Email or username:

Password:

Forgot your password?
Kevin's posts Post Back to profile
Top-level
Marty Fouts

@DJGummikuh @GossiTheDog It would be nice if we could come up with language that captures the difference between ads and “posts that someone paid to place on timeline”.

There are ads on Mastodon, such as the artists who post to promote their work or services for sale. They are generally a good thing because you only see them under the same circumstances that you see any post.

But there are no posts that are forced onto your timeline.

6 December at 2:05 | Wall-to-wall | Open on mastodon.online
13 comments
Mac Berg

@MartyFouts @DJGummikuh @GossiTheDog What should we call them? Organic ads? Homegrown ads? I've seen plenty of those on Mastodon, even from companies, but the corporate ones have so far only popped up in the federated feed and are easy to block so they don't bother me that much.

6 December at 2:36 | Open on mastodon.online
n8chz ⒶⒺ

@macberg @MartyFouts @DJGummikuh @GossiTheDog

I call it self promotion. I engage in a bit of self promotion here, although the things I promote don't involve money changing hands. Fedi accounts that only exist to promote a substack account are a bit of a pet pet peeve, and I tend not to boost, but I coexist without complaint with advertising that is not of a "pay to play" nature.

Even in the commercial web, I don't ad block, but I do tracker block (with Privacy Badge) and of course I get accused of ad blocking by the ad blocker blockers. THAT business model makes me vomit.

@macberg @MartyFouts @DJGummikuh @GossiTheDog

I call it self promotion. I engage in a bit of self promotion here, although the things I promote don't involve money changing hands. Fedi accounts that only exist to promote a substack account are a bit of a pet pet peeve, and I tend not to boost, but I coexist without complaint with advertising that is not of a "pay to play" nature.

6 December at 7:21 | Open on queer.party
David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)

@n8chz @macberg @MartyFouts @DJGummikuh @GossiTheDog The first post is self promotional but boosts are just advertising. I think the main difference currently is that there’s no money (or other tangible incentive) changing hands.

That’s not guaranteed though. If someone collects a hundred thousand followers on Mastodon, companies are likely to start asking them to boost posts in exchange for enticements. The only differences between that and something like LinkedIn are that the reach is limited to people who follow the big account and the money goes to the person who did the boost (who is, at least, explicitly linking their reputation to it) and not the platform.

Nothing in the Fediverse is intrinsically immune to advertising, though being able to flag accounts as spam and have them blocked (and possibly their instances if they fill up with marketing drones) may help.

@n8chz @macberg @MartyFouts @DJGummikuh @GossiTheDog The first post is self promotional but boosts are just advertising. I think the main difference currently is that there’s no money (or other tangible incentive) changing hands.

That’s not guaranteed though. If someone collects a hundred thousand followers on Mastodon, companies are likely to start asking them to boost posts in exchange for enticements. The only differences between that and something like LinkedIn are that the reach is limited to...

6 December at 10:11 | Open on infosec.exchange
DJGummikuh

@david_chisnall @n8chz @macberg @MartyFouts @GossiTheDog
> Nothing in the Fediverse is intrinsically immune to advertising

Well, I can always simply unfollow/mute/block that guy if he starts pushing garbage, and since there is no algorithm, as long as you don't use the global feed that's all I will ever have seen from that dude.

6 December at 10:13 | Open on mastodon.social
n8chz ⒶⒺ

@david_chisnall @macberg @MartyFouts @DJGummikuh @GossiTheDog

Boosts are indeed advertising, which is why when stuff is seriously morally reprehensible such as Nazi shit we go out of our way to avoid signal boosting it.

In less sinister cases I think most of us are constantly amplifying (boosting) signal and attenuating (muting) noise, and the effects are synergistic, and more effective as a "relevance" filter than any "algorithm."

6 December at 12:46 | Open on queer.party
n8chz ⒶⒺ

@david_chisnall @macberg @MartyFouts @DJGummikuh @GossiTheDog

I have a pet theory that ALL business models (at least all online business models, I'm still undecided re. meatspace) are based on signal degradation as a way to enforce information asymmetry and value subtraction to enforce paywalls.

astoundingteam.com/wordpress/2

6 December at 13:00 | Open on queer.party
n8chz ⒶⒺ

@david_chisnall @macberg @MartyFouts @DJGummikuh @GossiTheDog

I wonder out loud sometimes how many fedizens getting recruited as influencers it would take to turn the whole thing into a gray goo of pure enshittification.

6 December at 13:02 | Open on queer.party
n8chz ⒶⒺ

@macberg @MartyFouts @DJGummikuh @GossiTheDog I try to live by the code of the early web... self promotion is necessary for helping people discover people, but shameless self promotion is spam. I know shameless self promotion when I see it, but it might be worthwhile to at least try to codify it.

6 December at 12:39 | Open on queer.party
Marty Fouts

@n8chz @macberg @DJGummikuh @GossiTheDog My example was of self promotion but we have advertising in all of its forms, including corporate marketing on the fediverse. ISTM we need a different term to describe the kinds of ads that are forced onto a timeline, because it’s the forcing that we don’t have, not the advertising.

6 December at 14:39 | Open on mastodon.online
teledyn 𓂀

@macberg @MartyFouts @DJGummikuh @GossiTheDog

In the long lost days of the #cluetrain we called these "having a conversation“ — unlike 'advertising', you can reply, share or block, and if the OP doesn't grasp that "business is conversation" it's not because we didn't give them the chance ☺️

6 December at 15:08 | Open on mstdn.ca
DJGummikuh

@MartyFouts @GossiTheDog for me, ads are exclusively the latter. The first one is to me just peomotion

6 December at 7:07 | Open on mastodon.social
Go Up