OT Apple Wouldn't Risk Its Cool Over a Gimmick, Would It?
Matthew Kruk
Digital Domain
Apple Wouldn't Risk Its Cool Over a Gimmick, Would It?
By RANDALL STROSS
"SOME of the best-loved technology on the planet" is how Apple describes
its products when recruiting new employees. It's a fair description.
But the love that consumers send Apple's way could flag if the company
puts into place new advertising technology it has developed. In an
application filed last year and made public last month by the United
States Patent and Trademark Office, Apple is seeking a patent for
technology that displays advertising on almost anything that has a
screen of some kind: computers, phones, televisions, media players, game
devices and other consumer electronics.
Filing a patent application, of course, doesn't necessarily mean that
the company plans to use the technology. But the application shows, at
the least, that Apple has invested in research to develop what it calls
an "enforcement routine" that makes people watch ads they may not want
to watch.
Its distinctive feature is a design that doesn't simply invite a user to
pay attention to an ad - it also compels attention. The technology can
freeze the device until the user clicks a button or answers a test
question to demonstrate that he or she has dutifully noticed the
commercial message. Because this technology would be embedded in the
innermost core of the device, the ads could appear on the screen at any
time, no matter what one is doing.
The system also has a version for music players, inserting commercials
that come with an audible prompt to press a particular button to verify
the listener's attentiveness.
The inventors say the advertising would enable computers and other
consumer electronics products to be offered to customers free or at a
reduced price. In exchange, recipients would agree to view the ads. If,
down the road, users found the advertisements and the attentiveness
tests unendurable, they could pay to make the device "ad free" on a
temporary or permanent basis.
Would anyone have guessed that Apple, so widely revered, would seek
patent protection of a gimmick not unlike one used to sell vacation
timeshares? (Agree to attend the sales seminar and get a free weekend
getaway!) Or could anyone have predicted that the Apple of 2009, a
company with premium products, would file a patent application that
could make it a latter-day descendant of Free PC and ZapMe, companies
that in 1999 gave away PCs engineered to always display on-screen ads?
What the application calls the "enforcement routine" entails
administering periodic tests, like displaying on top of an ad a pop-up
box with a response button that must be pressed within five seconds
before disappearing to confirm that the user is paying attention.
These tests "can be made progressively more aggressive if the user has
failed a previous test," the application says. One option makes the
response box smaller and smaller, requiring more concentration to find
and banish. Or the system can require that the user press varying
keyboard combinations, the current date, or the name of the advertiser
upon command, again demonstrating "the presence of an attentive user."
Everything about this technology seems so antithetical to the guiding
principles of Apple that one would naturally wonder whether Steven P.
Jobs even knows whether his company filed a patent application for such
a thing. Apple has 34,300 employees, and Mr. Jobs, though named by
Fortune magazine this month as "C.E.O. of the decade," can't be expected
to keep track of everything that every Apple employee does.
Yet Mr. Jobs is directly connected to this particular patent
application: his name is the first listed of the five inventors. This is
a rarity, occurring only four times among the 30 applications on which
he is co-inventor that have been published by the patent office since
March 2008.
How Mr. Jobs reconciles this advertising technology with Apple's culture
is not known. An Apple spokeswoman declined to answer questions about
the patent application.
Microsoft is also working on placing advertisements where they have not
been before.
In its case, the plans are definite: next year, Microsoft will offer
Office Starter 2010, a free version of Office pre-installed on some PCs.
It will include a small Microsoft display ad in the lower-right corner
of the screen, and offer only barebones versions of Word and Excel, with
fewer functions than the regular paid ones.
It will not be the first time that Microsoft has experimented with ads
on the software that runs on PCs - it began quietly in June 2007 with a
version of Microsoft Works.
IN Office Starter 2010, Microsoft is not seeking revenue from
advertising and is going to use the ads only to promote the
full-featured, commercial versions of Office. The company plans to take
customers "along a journey to educate them about the product," said
Bryson Gordon, a director on Microsoft's Office team.
By allowing customers to ignore the ads that will sit passively in the
corner of the screen, Microsoft will use a gentle approach to the
up-sell.
The approach presented in Apple's patent application is not gentle at
all. Beyond that, it's myopic. Were it to use the new technology, it's
hard to imagine how free, ad-supported versions of its products wouldn't
have a negative impact on the company's brand.
The technology may be clever and original enough to earn Apple a patent.
But the resulting products are likely to be more irritating than
beloved.
Randall Stross is an author based in Silicon Valley and a professor of
business at San Jose State University. E-mail: str...@nytimes.com.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
David Carson
The writer's bias is showing. Apple is deeply revered, yes, but not
widely.
>Everything about this technology seems so antithetical to the guiding
>principles of Apple
Like all corporations, Apple's guiding principle is making money.
