Mark Zuckerberg recently stated that facebook users respond positively to ads on facebook. He even went so far as to say Facebook wants to do more with advertising and "ramp that up." Of course that makes sense, because Facebook survives on advertising.
Zuckerberg previously stressed the better-than-anticipated reaction to Facebook ads in the company's January earnings call. Improvements made to the algorithms Facebook uses to surface relevant content in the News Feed had increased people's likes, clicks and comments by 50 percent. Those interactions decreased by only 2 percent after ads were inserted, Zuckerberg said.
I have been working on the Internet for about ten years now, and in that ten years I have seen ads for everything. There are ads popping up when I click on links for newspapers, there are ads popping up when I check out media outlets, and I've even seen ads on porn sites. And to be completely honest I have never clicked one of those ads, and couldn't recall a single ad I've seen online if my life depended on it...literally. I think the most annoying ads around are the ones where I reach a web site and a video ad pops up and someone starts talking to me. That's when I not only ignore the ad, I then get away from that web site and I make a point of never returning. All ads are annoying. Period.
Ads on facebook for me are almost invisible. There's one that's been following me around for months with a guy in a before and after photo in his underwear. Not only does that photo annoy me to no end, I won't click the ad on purpose just because it's so annoying. I wouldn't wear that underwear because I hate the ad so much. And when I see authors slamming me with ads on facebook I smile and wish them well, but I never click them. The other thing about ads on facebook is I don't trust them.
But who knows? Zuckerberg could be right and I could be in the minority.
Hachette Works With Libraries
Hachette recently announced it will be offering its e-book catalogue to libraries.
Negotiations between the nation’s libraries and the Big Six publishers — Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Group, Random House and Simon & Schuster, which publish roughly two-thirds of the books in America — have gone in fits and starts. Today Hachette, which had been a holdout, is joining the others in announcing that it will make e-books available to public libraries. This is a big step, as it represents, for the first time, a consensus among the Big Six, at least in principle, that their e-books should be made available to library users.
I think this is important for everyone in publishing, including readers. When you take the novelty away from e-books, and treat them the same way you treat print books, they aren't so different anymore. This seems to be the one huge issue I find with people who have not started reading e-books yet. They seem to have this misguided impression their reading experience will be ruined and nothing will ever be the same again. To be honest, I felt that way myself for a long time. And then when I finally started reading e-books I found the reading experience even more comfortable and personal.
The very beginning of this article says it all for me. And it's something I've been trying to explain to people for a long time because I often find my reading experience better on my iPhone than anywhere else. And, I take my library wherever I go.
WRESTLING with my newspaper on the subway recently, I noticed the woman next to me reading a book on her smartphone. “That has to hurt your eyes,” I commented. Not missing a beat, she replied, in true New York style, “My font is bigger than yours.” She was right.
Hop Against Homophobia and Transphobia 2013
I'm going to do a separate post for this tomorrow night, but I wanted to include it in this post because I'll be out of the office all day tomorrow and I want to help spread the word. Last year I was so busy working on self-publishing deadlines I didn't find out about this event until after the fact. But this time I'm going to sign up and support them because I think it's a good way to voice support to everyone in the community. I'm a huge believer in this kind of online support.
Here's a link to read more, and to sign up, and I will post something else tomorrow evening.
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