ListensToYou will be giving a product demo today at the NY Tech Meetup.  We’ll get the chance to talk about our vision with about 400 members of one of New York’s most influential and informed technology and online business communities.  We are very excited and I hope to be able to post pictures or a video of the demo soon.  If I can’t get a video, I’ll make a YouTube version so everyone can watch a ListensToYou demo and I’ll invite comments on everything from my style and delivery to the product, vision and content.

We have been giving some though to what we want to present - what we want to put out there as our first impression - and several things occurred to us that we are really excited about:

1. The product: user-controlled marketing preferences.  It just makes sense to have users participate, in an explicit way, in getting the services, products, offers and brand messages they want.  We can’t believe that the current market does not even list “explicitly stated user marketing preferences” as a targeting option.

2. Value for websites and ad networks: more relevancy and better brand-building .  Rather than having to force consumer preference on publishers or ad networks, they like ListensToYou.  Having more reliable information gives them a chance to form relationships with brands (advertisers) and sell more valuable ads - all while improving their relationships with users.

3. Value for brands.  Brands looking for two-way communication with potential customers really like ListensToYou.  Plus, any brand can choose and advertise on 10 to 20 websites that consumers truly trust, but what about 1,000 or 10,000 websites?  ListensToYou can serve as a way to identify sites that users trust; sites that listen to you, the user.

4. It is inevitable.  One way or another, consumers are going to get control.  Regulators will give it to them in a way that does not make sense for the user or the market, browser software will give it to them by helping them block ads or become “invisible” when they browse or some other control will be put into place.  ListensToYou gives publishers, advertisers and users a way to not only respond to those moves, but also to lead the market and give everyone more of what they want.

ListensToYou is about a lot of things: user choice, control over online content, connecting people with products and services that they actually want or need and online privacy - to name a few.  But, sometimes, actual examples of online advertisements make it easy to point out the need for a service - ListensToYou - to improve online advertising.  We are going to use this blog post to show some of the best (worst) ads; some of the examples that just scream out for something to be done to make ads more relevant, less invasive and, simply, better. Email screen shots of any ads you think should be displayed here to info@listenstoyou.com.  I’m guessing that there are quite a few, so send them our way.

Some of you may have read the article on Mashable about ListensToYou. The response, in terms of comments, sign-ups and general feedback, has been great; and very helpful. Today, we received some pretty harsh feedback in the comments of that article. After a moment of consideration, I realized that we need to get the word out and this was a great chance to do just that! Here is my response to the specific points made by the person who wrote the comment (comment excerpts are in quotes and italics; the rest of the text is my response). I hope it helps explain our story and energize people to support our vision.

Wow, a tough, critic. I appreciate all feedback, though, so thanks for taking interest and taking the time to express your thoughts - if we are going to make this work, we need more than just cheerleaders and some reality check is pretty helpful. I’ll try to go in order of your responses and, if you have thoughts on these or any other points about listensToYou, we’d like to hear them here, on the ListensToYou user forum or you can email me, directly: info at listenstoyou dot com.

“While a nice attempt, this is not a new idea. Hotmail, Gmail, and even Amazon have attempted this and now I get more targetted [sic] ADs.”

1. The problems with gmail, hotmail and amazon delivering this ad model are:

a. if you give them info, they only use it to maximize ad targeting on their own site. so, the user would have to sign up on every website they visit. ListensToYou wants to work on every site with one convenient place for registration and updating preferences as they change.

b. those services typically ask you what you like (i.e. what are your hobbies, etc.?) and do not ask you what ads you want to see (e.g. what ads annoy you, what offers would you find helpful, what products do you want that you just can’t find on your own, what ads do you want to block from your child’s eyes?). We explicitly want to give control over ads, not infer what a user wants based on other likes and dislikes.

c. those services add this as another way to target without deleting or diminishing the other ways. we want to create an alternative. while it may not replace tracking all together, it is how we want our partners to serve ads first. that is, if you are a ListensToYou customer, our partner website must listen to you - particularly with ads you choose to “not display”.

