Favorites now more useful than a USB fish tank

If you enjoy plastic fish as much as I do, you’ll love the beginnings of what is to be a completely revamped favorites list. You should also notice that higher quality thumbnails are now generated for your uploaded images courtesy of a ’smarter’ resizing algorithm we cooked up. Group sharing and news feed management have also been upgraded to help those of you with lots of account activity.

July 31, 2008 | Filed Under Beta, Features

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July 16 Service Updates

Some quick updates about what we’ve been working on the last few days.

The errors that popped up over the last week had to do with invite code registration, some ad code display funkyness in IE, and groups. They’ve all been resolved. We’re going to implement a system alert box at the top of the account newsfeed that will give you real time messages when something minor pops up. If you are a twitter user you’ll recognize it immediately =)

This week has been a lot of minor visual tweaking. We’re also working on some great new designs which you’ll see over the coming weeks. Maybe we’ll post a teaser image here?

We added the rest of the IAB sizes to the ad code generator, including the much desired 125×125. Remember that the account page you generate your ad code from will effect where the ad code points. In other words, if you want the ad code to point to your group profile you need to generate it from the group account page.

Enjoy!

July 16, 2008 | Filed Under Beta, Features, Fixes

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Some Are Wrong About Behavioral Targeting

There’s been a couple posts recently about behaviorally targeted advertising and how it impacts people’s right to privacy. Most posts have to do with a study eMarketer published that says only 23% of web users are OK with an advertising service using their behavior to target better ads.

eMarketer posted an accompanying article called What’s Not to Like About Behavioral Targeting?. They say that consumers are confused because another study shows most people don’t like irrelevant advertisements. They’re wrong. Just because people dislike irrelevant ads doesn’t imply they want their personal information used to deliver better ads. From the article:

Consumers are confused.

The second annual “State of the Media Democracy” study from Deloitte and the Harrison Group found that 66% of US Internet users said they would click on additional Internet ads if they were better targeted …  Making a strong argument for behavioral targeting, a TNS Global survey commissioned by TRUSTe found that 72.4% of Internet users “agree” or “strongly agree” that irrelevant Internet advertising was intrusive and annoying.

The ultimate goal should be to continue improving advertising methods and technology as much as possible without violating anyones fundamental rights. There is a line that should not be crossed – the industry should keep innovating to get closer and closer to that line, but it should never cross it.

Part of the problem is that people can’t agree on what counts as private information, what exactly is behavioral targeting, how to keep data anonymous, and what should be opt-in vs opt-out. For example, if I know everything about you except your name and social security number… do I still know your identity?

We believe there’s a lot of room left to accomplish that goal. isocket is supporting new, better alternatives that help buyers reach their target audience in the right manner with the right message. With the right platform and tools, advertising can become much more relevant without crossing the line. The industry just needs the right tools.

We care about consumer’s right to privacy – it’s even in our company mission statement. That’s why we approached the Federal Trade Commission and the Center for Democracy & Technology to be a part of the privacy discussion. Nothing will ever be perfect, but it’s our goal to do the right thing and provide opt-in (rather than opt-out) options whenever possible.

July 2, 2008 | Filed Under Advertising, Company

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IAB Revises Ad Units

Yesterday the Interactive Advertising Bureau announced they have revised their Ad Unit and Rich Media Creative Guidelines.

The IAB President and CEO, Randall Rothenberg said, “These guidelines expand upon the seminal work begun with the Universal Ad Package and give interactive publishers even more opportunity to provide marketers with innovative solutions that engage consumers.”

The revision adds two new banner sizes:

There was also an update in the Rich Media Creative Guidelines which now says, “Rich Media” is defined by a user’s ability to interact with it, aside from the ability to click on it. This separates Rich Media from basic animated ads.

IAB also expanded ad delivery coverage to email, static and dynamic web pages.

July 2, 2008 | Filed Under Advertising

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