Week 5: Understanding Advertising

When advertisers are looking to see how people are responding to ads they use Web metrics that help them to measure this. There are many different types of metrics that help. It is true to say that an advertiser should not rely on any one metric to determine how effective their ads are.

Something that is helping advertisers today is a way to track what each and everyone of us is looking GeForce on the web. It used to be that they could only track the number of hits a website would get and go from there. Today the things we search for are kept on our computer history and helps advertisers gear their ads toward us.

Something that I found interesting is that today advertisers are looking to improve a website based on how people respond to it. Relevance is something that is key to advertisers in helping them to determine the type of ads should be used. By advertisers evaluating the relevance of content it can help them to target their audience better.

Learning the techniques of how advertisers gear web ads toward opus interesting and can help to understand why ads are set a certain way online. Advertisers only want to get our attention and they need to be able to judge that they are doing a good job in the long run. Everybody wants to know that they are doing a good job why not advertisers as well. Measeaurements are the best judge of this and so it only makes sense for advertisers to use some sort of quantitative data to help them out.

Media Usage Diary Day 5

Again checked Facebook and Twitter this morning. It just something that is now in my routine. I check it almost a dozen times a day. As well I went out for most of the evening with friends and of course there was media all around me.

While at the bowling ally there was music playing in the background. It was interesting to listen to because there eras of music was so vast. One minute there was Rhianna playing then it was Madonna. Seems that this bowling ally doesn't stick to one genre.

While at dinner myself and my friends checked in on Foursquare and on Facebook. We were also updating our status and talking on Facebook and face to face.

The final thing that we all did together was get Kilwin's ice cream. While there the music that plays all around the Town Center was playing in the background.

Before going to bed I once again watched the Food Network and a show on Netflix so that I could unwind for the night. And just before I went to bed that night I checked Facebook for a final time just to see what was going on.

Media Usage Diary Day 4

Facebook and Twitter are the two things that I always check in the morning. In fact before I got out of bed this morning I checked both just to see what my friends had been up to.

I also checked my email about four times a day. I get so many emails a day that if I don't check it I will be so far behind.

Had to go out today as well and so in my car I have a revolving set of CDs that I just pop in when I am sick of the previous CD.


In the evening I watched Netflix and the Food Network. When my roommate is watching tv in the living room I watch Netflix on my laptop. Lately I have been waching Warehouse 13 and Ugly Betty. I seem to switch around on Netflix.

Media Usage Diary Day 3

Again the first thing that I did when I woke up was to check my Facebook and Twitter to see what people where saying and to see what was going on in the news world. The place that I get most of my news sources is from Twitter.

Wednesday's are my busy days so I was in and out of class most of the day, but at night it seemed that the tv was on. Only it was my roommate who was watching television. So when I cannot watch television in the living room then I go to my room and watch Netflix. I decided to start watching a show that I was always interested, Warehouse 13. It is a crazy science fiction show about collecting strange artifacts.

As well I downloaded a new application in the form of Texas Hold'em. I had always wanted to learn poker so why not from an app.

Media Usage Diary Day 2

When I wake up in the morning I always check my Facebook and Twitter updates. Tuesday was no different. It may be because my phone and iPad charge next to my bed.

Even in class I check my Facebook, then again we do post interesting social media links to a class page where we can see what is going on in the media world. Yet I also check on my school email to see if I have any important udates. It may be the access to the Internet.

As well that morning I turned on Food Network so that I could get some new and healthy recipes. While out picking up some groceries I noticed that the radio was playing in Publix yet no radio on in Walmart.

While washing my dishes in my dorm I turned on my iPad and played some music so that it wasn't so boring.

For the rest of the night I watched random television; everything from Disney Channel to

Food Network until my sorority meeting.

Media Use Diary {Day 1}

It was a boring day yesterday, spending most of in my dorm watching television on my laptop. Netflix always seems to have shows that are targeted just for me which I love so I don't have to constantly go looking for something.

From time to time I would check my Facebook and Twitter accounts just to see what other people where up to. For the most part people where posting Martin L. King Jr. quotes. That evening I updated both Facebook and Twitter.

I would look up occasional videos on Vevo from my iPad and create playlists that I would enjoy. As well I listened to some of my playlists on my Itunes that I had created while I washed the dishes.

In the morning I turned on Food Network to see what new recipes I could learn to make. Bobby Flay is one of my all time favorite chefs and it was great to see him working on the grill. And I learned some heart healthy recipes from the show Hunger Girl that looked so delicious as well.

It is incredible to see how much media I take in every day.

{Week 2} Yahoo vs. Google Advertising

Since the Internet boom advertisers have been looking for better ways to get at consumers. And what better way than to target the "search engines" that they are using everyday. Yahoo truly believed this and so joined with advertisers. The interesting thing to me was how much time and money Yahoo focused on the advertising and how little time they focused on the programming of the "search engine." From the get-go Yahoo never really seemed interested in the search aspect of the company, which I thought was the main reason that the company came into existance. As well I thought in order to even be able to set up advertisements you would need a great programmer. I suppose I can understand not wanting to be a so-called "technology company" especially with the emerging Microsoft back then. And seeing Netscape be completely crushed by them is a scary thing to see. Yet without the best programmers or code writers Yahoo was not able to keep up with the growth of the Internet. Focus less on advertising and more on what the company is supposed to be, a "search engine."

Google it seemed went in a different direction and focused on being a search engine with only text-based advertising. It is interesting to see the change that Google has taken as far as advertising goes. By buying DoubleClick advertisers can better see how the ads are working and how the ads are targeting consumers.

Yet one thing that both these comanies forget is the consumer and the fact that we have a say in what we see. If I don't want to see an advertisement I turn it off or I ignore it and focus on the text instead. Clutter is all over the Internet and advertisers need to work with search engines to see if they can find a way through the clutter and get the comsumers attention.