Tag Archives: marketing - Page 2

How Staples Is Enticing Me

I get emails from Staples because sometimes they’re pretty good with coupons and whatnot.  They show up just about every day.  What isn’t very good about them (aside from the frequency) – and this is a rapidly deteriorating condition – is their subject lines.  I have a pretty deep-seated hatred for click-bait headlines, and running close behind that is a distaste for pointless headlines.  Here’s a bunch of recent examples:

  • ⌛ You hit it big! Open asap for a COUPON!
  • We need your attention! 20% off toner
  • Access: GRANTED.  Buy 1, get the 2nd 50% off!
  • Don’t waste this ☞ You’re first in line to get this COUPON for 20% off…
  • We dare you to miss out: Your sneak peek is here.
  • You’ve unlocked it! It’s official, you’re in. >>Save 60%<<
  • You were chosen: Last-minute gifts inside.
  • You checked your inbox just in time: Get up to $280 off.
  • Let’s see you resist this: COUPONS inside! You hit it big.
  • You rock! You checked your inbox just in time: Get up to $300 off laptops!
  • 🙂 Yes, it’s true! What are you waiting for?

This goes on and on.  Each time I think I have enough examples, they just keep coming…  Who the hell is writing this garbage?  Are they speaking to children?  Is anyone going to be fooled into thinking that they are getting some sort of exclusive offers?  So many questions.

You know when this started?  10/16/2015.  And it was identifiable by the first emoji ever used in the subject line of their emails.  This suggests that the marketing person is young and hip.  Young and hip doesn’t always mean smart.  Just as the younger generation is failing to learn proper composition in its many forms, they are woefully ignorant about business communications.  Staples is a business supply company and primarily communicates with professionals.

Regardless of the target audience, which is being completely ignored here, there are some simple rules with regard to correspondence, whether electronic or physical.  The rule being shat upon here is: “The subject line identifies the context of the letter”, as in “This letter is regarding…”  This is not achieved with “You were chosen” or “We dare you to miss out”.  Seriously, you, a company, are extending a challenge to me, a potential customer, to not purchase something from you.  I don’t think you realize just how easy that is to do.

Ok, I’ll admit, I don’t know if the marketing person/people are “young”.  But they definitely seem to be “young” in experience.  To be honest, the subjects really seem like they were written “offshore” by spam/scam professionals.  I can say that Staples trying to portray itself in this fashion is definitely a turn-off.  If I want to shop at a goofy store, I’ll go to Ollie’s Bargain Outlet.  Not even Big Lots has such corny emails.

Balancing On A Fence

One of the bigger time-sucks in my life is the image sharing community, imgur.  Recently, there has been a growing dissatisfaction with the method in which imgur handles advertisements.  I honestly can’t remember what it was like before the latest implementation, which I guess is a pretty good endorsement for “the old way.”  But the new way is certainly ruffling a lot of feathers.

Imgur has chosen to go the route of “Native Advertisements” in which ads look like normal content.  It’s a dangerous game because it risks having your users feel deceived once they realize they were just fed an advertisement and didn’t realize it.  Imgur has worked harder to make ads more identifiable while at the same time, tried to make the ad look more like regular content.  It’s not working out too well.

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I understand the need for advertisements from all three sides of the fence: the seller, the advertising host, and the consumer.  Each party has priorities that can hinder the effectiveness of advertising.  Understanding these needs and balancing them can make advertising better for everyone.  Come to think of it, there are actually only two sides of the fence: seller and consumer.  The host is the fence.

The seller has a product or service that they need to sell in order to stay in business.  With the assumption that the business is legitimate and their intentions are noble – that they really believe in their offering – there shouldn’t be any problem with seeing their advertising and hearing their sales pitch.  The problem is, the product may not be applicable for everyone, like selling cattle fencing to a wall street banker.  But – and this is a valid argument for the seller – that banker may know a rancher and may comment to them that they saw an interesting product recently.  That’s what ads are supposed to do, inform.

Now, the seller can be blinded by this natural benefit and may insist on everyone seeing their ads as many times as possible, because people have naturally short memories (“I saw this thing; no idea who made it or what it was called…”).  This results in fatigue and resentment for the consumer.

The advertising host has a bunch of potential consumers to whom advertisements can be shown.  In return, the host gets paid by the seller.  This helps pay the bills so the host can continue business.  The host has competing objectives: to keep the consumers happy and to keep the sellers happy.  Being in this position is not easy because pleasing one too much will upset the other.

