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AdvertisingAge: Xbox One's Data Treasure Trove Could Reshape Marketing

Vashetti

Banned
All this reminds me of the second episode of the tv serie black mirror..... Check it out if you haven't seen it.

BlackMirror1x02_1079.jpg

"Resume viewing. Resume viewing. Resume viewing."

Episode is called 15 Million Merits by the way, I highly advise people watch it. It's Kinect in a nutshell.
 

Ebomb

Banned
It always intrigues me how resistant people are to advertising. I use Gmail, I watch television, I buy a lot of things from Amazon, im constantly bombarded by advertisers. I value some of it, like book recommendations, or video recommendations. If the games market explodes with indie titles this gen, I would appreciate Sony or MS recommending titles for me. The ads that bother me are the youtube ads that play videos im forced to watch before the content I selected. If the result of this is a box on my dashboard recommending content, thats great for me, if it becomes forced commercials before loading games or apps, ill squawk.
 
Seems you make the grade then, tho I'd say you didn't have to prove anything to anyone to be believed; MS has done enough of the proving themselves.

I'm almost of the belief they'll bring the DRM policies back online after all.


They probably will. This is about content delivery not ownership.
 

gaming_noob

Member
Tweet it to Greenberg, see if he replies.

Nah, I don't trust him.

Actually, I'd like to rephrase my original comment. " We cannot allow these corporations to toy us around like this.....with weak hardware". If the Xbone had really powerful hardware then I wouldn't mind this Kinect strategy. I'm not naive to believe this type of thing doesn't happen anywhere else.
 

IT Slave

Banned
Is that speculative as well?
Taken out of context. That was in the context of a technical discussion on how the advertising in the original X360 firmware was tacked on after the fact. Xbox One's OS will include support for it built in.

Oh and btw - why do you feel the urge to belittle people who value their privacy?

Yes, and I beat my wife too. This is such a disingenuous question. MS has reiterated time and again the privacy aspect of their console which is consistent with their other products. I just find the fears of a publicly traded company spying on customers a bit irrational. Corporations by nature are risk adverse. The risks of getting caught spying on customers far outweighs the benefits of doing so.

I have nothing against individuals who value their privacy. I'm one of those people. But the evil corporation angle is a bit paranoid in this case.
 

IvorB

Member
Millions of people work in advertising, I'm sure thousands of people who surf GAF do, but as soon as a thread pops up about the advancements in tech leading to better feedback for advertising companies it's nearly always derided? Where are the people who work with things like this?

I work in ad tech. I can see that this technology would be pretty great for marketers. That doesn't mean I am cool with participating in it as a consumer.
 
Ummm, did they just admit that the Kinect monitors your living room and records data to sell to advertisers? Y'know, the stuff they repeatedly stated they wouldn't do? Are they actually fucking serious with this shit? I know this is the real reason they were so keen on making Kinect always-on, but how in the name of fuck is this legal?! Seriously, how is this not spying? This is a total violation of privacy. EU courts better go HAM on these cunts.
 
They've already monetised it with PSN+ and online multiplayer, I doubt they're going to start selling my fizzy drinks on my games console. You can save this post and throw it back at me if I'm wrong.
The only ads I've seen on my PS3 are in the Playstation Store where they belong.

Restrict ads to storefronts or allow opt-outs everywhere else. Done.
 

Freki

Member
Taken out of context. That was in the context of a technical discussion on how the advertising in the original X360 firmware was tacked on after the fact. Xbox One's OS will include support for it built in.
The whole article is taken out of context? What are you talking about?

Yes, and I beat my wife too. This is such a disingenuous question. MS has reiterated time and again the privacy aspect of their console which is consistent with their other products. I just find the fears of a publicly traded company spying on customers a bit irrational. Corporations by nature are risk adverse. The risks of getting caught spying on customers far outweighs the benefits of doing so.

I have nothing against individuals who value their privacy. I'm one of those people. But the evil corporation angle is a bit paranoid in this case.

This is such a disingenuous anwser.
You do realize that privacy means a little bit more than just not being watched by a MS employee while masturbating?
Behavioral targeting is practiced by a lot of companies for example as well as Targeted advertising in general - an angle of advertising that can be enhanced with data collected by kinect.
 

jaypah

Member
Will this be on by default? Can you even disable it? Sorry if I'm being impatient, as I just posted this question a few minutes ago. But this is bullshit if I can't easily disable this function. If I can't disable it then the console should be free. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, they could sell the 180 at a significant loss if they offered a version that was "Ad Funded". $200, 24 hour check in, ad sourcing mandatory. Lol, that's kind of scary.
 
And there's one of the biggest pressures on the X1's creation laid bare.

It's designed as a marketing wet dream.


As someone who works on the publisher side of marketing this is indeed my wet dream...as a gamer and consumer this is my worst fucking nightmare.


Biometric responses
Given that Xbox 360 has sold more than 78 million units, if even a fraction of likely Xbox One users could be persuaded to share data, the technology could create the world's largest panel for measuring biometric responses to advertising.