>It will not be the first time that Microsoft has experimented with ads
>on the software that runs on PCs - it began quietly in June 2007 with a
>version of Microsoft Works.
>
>IN Office Starter 2010, Microsoft is not seeking revenue from
>advertising and is going to use the ads only to promote the
>full-featured, commercial versions of Office. The company plans to take
>customers "along a journey to educate them about the product," said
>Bryson Gordon, a director on Microsoft's Office team.
Intuit has been doing this for years. I can't use the copy of
Quickbooks I bought and paid for without it nagging me about add-ons I
don't need, that won't help me, and I have already declined some
twenty or thirty times before. And this isn't a free or reduced-price
copy of Quickbooks; it's a full retail version.
Anyone who's ever used the Basic version of Turbo Tax will know what
I'm talking about.
>By allowing customers to ignore the ads that will sit passively in the
>corner of the screen, Microsoft will use a gentle approach to the
>up-sell.
The ads in Quickbooks are obtrusive, and require a response.
David Carson
--
Why do you seek the living among the dead? -- Luke 24:5
Who's Alive and Who's Dead
http://www.whosaliveandwhosdead.com
Matthew Kruk
news:d293g5pah94fg2k53...@4ax.com...
> >Would anyone have guessed that Apple, so widely revered,
>
> The writer's bias is showing. Apple is deeply revered, yes, but not
> widely.
As you mentioned/alluded - those of "the religion" know nothing else.
This is just a plain stupid idea. Enough to make me consider going back
to paper, pen, crayons, envelopes and stamps. The advertising and
up-sell that I see nowadays reminds of a carnival show except without
the satisfaction of eating hot dogs and cotton candy.
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, David Carson <da...@neosoft.com> wrote:
> Intuit has been doing this for years. I can't use the copy of
> Quickbooks I bought and paid for without it nagging me about add-ons
> I don't need, that won't help me, and I have already declined some
> twenty or thirty times before. And this isn't a free or reduced-
Intuit lost me as a loyal Quicken customer over this crap. And they
lost a *very* loyal Turbo Tax customer over their idiotic copy
protection scheme a few years back ... I now use Kiplinger most years.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone objects to any statement I make, I am
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it.-T. Lehrer
***~~~~----------------------------------------------------------------------
Kenny McCormack
David Carson <da...@neosoft.com> wrote:
>>Would anyone have guessed that Apple, so widely revered,
>
>The writer's bias is showing. Apple is deeply revered, yes, but not
>widely.
>
>>Everything about this technology seems so antithetical to the guiding
>>principles of Apple
>
>Like all corporations, Apple's guiding principle is making money.
Agreed. I really think the whole "Everyone loves Apple" schtick is
largely made up.
I own one Mac and lots of PCs. The Mac is the most recent addition to
the group. I will say that there is a lot to like about the Mac, and
its general better ergonomics - it has the feel of having been actually
designed, instead of merely evolved like PCs/Windows. However, the
thing I *don't* like about the Mac is that it seems like everywhere you
turn, you are being hustled to spend more money (iTunes and all this
other crap that I have zero interest in). It's like the old saw - the
only purpose of the Mac is to get you to buy more stuff.
R H Draney
>
>I own one Mac and lots of PCs. The Mac is the most recent addition to
>the group. I will say that there is a lot to like about the Mac, and
>its general better ergonomics - it has the feel of having been actually
>designed, instead of merely evolved like PCs/Windows. However, the
>thing I *don't* like about the Mac is that it seems like everywhere you
>turn, you are being hustled to spend more money (iTunes and all this
>other crap that I have zero interest in). It's like the old saw - the
>only purpose of the Mac is to get you to buy more stuff.
Whereas the purpose of Windows is to get you to buy stuff you already bought --
over and over again....r
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?
Matthew Kruk
news:hdsgc...@drn.newsguy.com...
> ...
>
> Whereas the purpose of Windows is to get you to buy stuff you already
> bought --
> over and over again....r
That summary doesn't get any better than that. A tip of the hat.
Kenny McCormack
Terry del Fuego <t_del...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Mon, 16 Nov 2009 10:05:50 -0700, "Matthew Kruk"
><anyw...@wind.blows> wrote:
>
>>What the application calls the "enforcement routine" entails
>>administering periodic tests, like displaying on top of an ad a pop-up
>>box with a response button that must be pressed within five seconds
>>before disappearing to confirm that the user is paying attention.
>
>death with the severed limbs of their own children, because that would
>be, you know, kinda wrong 'n' stuff.
What this is about is capitalism's last gasp. People (some people)
deperately trying to maintain a system that is dying. The fact is that
advertising has got to be at least somewhat voluntary in order to work.
That is, the subject has to, at least at some level, want to be
advertised to. If you have to force feed it like this, then its time
has passed.
I say, bring on the post-capitalist world!
Everybody, please read "Player Piano" (Kurt Vonnegut).