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Google Advertising Businesses Cellphones Software The Almighty Buck Technology

Google Is About To Have a Lot More Ads On Phones (theverge.com) 163

The Verge reports on the new ad types Google announced today that will start showing up throughout its mobile products, including some that interrupt the core Google search and discovery experiences. From the report: Google searches on mobile will soon include "gallery" ads that allow advertisers to display multiple images for users to swipe through. You'll also begin to see ads in Google's discover feed -- the feed of news stories that you find built into many Android home screens, inside the Google app, and on Google's mobile homepage -- though they'll only appear in select locations for now. The new ad formats are meant to make ads a lot more noticeable. In a blog post, Google ad chief Prabhakar Raghavan says that, in tests, gallery ads resulted in "up to 25 percent more interactions" than traditional search ads.

Gallery ads will only be launching on mobile, not the desktop. Discover ads will appear in Google's mobile app, as well as on the discover feed on Android phones. Google tells us those ads won't appear in the discover feed that's built into the google.com mobile homepage. [...] The discover feed -- a personalized feed of recommended news stories that Google displays on mobile -- will also be getting ads for the first time. They'll appear just like any other story, with an image on top, a headline, and a subject field with more information. But they'll have a small badge that says "ad" to let users know it's sponsored. Those ads will extend to YouTube as well, where they'll slot in alongside recommended videos. Discover ads will also roll out later this year.

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Google Is About To Have a Lot More Ads On Phones

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  • Fuck all things Google. Boycott.

    • I am so old-school that I remember when seeing a banner ad on the internet was something novel, something you stopped and enjoyed for its novelty and rarity.

      We browsed the web with Netscape and, although the offerings were sparse, what we found was 100% signal, zero percent noise.

      Only other geeks and academics were contactable via email but the only spam we got was (allegedly) from character's such as Arne Rhodes and those gullible to fall for a ponzi scheme.

      There was no "free webmail" -- in fact there was

      • I am so old-school that I remember when seeing a banner ad on the internet was something novel, something you stopped and enjoyed for its novelty and rarity.

        I hate to state the obvious, but we did this because the banner ad was likely 100% relevant to the content we were viewing, was not hosted and delivered by a privacy-smashing ass-raping ad company, was not intrusive, and more importantly, could be clicked on without downloading bad stuff. As soon as all that shit started, the web was pretty much a goner. If you think about ads today, all of the traits above are in full swing. And (smart) users today spend lots of time and money avoiding it all.

        The breakin

  • Keep it up, Google (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nwaack ( 3482871 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @03:55PM (#58592874)
    You seem to think you're company is invincible and can do whatever it wants to its users. But there will be a tipping point, and you're getting dangerously close to stepping over that tipping point.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      they are slow-cooking the frog.

      the zombies that walk with their heads always pointed toward their phones; they are hooked and willl DO AS THEY ARE TOLD.

      don't kid yourself; we lost control over the web and the likes of google have ruined things beyond repair.

      there will be more ads and the arms race will escalate.

      I already refuse to use a non-rooted phone for anything web-based. and I don't install apps, either, other than the extreme bare minimum. none of that eco system is trustable.

      shame. we once had th

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Indeed. My next phone will be something that runs Lineage well and where I can (with reasonable effort) change the battery. I really don't care if that means less performance or a display that has only massively higher resolution than needed instead of excessively higher. I use a phone to make and get calls, for text messages, check email, check my calendar, as wireless access point and for the occasional authentication app and that is it. For other stuff, I have real computers.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Aighearach ( 97333 )

        they are slow-cooking the frog.

        This myth is even stupider than the Tulip one.

        Even frogs aren't stupid enough to believe that bullshit.

        Just look shit up; when you want to use a metaphor, spend 1 minute looking it up before you use it. What you're doing it just credulously repeating whatever shit you heard.