Marketing me: "holy shit!"

Gaming me: "this is some unholy shit!"
 

Sakujou

Banned
Huh? What has Sony done lately that made you wanna hope see them fail?
Ok, maybe i wrote it a little bit wrong down here but Basically everyone is hailing to sony, but sony could do the same what ms does now. Everyone forgot about the infamous 2011hack where sony didnt admit it for nearly 2months.

Well at least ms admits it but this is just plain horror.

I dont know how to support such a horrendous and tedious way of gaming.... Or entertainment.
 
Sounds like the next level of the "what experience do you prefer"/"Is this ad relevant to you" stuff on Hulu. Meh. As long as it stays in the TV/Movie section its no biggie. Put a 30 second ad in the game and we got a problem.
 

Brera

Banned
Glad MS are getting some praise and support for once.

From the evil conglomerates!

This is the real Axis of Evil guys.
 

Hyunickel

Neo Member
Smart and non-intrusive ads would honestly be helpful at times. I can't stress enough how some ads helped me discover new movies, products, games, stores etc. However, if ads bombard your dashboard, and access data directly from Kinect without the user clearly knowing about it and agreeing to it, it would be utterly horrible. The question is, what kind of ads are we talking here?

So far Microsoft isn't saying much about how exactly will ads work. If it's the former, I'm all for it, if its the latter then I'm completely against it.
 
There is a reason why Sony Too! has become a meme, every single distasteful thing that MS was going to put in their console was also going to be done by Sony

All of it turned out to be BS.

I'm not referring to that DRM nonsense most people think it's fowl and we know it. We're discussing the monetization of a large focused user base, and Sony wants in on that revenue pie. That's why they started PS+ in the first place. We just like it better because of the free rentals.
 

SPDIF

Member
Will this be on by default? Can you even disable it? Sorry if I'm being impatient, as I just posted this question a few minutes ago. But this is bullshit if I can't easily disable this function. If I can't disable it then the console should be free. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, they could sell the 180 at a significant loss if they offered a version that was "Ad Funded". $200, 24 hour check in, ad sourcing mandatory. Lol, that's kind of scary.

I'm sure it'll be a simple setting that you just switch on or off, similar to how with the current Kinect you can send voice data to Microsoft or choose not to. I doubt they'd ever be able to get away with forcing it on the user.
 
Didn't they say you could pin your own slot on the home tile?

And i'm pretty sure both Operating Systems will have plenty of spaces to sell advertisements on under the label "you may also like these?" or Recommendations..

As long as they don't interrupt my game to show an advertisement i don't really have an problem with it. It will for one not stop me from playing a good game.
 

Rebel Leader

THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
The moment I heard the console was always online, AND the Kinect camera always had to be plugged in, I immediately thought "advertising". Everything about that concept sounded like an advertisers wet dream.

(sony patent)(which doesn't always mean anything)

sonyadpatent_2-580x472.jpg
 

Hyunickel

Neo Member
They admitted it right away and even shut down PSN for a month. They also gave away 5 free games as an apology.

Admitted it right away? More like after 2 weeks of utter confusion.
But Sony learned from its mistake, and did its best to apologize for their situation after the whole mess.
 

jaypah

Member
Basically everyone is hailing to sony, but sony could do the same. Everyone forgot about the infamous 2011hack where sony didnt admit it for nearly 2months.

Well at least ms admits it but this is just plain horror.

Sony could ship the PS4 with baby raccoons in the box. We don't have any reason to believe that they will though. Meanwhile MS is preparing to shit in my bed, roll around in it and make crap angels. I'm not freaking out just yet but the evidence is there. I'm just waiting to find out if this is something you have to opt into or not. I seriously can't understand how this could be mandatory on top of giving them $500.

I'm sure it'll be a simple setting that you just switch on or off, similar to how with the current Kinect you can send voice data to Microsoft or choose not to. I doubt they'd ever be able to get away with forcing it on the user.

That's what I assumed having spent a lot of time with the original Kinect. Still it's kind of fucking crazy! I'm trying to coffee my way through a hangover so I can drink for the Saints game so I'm probably still a little buzzed from last night. Forgive me if I seem overly spazzy right now.
 

rjcc

Member
But the UI does not push ads and promotional store content the way Xbox does. And, naturally, they have nothing even CLOSE to the kinect for monitoring your reactions to ads. While playing games or watching video.

excellent, so we're just going to keep saying this is how it works.
 

Rebel Leader

THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
Ok, maybe i wrote it a little bit wrong down here but Basically everyone is hailing to sony, but sony could do the same what ms does now. Everyone forgot about the infamous 2011hack where sony didnt admit it for nearly 2months.

Well at least ms admits it but this is just plain horror.

I dont know how to support such a horrendous and tedious way of gaming.... Or entertainment.

