The Next Step

There’s an article over at TechCrunch talking about Facebook’s upcoming announcement of “SocialAds”, which is likely to be just as evil as it sounds. It’s hard to decide exactly what is fact and what is speculation at this point, but here’s the key:

It will be how Facebook will actually start to make real money—both through ads on its own site and on other sites through a new ad network it is about to launch (presumably with its ad partner and new investor Microsoft). SocialAds will be an attempt to be like Google’s AdSense, except that it will allow ads to be targeted to Facebook members’ individual interests and profile data rather than the text on a given Web page. This targeting will be done by placing cookies on Facebook members’ browsers when they visit the social site, so that they can be identified later when they visit other sites hosting SocialAds.

Now, it’s one thing if Facebook decides to target advertising to me while I’m logged in to their own site, of my own free will. But to put a cookie on my computer for the purpose of licensing targeted ads to other sites based on information I entrusted only to Facebook is downright evil. What’s worse, you can’t even use Facebook if you don’t have cookies enabled, so if you’ve become dependent on it for any number of services it provides, you are going to be stuck with the fact that Facebook will be essentially selling your personal information to advertisers.

It’s still hard to know exactly what form these ads will take, but it’s hard to imagine a situation that isn’t frightening. If this indeed does happen, I would suggest that Facebook users stymie the ads by simply deleting all the information from their profiles. I’m sure that users will also form the standard We-hate-the-new-Facebook-feature protest groups, too. And if we’re really lucky, Facebook might listen.

So the Red Sox are in the playoffs as division champions. This qualifies as Good News. However, while I was enjoying Don and Jerry’s last workday of the year, they mentioned something that disturbed me. The first round of the playoffs (the division series) would be broadcast not on NESN, Fox, or ESPN, but on TBS. I didn’t expect NESN to get any playoff games, but I did expect that the station that did get the playoff games would at least be a major player in baseball broadcasting (read: Fox or ESPN). Now I hate Fox and ESPN, mostly for their broadcasters. The quality of their camera and audio work is excellent, and you can count on them for good shots and replays most of the time, but even the mention of Joe Buck’s name makes me cringe. I don’t know who TBS plans to use as their broadcasters, but I do know one thing: TBS doesn’t have an HD station.

Sports are one of the biggest driving forces behind the sales of HD hardware and plans. Even the regional NESN has realized this and pushed out an HD station. And yet, after an entire season of watching the Red Sox in glorious HD, I am going to have to suffer the indignity of the division series in 4:3 low-def TV circa 1995. How can one truly appreciate the buckets of sweat pouring down the bald head of Kevin Youkilis without HD? Will Big Papi’s spit-and-clap be as menacing in 480i? Will Mike Lowell be as dashing? Coco as quick? Manny as… Manny-ey? It’s going to be tough to go back, TBS. You’re not doing yourself any favors with the die-hard fans by buying up rights to games that, frankly, you are not prepared to broadcast properly. The playoffs have been in HD for years now, and if you want to seriously get into baseball, you need to get with the times.