        The fact is, the shape of the pot that frogs are cooked in prevents the frogs from escaping. They cannot escape at any time, when the water is hot, when the water is cold. They're not going to escape. That they writhe in pain when the ho

        • The thing about this particular metaphor is that, despite it being based on a not-true idea, the myth still communicates valuable meaning. We knew exactly what he meant when we read his post.

          What's more, the myth actually makes the metaphor stronger in this case. Do people actually just not notice that the quantity of ads being shoved in their faces is increasing? I doubt it. Just like the frog, we're aware that something is wrong...
          • Right, right, but the valuable meaning that it conveys is that the speaker is generally full of shit and you should just discard them as a source.

            Unlike the frog, a user can block ads. I see about 1 internet ad every 3 months. I did see something wrong, around about the year 2000, and unlike the frog, I solved the problem right away.

      • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        I disabled google discovery when they delivered a 'news story' which was a straight up advertisement and not a news story at all, google are totally unreliable in this regard.

        I think we have entered a new era in advertising, as people are subjected to less and less advertising (thinking of today where most do not watch the idiot box with five minutes of screaming advertisements every 20 minutes, versus only occasional screaming advertisements), this resulting in reduce consumerism in lines with reduce opp

    • by vanyel ( 28049 )

      I hate the "discover feed" as it is, even though it doesn't pop up much (yet), and I'm about to uninstall Lyft because it pops up ads a few times a week. If they keep this up, I may go back to a dumb phone.

    • I'm surprised all the mobile phone companies don't hire Red Hat and/or Canonical to maintain a google-free fork of Android. Seems better for everyone (except google).
      • Adding systemd to a phone isn't going to help any.

      • I'm surprised all the mobile phone companies don't hire Red Hat and/or Canonical to maintain a google-free fork of Android. Seems better for everyone (except google).

        Amazon has already done this with Kindle Fire. It's true that it's a) a tablet, not a phone and b) arguably worse than Google, but it's still non-Google Android.

    • Yep, they are starting down the Yahoo path. Crap it up with so many ads and people will start leaving you. First a little and then a lot, all at once.

  • Sure am glad . . . (Score:5, Interesting)

    by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @03:59PM (#58592914) Journal

    I don't have one of these "smart" phones. Harassing your customers doesn't seem like a "smart" thing to do.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MightyYar ( 622222 )

      Right? I'm pretty solidly Android at the moment, but this might make iPhones look more attractive if it's not done well.

      • by philml ( 589423 )
        Agreed (undoing accidental flamebait moderation, oops clicking...).
    • by Anonymous Coward

      I don't have one of these "smart" phones. Harassing your customers doesn't seem like a "smart" thing to do.

      Celebrating your irrelevance and failure to adapt. Weird thing to be proud of.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Celebrating your irrelevance and failure to adapt. Weird thing to be proud of.

        * Celebrating his astuteness and wise adaption to our surveillance society. A good thing to be proud of.

        FTFY.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @05:35PM (#58593458)

      They are not harassing their customers. Their customers are the advertisers, who are being treated very well. They are harassing their product -- the user.

  • I have one thing to say if the Article is even close to being true "Goodbye Android, Hello Burner"
  • Google insists (Score:3, Insightful)

    by OneHundredAndTen ( 1523865 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @04:01PM (#58592918)
    It insists in catching up with, and surpassing, Microsoft when it comes to obnoxiousness. I guess they were never really serious about the "Don't Be Evil" thing.
    • I guess they were never really serious about the "Don't Be Evil" thing.

      No, you just weren't prepared for the slowly changing levels of "Evil" that Google Management has discovered.

      "Look! There's an even higher peak over there!" "Great, but how do we get to it?" "Well, let's see...."

  • by mentil ( 1748130 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @04:04PM (#58592942)

    With ad-free streaming and ad-blockers, and the fading of dead-tree media, a new generation is growing up without being deluged by advertisements. They might grow up and react with disgust to advertisements in their apps or elsewhere, so they have to be conditioned now.
    Heck, if it weren't for adware apps/games on mobile, they already would be intolerant of ads.

