Gadgetory

and good morning Wednesday morning last time I checked August 10th I'm pretty sure and we are here with another episode of the 359 episode 92 to be exact with Roger Tang 93 93 93 my apologies and Sam roads good morning everyone morning everyone hey happy I'm so happy hump day oh yeah I say that I don't I should not say that it's okay you can skip it next week when I'm not here right yeah it'll be just that so Sam you have to remind him I'll say it okay either way what's on tap today what is on tap today we're talking about Facebook's decision to shoot ads down your throat regardless whether or not you have an ad blocker to block ad blockers lochhead blockers yeah wow the cat and mouse game continues yes whether or not that's a good thing and we'll also be talking about sling TV adding NFL to its lineup I just sort of giving some credence to web streaming services then you know a little bit of hope for cord cutters and then lastly just thrown out shout out to our latest road trip story by our very own stephen Shankland went out to france to check out the refugee camps there and as always if you have any questions about in these topics leave them in the comments section our producer brian will pick out the best questions and we will do our best to answer them and if there are questions about apple and samsung low well build those too yeah you have any questions with that reason right like I said we'll try our bag let's just open that door early let's uh let's get started Brian all right we're gonna go to speed everybody starts submitting your questions we are rolling in three two one welcome to the 339 where we talked about the top texas tech news of them lips wow those are rare just start that one again yeah set that one again that was rare promise that episode 100 and that have you figured it out figure that's the curse you got for saying I made a rookie minutes Joan all right episode 93 take two one two go welcome to the 359 where we talk about the top tech news of the day and all the other crap we want to throw in I'm Roger Cheng I'm Ben Fox Rubin I'm Samantha roads facebook is playing hardball when it comes adds the company says it will show you commercials even if you have an ad blocker in place that's gotta sting right no I mean okay so Facebook probably isn't the worst offender when it comes to this however it could set a pretty bad precedent where you're just going to get more ads even if you really don't want them and are going out of your way not to have them so right and just really clear ad blocking technology is extremely popular we're talking about nearly half a billion people using some form of a blocking software mobile devices so that's that's a huge amount of people I mean let's be very clear to our audience that we work for an Internet publisher and so it's probably are bad for the bottom line for the people that pay our paychecks right for our own customers or whatever our own readership to actually be using ad blockers and so there's a lot of discussion about that here yeah I mean there's definitely broader discussions like how much is content worth for years people just been watching or reading stuff online for free but you know this stuff costs money right our journalism costs money right and so not only is it you're getting it for free but like you're doing an ad blocker on top of it I mean it's it's an interesting discussion I've obviously used ad blockers in the past I mean like I I took it off of my browser at one point because it was slowing down my computer but yeah I mean like I totally get the fact that like a lot of ads can be really really invasive and rest super annoying so see I don't use ad blocker because I guess since I we're all in journalism and whenever I read someone's piece I know that so much work went into that so I'm like oh what get a little ad and be able to read the piece that they spent a lot of time reporter is that the same for like we're we're making case for journalism which you know it's clear that is fair we're drunk yeah but that's you know there's a bit clearer cost to what about Facebook the Facebook you know it's a social network it's built upon our own contributions to the site you know do they have as much of a case Nick I mean like they're SuperDuper ad-supported like they make almost all their money off of at so they want to make sure that you're not using an adblocker right so they're going to try every way possible maybe maybe consumers aren't like it it wouldn't surprise me if ad blockers and started creating ad blocker plus or whatever yes now the game will continue cold war of just yeah it seemed likely for and I don't think people are gonna not be on Facebook just because they will get ads though no no I mean is my facebook it's sort of it's part of our lives at this point we can't give it up unfortunately um but you know look this is you know they make the argument that Facebook is committed to being free they don't want this to be subscription service which is really the only other model that's out there right if it's not add based its subscription like Netflix or Hulu and you know they don't want to charge people to use Facebook all right with the last minute we have left what about sling TV well yes something sling TV just announce that it will add the NFL network and NFL redzone to its web streaming service next year it'll be included as part of its twenty dollar base pack it's actually not on a bad deal yeah so this is just making things a lot easier if you do want to be a cord cutter and you never had cable in the first place this is just continuation of that and like incrementally this stuff just keeps getting better which is pretty interesting to say yes are you a cable subscriber or cable TV subscribers uh yeah actually I am Wow I know it's pretty merry as a jury or maleny yeah however NFL's doing lots of tech stuff now because now they're gonna be on snapchat discover all the games are going to be a lot of the games are going to be put up on snap to discover so you're a die-hard football fan you've got a lot of options yeah twitter is gonna be streaming a couple games yeah NFL's definitely wine their distribution mmm and look again back to the original point like if you're a cord cutter I think Sports is one of the big things that's been missing out oh and so having an NFL network on is a huge get for sling yeah so lastly just want to give a shout out to stephen shankland for his road trip peace he went to Calais France known as the jungle one of the worst refugee camps country just to see how tech plays a role there you get a chance check it out on cnet com one or more about the rest of these stories check us out at cnet I'm Roger Cheng I'm Ben Fox Rubin I'm Samantha Reds thanks for listening and we'll open up the forum for some questions and actually while we're at it we'll post the link stevens road trip story in the description on this video after we finish live perfect um we have a lot of people who are interested in the ad thing yeah majority say there's already too many ads what the hell you guys seem to be really like yeah I mean I was actually kind of surprised by the conversation that had feared more into the journalism Otis like if I I mean to give a lot of credence to the Consumer Focus yeah ads definitely are getting more and more in your face and harder to ignore so it makes a ton of sense how many people are doing it they are protest the arguments always been like we want to deliver relevant ads to you does that make difference like if if isn't add that something that you really want doesn't matter what he does not want to see ads depends my legs look big and obnoxious it is yeah they're just getting bigger and more obnoxious and so it's like um people are trying to prevent that from happening and like just taking over your web page like they just want to get to the content all right we have all these tools at our disposal though for cookies tracking your data tracking yeah like if there's one good thing that could come out of being watched all the time it's like sell me something I want so you do want the relevant I mean I don't mind ads if it's something I care about don't try to sell me depends undergarments yet but yet there's plenty of one day I might need your very optimist listen I'm going down a path here there but there's plenty of stuff out I like stuff we're Americans we're cali listen to those like stuff I'm from America I like stuff the Ascension video games tell me something yet I mean to your points not necessarily both it's relevant it is sort of the invasiveness on how the sheer number of ads and how they pop up how they kind of interrupt or describe oh absolutely and that's what Tyler and the chat saying shout out to Tyler ads don't bother me at all it's when they pop up in my freaking face that I find a knowing and that's right and they don't block my content work it into the exactly the screen off to the side like sidebar Facebook has little ones that are on the side that's fine but it's gonna take over the whole screen or well Facebook if it takes over your newsfeed right like s or pops in as a sponsored piece of content even that doesn't bother me that much no I'd like you know what I like i blatantly like things on facebook to follow them and you use that information to say oh well the so-and-so actor is now in this movie you should see this movie yeah tell me about that yeah that's what the internet is for I've actually used those ads to find like clothes or something that they think somebody is clicking on those ads obviously otherwise like I know anybody yeah anybody that says advertising doesn't work is crazy advertising works oh yeah absolutely so Tyler still chattin he says that the facebook ads are intuitive and cool the way they are right now they're so seamless and the way they do flow into the feed so we've had somebody on our side here patterns outside over the play oh no I'm kidding I think I don't know it seems very yeah very receptive than the edge and he reckons we disagree with the facebook ads I think they're all much much worse offenders out there I I mean he's referencing YouTube red while we're at it where you can opt out of the ads but all right the subscription which ironically hulu is doing away with okay yeah YouTube is a good example of a website whose ads bug me a lot because they have those little banners then show up constantly and sometimes in multiple different places and you kind of feel like you're playing whack Amole while you're watching a video so like that's a situation where it's like I understand you need to make money but is there a less annoying way that you could do this so and also they will play ads in the beginning that take a really long time you can't skip them for a while yeah yeah that's that's all yeah they're just trying to get away from the the skip bad thing or that still mmm I seen it less oh yeah I've seen it less wrinkled ass like the option to they've condition does we've been conditioned similarly the thing that drives me nuts is when they reshaped the entire page so like when I'm on a page and it's taking a minute to load and there's different portions coming up and I have my mouse hovering over where I need to click and then add suddenly moves it yes oh yeah yeah yeah yeah son of a gun son yeah I spent yeah yeah there are actually quite a few web pages that do that and it's super annoying that's that's the one that bothers me the most yeah I don't reshape my page don't move anything around cover the rails cover the header I don't care I do not care like show me something cool yeah they don't move there are a couple yeah a couple egregious ads but they pop up they block the screen and there's no like I need you to find X button oh my god it's like it really have to hunt to find a close bond out so oh they intentionally move it around oh yeah especially mobile yes which slows down to site especially with with flash flash kills it right well mobile phone i'm finding especially there's more like version of pop-up ads like they'll send you to an app store even like you'll you watch oh my god i don't know what we have anything yeah that happens all the time and like some of these are legit sites that i'm going on okay let's make the devil's advocate position for a second sure though that people now want their content for free yep and you need to advertisers are constantly trying to find a way to like get people to click on this stuff so they actually see that like the money is actually worth it so I kind of feel like advertising is an inevitability because people are unwilling to subscribe to different news sources yes no or like video sources any sort of content whatever unless it's like Netflix Hulu different stuff like that so and at the end of the day you can't have any of those things you can't