JAMES SPRATT .org

I was on the train to Brighton from Clapham Junction on Tuesday night to meet my sister’s in-laws-to-be prior to the wedding this Friday. A really good night with 20 of us at the table, although got a little drunk without really noticing it and Julia was sick thrice the next day.

Sat opposite us on the train was a Google employee. Although we didn’t speak, I knew this from 1. his smart casual attire, 2. the printed off ‘Caribou’ email he had sitting on the table the whole journey. It seemed as if he was trying to let his surrounding passengers know that he works for Google as he didn’t even look at it once, so it was clearly there for our benefit. Understandably, Google are an employer to be proud of, but I think this guy could do with a lesson in industrial operational security.

From what I could gleam whilst nonchalantly reading snippets of the email thread upside down, the big G are working on a new kind of Adsense, namely Syndicated Video Advertising. Just like in the current ‘old’ days where contextual advertising is dynamically thrown at your screen depending on all the nice words within the text, now they’re looking to feed us video advertising in a similar way. I can see that this wil take off but I’m not sure I like the idea. I like the way that text advertising is passive and you can read it if you’ve the time or inclination, but moving pictures are harder to look away from. It seems if we head this way that the web is becoming the television. This can’t be a good thing.