Google Goes Las Vegas
Robert X. Cringely,
I, Cringely,
Dec 15, 2005
So anyhow, I went out for a beer last night and ran into someone who has a business in electronic display ads. Small world. So we got to talking about Google and adwords and customer demographics and all that, and it became clear that in his view the only thing preventing extensive profiling is legislation (and that this is already well under way elsewhere). He also streams news content into his service, which makes sense, as it gets people to view the ads, but what surprised me was that the news services pay big money for placement into this market. Yes, these are the same news services that resolutely don't want people to syndicate their content. Facinating. Anyhow, this article is about some of the mechanations that go on behind the scenes at Google, and it raises the question of how ad placement and content placement works. It should be evident that there is a lot going on behind the scenes, not all of it fair cricket. Cringely: "It's like Vegas," said my friend. "They want you to lose. Try to game the system and they cut off one of your legs." Via Slashdot.
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