channel-changing during advertisements will no doubt freeze all of the controls -- even power, otherwise what's the point.

Will there be a "go-around?" Almost certainly. Many of us who are reasonably comfortable with technology are unlikely to use such however, as we are morally queasy about supporting piracy and the like. I never used napster either -- and that wasn't exactly user-UNfriendly.

I wonder when ads will invade elsewhere?

Could you conceive of CA selling ad space to defray costs? Imagine your battlefield unit beating those peasants and then, when we would normally see "celebrating" in the description, the unit cheers and its banner changes into a larger one reading "DRINK RC COLA" or some such.

I wonder how the EB folks would handle that.....


** no offense intended to the RC folks.

[Kralizec]

Well we'll always have this one

[The_Doctor]

Well we'll always have this one

Looks painful.

[SwordsMaster]

Advertisements CAN be placed anywhere. Following Seamus' example, imagine your troops all dressed in "Adidas" tunicas with a big "Coke" logo on the front. Specially on multiplayer, where all of that could change with every game.

the next generation in ads will come to your mobile phones. Or PDAs. Or your very own big screen iPod. Or in 20 years time, maybe directly into your brain. (Ok, this last one is just speculation, but don't tell me it doesn't sound impressive).

[solypsist]

i imagine at some point you'll have to wait through a small commercial before your multiplayer map loads up, on mp videogames. sort of like how if you want to watch a "free" vid online you have to watch the ad vid first.

[The_Doctor]

Or PDAs. Or your very own big screen iPod. Or in 20 years time, maybe directly into your brain. (Ok, this last one is just speculation, but don't tell me it doesn't sound impressive).

That was in Futurama. (Probably where you got the idea from).

Good ol' Wikipedia:

Fry: That's awful, it's like brainwashing.
Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?
Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams, only on TV and radio. And in magazines. And movies. And at ballgames, on buses, and milk cartons and t-shirts and bananas and written on the sky. But not in dreams, no siree!

[Kraxis]

I can't help thinking about Minority Report... That type of ads might actually happen within our lifetimes. Not a pleasant thought.

And I seriously hope someone will sabotage the controller for this sustem if it ever gets online.