Ad Measurement Is Going High-Tech 107
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "A media-measurement company called IMMI is giving panel participants special cellphones that can take reliable sound samples to track consumer behavior. 'Those snippets -- taken every 30 seconds and altered mathematically so any conversation is made unintelligible -- are transmitted continuously to IMMI,' the Wall Street Journal reports. 'Sounds from headphone devices such as iPods can be transmitted to the cellphones with a wireless accessory. IMMI has been building a database of sound signatures, with help from customers testing the company's services as well as with CD content it has licensed.' The idea is to use the sound signatures to test what media consumers are exposed to -- everything from radio music to movie trailers."
Who in their right mind would go for this? (Score:3, Insightful)
'Those snippets -- taken every 30 seconds and altered mathematically so any conversation is made unintelligible
And of course the folks whose servers this stuff ends up on also have a way to unencode the original soundbite. Even if they say they can't, don't or "would never do such a thing," given the current poor behavior of media / marketing corporations, why trust them?
Re:Who in their right mind would go for this? (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, as soon as this kind of data is stored anywhere, it will be subpeonaed. Google has recently demonstrated this. If law enforcement officers think they can track people with this technology, they will undoubtedly attempt to.
Scary scenario:
Guy picks up his kids from day care. His phone records the sound of screaming children.
On the way home, he stops by the gym. His kids get to go swimming while he
Re:Who in their right mind would go for this? (Score:5, Funny)
Anyone who bathes their kids in photo chemicals deserves to be locked up, IMHO.
Re:Who in their right mind would go for this? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Who in their right mind would go for this? (Score:2)
Re:Who in their right mind would go for this? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Who in their right mind would go for this? (Score:1)
Re:Who in their right mind would go for this? (Score:2)
Don't be so negative (Score:1)
Re:Who in their right mind would go for this? (Score:2)
Re:Who in their right mind would go for this? (Score:2)
Of course, I still don't trust them and still think this is a terrible terrible idea.
One way algorithm (Score:2)
You could probably just notch filter the typical range of the human voice and still have enough data left over to recognize just about any music or commerciall.
OTOH why not just have a device that records throuhgout the day and that the participants upload via their broadband
Anybody... (Score:2)
Re:Who in their right mind would go for this? (Score:1)
Why must they know all this? (Score:2, Flamebait)
I mean... Can't you just make things people need and find useful and if they need it they'll come to you?
Or am I mistaken... Are they just trying to convince all sentient beings they must buy things they never knew they needed to buy?
Either way... I hope they pay the panel participants good money for tracking them around town.
Re:Why must they know all this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but that's not where the money is. The money is in making the consumer dissatisfied and convincing them that your product will satisfy them, then not satisfying them so they'll buy again.
Re:Why must they know all this? (Score:1)
Really, this is kind of like the next level of spyware. Instead of watching your cyber-life on the Internet, they watch your real life, in the real world. Soon enough, these people will have lawyer'ized this crap into your cell phone, your iPod, your PDA, your notebook, your car, your place of business, your kids, and everything else you pack up and carry around with you, wit
Why must they know all this?-The Amazing Kreskan. (Score:1, Insightful)
The problem isn't "too much" information. It's finding the "correct" information.
"I mean... Can't you just make things people need and find useful and if they need it they'll come to you?"
Flip answer: and they're going to determine this through what? Mindreading? Also things cost. Success costs. Failures cost even more. Are you willing t
I don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't get it. (Score:1, Insightful)
The point is that they're trying to get us used to be monitored at all times, under all conditions. Consider this "training" for what is probably going to follow in the coming decade, where your entire life is documented, blogged, videod and recorded from hundreds of places at once.
Put all that together, and you can have a very interesting series of profiles on a person's behavior. With enough data behind it, you can begin to profile what type of humans do what type of things, with a good percentage of re
The irony (Score:1)
Re:The irony (Score:2)
If we allow terrorists to take away our basic freedoms then the terrorists have already won.
The terrorists have already won.
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2, Insightful)
Either way I'm not picking one up, I'll go to hand-crank radio and telegrams before I become a beacon of marketing information.
Still not seeing it (Score:1)
I also don't see how hashing would allow you to find similar sound clips, it seems to me most of them would be unique and even similar "adjacent" sounds would have a unique hash.
How much do you wanna bet this mathematical alteration is just a FFT?
