Amazon’s and Facebook’s Ad Privacy Practices Irk Ad Agencies | Digital – Advertising Age

Two of the biggest publishers on the web don’t use the advertising industry’s standardized ad-privacy program, and it’s a problem for even the largest digital-media buyers.

Facebook and Amazon both offer targeted display advertising that can sometimes incorporate behavioral data from third parties. However, while nearly every other relevant media firm, ad network and ad-data firm either uses the industry’s self-regulatory Ad Choices program or operates one that can be easily integrated with it, Facebook and Amazon do not.

via Amazon’s and Facebook’s Ad Privacy Practices Irk Ad Agencies | Digital – Advertising Age.

Am I An Outlier, Or Are Apple Products No Longer Easy To Use? | John Battelle’s Search BlogJohn Battelle’s Search Blog

A genius “rant” about Apple usability – I’m glad someone has actually said it. It’s been the elephant in the room for a couple of years. He’s certainly not an outlier! I have the same issues with iPhoto (really what’s the point?), iTunes (another UI, really?) and iOS (I am not fat fingered).

Quick excerpts below but you really need to go read the full article by  John Battelle here.

“… the fact that Apple doesn’t respond in its forums about this (or any) issue? Ridonkulous.”

iTunes

“… just the fact that there’s a market for something like Rinse kind of makes my point.”

Without going into detail, my little rant about Calendar, iPhoto, Address Book, et al goes for iTunes as well. I even bought a piece of software to try to fix iTunes myriad issues (Rinse). I can’t figure out whether or not Rinse has fixed anything, to be honest, and so far, all it’s managed to do is marry the wrong album art to about 100 or so songs which previously didn’t have any imagery. Which is kind of funny, but a tad annoying. And just the fact that there’s a market for something like Rinse kind of makes my point.

iOS

“Seriously, how can an adult finger ever touch that little search icon without either hitting the “A” or the “+”????”

Have you ever done a search in your iPhone contacts? You need the fingers of a poorly fed six-year-old to activate that search function. No, really, I must waste four or five minutes a day trying to make that damn thing work.

 

via Am I An Outlier, Or Are Apple Products No Longer Easy To Use? | John Battelle’s Search BlogJohn Battelle’s Search Blog.

Hey, Apple and Google: Stop trying to wolf the whole mobile pie • The Register

“Apple is a terrible Google, which is a terrible Amazon, which is a terrible Apple.”

It’s become a truism that the way to win in mobile is with an end-to-end, hardware-to-software-to-cloud strategy. I just wish this were as good for consumers as it seems to be for vendors. If I could get any wish fulfilled for 2013, it would be to have Apple and Google, in particular, go back to doing what they do best – rather than doing “all the things” in an attempt to squeeze out maximum value from a captive consumer.
via Hey, Apple and Google: Stop trying to wolf the whole mobile pie • The Register.