The Language Log Experience
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Recently this video, or a link to it, has been showing up on just about every web page I visit:
Apparently I'm being targeted because I bought a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud through the University of Pennsylvania, and therefore Adobe thinks that that Penn and I are likely candidates for Adobe Experience Cloud, which
gives you access to an integrated set of solutions to build campaigns, manage your advertising, and gain deep intelligence about your business. And it’s all unified through powerful core services that give you access to your customer profiles, centralized assets, powerful tagging, and an ecosystem of partners and developers to extend the value of all the solutions. It’s everything you need to orchestrate a great customer experience.
where "orchestrate a great customer experience" seems to mean "manipulate people like the secret police do in dystopian spy thrillers". But with a personal touch, of course, and only with their best interests in mind.
So be warned — "experience" Language Log, and we may start sending you discount offers for that new dictionary you've had your eye on, suggestions about the pronoun choices in your Facebook posts, and recommendations for a surprisingly affordable Intelligent Assistant to help you optimize your Tinder profile.
(Not.)
Update — Coming at me IRL as well:
How Data Science, Machine Learning, and AI are Transforming the Consumer Experience
P. Anandan
VP for Research
Adobe Systems
April 24, 3-4 pm, Skirkanich Hall Berger Auditorium
During the last two decades the experience of consumers has been undergoing a fundamental and dramatic transformation – giving a rich variety of informed choices, online shopping, consumption of news and entertainment on the go, and personalized shopping experiences. All of this has been powered by the massive amounts of data that is continuously being collected and the application of machine learning, data science and AI techniques to it.
Adobe is a leader the Digital Marketing and is the leading provider of solutions to enterprises that are serving customers both in the B2B and B2C space. In this talk, we will outline the current state of the industry and the technology that is behind it, how Data Science and Machine Learning are gradually beginning to transform the experiences of the consumer as well as the marketer. We will also speculate on how recent developments in Artificial Intelligence will lead to deep personalization and richer experiences for the consumer as well as more powerful and tailored end-to-end capabilities for the marketer.
BillR said,
April 11, 2017 @ 9:36 pm
Say, "Hello," to your new overlords.
speedwell said,
April 11, 2017 @ 10:00 pm
Gee, that's desperate and horribly tone-deaf. Adobe is a latecomer to a field that includes fifty more usable data analysis and business intelligence packages, the best of which is Microsoft PowerBI (I'd link to my page about that for more information but you're fed up enough with marketing right now, I think). If you don't run AdBlock Plus and Ghostery, do so, and tell Adobe to stick it where the sun don't shine.
[(myl) I thought the ad was simultaneously clever and horrifying. I especially appreciated the ironic reversal of who's robbing whom.
I do normally run AdBlock, but some sites make you turn it off and then I sometimes forget to turn it on again.]
Duncan said,
April 12, 2017 @ 1:12 am
I'm assuming this one's going to tip toward a discussion of adblockers and browser security, and am posting in that context. If it's considered abuse, feel free to delete.
No specific adblock here, but I /do/ run an extension (uMatrix) that flips the invalid presupposition that just because I visit some site (like languagelog), I automatically want to connect to and load anything from any other sites that the page I'm actually visiting _suggests_ that I load. Because most ads are one very common usage of that invalid assumption, they normally get blocked. But when they are served from the same server or another in the same domain that's already whitelisted as it's serving images/css/scripts for the page that I /want/ to see, they are not blocked. But in that case it's almost always ads for related articles from the same site that I'm very likely interested in anyway or I'd not have been visiting that page in the first place.
There are other extensions (such as the request-policy-continued I ran previously) that similarly allow whitelisting/blacklisting connections per site, but what uMatrix does very nicely is display a grid of site vs. content type, allowing me to very quickly identify which sites the page is trying to load images from, for instance, vs. css, vs. scripts, etc, and to with a click or two allow or deny say css and images from that site, without allowing scripts.
So I can allow languagelog css/images/scripts, only when visiting a languagelog page, without allowing anything from other upenn.edu sites (which LL doesn't appear to try to load anyway), and without anything from google-analytics (which LL also tries to load, scripts) at all, ever. I can also only allowing twitter (which again LL is trying to load, scripts) when I'm actually visiting a twitter page, NOT when I'm visiting LL.
