Final

Movies have lost a lot of their effectiveness in the transfer to online viewing. Watching movies at home online offers fast cheap access but at the cost of quality and atmosphere. When I view films at home it is hard not to multitask while viewing the movie, talking with people, chatting online checking email, playing a game while I watch. Being at home creates many distractions that can pull people out of the immersion of a film. As more films start being instantly available to be viewed online I fear that filmmakers will start to cater to the shorter attention spans of the online audience and lose the charm and appeal that viewing films at the theater have. I feel that viewing movies as digital media reduces the effect and I retain less information than if I had viewed the film in theaters.

Big Names Advertising

I often wonder when I see a commercial for a well known product such as Pepsi. Who exactly are they informing about their product, what cave dwelling audience are they expecting to introduce their products to. If the commercial exists to convince the audience that their product is better than another when it comes to something like coke vs pepsi or nike vs reeboks, mcdonalds vs burger king etc.. I would think that people would have had the opportunity to try and make a judgment for themselves instead of being swayed by a bear on a unicycle holding a coke can. Then maybe I give people to much credit it is possible that people are so indecisive that a commercial about a bear holding a coke can would be the deciding factor for their purchases.

3D

I have started to notice more and more new movies and games advertising 3D recently. I don't actually know what they mean by 3D considering that I have an eye condition causing me to be unable to focus them together correctly, the last time I remember being able to see something in "3-D" was back when they had the goofy red and blue plastic glasses which produced blurry people to slightly pop out of the screen towards the viewer. This new 3D trend is aggravating me now that I see that a lot of my favorite games are going to be coming out in 3-D on new 3D consoles which means that I will have to pay more money for a device that I cant fully enjoy although others have told me things like Avatar in 3D were quite astonishing.

Google Ads

Google scans their users gmail accounts and reads them, then uses keywords and phrases to choose which advertisements to show. Because I only use my gmail account for registering for websites and getting notifications about rent and airline tickets, I get some ads that are way off the mark. Hotel advertisements are apparently linked to any locations or references to airlines and Google also believes that I am interested in cooking supplies for some reason, although this database is off it makes me wonder how much about me Google could find out if they reviewed my emails, conversations, and searches.

Brand Name

After our in class discussion about brands I have been thinking more about how brands have replaced their product type. When I am hungry I grab a Pepsi and Doritos not just chips and soda, when I get sick I get Tylenol or Advil, not medicine, in the mornings I spray Axe and refer to it as Axe but its just deodorant. Brand names are commonly set in place in front of products in my mind, I don't even remember what Tide is, I just remember I use to to wash cloths. It shows how effective companies are at bombarding people with logos and brand names, until those brands overshadow the product itself.

Post

I don't often notice advertisements, I sleep on the train and never inspect the ads on the walls, my computer has disabled scripts so I don't get adds, banners, and pop ups, my cable is cheap so there is nothing to watch. I think that it's funny that I found myself playing World of Warcraft and viewing a website advertising by spelling their message on the ground by placing cow corpses to make letters. There really isn't anywhere online to escape solicitors and poorly disguised hackers. I suppose it is impossible to escape it anywhere even games can be used as a medium for advertising products, billboards mimicking real world counterparts and even direct in game objects. I see a Lamborghini in a racing game or a Beretta M9 in a war game, it is amazing how so many real products have crept into the virtual world.