Wait.. was that an ad for...???

[canesisters]

Have you ever been clicking through to get to your 'usual' spots on TEG and glimpsed something in one of the ad bars JUST as it disappeared and then spent the next half an hour randomly clicking trying to get that ad to come back on because you THOUGHT you saw something that you had been looking for.....?

 

[ducks4you]

Do not worry. The ads will cycle through again...and again...and again...and again...ad nauseum.

 

[canesisters]

Do not worry. The ads will cycle through again...and again...and again...and again...ad nauseum.

 

[Nyboy]

I bought a bike because of side ads

 

[catjac1975]

I love the old photos that display across the top. I love to click on them and read old posts!

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

i do the same thing with the old pics at the top. especially one that brings back memories of a good topic.

 

[Carol Dee]

I do that also @catjac1975 and @Chickie'sMomaInNH

 

[digitS']

Ya know, I think that the ads are more targeted for us than unique to TEG.

There may be an ad agency that directs them to the site but I see some ads on a number of other websites that don't have anything to do with gardening. The John Deere at the top of this page might be TEG-specific.

These ad companies and internet services are extremely sophisticated in collecting information. It occurred to me the other day that the Flipboard app supposedly collects news stories that reflect my interests. I knew that but what if the news stories I read are taken into account on every media webpage, or many of them. When I show up to read one story, everything on that webpage is there because of my perceived interests. This would be beyond the advertising and other paid content.

This may seem almost like a no-brainer because a side column of "Related Stories" appears on some webpages of this sort but what if all the stories on the page, related to the one that I am reading or not, are tailored to my perceived interests. It's "my" news.

A person might have to go to a wide number of sources to find information about what is happening beyond what computers determine based on some algorithmic pattern. (If'n that's the proper way of expressing it.)

digitS'

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

we've done this in the past with fooling around with the trackers/targeted marketing ad programs that spy on you by starting a conversation to see what will pop up depending on the subject. i use an ad blocker & a program called No Script that helps see which necessary/unnecessary groups are targeting certain websites. a lot is driven by social media & Google, others could just be malicious or passive data collection. i found that these trackers were why a lot of web pages took so long to load.

i know TEG & a few free sites use the revenue from ads to keep them going so i do allow certain things to be view-able & block those that are nothing i want to see.

 

[canesisters]

well... now that I'm LOOKING for an ad - this is what I see: