Comment 2VW6 Re: Definition?

Story

Advertisers are outraged that 23% of video ads are viewed by robots

Preview

Definition? (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-12-11 02:29 (#2VTZ)

So what's a "view" in this story? That is, how would one determine that a video has been "viewed"? Does merely downloading it count? Do they have some way of determining that it has been shown in some window? And that the window is visible on the screen?

Just curious.

Re: Definition? (Score: 1)

by billshooterofbul@pipedot.org on 2014-12-12 14:50 (#2VW6)

With flash you could have a call back at the end of the video to indicate that it was played all the way through. Of course if you know that it calls back at the end you could just simulate that call back...

The visibility of it is kind of impossible to enforce, as far as I know. At the end of the day you are sending software to run on a random, foreign environment, its not going to be easy to make sure it does what you want it to, especially in a sand-boxed environment.

I imagine its a back and forth cat and mouse between those trying to simulate views and those paying the advertising bills.

I guess if the question is if a human is present, you'd need a captcha. But Who the hell want's to fill out a captcha in order to view an advertisement?

So you have people you want to view your ad actively trying to avoid it, while those you don't want to see the ad ( robots ) want to see the ad. That's a tough nut to crack.

Junk Status

Not marked as junk