    • by Actually, I do RTFA ( 1058596 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @04:16PM (#58593048)

      You're so backwards. Kids in school watch ads before their "educational" YouTube videos play. They're no better as a generation at installing ad-blockers than millennials. And, not only do they have ads on all their mobile devices, but they get fed a fairly constant stream of sponsored content via influencers and that's after they watch an ad at the beginning of the YouTube video.

      It's sad, but they're more accepting of ads.

  • I donâ(TM)t want to pay for a device so I can be force fed ads. The present mobile landscape looks bleak, but I am still holding out for platforms that value both privacy and repairability. Hope springs eternal, Baldrick
    • This sounds like they've taken a look at an ad-infested Amazon Kindle Fire and thought "that looks great!". You can't have a Kindle with the screen turned on without seeing an ad - they're literally everywhere. I suspect Google are aiming for the same thing because those ads are hard to ad-block.

      One very good thing the Kindles do is "kids mode" - suddenly no ads at all, and only the apps you've allowed the kids to use. You can block the camera and browser too. Very nice - so long as you're under about the a

  • by Anonymous Coward

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    How do I get an IPO?

     

  • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @04:12PM (#58593022)

    Google searches on mobile will soon include "gallery" ads that allow advertisers to display multiple images for users to swipe through. You'll also begin to see ads in Google's discover feed -- the feed of news stories that you find built into many Android home screens, inside the Google app, and on Google's mobile homepage -- though they'll only appear in select locations for now. The new ad formats are meant to make ads a lot more noticeable. I

    Ads showing up when I'm not looking for them in my searches and on my home screen and -- bonus -- a lot more noticeable too!
    Time to stop using Google apps on my phone...

    From the article Google Marketing Live: Building for the new consumer journey [blog.google] (referenced in TFA):

    In a recent Google / Ipsos study, we saw that 76 percent of consumers enjoy making unexpected discoveries when shopping. And 85 percent of consumers will take a product-related action within 24 hours of discovering a product: reading reviews, comparing prices or purchasing the product—sometimes all at once!

    I don't think Google knows what "enjoy" means. This is not a journey I want to take.

    • by necro81 ( 917438 )

      From the article Google Marketing Live: Building for the new consumer journey (referenced in TFA):

      In a recent Google / Ipsos study, we saw that 76 percent of consumers enjoy making unexpected discoveries when shopping. And 85 percent of consumers will take a product-related action within 24 hours of discovering a product: reading reviews, comparing prices or purchasing the product—sometimes all at once!

      I don't think Google knows what "enjoy" means. This is not a journey I want to take.

      Ready Player [youtu.be]

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )
      Every few months another scare story about how advertisements are going become a plague to destroy Android... ad nasuem... And it still hasn't happened. There's a reason Google owns the online advertising space, it's because they know how not to push people. So I'm going to remain skeptical about the Android admurgeddon. I dislike most advertising tricks as much as the next person who has half a brain. I run Ublock Origin and Privacy Badger on every device I own or use on a regular basis. If Google was th
  • NO thanks! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @04:16PM (#58593052)

    You'll also begin to see ads in Google's discover feed

    This will not infect me, at least not via the Android vector. I switched to iPhone (reluctantly) after waiting years for Google to get it's security act together, and while I'm not particularly trusting of Apple, when it comes to my privacy and security, I trust them a bit more than Google.

    Which is a shame. I really want to like Google. I did at one time. But this crap, and their relentless collection of our data, has really put me off them. I now minimize my contact with both Google and Facebook, and someday in the coming years, will probably have to reconsider having a smart phone at all. I've even toyed with buying a house with a nice outbuilding, wiring all my tech stuff (computer, TV, telephone, etc.) there, and keeping all of it out of the main home where I expect to have privacy.

    Don't get me started on the idiocy of buying surveillance devices such as Google Hub, Alexa et al. It's unbelievable how we'll screw ourselves for a new, shiny object. And voice commands ... because we're too lazy to push a button or turn a nob, even from the comfort of our couch, so instead we put microphones all over the place without a thought in the world to who is listening, recording, or collecting data through them.

