Party Vibe

Well I can still read public areas on FB without being logged in at all; all I had to do was create a custom filter on ublock for the annoying box thing that tries to get you to sign up; and I don’t get any ads either.

Not sure what happens with logged in users but there is a massive cat fight between FB and ABP over these filters.

It is the sort of fight you get when there are two cats that have for some reason been confined in the same space; and fight for control of any high up areas.

If you choose to also share this space with such cats it is prudent to not to set anything fragile and/or valuable atop shelves, window ledges, tables etc to prevent it getting knocked over in the crossfire.

I do have some concerns for community groups and charities who increasingly use Facebook as any calls for sponsorship might be accidentally blocked if the conflict reaches a level where folk start to deploy content-based (rather than element based) filters to remove unwanted ads – but at the same time these groups should also perhaps reduce their dependency on FB (its not that much extra effort to cut and paste content!)

I read about YikYak but got the impression it was some “American” thing and more geared towards high school kids (although like any “youth friendly” service its likely to attract a wide range of ages from the mid teens to late 20s) the articles I read were complaining it had been used for bullying and some worse crimes to the point parents and other activists were calling for the Feds to investigate it.

I’m likely to be too old for these kinds of apps anyway but am sceptical of the real value of these ads, I never use mobile devices for “big ticket” online shopping as mobile payment services normally link to your phone bill in Europe unless set up otherwise (one phone I use is on my work account and others are PAYG sims so no use for big purchases).

I am wary to store any other card details directly on these devices – entering card numbers is hassle on a small touchscreen device and mistyping security codes etc one time too many easily locks your card out and you have to then call the bank call centre (although mine does operate 24/7 you have to go through all the security check procedures, confirm last transactions and this can take an hour or more). In some cases the card might have to be reissued, which takes a whole week.

Although some marketing spin firms in Northern Europe claim that 48% of all ecommerce is through mobile devices; I wonder is this is merely for relatively cheap items like computer games, and mobile apps themselves?

I have bought a small number of useful apps for things like monitoring mobile network and wifi signals (where the paid version unlocks other features as well as not delivering ads), generating correct British Grid coordinates from GPS data and a cycling app (this and a cheap Windows mobile is cheaper than a standalone GPS unit!) but my total spend is less than £10 and I’ve used smartphones for 8 years now.

None of these purchases were driven by online ads – in some cases I still used a desktop to view the full website of the developers to check reviews and security/privacy compliance.

on the very rare occasions I’ve used a mobile browser or app where it has been impossible to block ads; I’ve found the ads to be completely irrelevant to the site content or even what I might actually be looking for. Even when they are able to obtain my correct location I get stuff like ads for motor car insurance (I don’t have a car and if I did I would want to read the small print of a policy on a larger screen); others assume I am a tourist in London and want a hotel room (when I am English, own my own house and live 90 km away).

I guess for young people there might be a market for advertising stuff like fashion items and sweets/junk food (as mainstream media ads in Europe are restricted for those below 18) but I suspect the marketers heavily overestimate the disposable income of younger people and that many young Europeans are very security aware and too frightened of scams to make big ticket purchases online.

I saw this infographic about all the companies involved in online ads, it looked like an overcomplicated version of a Ponzi scheme and something guaranteed to soon enough come crashing down like a house of cards (indeed I’ve read articles about “entrepreneurs” involved in these companies suffering such levels of burnout and mental health problems they end up attacking their own staff and/or harming themselves).

Yikyak is used to some extent in the UK but has also raised concerns from both the NUS (national union of students, uni/college age) and NSPCC (child protection age 0-18) as like any “teen friendly” service it attracts the age group between high school and uni/college. This means that eventually the feds (if they cannot do so already) get full access to info just by showing a “badge and shield” in the event of criminal cases associated with the use of the service.

This previously happened with bebo (a lot of the teenage ravers in my region used it) and the resulting fallout as well as users themselves (who were also often from lower income groups anyway) eventually growing up caused them to all leave in droves – from what I remember the service soon folded (as these users flocked to facebook) and got sold back to its owner for a pittance…