Re:I don't get it. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I don't get it. (Score:3, Interesting)
If the hashing scheme people are speculating about is how this works, I'd say that's pretty damn clever, whatever the ethical merits. And honestly, the ethical issues don't strike me as a huge deal. On my list of privacy concerns, knowing whether I'm forced to listen to Holly Jolly Christmas more or less than Here Comes Santa Claus in the supermarket in December doesn't rate
Re:I don't get it. (Score:1)
Now, that would be some cool technology, to identify songs that are stuck in consumers' heads. And you know they'd lie to the researchers, who'd be saying "Sorry, sir, that looks a lot like Hit Me Baby One More Time to me."
Re:I don't get it. (Score:1)
Now I have "Hit Me Baby One More Time" stuck in my head.
*goes to find bleach to pour into ears*
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2)
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2)
Sounds like the same one way hashing that applications like P2P use or music fingerprinting. Of course this assumes we should trust that they really are hashing it and/or they are not searching for other keywords?
Everyday when I think marketing and data mining have gone too far in the country, another technique is announced which is even worse.
If we have a governm
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2)
wassup commercial recorded in database -> Z132339944
wassup commercial recorded over your phone -> Z132339944
your random conversation recorded over your phone -> AB33444993
So
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2)
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2)
As long as AT&T is not one of their 'partners'
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2)
In geek terms: it computes hashes of the audio, sending the hashes back to base, each with a timestamp. You compute a set of hashes of the audio (CDs, movies, ads, whatever) you wish to monitor. At base you compare the hashes recorded by your panellists with your database of hashes.
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2)
>altered mathematically to make unintellilligible? How exactly, then, do they tell what advertising, programs, and other media you are exposed to?
Maybe they run it through a transform that leaves music recognizable but makes human speech unintelligible, like a train station PA system.
Re:I don't get it. (Score:1)
I wouldn't trust them, but this isn't unfeasible.
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2)
Not only are they bugged, when they're out in public, everyone around them is bugged too. I'm pretty sure this would be illegal in some places. Maybe some privacy group could lobby congress to get this practice banned.
Re:From Bad to Worse (Score:4, Insightful)
Did you miss the stories about how MSN, AOL, and Yahoo had no problem turning over whatever information requests the gov't had about search usage?
I'm not too paranoid, and I don't think the gov't can process this stuff fast enough for it to matter, but don't be naive enough to believe that every major corporation out there respects your privacy. As it is, AT&T owns Cingular. Cingular routes plenty of its cell traffic over AT&T's backbone. I'm sure they've already sent some of your conversations to the NSA.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget Echelon and the Clipper Chip (Score:2)
And long before that even there was Echelon, and also the Clipper Chip which was a simialr attempt that did not go through.
Honestly though I find it odd that people care so much about this, it seems pretty obvious to me that any transmissions sent over public networks are subject to being interecepted and listened to. If not the government, then s
Re:From Bad to Worse (Score:3, Insightful)
They don't have to process it "fast enough for it to matter". It just has to be on file, for whenever it happens that someone with the authority to look at it has a reason to do so. That reason could be legitimate, or maybe not so much. It could even be quite personal, and totally unrelated to the avowed purposes for which the information was gathered in the first place.
Re:From Bad to Worse (Score:1)
TRMs (Score:5, Informative)
IIRC, the fingerprints don't have any actual content in them, but instead describe the characteristics of the audio. So it's plausible, at least, that they can't listen in on your conversations, but could still uniquely identify what you're listening to.
so what if its hashed, if you have the same hash.. (Score:2)
There are some things you don't want to know... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:There are some things you don't want to know... (Score:1)
Re:There are some things you don't want to know... (Score:1)
Ummmm... (Score:1)
Funny sounds (Score:2)
Re:Funny sounds (Score:2)
great. (Score:3, Insightful)
And to broaden my rant: Who are these people who think that playing TV programs and games on a phone is a great idea? Where are these people? I would love to see all of the marketing and R&D dollars poured into these stupid, stupid features go instead into producing smaller phones that have increased range, longer battery life and a user interface not designed by a team of raccoons. Is that so ridiculous?
Re:great. (Score:2)
Yes
Re:great. (Score:2)
-WS
Re:great. (Score:2)
Re:great. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:great. (Score:2)
Me. And most of my friend. And no, we aren't in highschool; the youngest of us is 25.
Where are these people? I would love to see all of the marketing and R&D dollars poured into these stupid, stupid features go instead into producing smaller phones that have increased range, longer battery life and a user interface not designed by a team of raccoons. Is that so ridiculous?
Buy a nokia? Nok
Re:great. (Score:2)
Do you really have a girlfriend, or are you just saying that so we won't all think, "I'll bet he doesn't have a girlfriend"? I'm talking about real girlfriends here, not the "friends" on MySpace that merely claim to be your friend (or female).
[Sorry, that was rude. I don't know what got into me...]