The consumer, when visiting a host, gets served ads from a seller.  If they are shown too many ads or unusable ads, they will rebel against the host and maybe the seller.  I do believe that if an ad is relevant and presented in the correct manner, the consumer will not be offended.  If the ad can’t inform or educate, at least it should entertain.  Later ads on Imgur, from Old Spice and Ebay proved this to be true.

So, with the early uprising at imgur about ineffective advertisements, I thought I’d spend a few brain cycles on how I would implement an advertising mechanism into a website.  The primary thing I would want to ensure is that my users had a level of control without being able to completely eliminate advertisement.  That’s the balance every advertising host must maintain.

I came up with the following design.  It’s greatly simplified to just illustrate some talking points.

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The Campaigns and CampaignPosts are structures for ads and a means to group them.  For example, on imgur, there were ads for the upcoming movie Ted 2 (which were universally hated).  I’ve seen at least 3 different ads.  So the Campaign would be “Ted 2 Movie” and there would be 3 or more CampaignPosts under it.

Now, how does the user have control over this?  There are two ways: at the post level and at the campaign level.  When an ad is shown, the ImpressionCount of the UserCampaignPosts is incremented.  Imgur has voting arrows, so the downvote arrow would operate like my hypothetical website’s “Do not show again” button.  This would set a negative rating for the CampaignPost and it would not be shown to the user again.

The great part of this design is the advertising dashboard for the user to allow them to disable entire campaigns.  Why would you let a user do that?  Well, there are some things that people are opposed to on principle and it is futile to convince them otherwise.  In fact, displaying more ads to them would hurt your cause.  Just think of pro-life/pro-choice ads, or anything political, or Mac/PC.

On this advertising dashboard, a user would see all the active campaigns for the website and could opt out of them.  The CampaignPosts within each Campaign would not be shown to that user anymore.  Sounds really simple.  But! An advertiser has paid for these ads to be seen and as the host, you need to show them.  If it was just as easy as unchecking all the checkboxes, no one (who was registered on the website) would ever see any ads.

So, in order to opt out of a Campaign, all of the CampaignPosts need to have an ImpressionCount greater than zero.  That means a user has to see every ad for a campaign at least once.  Is that fair?  I think it is.  I envision it being similar to this conversation:

Seller: “Eat at Joes, please.”
Consumer: “No.”
Seller: “Joe’s has good food.”
Consumer: “I do not eat at Joe’s and never will.”
Seller: “Ok, just hear me out and I won’t bug you anymore.”
Consumer: “Fine, go ahead.”
Seller: “Joe’s has healthy lunch options.”
Seller: “Joe’s is open late on weekends for after-party recharging.”
Seller: “Joe’s is also active in the community, sponsoring children’s sports programs.”
Seller: “That’s all I got.  Thanks for listening.”
Consumer: “Still not convinced. No thank you.”

The seller gets all the views and the consumer, even if they just pass over them and don’t pay attention, still gave an effort.  So to mimic that sort of offer to opt out of future ads by viewing all current ads in one batch, that same functionality would be in the dashboard – to view all ads for a campaign.  And they would remain there just in case a consumer had a partial memory of one and wanted to get more info for someone else.  But, once all the current ads are shown, the option to opt out would be enabled.  Once the Campaign is opted-out, future ads won’t be shown.

If you’re thinking ahead or you’ve got a scheming mindset like I do, you might wonder why a seller wouldn’t just launch a bunch of campaigns with one ad each, so consumers would constantly have to visit the dashboard to opt out of each campaign.  That onus is on the host and it’s managed very easily – via cost.  Campaigns should cost more to start up, but adding more ads to an existing campaign is more cost-effective.  Or maybe it’s a sliding scale that the more active campaigns you have going, the more it costs.  In that way, the host protects its users and can balance risk vs. reward.

The host also gets the benefit of an incentive for people to register for the website.  Registering would give a user the ability to manage the advertisements.  Non-logged-in users would get ads from all active campaigns.

In this case, everyone compromises and everyone gets some benefits.  The seller can’t spam the consumers if they choose to opt out, but they do get the opportunity to “speak their piece” in its entirety at least once.  The host may not get as much money (if they are paid per impression), but they will have a happier user base.  The consumer has the opportunity to control what ads they want to see, but in order to block a campaign, they have to see all the ads in it first.

