I’m a big fan of outsourcing one’s email to Google, and then continuing to use one’s favorite email client. (I’ve never switched away from Eudora.) Accordingly, I rarely use the actual Gmail interface – except when traveling and hence away from my desktop computer.
Recently I have been on vacation, logging directly into Gmail a lot. And so I started noticing the contextual ads that appear above the lists of messages. It turns out that – well, on the whole they’re not terribly contextual. Highlights include:
Palm-Meow, Inc. - www.palm-meow.com - cat retirement/boarding - Florida Tropical Paradise for Your Cat. This appeared over email that referred to kittens I was seeing (on my trip to Grand Cayman) and elder care issues (in Ohio).
Spam Imperial Tortilla Sandwiches - To serve, cut each roll in half and, similarly, Ginger Spam Salad - Serves 1, refrigerate overnight. Each appeared over, you guessed it, my Spam folder. Yum!
A dozen more examples, and some related links, may be found here.
What good, bad, or just weird fits have you found between contextual ads and your web mail? Please share!
Curt Monash is a leading analyst of and strategic advisor to the software industry. Praised by Lawrence J. Ellison for his "unmatched insight into technology and marketplace trends," Curt was the software/services industry's #1 ranked stock analyst while at PaineWebber, Inc., where he served as a First Vice President until 1987. He subsequently co-founded Evernet, Inc., a $40 million networking systems integrator. Since 1990, he has owned and operated Monash Research, an analysis and advisory firm covering software-intensive sectors of the technology industry. In that period he also has been co-founder, president, or chairman of several other technology startups.
Curt has served as a strategic advisor to many well-known firms, including Oracle, Microsoft, SAP, AOL, CA, and Netezza. Curt earned a Ph.D. in mathematics (Game Theory) from Harvard University. He has held faculty positions in mathematics, economics and public policy at Harvard, Yale, and Suffolk universities.
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