watch TV or playing these video games for free without them making some money some way right and so I mean you know kind of makes sense and we didn't have time in the podcast but I did want to bring up I wanted to bring up the John Oliver segment from this bad day we talked about you know spotlight now's a good time at it now would be a good time we do have the time to talk about I don't have time no I used to brings up the point like we've been as a news industry we be content is she giving it all away for free and the longer you get something for free the hardest because it's people that it's worth something right that's that's really the core dilemma yes it's a total bummer I mean like it's been happening since I've been a reporter for like 10 years and I don't think that we've really figured out the solution quite yet solution is trunk by the solutions drunk I mean like the session is basically I think the solution is no ads and everything is sponsored content we're basically like we all turn into buzzfeed and every story that you read write some is brought sorry I brought to you by pampers or I brought to you by apple or whatever being somewhat sarcastic here am i and what company Anthony says ads have a purpose and without them we wouldn't have the revenue for innovation needed to advance social media technology ads have their place no a minute it is kind of a necessary evil that's what we're talking about right like I think we're coming to that conclusion even though we all find it's like pretty annoying yeah I think think on the ground finding that balance right here's another one you Jen brings up there's so many repetitive ads like Geico ads on YouTube I know my girlfriend watches lifetime and it will have the same ad three times back to back in a break well wait like online or in the online experience yes yeah yeah what the hell give me filler give me promo your exit up there are yeah I think that's a problem basically every online service it's like the same repetitive that over and over again it's definitely not and that's a flaw in the salesman yeah for not being able to sell anything else right guys Geico gecko gecko Geico shut up maybe maybe that's not too far though maybe that is advertised for for geico pig factories now it's stuck in your head mm-hmm that's how that's how the plan is by the way this thing I'm gonna go buy some insurance this podcast was brought to you by polar seltzer no it's not no it's not Nani applying oh my god shut up and you know the stop talking you know I take it back the thing that's try making some money the thing I hate the most and I want to know if anyone else in chat land agrees with me on this is when ads have different volume levels than the video content yes you're watching Blair they started swearing is really turning into like I hate fast oh my god Lulu I'm looking at you I'm coming for you oh yeah sometimes it's so much louder and then it or you just pay for the no the no ad version hulu again I don't mind the ads if they work right and there seems like a models become flawed and like they're putting in these infomercials that are like two three minutes at a time yeah and they suck like none of them are good none of our deering i haven't seen one that I'm willing to sit through I actually like I think TV ads have become a lot more entertaining or a little more of them have become entertaining because you have a DVR and you can you know kind of click through them yeah they're like no no wait will actually try to entertain you oh they're desperate for you to hang on to that cable yeah yeah so I i do like TV ads I'm finding a little bit more often than I used to where they just you know they knew you are sitting there and watching anyway so they were like by this mattress that's all mattresses are amazing like it's kind of funny to see some of the repeat offenders over and over again online the ones who are really embracing the kind of new media model yeah casper mattresses yeah on audible.com shoot what's that website service square square space square c square space all the time it's like I say I applaud because they mix it up and yeah they give a host of a podcast or a show opportunity to essentially underwrite it right and actually I like the geico ones in particular because the they're able to fit those those ads in the super the short amount of time that you can skip an ad like go fit the full commercial not like 10 seconds then rather than like the full of like an ad like we realized that you've got like five seconds before we can skip this ad so here's the whole thing but they like when they skip it's like a it's a weird thing it's like two guys fishing in a boat and then the next thing to like there's like an eat the Eagles there the Eagle talons or something and I guess not everybody likes smooth jazz exactly there you go that's clever that's a pretty close yeah yeah entertain me I have no idea what i get if i went to geico but entertain me you'd get insurance they don't i'm not sure that for watching that at true true maybe you get a gecko something they'll just like give you give this stop with the geckos I now know he still exists so jealous i haven't seen about a misleading echo the caveman there's a man's not at one point they had men show different spokes do you remember when they trying to make a whole show out of the kia that was a terrible idea yeah any other questions no no I think we're all pretty much done the same page at this point uh ads online need some help it could be a lot better yeah baby more they could be more creative they could be more of an enjoyable experience they don't have to be disruptive yes and good news is that that conversation is happening at higher levels than what's happening at this podcast hopeless yeah like a lot of our higher ups are definitely aware of how many people are using adblock so maybe that maybe that means this will improve will say all right well let's wrap things up you like if you liked or heard if you like anything you saw hurt here sorry check us out on cnet our podcast is also available on itunes google play music tune in soundcloud feedburner and that's it yeah click on ads on cnet i'm not sure of this yeah we've done three times I don't know I don't know at well half of those I was out for a parentally so I've only done 50 times fine sure give you another 50 more i'll i'll have a gallon yeah All Right see y'all tomorrow