It’s not all bad for the consumer.  I can imagine there could be some compelling ads, or some from a company they respect that the consumer may choose to keep active.  The host’s logic needs to be dynamic enough to not show the same ads over and over and to possibly reduce the number of ads to the most engaged users.  Maybe try to hit a target number of impressions per week per user.  Once a user is nearing that number, back off on the ads.

A lot of times, I find that my ideas are too altruistic and give people the benefit of the doubt too much.  Fortunately, my default is not to be jaded and cynical, despite the number of posts in the Rant category.  The problem with dealing with people is that compromise is always a last resort.  So this idea would probably never be accepted because no one wins.

Door-To-Door Windshield Replacement

Yup, that’s right.  I had two people in my neighborhood going door to door telling people they would replace their windshield for free by submitting claims to their insurance.  Oh, this is right up my alley.  First, a story from my past.

Somewhere around 5 years ago, when I had my Acura, I had a small crack develop on my windshield.  Here where I live, there’s some deal that insurance companies have to fix cracked windshields for free.  So, I call my insurance company and say I need my windshield fixed because there is a crack.  They say no problem and send a company out for the repair.

The repair company looks at my car and calls me outside.  They say I need to replace my windshield.  The Acura is at least 8 years old and has like 150k miles on it.  I say, you can patch that, the technology will handle this.  They say they’ll check it again and I go back inside.  They call me back and say that I need my windshield replaced.  I tell them I want a second opinion and I’ll call my insurance company again.  They weren’t happy, but what could they do?

I call the insurance company and explain to them that I felt they were being ripped off by the company they sent first and I wanted someone who would come out and patch my windshield.  They obliged me and when I went out to meet the new repair people, I went to show them the small crack I wanted patched.  The crack wasn’t small anymore.  The previous company had pressed on the crack and expanded it before I dismissed them.  I was furious.

Despite that, the new company was able to patch the larger crack and it never grew for as long as I had the car.  So you can say I am a fan of patching whenever possible.

Jump forward to today and I have this hyper dude telling me that yeah, I have some chips in my windshield and they can replace it for free just by getting my insurance information.  I start my objection by saying I am a fan of patching, not replacing.  He makes some claim that if you have more than 6 chips (and he’s sure there’s at least that many), your insurance will recommend you replace.  I think that’s bullshit, so I just say that replacement is unnecessary.

He says that I don’t pay for anything.  The insurance company pays for it.  I hold up my finger like the educated man I am and reply, “Ah, but I do.  The cost of replacements is reflected in everyone’s insurance cost.”  Deftly countering that argument he says, “You realize you’ve paid for this many times over already, right?”  So I don’t have to pay for this but I’ve already paid for it many times over.  This guy is an uber-salesman.  I just shrug and say, “Hey, I’m just doing my part to keep costs down for everyone.”

I explained to him my glass has already been replaced once and I like the one I have because it’s a little more tinted than the factory glass.  Somehow he still thinks he has a sale, so he says he can put a tint strip along the top.  That’s fucking ugly.  He throws out another option.  No.  Not interested.  So that starts a whole new argument about how this isn’t the right windshield for my car.  What?  Then he says the manufacturer of my glass isn’t that good of quality.  He will guarantee his glass with a lifetime warranty.  Eye-roll.

So I educate him that the car is 5 years old, has been through a flood, is on its second engine, has 190k miles, and just got repaired from a rear-end accident.  The windshield is really the least of my concerns.  At this point he is laughing at me.  Not the kind of laugh that I’m out-arguing him, but more of a mocking laugh.  Fuck this guy.

He shakes my hand and thanks me for my time.  I decided to give him an honest offer that I would call them if I did choose to have my windshield replaced.  I asked for a business card.

“I don’t have any cards.  All I have are invoices.  Invoices for people who are getting windshield replacements.”  Well then.  You can go fuck yourself and your fly-by-night scam business.  Boy, I wish I paid more attention when he talked about his company so I could report them for fraud.

Getting Your Due

I mentioned in a previous post about a blogger who had posted something that didn’t really sit right with me.  When I went to confirm some details in that prior post, I saw that I used this post’s title in that post.  So, I guess I still have the same issues.

