[LINK] Google developing eavesdropping software

[Tom Worthington]

At 01:44 PM 9/12/2006, Richard Chirgwin wrote:
>Tom Worthington wrote:
>>> > to select ads, much as good does for web pages
>>> > <http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/adwords.shtml>. ...
>Isn't this, however, to project your preferences outwards? ...

There may be other options besides targeted ads. I am suggesting web 
type ads as a possibility for TV, as they work for web pages and the 
technology could be adapted to TV.

>.... "Do you want to hand over masses of personal information in 
>order that Google can provide targeted advertising ...

I would be happy to trade some privacy for better TV. Regular TV ads 
are so dumb that it would take very little personal information to 
make them targeted and much better.

>... I can do without the advertising ...

As long as you are willing to pay for the TV content in some other 
way you could have it without ads. If not by ads, then you pay by 
taxes (as with the ABC), donations (community TV), or subscription (Pay TV).

How about the model Eudora uses? They have a "Sponsored mode" with 
ads, or you can pay to get the same service without the ads 
<http://eudora.com/download/>.

Applied to TV (or an e-publication) this model would allow you to 
view for free with the ads, or pay to view without them. Based on 
Australian free-to-air TV revenue from advertising, you would have to 
pay about 26 cents* an hour to have the ads removed.

But a fairer price for free viewing might be calculated from the 
amount the advertisers for any particular show actually pay. So if 
the advertiser is willing to pay $1 to put ads on a show, you would 
have to pay that much not to see them.

* Australian free-to-air TV revenue is about $2.96B a year 
<http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/article.asp?parentid=37795>. With 
about 10 million viewers 
<http://www.freetvaust.com.au/SiteMedia/w3svc087/Uploads/Documents/9a18ec01-b020-4950-ba0c-e38d20cfbf53.pdf>, 
that means each viewer is worth about $296 a year to the TV stations, 
or about 81 cents a day. Each viewer watches about 3.12 hours of 
TV  a day <http://www.afc.gov.au/gtp/wftvanalysis.html>, so that is 
about 26 cents per hour of revenue per viewer. This seems comparable 
to web advertising costs.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                http://www.tomw.net.au/
Director, ACS Communications Tech Board   http://www.acs.org.au/ctb/
Visiting Fellow, ANU      Blog: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/atom.xml