FWIW, this LL page is also trying to load a youtube frame. I've not allowed that by default, but I can always allow it temporarily if I'm interested in a particular video discussed on an LL page. The alternative of course is separately opening youtube in its own tab/window and googling there based on the video description, thus not letting youtube (and google which owns it) track the fact that I'm coming to it from LL.
Y said,
April 12, 2017 @ 1:26 am
I didn't watch the video. The paragraph, which I suppose is meant to make business types weak at the knees, hurt my eyes. All that campaigns assets ecosystems value solutions stuff.
Jenny Chu said,
April 12, 2017 @ 1:27 am
What, and now you shared the video and even embedded on your blog? Guess what: now you're on their "interested pre-purchase" list. :)
Robot Therapist said,
April 12, 2017 @ 5:50 am
My general experience of this is that once I buy something online, I then get bombarded with adverts for that thing. The thing that I just bought, e.g. a set of saucepans, which I am very unlikely to want to buy again, because I now have it.
richardelguru said,
April 12, 2017 @ 5:54 am
Not entirely OT, but this made me think of something that seems utterly weird.
If I buy something online (particularly from Amazon), the company I purchased the thing from will start to bombard me with ads for either exactly the same thing or for alternative versions of that thing.
They are obviously trying to induce buyers' remorse, but I'm intrigued as to why???
richardelguru said,
April 12, 2017 @ 5:56 am
Robot
How dare you get there before me!
:-)
[(myl) And before me!
Like everyone else who's bought anything on line, I've noticed the same thing. There are some products (say, wine?) where having bought some once, you're a likely candidate to buy more, maybe even right away. But there are lots of other examples where "buyer's remorse" is the only possible result from further advertising. This seems to be a case where the left hand of the dystopian spy thriller secret police doesn't know what the right hand has done, or perhaps is too stupid to draw an appropriate conclusion.]
Joe said,
April 12, 2017 @ 9:57 am
Someone once sent me link to an article making fun of $10K ethernet cables for "audiophiles" who want a better sound from their digital audio systems. After reading that article and clicking on the links provided, I started to get ads for various expensive, "high-end" "audio" ethernet cables that claim to improve the quality of my digital sound.
I'm guessing that the targeting mechanism still has to learn irony as I am definitely not in the market for expensive ethernet cables.
[(myl) Several times a week, I do an internet search in the service of some language log post, with a list of results including items that trigger this type of response. In those cases my curiosity was typically lexicographical rather than ironic, much less commercial, but the marketing systems don't care.]
David L said,
April 12, 2017 @ 11:01 am
Sad example of internet marketing: some months ago I searched online for vets who would visit my home to take care of (you know what I mean) my exceedingly old and frail cat. I found someone who did a very good job. But then I was assaulted with countless ads for in-home pet euthanasia — presumably on the assumption that I was host to an entire zoo of animals at or near death's door.
Richard Hershberger said,
April 12, 2017 @ 12:02 pm
My take on the ridiculous push ads is that targeting ads is harder than, um…, advertised. The outfits that sell these have hyped the technique far beyond its actual capabilities. Even Amazon and Netflix, who have a lot of information about my book and video preferences, do a lousy job, with recommendations that are either trivial or absurd. If technically capable companies with detailed information on my actual purchasing habits can't get it right, it is hopeless to think that advertising aggregators can pull this off based on my Google searches.
Joe said,
April 12, 2017 @ 12:44 pm
@Richard Hershberger: Hopefully, it'll get better now that folks can get access to a bigger and more accurate data set of your preferences.
MattF said,
April 12, 2017 @ 12:52 pm
It's irritating to get ads for the thing you just bought, but there's a reason for getting those ads. It's common for online 'new economy' sites to sell exactly -one- rather specific type of product– e.g., underwear, razors, mattresses, eyeglasses… whatever, but -just- that one type of thing. So, if these companies are going to advertise, the advertisement will be for that one specific thing, because they have no other choice.