In the previous post, I was saying how the entrepreneurial lifestyle isn’t for everyone, and certainly not me.  Aside from the level of effort it takes to start it up and keep it going, I also have significant issues with a practice I have been seeing more frequently.  That practice is the monetization of information.  One blog that I follow has reviews on random products that are interesting.  Recently, that blogger started linking to those products using affiliate links so they get a slight reimbursement for their referrals.  That was never the case before.  And this other blogger recently made a post expressing the same thing, that he needs to start using affiliate links whenever he is giving advice or recommendations.

This bothers me for so many reasons.  First and foremost is the WIIFM aspect (What’s In It For Me?).  WIIFM isn’t always bad, but when the only thing you are interested in is money, I think it is.  Why should someone promote another’s website/product/service?  Well, you could because you want to see the company succeed or because you want your readers to benefit from a great product/service.  Or, somewhat selfishly, you want the company to stay in business because you use that company too and you need them to stick around.  Or, as I see these affiliate links, you don’t particularly care about the company or your readers and just want some money. 

Affiliate links are a scourge on the Internet.  Once you start down that path, it’s a very short walk until you get to entire websites that trick people who have misspelled a domain name.  What “entrepreneur” had the idea of “Oh you misspelled macys.com as macies.com.  Here’s a link to the real site you were looking for.  By the way, anything you purchase after clicking on that link will give me a small payout.  It won’t affect anything you do, but it’s just a way for you to pay me back for this helpful site I created to correct your misspelling.  You’re welcome.”

Along with the WIIFM issue is the viewpoint that information is not free.  Something like “I could tell you what you want to know, but I need a small payment first.”  Some people could argue that it’s a fair exchange.  The information is there for free if you can find it, but if you want a shortcut over the bridge, you need to pay the toll operator.  It sounds like a “victim of success” complaint.  You want to be an authority, but once you are an authority, you’re in too much demand and so you have to employ discouragements.

Before I make this too long of a rant, here’s an example of linking to something just because you want to:

This Kickstarter is a book of comics.  It’s organized by Matt Bors, who is a comic writer I’ve followed for quite a while.  He went to a paid website and let his personal website die, and I didn’t follow him to his new home.  However, I try to support him when I can, and this is one of those times.  If you like to get world perspectives through visual media, like comics and illustrations, this book would suit you well.

Maker Shack

Radio Shack has been on the decline for a very long time and now is bankrupt.  The sad thing is that Radio Shack is missed out on a new and upcoming market.  I’m not the brightest and most visionary person out there, so I’m amazed that no one else has really considered this.

I think most people agree that Radio Shack lost its way when it started focusing on cheap consumer electronics because its sales of raw electronic parts was declining.  Then it got into mobile phones, like every other electronic retailer.  And then it lost whatever it was that made it different.

My proposal would be for Radio Shack to return to its roots as a hobbyist store.  Yes, it’s entirely likely that being in that market space means a number of stores will have to close.  But, if you want to be successful, you need to stand out.

The stores should stock all manner of hobbyist, DIY, build/maker gear.  There’s no shortage of it now.  You have Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Makey Makey, LittleBits, and more.  Plus, 3d printers are talked about a lot, but no one really talks about where to buy them.  Have an advertising blitz that establishes Radio Shack as a source of 3d printers and DIY kits and you have brand recognition.  3d printing=Radio Shack.  The old logic was that if you wanted to build something electronic, you go to Radio Shack.  That thought can be brought back.

Of course, you can keep the electronic parts around.  Actually, there needs to be another competitor in the PC parts arena.  Best Buy is everywhere and their prices suck.  Tiger Direct is much better, but has far fewer stores.  In fact, Tiger Direct has exited the retail space.

The next thing that needs to be done is something that I’ve been hearing about with stores like Macy’s.  Turn the retail stores into warehouses and distribution centers.  Ship online orders to customers and replenish nearby stores from other stores.  Stock levels can immediately be determined, so why not?  It will keep your staff busy, too.

There needs to be an easy way for a customer to find something, whether it is in the store, a nearby store, or further away.  Then the customer can choose to go to the other store to buy it, or have it shipped.

And although this isn’t really part of the plan, why aren’t companies, especially tech companies, doing something with youth to promote build/make?  Home Depot has children workshops, why can’t Radio Shack?  Why can’t a representative visit schools and give a talk or presentation involving building and creating your own things?

But, aside from the company now essentially out of business, I recently read an article (and article comments) that indicated Radio Shack had a toxic corporate culture that would not be easily fixed.  So I doubt my idea would work right out of the gate.  There would have to be massive house-cleaning, then the rebuilding of employee trust. 

