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Media Bob Techno Bob

Google’s take on the future of online display ads

Google has begun a series of blog posts laying out their “vision for online display advertising in the years ahead.” The first post, by Vice President of Product Management Susan Wojcicki, looks back at the foundation Google has built for online display ads, including the “hundreds of thousands of engineering hours” they’ve invested in the problem. It cites the acquisition and subsequent enhancements to DoubleClick. And Wojcicki says Google has put “hundreds of thousands” of engineering hours into display ad technology, including enhancements to DoubleClick and the creation of the Ad Exchange.

It all sounds great, but overall, the post is little more than a hagiography of Google’s efforts to date. No mention is made of how ad exchanges have encouraged a race to the bottom on rate. There’s a lot of bullish talk about “the incredible creative units that we see today.” Not so much talk about consumer tendency to ignore ads, the rock-bottom rates most display ads command and the anemic clickthrough rates they generate. I’d also like to know where Google sees the “branding” function of online display ads going. Clicks aren’t the only way to measure value. Impressions do matter. How is Google planning to help advertisers understand the value that impressions can create?

I hope that as the series progresses, Google will address some of the specific problems publishers are seeing as they try to build business models that rely on display ads. What I’d really love to see are some case studies of how things are working (or failing to work) now and how Google’s vision of the future would alter these case studies …

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Music Bob Uncategorized

Exploring jazz …

I like jazz. A lot. But in that way most ignoramuses like things. In that “I know what I like” kinda way.

It’s left me with a sketchy, eclectic knowledge of jazz. Then I stumbled across an amazing book: “Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya: The Story of Jazz as Told by the Men Who Made It.”

Nat Hentoff and Nat Shapiro managed to collect dozens of first-person accounts of the birth and growth of jazz. The book was published in 1955, so it doesn’t address what’s happened during the past half-century. But it does offer incredible insight into the musicians who created this American art form. Hentoff and Shapiro stay out of the way, letting the musicians do all the talking.

I particularly liked the early sections that offer detailed accounts of New Orleans in the early 20th century. If you’re interested in jazz and haven’t already found this book, go out and do it. It’s a great read, as witnessed by these excerpts:

People used to ask Bix Beiderbecke why he didn’t play his music the way he recorded it. He’s quoted as explaining: “It’s impossible. I don’t feel the same way twice. That’s one of the things I like about jazz, kid. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Do you?”

Billie Holiday describes the first time she sang at a club. She and her mother were in dire straits, practically starving, and she went to the Log Cabin Club in search of employment. “I asked Preston for a job, told him I was a dancer. He said to dance. I tried it. He said I stunk. I told him I could sing. He said sing. Over in the corner was an old guy playing the piano. He struck ‘Travelin’ and I sang. The customers stopped drinking. They turned around and watched. The pianist, Dick Wilson, swung into ‘Body and Soul.’ Jeez, you should have seen those people — all of them started crying. Preston came over, shook his head and said, ‘Kid, you win.’ That’s how I got my start.”

The book focuses on a lot of musicians, not just the Holiday/Beiderbecke/Armstrongs of the genre. I’m still an ignoramus where jazz is concerned, but “Hear Me Talkin’ to Ya” has given me a lot of new ideas and sounds to explore.

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Books Transcendental Bob

Is the joke on me?

“The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.” — David Foster Wallace

I finally finished David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest a few weeks ago. I’m still not sure what to make of it.

The book’s themes and characters continue to rise up in unsettled dreams, an unresolved, anxious feeling that has lasted long after I turned the last page. I still can’t tell if it’s a work of genius or some kind of sham, but it definitely affected me. It’s gnawing at me, and as much as I dread it, I might go back and read the son of a bitch again, even though my first read was a six-month slog.

I guess I’ll leave Infinite Jest in a prominent place, where its unresolved meditations on entertainment, freedom, pleasure, addiction, advertising and tennis will taunt me every time I walk past. Eventually, I’ll make another run at it. In the meantime, I’m whiling away my time rereading J.D. Salinger, finding echoes of Wallace’s joke every time I turn the page. Maybe this is some freaky Zen koan that I’m trying too hard to unravel?

“How in the hell are you going to recognize a legitimate holy man when you see one if you don’t even know a cup of consecrated chicken soup when it’s right in front of your nose?” –Zooey Glass in Salinger’s Franny and Zooey