“One thing they all seem to have in common is if there is only a handful of ADs in my category, they just send me random ones.”

2. Yes, yes, yes! You nailed it. Inventory of ads you want is a huge problem. We would like to integrate with websites’ and ad networks’ current inventory and even shape their inventory by showing them a new thing: ad demand. That way, you aren’t limited to our (a small-ish startup) ability to build inventory, but have bigger players doing the selling of ads and us having them listen to consumers to serve them.

“Great, except one thing…I really don’t want ANY ADs.”

3. If you truly want NO ads, then you are probably correct, we don’t accomplish your goal 100%. But, NO ads is not (in our opinion) very feasible. We think marketers will find more and more invasive ways to get ads in front of you (ah, the pop-under and the animated ad running accross your screen). What we want to offer you is a sustainable, market-based way to control those ads, not eliminate them. We think this is the best possible scenario for all players.

“What this site is offering is just spyware packaged in a pretty container. Don’t be fooled, the makers of this product are adding to a problem, not solving one.”

4. Hey, I appreciate you saying we had a pretty good container! We are very upfront with how we will use and gather information. There is no spying to it. It is simply expressing your preferences. That is the data ListensToYou will have about you - and you are free to change it as your preferences change and delete it when you no longer believe we can accomplish our vision of a better, consumer-controlled advertising model.

“In today’s web world, consumers are smarter than ever and can comparison shop in a heartbeat. We are smothered with ADs everywhere. Here’s a thought… ignore them.”

5. How true, our biggest competitor right now is ignoring ads. We found that most people do just that, but:

a. For those people who want to protect their families from offensive or inappropriate ads, this is a better alternative than hoping your children ignore ads.

B. That is why, in addition to just categories, we now allow users to type in their own keywords to customize their preferences. So, we will not only bring you ads in categories you choose, but we can actually bring you ad content that is helpful (a deal on diapers, those size 7 boots you couldn’t find, etc.). That way, you wouldn’t HAVE TO or WANT TO ignore that 25 percent of the page when you browse the internet.

“One other thing… when you put a “CEO” description, have the [um, courage, ed] to say who that “CEO” is.”

6. “CEO’s comments” is a Mashable label, not mine (not a complaint, by the way b/c Mashable’s coverage was great for us!) I am referenced in the article as “co-founder David Rostan”, which is the actual title I prefer. I also signed my comment, above, with my full name and am proud of our idea, our vision and or company. I am happy to share more about my background, I suppose, but just didn’t think it was relevant to the consumer-facing portion of our business.

I am not being sarcastic, here. I really want feedback on what we are doing. Please get in touch with us if you would like to participate more or give feedback or suggestions.

Regards.

David Rostan

Co-Founder

ListensToYou

I’d like to begin by thanking all of our early users.  Several of you have been instrumental to getting the word out and we have started to get some great feedback on our user forum and our survey.  Thanks and please keep it up and contact us with any suggestions or comments!  Remember, although we are in a testing phase, we do want you to share the site with everyone who would like ListensToYou or who would enjoy shaping the future of internet advertising.  Go ahead and share the code you used to sign up.

At ListensToYou we think you should control the content you see on the internet - and, for the most part, you can.  You choose the websites you visit, you choose the articles and posts you read and you choose the friends you add to your network.  However, those websites don’t allow you to choose the advertisements you see while you browse, shop or read news.  Banners, text ads and pop-ups have content that you may hate and almost certainly find annoying or irrelevant and, until now, you couldn’t do anything about it.  We’re here to help.  Simply put, ListensToYou lets you choose what ads you want and we let you say which ads you do not want.  Then, our partner websites listen to you and serve ads according to your preferences.  That’s it!  Well, that’s not exactly it and we’ll be blogging right here to keep you updated on ListensToYou and on Privacy & Protection in the online advertising world.  So, come back often, stay up to date and keep sharing your thoughts with us!

