You know when you open a new tab in your web browser and see
those “tiles” with the websites you visit a lot? Well, according to this
article, it turns out Mozilla Firefox has been including “Suggested Tiles” in
that mix. Although they link to “partners,” they interesting aren’t “paid” yet.
The article below describes in more detail how the algorithm works.
Mozilla Firefox is one of the browsers I use, and I did not
notice this change until I actually went and looked for it after reading this
article. And I have to say, when I did go specifically look for it, it really
didn’t bother me. So much of our “search” on the internet includes paid links –
to me, this isn’t that different. As long as the main websites I want are there (b/c
I actually do like to use “tiles” sometimes), I don’t care if there are some other
ones mixed in. That said, according to the article, apparently they toyed with
the idea of including "ad tiles" earlier and got backlash, and slowly evolved
the product to this “Suggest Tiles” model. I think it would also be okay to
also include paid tiles there (if labeled accordingly), and as this article suggests, wonder if Mozilla will
head in that direction. Again, there are paid ads everywhere these days –
Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc. – how is this that different?
What do you think?
http://marketingland.com/mozilla-ready-to-promote-suggested-tiles-in-firefox-142462
1 comment:
Wow, I definitely hadn't noticed that. I'll keep my eye out for other browsers, too, now -- I typically use Chrome and now I'm going to pay closer attention...
But I agree with your assessment -- I think we as a culture and possibly as a generation are now quite used to being marketed to. As long as it's relevant, it probably doesn't bother many consumers. And in fact, it could actually point out something useful.
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