However, re:
--- On Fri, 5/30/08, Keith E Gatling <keith@gatling.us> wrote:
> Now I know that there are some out there who will cry
> "Advertising!
> Advertising!" and complain that these services are
> suspect because they're
> profit-driven, and merely want to access our students'
> "eyes." Better, they
> would say, that we develop tools in-house that aren't
> tainted by the goal of
> trying to advertise to our students.
Profit-driven is fine. Advertising-driven and profit driven are two entirely different beasts.
>
> To this I bring up the examples of Newsweek, Time, Sports
> Illustrated, The
> New York Times, and many other periodicals we have our
> libraries subscribe
> to for our students. All of these feature advertising, and
> want just as much
> to get access to the eyes of our students and faculty
> members. What makes
> these old media examples any less evil than the new media
> ones? How much
> more would Newsweek cost if it were entirely subscriber
> supported?
One specific example (and there are others): Facebook's Beacon debacle. The continued existence of Facebook, MySpace, WebKinz are *predicated* on the need to gather specific user data to allow them to create more targeted ads. The old-school media examples you cite can all be read anonymously, ie, without an individual login (as most of the examples I have seen require a school-wide login). The FB/MySpace types sites all require individual logins, and the profile page/friendships/group affiliations/shared items (aka, the features) all provide valuable information to marketers.
So let's not kid ourselves. You can save money by using a free social networking service. But, to compare the ads on the NY Times to the advertising infrastructure that is Facebook is both technically inaccurate, and functionally inaccurate -- and our students and faculty need to know the difference.
Cheers,
Bill
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