A fair question.  One of our friends posed this question over dinner a few weeks ago suspecting, correctly, that our lack of communication was because things ARE happening (rather than because things just aren’t happening).  It is a difficult task to bring a new way to advertise into the market in a meaningful way.  ListensToYou is a good idea and, if you read some of the posts on this blog, guest posts (post 1, post 2 and post 3), and posts by other sites, you can see the benefit to the entire advertising chain - beginning with the consumer/viewer. 

Starting out - the first steps toward building it to its full potential - takes time.  We have a lot of interested partners and each has helped us form and refine our product, which is what we have been doing: building and refining an implementable product.  The good news is that we expect to exit closed beta this month or early next and we will launch with our first partner at the same time!  We are excited about making ListensToYou a reality.  There is still much more to be done to give users the control they want over online advertising, but we’re taking the first steps and we think you’ll like the results.

As always, please contact us with suggestions (I read all of these) or questions or submit a comment to our feedback posts to begin or add to a discussion about ListensToYou.

So, I am writing this post to complete my Technorati “claim of” our blog.

I have to put this code: [Deleted the code - can't be too safe :) ]

somewhere on the blog’s front page.

First, I am not sure if publishing that code in a public forum is a bad thing, but i suspect not, since Technorati suggests that as one way to complete this step.

What I really want to know, however, is: are there other steps I need to take to make our company and blog recognizable and understood.  It seems like there are thousands of things to do - an entire industry of them, in fact.  I wish someone would make a giant diagram of prioritized things to do.  I guess that is like asking for someone to do our job for us, though, so we’re going to keep working through it.

I can’t wait to make a big announcement in the next month about our product/service!

Please check back, subscribe to our RSS or follow us on twitter @LTYdavid

The NY Times reported last week that the FTC reaffirmed its thinking that internet companies can responsibly self-police their privacy practices.  Website publishers and companies have privacy policies that are intended to report how your information is collected, stored and used, but these are often unclear and, mostly, just unread.  It is not realistic to expect users to read and understand the privacy policy of every website they visit.  It is like having to read and approve dozens of legal documents every day — and, most privacy policies state that they can change without notice, so they are moving targets.

The recent FTC comments have to do with a particular topic that is really important to ListensToYou: behavioral advertising - the practice of observing and storing your searching and surfing habits and history in order to target you with ads.  The commission wants website publishers to make users aware, in a very clear way, how their data may be used and wants users to be able to opt out of behavioral tracking.  This is an ok suggestion, but it still happens on a site-by-site basis.  Should I really have to opt out on all sites I visit?  To be clear, it could also happen at the ad network level.  A business that sells and serves ads on behalf of several websites could avoid tracking users on all of those websites.  Still, though, there are dozens of ad networks and that doesn’t even account for the thousands of sites that sell and serve their own ads.  Plus, it isn’t like the FTC is demanding or regulating these things, it is still relying on the websites or ad networks to do the right thing.

Last night NBC aired a special report on banking and the collateralized debt that contributed to the current financial crisis.  None other than former Fed chief Alan Greenspan said that the Fed was relying on the banks to do the right thing and to self-regulate.  We see how that worked out.  I am not saying that a privacy crisis similar to the financial crisis will occur, just that it isn’t enough to expect companies to protect us and that government institutions aren’t stepping in on consumers’ behalf.  Internet users cannot afford to be complacent about their own data.

Today is Data Privacy Day.  ListensToYou was founded not just to give an alternative to advertising based on data collected without user consent, but to participate in the awareness and discussion of data privacy.  Many people have told us that they don’t care about giving away their data.  Others have told us that the ListensToYou model would be difficult to implement because people are getting more and more comfortable giving up their data.  We think that is a problem - NOT that it is always a problem to give up your personal data, when you choose to do so, but to do so only because it seems more natural these days or because it is so common that people barely notice.

Erick Schonfeld, one of my favorite writers at TechCrunch, wrote a good post about this today.

I just want to remind people to give some thought to how they want their data to be accessible to organizations.  I think ListensToYou is a good step toward giving an alternative method of advertising, but there are more situations to think about - passwords, friends, pictures, etc.