Re: The Attention Economy; when RFID skimming and facial recognition get cheap and ubiquitous so the billboards start to recognize me and call out my name to flog some personalized spiel for say embarrassing skin conditions (with the medical file data sold to them by the business my government sold me to), will I be angry I didn’t do something to prevent that?

That mindset helps because search is more than a channel. Search is the way people use the web. People don’t just fire up a browser without a goal in mind. We are all taking actions on the web based on our goal. Information we notice and content we experience along our goal path may change our goals, but it does not change the two basic natures of how we use the web – recovery and discovery.

Therein lies the key functional distinction between display and search. Search (as an app on the platform) is weaved into the web and the way we use it. Display is not. Display is layered on top of the web. This is why despite twelve years and countless millions of investment it has never performed. Frankly, it was doomed from the get-go. It never was a web service but rather built to be its own parallel platform (ehem, “Platform A”). The problem inherent with that is the medium is itself a platform. Ads will never control this medium. Here the medium (users) should control the ads.

And as for the ownership of visual space and attention that seems to be at issue in this discussion, it is probably going to come down to whether or not you subscribe to the viewpoint that we as individuals do “own” our own attention (& accordingly a part of the profits which are derived from the passive collection of web-surfing, click-tracking & etc.) as proposed by groups such as the (now defunct?) Attention Trust, although admittedly, retroactively stretching that concept backwards in time to encompass non-interactive display mechanisms like billboards is more than a little wonky. Still, I really enjoyed the whole piece on a conceptual level.

It’s also interesting to note that Gossage continuously refers to the advertising industry as “The Sign Painters” which is a fun reference for any World of Goo players out there…

LA without Angelyne would be a poorer place. But there are other places where billboards would be a public nuisance. As with anything else, zoning can allow or disallow them where appropriate.

Darren,

People have to live in society. The doctrine of quiet enjoyment is a key component of real property rights. What you seem to be saying is that your definition of quiet enjoyment is more correct or important than everyone else’s definition.

Why stop at billboards? Why not ban all advertisement, everywhere? They’re in your television wasting your life 30 seconds at a time. Why? They pay for the content. Ads are a fact of life. Vote with your money, boycott products on billboards. It would work, but people just don’t care enough.

Won’t you please think of the billboard manufacturers? :(

I’m in.

Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

This is the end result of smart people not having enough to occupy their minds. They come up with the most ridiculous arguments to support their gut instincts and whims.

What people believe about property rights and the the actual laws regarding land use are completely divergent. You may believe that you can do whatever the frack you want on your land, but its just not true. Cities have the ability to regulate signage, period. As noted above, lack of enforcement is the major problem.

In planning law, a significant difference is outlined between ‘on-site signage’ and ‘billboards’, chiefly, that signage is advertising your services on your building and billboards are advertising your services on someone else’s land. Partly, this is an issue of local character. Billboards make every place look the same.

Why should people have the inalienable right to profit on their land over your view? There are a million restrictions over blocking views- height restrictions, where you build on a lot, etc. There is no good argument in support of billboards, and Gossage’s article is a watershed in the literature.

Get used to it.

“There is no good argument in support of billboards,”

I’m waiting to hear a good one against them.

First of all, that’s attempted threadjacking. Second, because they don’t stand in front of your window for the rest of eternity, blocking your view and unless you live in Chernobyl, they’re not sixty feet high.

I’d be OK with billboards if they paid for the roads. It’s the public-owned roads that are providing an audience, not the private land owner.

I went to a festival recently that had zero advertising. It was so refreshing – like my eyes and mind had taken a four day nap. Which is especially surprising given the alcohol and late nights. It just felt really good not having my attention being grabbed every second.

I’d love to see an end to this garish shit. Banning it would be a great move.

Places where rich, bored commuters are bottlenecked on their way home are a marketing goldmine, and I don’t see the ad men backing off that space simply because they can’t use a billboard.

Great. Then I hope you renounce your support of protests, because they are just another form of advertisement.

Codswallop. Advertising exists to sell you things that you don’t need. Protests exist to get you stuff that you do need.

Equally codswollop. Many necessary services are advertised and I’m glad for them.