Comments on: The Algorithm Is Offensive

By: 2007 In Numbers: The Ask Mouse Squeaked A Little Louder This Year : New Web 2.0 Magazine

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 04:24:00 +0000

[...] States alone on a bizarre “Ask the Algorithm” campaign that even sunk to the depths of using the Unabomber as a marketing tool. Unfortunately for good taste there’s nothing like a bit controversy to draw attention to a [...]

By: 2007 In Numbers: The Ask Mouse Squeaked A Little Louder This Year

2007 In Numbers: The Ask Mouse Squeaked A Little Louder This Year — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 17:00:58 +0000

By: MiMac

MiMac — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 02:32:14 +0000

Oddly enough I’ve never heard of the Unabomber (before my time I guess). So I Googled the word.

Opps my bad! I should have used Ask.com, but since I didn’t get that they were a search engine from the billboard, why would I?

Smarter advert execs would have followed this path (using the same example as above)

Who was the Unabomber? ask.com

What does a Sumatran Tiger look like? ask.com

Where can I see footage of the Moon landing? ask.com

you get the idea (I hope!)

By: Michael Gracie

Michael Gracie — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 04:28:15 +0000

The whole “messaging” thing is offensive…

Mike Arrington noted that a new Ask.com/Crispin Porter ad campaign billboard is offensive. Unabomber…right.
The whole concept of “messaging” is offensive, IMHO. The assumption is that the consumer is not very smart. That might have been true a f…

By: MnkyTalk

MnkyTalk — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:27:19 +0000

Hey Duncan,
The answer lies in your post…why did you cover it?! Well coz it piqued your interest…that’s what advertsing is all about, nobody cares if you understand it or not

By: Mark S

Mark S — Wed, 30 May 2007 12:58:41 +0000

Totally stupid ad. I saw the Jesus one in New York and had no idea what the product was…learned about it at TC…very poor. Duncan’s stock is going up in my eyes.

By: Daniel Miller

Daniel Miller — Wed, 30 May 2007 10:29:41 +0000

The unabomber was an insurgent, not a terrorist. Wake up, man!

By: Elmo Saukko

Elmo Saukko — Wed, 30 May 2007 09:35:39 +0000

I think the idea here is to get people asking questions “what’s an algorithm?”, “why does the unabomber hate algorithm?”, “what was the story about unabomber anyway?”. And of course you talk with your friends about it and go to Ask.com to find out.

By: Raoul

Raoul — Wed, 30 May 2007 06:12:22 +0000

Wake me up when they spend a comparable amount to improve their shitty product.

By: Marc Fiszman

Marc Fiszman — Wed, 30 May 2007 06:10:33 +0000

Amusing how you attempt to cover your ass with the “compelling” stuff. Don’t want to upset the advertisers too much

By: Nemrut

Nemrut — Wed, 30 May 2007 04:50:35 +0000

“…Al-go-rhy-thm” ugh what’s that. this sort of reminds me of the idiotic signs on CA hwys “clickit or tickit!”

By: Brian Lash

Brian Lash — Wed, 30 May 2007 04:28:20 +0000

@62:

Dave, it was years ago so we’ve all forgotten. But the unabomber made media fame NOT because he sent bombs around. It’s scary, but it’s not what made him so popular.

The unabomber, or “university and airline bomber,” was a genius of sorts (Harvard undergrad, UMich Master’s and PhD) who HATED technology. More formally, he was an anarcho-primitivist.

So it follows that the unabomber would hate “the algorithm.” The implication is that the technology underpinning the Ask.com search engine is of such a scale that it would irk this world’s most famed anti-technologists.

And if someone were so compelled as to search Ask.com for “unabomber,” they would find his manifesto and in an instant understand the billboard’s meaning.

I elaborate at the Ch4tter blog. Find it in the trackbacks.

By: Tony Chen

Tony Chen — Wed, 30 May 2007 03:16:29 +0000

“Techcrunch hates the Algorithm.”

By: STFU

STFU — Wed, 30 May 2007 03:09:25 +0000

The idea is that if the unabomber hates something, then we all must like it, because we are not unabombers.

By: David Mackey

David Mackey — Wed, 30 May 2007 02:23:34 +0000

Why does the unabomber hate the algorithm?

By: David Scott Lewis

David Scott Lewis — Wed, 30 May 2007 02:01:45 +0000

Stupid campaign … and some of this stuff is offensive. The ad agency should be fired ASAP.

If they want to generate traffic, why not have a billboard proclaiming: “We Support Genocide” or “Auschwitz and Darfur” with a smiley face.

Ask has lost their mind. Maybe they should try to find it in their algorithm.

By: STFU

STFU — Wed, 30 May 2007 01:54:36 +0000

doesn’t tech crunch have better things to write about than your opinion of and ad campaign?

I think the campaign is great. Go to Europe and watch TV and commercials over there. They are not so “stick up my ass” about everything.

You don’t like it? Fuck you.

By: Wes

Wes — Wed, 30 May 2007 01:05:57 +0000

That kind of campaign will put off a few people. Surely they could have up with a better campaign.

By: Rick

Rick — Wed, 30 May 2007 01:02:20 +0000

I first saw this earlier this month on a billboard facing the West Side Highway in Manhattan. I still can’t figure it out.

By: AC

AC — Tue, 29 May 2007 23:14:22 +0000

I plan to check out ask.com after reading this post. It’s working…

By: Brian Lash

Brian Lash — Tue, 29 May 2007 22:55:32 +0000

To elaborate, an “ethical” use of a mainstream killer is NOT parading him or her — or what s/he did — to sell products. But to mention a killer in the same way we might mention a threat to national security or a problem with the pedophiles who prey on children requires a different interpretation altogether.

I point to the fact that we should be able to distinguish between the two IN THIS INSTANCE before we vote “yea or nay” on Ask’s newest campaign.

By: Brian Lash

Brian Lash — Tue, 29 May 2007 22:51:46 +0000

To be sure, there are plenty of “safe, ethical” marketing applications of killers as portrayed in the media.

Why not make sure this ISN’T one of them before we pass judgment? Check trackbacks for more.

By: Ch4tter

Ch4tter — Tue, 29 May 2007 22:45:48 +0000

The unabomber Ask.com green — What’s it mean?…

On the topic of the ethical ramifications of the new Ask.com campaign in its most recent variant, why has no one yet asked, “WHY would the unabomber hate the algorithm?” Shouldn’t we first understand the campaign before we chide its…

By: Curt

Curt — Tue, 29 May 2007 21:54:29 +0000

The butler was their dope-smoking, threesome-having sybaritic conscience. Since he left it’s all gone down to Crazy Town.

By: Isn't it ironic

Isn't it ironic — Tue, 29 May 2007 21:46:44 +0000

The biggest irony is that 50 people commented on this in less than 8 hours on just one blog (myself included). In Crispin and Ask’s minds, we’re doing exactly what they wanted us (the “mindless” sheep) to do: talk about it, regardless the reasons…they’re the ones laughing right now.

Marketers are more brilliant than geeks give them credit for:

Geeks = Mozilla & Linux
Marketers = Internet Explorer & Windows

I’d rather have a billion dollars in my pocket with a chaffeur than driving around a Prius knowing that I created something nifty and neat-o.