All Things Considered

Since I’ve been working on my CD collection, I’ve been thinking about CDs a lot lately. There’s a lot of talk on the death of the CD format, with it being replaced by digital downloads. On top of that, there’s talk about the music industry not making any money anymore. On top of that, there’s the discussion of digital piracy and how to get people to pay for music again.

All these issues are intertwined.  The industry is losing money in some areas, but not in all.  Part of it is because of the third point, piracy, but another good part of it is that there are now multiple, durable playback mediums.  CDs are very durable, and where they may fail, digital copies and CDRs fill in the gaps.  So the industry doesn’t have the opportunities to resell an entire collection to a consumer in a new format, and the instances where the industry has to sell replacements has decreased, too.  You can see the industry trying to adapt by selling special editions and remastered versions.  It’s not working out all that well.

Some say the CD is dead for the same reason “books are dead” – because the physical media takes up space.  I recently read about a company whose purpose is to license out-of-print classical music and create CDs on-demand.  It made me wonder if the entire music business could be like this.  (I’ve also wondered if automobile sales could be like this, too.)

My issue with that concept is that CDRs do have a limited shelf life.  Supposedly, aluminum CDs also have a shelf life, but that is yet widely proven.  Also, for me, buying a CDR is no different than downloading the music and making the CDR myself.  So, unless someone is willing to archive the glass masters and one-off actual CDs, I’ll stick with my originals.

So, let’s think of the future where manufacturing CDs is obsolete and digital or CDR is pretty commonplace.  In that time, real CDs have value – they are elevated to collectables.  So, why can’t the industry make that happen a little sooner?  Just manufacture less CDs and let the market decide who wants to pay to own a physical copy of the music instead of owning a license to a digital copy.  The CD becomes the collectable.  The industry saves money from having a lower on-hand inventory.  CDs gain a marketing edge as “limited quantity”.

In some of my daydreams where I am a famous musician or maybe the owner of a record label company, I would brainstorm how to make my albums valuable and how to get people to buy instead of steal.  A long time ago, I thought including a video with the album would be a nice value-add.  Back then, digitally copying a DVD was prohibitive in storage and bandwidth.  Not so much anymore.  And now today, lots of special edition albums include a behind-the-scenes DVD.  So then what?  I also thought about books.  Books are more difficult to reproduce digitally and don’t hold the same allure when seen on a screen.  A recent album I purchased was being sold direct by the record label as a bundle with a DVD, a shirt and a poster.  It was 3x what I paid for it, but I think that’s a nice option.  Whatever the solution is, it has to be physical, because digital has no value.

And maybe in the future, the only physical thing needed to make the album special will be the CD itself.

We Believe

Today I saw a funny video on a forum.  I thought to myself, “this is going to explode”, so I went to YouTube to see what the play count was.  400k.  Not bad.  I’ll have to check it later.  I noticed something really peculiar in the video description:

“For licensing/usage please contact: licensing@jukinmedia.com

Huh?  This was supposed to be someone’s funny personal video.  Did this person have the foresight to actually license their personal video?

I visit the website and this statement jumps out at me:

WE BELIEVE CONTENT CREATORS SHOULD BE REWARDED FOR THEIR WORK.

What the hell?  Further:

JukinVideo.com has the world’s largest selection of short-form, viral video content available for licensing.

Ok.  I am feeling totally ripped off now for even watching that and considering sharing it.  “Viral video content” – I don’t even know how to describe this.  I was under the impression that “viral” was something that happened to a video, not something that was premeditated.  How naive I am.

But let’s jump back to that first statement.  I do believe that people who become viral sensations are rewarded in some way for their work.  They do get lots of media attention, then it’s up to them to parlay that into something of lasting monetary value.  This site is not needed.

This site’s statement should read: “WE BELIEVE WE DESERVE A CUT OF YOUR SUCCESS.”  Because that’s what they’re doing, injecting themselves between your work and the world, buffered by a team of legal experts that will “protect your (they really mean their) content rights.”  This is a company that is intent on taking everything wrong with the entertainment industry and applying it to the free internet.

I am curious how this works, because they do have examples of honestly homemade videos.  Do they seek out funny videos, then approach the owner and say, “Let us license your video and we’ll pay you a percentage of the licensing fees we get. Why not, you won’t make anything on your video otherwise.”  But is that true?  If this company owns the right to that video and it goes viral, what are your rights for show appearances, travel and reimbursements?  Do they own you?  I know enough about the entertainment industry to know you are not the one who will profit from this deal. 