Most companies do this... and they did admit it with in a week or two after the shutdown


MS didn't even acknowledge the RROD for 2-3years

EDIT: Two months ?Two weeks is more like it

The attack occurred between April 17 and April 19, 2011, forcing Sony to turn off the PlayStation Network on April 20. On May 4 Sony confirmed that personally identifiable information from each of the 77 million accounts appeared to have been stolen. The outage lasted 24 days.

Admitted it right away? More like after 2 weeks of utter confusion.
But Sony learned from its mistake, and did its best to apologize for their situation after the whole mess.

Two weeks is a semi decent admittion
 
if kinect is going to make them money for market research they should defer the cost of the kinect and sell xbox one's w kinect for $399
 
Admitted it right away? More like after 2 weeks of utter confusion.
But Sony learned from its mistake, and did its best to apologize for their situation after the whole mess.

Bad choice of words on my part. They took action right away to shut down PSN and started an investigation.

The difference between this situation and the situation right now is that the PSN hack was ages ago. This is completely unrelated and is going to happen. Just some posters trying to change the topic that has nothing to do with this one.
 

Chumpion

Member
I also called this a long time ago. I have no problem with Kinect profiling, just as long as MS makes it opt-in. Which they have to in all probability.

Free Gold subscription in exchange for profiling?
 
As someone who worked (and still does to a degree) in marketing/advertising I can definitely see the forward thinking demonstrated by Microsoft here; as long as it is not destructively obtrusive I could see it paying off big time for them in the long run. It will probably work as an extension of what they're doing with the 360, in the end it is really about proper implementation and execution.
 

Ashes

Banned
I'm putting a lead sheet over my kinect!

Can't you just disconnect your kinect

Just turn the kinnect around to face the back of the world. That way all those 'xbox' one kinnect commands can work, and you get your privacy.

Even so, I don't doubt that they will get at least significant amount of data.
 

Shengar

Member
Us NeoGAFers are pretty much knowledgeable on this stuff so we can plug them or cover them with some duct tape. But we are not that many and usual, clueless customer might just plug Kinect shit on without having clue that the little devils actually spying on their family. Man, these advertising economy really out of control soon enough.
 

jaypah

Member
Most companies do this... and they did admit it with in a week or two after the shutdown


MS didn't even acknowledge the RROD for 2-3years

I thought the evidence was purely on EA? Also, I don't know if MS took 3 years to publicly acknowledge the RROD but I got one in late 2005-early 2006 and they fixed it for free but I understand them fixing it is totally different than them acknowledging it as a widespread problem. So they waited until warranties for launch units were about to run out before owning up? Shitty if so.
 
I also called this a long time ago. I have no problem with Kinect profiling, just as long as MS makes it opt-in. Which they have to in all probability.

Free Gold subscription in exchange for profiling?

In your dreams maybe. A huge chunk of the Live revenue was from advertisement yet MS hiked up the price.
 

SPDIF

Member
I also called this a long time ago. I have no problem with Kinect profiling, just as long as MS makes it opt-in. Which they have to in all probability.

Free Gold subscription in exchange for profiling?

It'll be interesting to see if they do something like this. If they really want everyone to opt in then offering heavily discounted or even free games/movies/gold would be one way to do it. The typical user would jump at the chance to get something for free.
 

LCfiner

Member
excellent, so we're just going to keep saying this is how it works.

Well, it’s how MS wants it to work - using biometrics to determine reactions to advertising. and they do have an API for advertisers that uses some Kinect data. They have said it’s “slightly” more limited than the data game devs have access to.

Are you suggesting that MS built this Kinect API for advertisers and no one will use it?
 
Ok, maybe i wrote it a little bit wrong down here but Basically everyone is hailing to sony, but sony could do the same what ms does now. Everyone forgot about the infamous 2011hack where sony didnt admit it for nearly 2months.

Well at least ms admits it but this is just plain horror.

I dont know how to support such a horrendous and tedious way of gaming.... Or entertainment.

This explanation for you wishing Doom on Sony has made you look even more confused and stupid, you should probably quit while you're behind.
 
In your dreams maybe. A huge chunk of the Live revenue was from advertisement yet MS hiked up the price.
Yep. Thats one 180 I don't see happening anytime soon.

Xbox is filled with revenue streams, with more ad opportunities on the way, and yeah, the prices will only go up.
 
I also called this a long time ago. I have no problem with Kinect profiling, just as long as MS makes it opt-in. Which they have to in all probability.

Free Gold subscription in exchange for profiling?

It is a bit scary and sad what people is willing to give up just for a few bucks .... But at very least it should be clear and voluntary choice.
 

FeiRR

Banned
Admitted it right away? More like after 2 weeks of utter confusion.
They had a good reason for that. Analyzing server logs from a network with 70m accounts doesn't take two hours... Do you think it's an easy decision to down a network of that size? I have a lot of respect for how they handled the situation. Foremostly, they showed that customers' trust is more important for them than immediate revenue.

On the other hand, Microsoft/EA never admitted FIFA hacks existed. They just quietly refunded people. It's not a possibility of having my data stolen that worries me (because any network can be hacked) but the lack of transparency that some companies practice.
 
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