Ed M said,
April 12, 2017 @ 1:03 pm
The creepiest ad-targeter is Amazon. Just look at a product while logged in and within minutes ads for that thing start appearing on WaPo and elsewhere. Then Apple helps out by syncing Safari history across Macs and iPads, so that ads infect the iOS device.
I was curious how far this would go, so I browsed for caskets on Amazon — yes you can buy a casket from them and have UPS deliver it. Minutes later, WaPo was injecting casket ads into every page.
January First-of-May said,
April 12, 2017 @ 3:20 pm
A few months ago, I needed to find a particular book on probability theory to prepare for an exam. One of the authors was Yakov Sinai.
I got ads about vacations in the Sinai Peninsula for the next few weeks.
Duncan said,
April 12, 2017 @ 4:03 pm
Until late last year I hadn't experienced the infamous internet "buy it, then get ads for what you just bought" phenomenon at all, likely because by the time so-called targeted advertising became a thing, my browser security (see comment #3) was high enough I didn't see most ads and ideally avoided most tracking, except when actually making a purchase, as well.
But last year I bought a house and needed furniture, etc. I bought much of it online, more precisely, at walmart.com, which not only tends to arguably reasonable prices, but gives you the choice for local store pickup, avoiding delivery scheduling hassles.
Of course walmart is known for their inventory and customer data operations in-store and they do it online as well. I gave them an older mostly spam email address to use and permission to send me ads, and now the email has ads for beds I've already bought, etc. So now I've seen the effect in action. =:^] But I've not gotten ads for same walmart-card in-store purchased stuff, perhaps because they know that'd spook the customers even more than getting ads for internet purchases does.
Anway, it's limited to email, and as it happens that address is shutting down the end of May anyway. The big wave of post-movein purchases has washed over now, and rather than update the email address on that account, I think I'll just let it die with the email address, and setup a new one with a different address. I'm under no illusions that they can't/won't still track by card usage, but we'll see if they consider that cross-tracking too spooky to directly let the customer know about with cross-walmart.com-account email ads, or not.
Meanwhile, no ads following me around on the web, because as explained in comment #3 my browser security doesn't tend to allow cross-site tracking, and thus cross-site ads.
Bloix said,
April 13, 2017 @ 8:55 pm
"They are obviously trying to induce buyers' remorse, but I'm intrigued as to why???"
I don't think so. I think they are advertising to people like me. When I am thinking about buying something, I will spend weeks looking at ads and thinking about it. Even things that aren't terribly expensive. I spent about a month looking at different weekend watches before buying one for about 100 bucks. During that month I was up for grabs, and I got a lot of ads for watches. After I bought one I still got ads for a week or so, and then they went away.
richardelguru said,
April 14, 2017 @ 6:52 am
Bloix,
that makes sense, and might be useful to both parties.
However what we are referring to are the ads that are sent after the item has been bought.
Ellen K. said,
April 14, 2017 @ 1:17 pm
I think reason for ads for things we've already bought is because the bots that give us the ads don't differentiate whether or not we've bought the stuff we looked at. And I suppose there are enough people, who, like Bloix, do a lot of looking before buying to make it seem (to advertisers) worthwhile to send ads for stuff we've already looked at.
Which presumably works some of the time, but annoys not only those who already purchased, but also those who decided not to purchase.
MikeA said,
April 17, 2017 @ 12:29 pm
Adobe has form. I once gave them a real (but "nonce") email address as required by product registration for PageMaker (for my iMac, iirc, so a while ago). In a few hours that address started getting spam from a porn vendor. That's when I found out that the "report abuse" procedure for Adobe did not involve a web form, email address, or phone number, but rather sending paper mail to a law office in Los Angeles with only a Post Office Box as "contact info")
Meanwhile, perhaps I've mentioned it before, but Gmail once apparently noticed that a thread I was on was about Functional Programming, and started placing ads on the web version about kilt rentals and bagpipe lessons. This has LL significance because it apparently "reasoned" that Functional Programming included Haskell (a particular FP language, not at that time yet mentioned on the thread) which was developed in Glasgow (also not mentioned), so I must be interested in Scots-stuff.