I got an SMS ad on my phone yesterday. I don't know what it said: I was furious. I don't want ads in my SMS.
I am going to Whole Foods tonight. There are probably sales and ads that would encourage me to buy things that wouldn't otherwise end up in my cart. I still don't want those ads.
I am low on laundry detergent. There might be a sale going on at Target right now on exactly the laundry detergent that I want Even if there is, I don't want to know.
Oh, you know that I like working out and cycling from my Facebook profile so you're serving me up ads for protein shakes. Leave me the freak alone already, will ya?
I see a disturbing trend online among those who root for Facebook as the new underdog that will be even bigger than Google. Exponential growth! Open development platform! The Social Graph will trump the Web Graph! And, most disturbingly: Targeted Advertisement!
Up until the last one, I'm down with the speculation. That's what we're supposed to do as bloggers and technologists. But advertising? Yikes! I worry about twenty-somethings extolling their favorite Web site and wishing that it would make money through advertising. Who really likes advertising? And, for that matter, who would wish it upon themselves? Certainly not I. If Facebook were to remain ad-free, you won't here me complaining.
Ads work on some sites because of the mode that people are in. At Google, I am in searching mode. Since the ads sometimes provide results that wouldn't otherwise show up in the organic results, they can be of value to me. At Amazon, I am in buying mode. I don't mind their recommendation engine because when I'm surfing through Amazon, it's usually to make an order.
Now, when I'm tooling about in Facebook, I am in social mode. I want to see what my friends are up to, I want to promote myself, I want to join discussions, but I certainly don't want any retailers telling me that there's a sale on cycling equipment while I'm trying to play a game of Mafia. This is exactly why advertisements on social networks and media sites get such abysmal click-through rates: ads are a distraction when I'm trying to read an article or socialize.
So, tomorrow when Facebook officially announces next that it's going to use AI to enhance its advertising (is this news? Google surely uses some kind of AI in its ad servers), Facebook supporters will go ga-ga. I just wish people would take a step back and ask, "Wait, do I really want advertising?"
