I’m actually somewhat surprised that “smart” TVs and phones don’t already have attention-aware ads
Did Sony used “McDonald’s” brand in a patent diagram? Can you link the source?
Yeah absolutely, here’s the filing:
From like 15 years ago. If they were gonna do it they would have done it by now.
I mean, Telly is giving away TVs that have a camera and second screen to play ads. Sony might not think they could get away with it a decade ago, but consumers seem to slowly accept more bullshit over time so I could definitely see their calculus changing in the future.
But they haven’t released a TV with that feature yet though, and if I remember right that patent’s fairly old – something like 10–15 years.
Wonder what’s kept them from actually doing it. Maybe even Sony suits understood it’d be a fucking disaster from a marketing perspective?
Edit: the patent was filed in 2009
Honestly I think it’s just a shit idea. Only way I could see it flying is if you heavily (or completely) subsidized the cost of the television. There’s already a company giving away free ad supported TVs.
It’s crazy that this is real. It looks like a comic someone would make to make fun of the idea. Like the fact that they’re watching some guy shoot someone, then the burger commercial comes on and the guy stands up and cheers “McDonalds!” Before sitting back down to watch more of guy shooting other guy.
This is peak “dumb Americans” humor, and they’re using this unironically to describe their business idea.
Always was, welcome to capitalism
Gary M. Zalewski is listed as the inventor. He is listed on 99 patents, several of which are related to increasing advertising proliferation and penetration. He’s basically a driver of enshittification. My favorite was “System and method for taking control of a system during a commercial break”. Can’t have the plebs changing channels!
I looked him up on LinkedIn and he looks exactly like you’d imagine. Fuck you, Gary. Fuck you.