You can be assured that the rights will be in perpetuity, which means they can resell your video over and over forever, to TV shows, DVD collections, or even Time-Life greatest hits.  The video isn’t yours anymore.  Depending on how the contract is written, you may not see any “royalties” after a certain period.

I am disgusted.

Seeing Dollar Signs

Out for lunch today I saw one of those roadway signs: “100 Signs for $299!!”  I’ve been seeing quite a few of these lately (although I have definitely not seen 100).  It’s made me think of a scam.  I’m not sure of I have a nose for identifying scams or a brain for creating scams.  But anyway, here’s what you do.  And, just for the record, I didn’t think of this until I saw a potential giveaway one day.

So you find someone who will print the signs for $179 (100 of them!!!).  You create the sign to say “100 signs for $199!!!!”  Then you put the signs out in a place where Mr. $179 is not advertising.  You get a call, take the order, then place the order for $179 with your competitor.  You just made $20.  Do that 8 times and everything from there on out is profit.  The signs should last for quite some time and you don’t really have any expenses to keep up.

The only reason I thought of this is one day seeing a sign for $179 on one side of the road and $189 on the other side.  I wondered if the one guy used the other for printing.  And like I said, today, I saw a sign for $299.  That dude’s got some real balls.  He wants his investment back right away.

Executive Non-Profits

I recently found an article or post saying that the Firefox browser was considering putting ads into its “new tab” page.  Now to read the announcement, you’d think it was a great thing for the user, because when you install a new browser and run it for the first time, clearly you do not know what to do and where to go.  Welcome to 1990.

That lunacy is not the reason I felt compelled to write.  It’s been out of my thoughts for a long time that the Mozilla Foundation, who creates Firefox, is a very large non-profit organization.  It was just kind of in my thoughts that the Firefox team was a very large group of programmers, possibly headed up by some architects.  I envisioned a bunch of great minds working together for a noble cause.  That’s not really how it is.

It’s a company.  It’s a big company.  And there are a lot of people who get paid from this company.  I’ve talked before about how large non-profits are paying people with a lot of other people’s money.  And these people essentially have a perpetual conflict of interest.  Non-profits are typically created to solve a problem.  What happens when you win?  The non-profit isn’t needed anymore.  You’ve put yourself out of a job.

So there’s that part of it, that you’re getting paid to fight a war, but you don’t really want the war to end.  But then there’s the other part, which is, if you’re joining a non-profit, you should believe in the cause, right?  And your experience can further that cause, right?  But what if you have experience, but not the passion?  Then, money talks.

And money seems to be talking pretty well at Mozilla.  The directors of the foundation are doing ok.  $150k+ for a couple of them.  That’s actually pretty much in line with executive pay.  The others?  I mean only three others?  $500k+ each.  That’s kind of ill-proportioned, maybe.  For a non-profit, remember.  This is about a cause.  a cause you can’t begin to put a price on – keeping the Internet free.  I think these three are less about the cause and more about the salary.

Blah, blah, blah.  Big company, big salaries.  But here’s where it ties in with the article I read.  Mozilla hired a new person, brought in at the Vice President level, to use his skill to bring in more money for the organization.  The salary is unknown, but $100k+ is safe to guess.  His idea?  Advertising, under the guise of helping new users.  His job is to create the money to pay himself and all the other executives, because cost-cutting would be backwards.

The revenue for 2012 was in the range of 9 million.  The total salaries were 4 million.  The executive compensation was 2 million.  Nearly a quarter of revenue.  Nearly half of all salaries.

Let me sum this up.  Mozilla is about keeping the Internet free, so that it can’t be manipulated by corporations (never mind the recent failure of net neutrality).  Their solution to losing donation revenue given to them by corporations – primarily Google – is to use advertising by corporations, who will direct/inform/influence users to use the internet that best benefits them.  Anything wrong with that model?

I Guess I Won’t Bother

One of my new fun things to do is find the source of images that are used in Facebook ads.  Copy the image URL, paste it into Google image search and see what comes up.

I had this ad:

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And I found the same picture used on Twitter, so I was like, I should let her know her Twitter profile picture is being used for a dating ad on FB.

This was the start of “her” Twitter feed:

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The same post, over and over.

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And over and over.  I gave up after I got back to posts from 2010.  I guess that face was made for spam.  Poor girl.