After Allyssa’s presentation I decided to look around and see what else is new in the adventurous world of internet advertising and stumbled on this article. Apparently Facebook filed for a patent that searches your friend’s interests and gives you adds based on the that. The idea behind this is that if enough of your friends share a common interest then you probably do too. I can’t help but think of this just churning out more spam advertising. Currently I ignore the advertisements that are popping up that are supposed to be catered towards my tastes. Now I will get advertisements about what other people like, which serves to 1). Alienate me and show me how distant I am from my Facebook friends, and 2). Reinforce my hate for advertisements.

Though as much as I loathe most advertisements they are a necessary evil especially as sites like Facebook expand. The problem is that during the 90’s there was such enthusiasm for the internet and all the cool innovation it would bring but there was little talk about who would pay for it. Now that the internet is finally upon us we have to deal with the reality of paying for it; the reality of advertisements. As I sit here writing this post and avoiding the pop up ads from my browser, my mind wanders to a simpler time, when the internet was free and could fit in a box…