Mommmm! The TV’s watching me!
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- August
- 2
This is one of the creepier things I’ve seen recently.
Microsoft is seeking a patent, according to TVSquad, “that would use cameras, biometric sensors, and other tools to determine if you’re sitting in front of the TV. Or if your wife, or kid, or other identifiable person is.”
Here’s more:
The patent application actually describes several different methods for identifying viewers and providing highly targeted ads for each member of your household. What kind of information are we talking about? Well, there’s the usual stuff like your age, sex, marital status, and career. But the system could also gather information like e-mail, appointments, notes and buying habits. On the one hand, companies like Amazon already use your purchasing history to recommend new products you might like, and this patent would be an extension of that technology. But somehow it seems a lot creepier when you could have a computer reading your email and staring at you through a camera.
This comes on the tail of TiVo announcing it has been gathering and then its releasing of second-by-second ratings data from a random sample of its boxes. This helps advertisers see what commercials are most viewed.
And here’s a couple of interesting tidbits:
First of all, it turns out that the most viewed commercials don’t always air during the most viewed TV shows. For example, the most viewed commercial in April (a trailer for the movie Disturbia) aired during the 8th most viewed show (House).And there appears to be a rather surprising pattern when it comes to the commercials that viewers are least likely to fast forward through. Direct-response ads for items like exercise equipment and highly polished movie commercials topped the list. In other words, ads with very high and very low production values.
Big Brother has arrived.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 12:08 pm by Amy Vernon.
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What’s next? Are they so desperate for ad dollars that they stoop to this idea? Give me a break!
Great article.