Re:great. (Score:2)
She's real. The mood swings confirm that
Re:great. (Score:2)
That was after 3 pints of fine porter and IPA. It seemed clever at the time.
Real GF's are a PITA, but worth it.
Mine lives 500 miles away. That has its plusses and minusses, but on Friday night it was probably on the debit side of the ledger...
Re:great. (Score:1)
Unfortunately, as of yet, nobody figured out how to implement a service where you get a longer battery life for a regular monthly fee. Once that happens, you can expect it to be everywhere. Just like with any other service that cellphone o
Re:great. (Score:1)
Ringtones are a(I saw it somewhere) several billion dollar market. That's not chump change. Most people I know don't download them, but those dollars are coming from somewhere. The TV and other stuff seems to be the same way.
I'm right there with ya on a phone that works really well as phone though. They don't need to get a whole lot smaller th
I'd take one (Score:2)
I am right there with you on also wanting more research into light, smaller, more pure phones which is sort of what I have (pay as you go phone from Virgin Mobile that is mostly just a phone) but I can see a place for something like this device where you give them data in exchange for service.
Re:great. (Score:2)
Too much coffee? Didn't RTFA? This would not be a device secretly installed in cell phones. It would be a special device carried by recruited panellists. It's just a high tech way of doing contin
Re:great. (Score:1)
Both! But come on, this is Slashdot. What do you expect?
Skewed results? (Score:1)
But, really .... (Score:2, Interesting)
Anybody who would be persuaded to wear one of these things is probably ready to buy anything you tell them about. Everyone else is going to be looking at it like "why on Earth would I do that?".
Gah, how utterly creepy sounding. Then again, I'm pretty hostile to being marketed to, so I probably don't reflect a 'typical' view.
It might be fun (Score:2)
I'd never go to chain restaurants, never buy mainstream media, actively avoid anything I've noticed an ad campaign for. What little TV I watch doesn't have ads, the music I listen to is not mainstream, and if they can make anything of the fact that I watched 4 episodes of Farscape last weekend and listened to Big City Orchestra, they're my kind of marketers.
If I could trust that the info was not being shared with law enforcement (big if) and didn't resul
Cell Phone Paranoia (Score:5, Interesting)
I presume most people here have read Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, right? He pointed out decades ago that a phone can still operate even if the user isn't on it -- the phone is a ubiquitous bug, if anybody in control of the technology wants it to be used that way. We already know that cell phones have been used as medium resolution GPS trackers of people. Now we know that they are capable of listening in to our private moments as well.
It wouldn't take much for the manufacturers to put in enough memory to store random or prescheduled episodes of speech from our environment, even if we thought our phones were off. These could later be transmitted in a burst to some gov't agency and we wouldn't even notice the power drain. And cell phones always remain somewhat enabled, even when the main power is off. It's possible the time could come when the gov't requires manufacturers to build in some kind of continuous monitoring capability in order to be given their licenses to use the airwaves. If they suspect you, or if they suspect they might suspect you, they can remotely enable this mode.
This all sounds insanely paranoid to me, and now we have to to line our tin-foil hat with acoustic foam? There was a time not long ago when I'd dismiss anyone thinking about such things as a lunatic. But we have enough documented cases of policy corruption to go with the amazing advances in technology capabilities to make this all practical, if not practiced.
Well, I'm not about to go live as a trapper in the woods, and the technological genie can't be forced back into the bottle. Hopefully we can return to a benign government of the people and avoid the headlong rush into a police state. Now there's a crazy idea!
Re:Cell Phone Paranoia (Score:1)
There are already so many reasons why this is a good idea (paying to download ringtones and upload pictures!?), but the threat of tyranny is always good for another.
Using a cell-phone as a bugging device (Score:2, Informative)
The Financial Times (requires subscription) ran an article on this subject on 2nd of August 2005 here [ft.com]
So ad measurement has been low-tech up until now? (Score:1)
With apologies to Prof. Farnsworth: (Score:1)
It's the apocalypse all right. I always assumed marketing would have a hand in it.
Wrong method of introduction (Score:2)
Re:Wrong method of introduction (Score:2)
IMMI Website (Score:2, Informative)
Fortunately for me... (Score:1)
Scrambling the signal (Score:1)
If it was really scrambled it will be useless. Database of sound signatures?
Doesn't it make really suspicious?
Imagine a database of scrambled,one-second snippets of conversations(which have no content).How is that useful?
"The company has developed software that helps the phones take samples of nearby sounds, which are identified by comparing them against a database."
" says the technology can track exposur
Re:penis chopping (Score:2)
The irony of asking for that as a deposit is that everyone is better off that they gave it up for any amount of time...