    If big tech keeps this up, they're going to do to themselves what Detroit did to its auto industry (by foisting sub-standard crap on their customers their customers didn't want, but at the time didn't feel they could avoid...until Japan came along and offered alternatives). People feel the same about Facebook and Google, but less and less so the more onerous these services become, and I sense we're rapidly reaching a tipping point.

  • by rainer_d ( 115765 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @05:00PM (#58593262) Homepage

    an my iPhone.
    I switched to DDG on my Mac already.

  • If Google's goal here is to get me to never, ever use their built-in apps, this will accomplish that goal. If I can't avoid their ads in the middle of my normal flow any other way, then I'll merrily switch to LineageOS. I expect my device to do what I tell it when I tell it because I'm using it in part to assist my memory. I don't want to be interrupted on my way to some information I need.

    I expect ads in my search results, and I expect maps to suggest locations to me. I expect Google to profit from some of

    • by fintux ( 798480 )
      I just removed the Google search widget from my phone, I think I'll give Ecosia and/or DuckDuckGo a try. Alternatively, I'll just use Firefox to search with Google, and hoping that they don't mess that experience as well.
  • by FudRucker ( 866063 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @05:36PM (#58593462)
    i will either hunt for a bargain iphone or a non_smart_phone

    to hell with google if they want to turn my phone in to a platform for advertising, i am careful enough already to not use ad supported software and would rather pay a few dollars for premium quality apps without advertising, but if google turns my phone in to a platform for their spam then fuck google, i will drop my android products like a hot potato
    • by garcia ( 6573 )

      Why would you have ever thought your Google device wasnâ(TM)t an avenue to collect data on you to target and display their advertising?

      Thatâ(TM)s what they do. If this particular ad set is what drives you over the edge, you really havenâ(TM)t been paying attention.

  • by stinky wizzleteats ( 552063 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @05:53PM (#58593542) Homepage Journal
    Because it's working.
  • Fanboy! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dark.nebulae ( 3950923 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @06:44PM (#58593730)

    Call me an Apple fanboy all you want, but at least I'm not looking at ads across multiple aspects of the UI...

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Call me an Apple fanboy all you want, but at least I'm not looking at ads across multiple aspects of the UI...

      Yes you are... The only difference is your ads are just for one company.

      • I haven't seen a single Apple ad on my iPhone. Nothing about the watch, an iPad, iMac, etc.

        Even in the app store they feature and promote apps from other developers, not really Apple.

        So I'm not sure what you're seeing, but it is not the norm.

  • going to ad.
    People thought it would be "free" software all the way down?
    You are the product.
  • by sqlrob ( 173498 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @09:55PM (#58594276)

    And how much of that additional interaction was people mistouching?

    • I've never willingly clicked on an add. If I want to buy something of value, I do my own research beforehand.
  • by renegadesx ( 977007 ) on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @10:37PM (#58594340)
    Root level adblockers are still to this day the single best reason to get root access on your phone. I don't get a phone unless TWRP has been ported to it. Adaway is my personal favourite, in the past I used Adfree.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      DNS66 works pretty well if you don't have root. You can find it on F-Droid.

  • ... until you are typing "911" into your phone and a fullscreen ad will pop up advertising security services, medical services, fire alarm, etc, before you manage to hit send.

  • ... Google is trying to convince people to switch to iPhone...

  • I bought a Librem 5 phone and I hope they will ship it by the end of the summer. :)

  • by Martin S. ( 98249 ) on Wednesday May 15, 2019 @07:32AM (#58595490) Journal

    That I've pretty much stopped using my mobile phone to access website other than the BBC News site.

  • Mobile ads are already so bad that I have turned off Javascript in my primary web browser in iOS. I keep another browser for times when I need it. I found that only Chrome on Android allows you to selectively run Javascript for specific sites, it is an all or or nothing issue with Chrome on iOS.

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