You’ve probably had the experience of going to Amazon.com and receiving suggestions about what you might enjoy next, given what you recently purchased. You like Frank Sinatra? Try Ella or Duke. You bought Season Three of American Idol? Here’s 10% off on a lobotomy.
But now that’s so Old Thing.
The Next New Thing is an internet phone service that will be completely free—in exchange for sending you ads while you talk. Special ads related to what you’re discussing on the phone at that very moment.
As with Skype, consumers plug a headset and microphone into their computers, dial a number, and yak as long as they like—say, all the way until Britney Spears finds a new career. Meanwhile, Pudding Media is monitoring the call with voice recognition software. The program deciphers what’s being discussed, selects ads based on what it “hears,” and sends them to the subscriber’s computer screen while he or she is still talking.
A conversation about movies, for example, will generate movie reviews and ads for new films—while callers are talking movies. People discussing cars will see ads for cars—or for oil changes, depending on the conversation.
So what if the talk turns to sex? Ads for dildos, lube, condoms? Ads for hotels that rent by the hour, pharmacies that carry emergency contraception, testimonials for Blowjob Becky?
Or will the rules for sex be different, as they are in so many other venues? I write with voice-activated software, and it’s great. But the dictionary and other algorithms are strictly-controlled trade secrets. Users don’t know if the program understands, say, “teabagging,” “threesome,” “fudgepacking,” or “golden shower” until they use it in a sentence.
This new phone thing faces the same questions. If a couple is reminiscing about that glass elevator grope that wet her panties (and a few bystanders’), will they see an ad for Windex? Talcum powder? Victoria’s Secret? What about an intense exchange about pulling a guy’s nipples too hard—an ad for Excedrin? A sports medicine clinic? Victoria’s Secret?
If anything is scarier than your phone company mining and translating your words into possible commercial interests, it’s this: Pudding Media’s CEO Ariel Maislos says that during tests, the ads seemed to shape the talk. “The conversation was actually changing based on what was on the screen,” he said. “Our ability to influence the conversation was remarkable.”
Maybe something like, I say that was great sex last night. You say yeah, you were in there pretty deep. A second later, we’re looking at an ad for penis enlargement. “You could go even deeper next time,” you say. “We could try that position you’ve mentioned a few times. I don’t know why it never occurred to me before.”
That’s pretty benign. But what if the ads are for baby food instead of birth control? Barbra Streisand instead of Stevie Ray Vaughan? The Tonight Show instead of tequila? Pajamas instead of garter belts? This is some serious potential mind control.
Most importantly, will this reduce all that spam we get about penis enlargement?