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

One of the pillars of ListensToYou is privacy.  We are not single-minded in this cause and we surely do not blame marketers for wanting to reach customers with their products.  We are realistic.  We do, however, think there is a better way and, frankly, we could not believe that there was nothing in the online advertising market to give users a say in what advertising content they see online!

That is why ListensToYou exists - to give consumers that control and to create a market-based alternative to the tracking and targeting that currently determines which ads are served to consumers.  Clearly, consumers will benefit from this choice, but so will advertisers and website publishers. 

After all, why do marketers track behavior online and try to serve ads in all media based on demographic information?  It is a way to form a best-guess about which people may want products or which people may be most easily convinced to buy products.  The reason that it has become rampant online is because marketers can gather so much more information about you and target content to you, specifically, based on that tracking.  Never before have marketers had a medium in which they could watch all of your behavior!  Check out these two great posts at mashable.com today that touch on just a small part of the data being collected about you online: 1 - your picture on ads served to your friends?!?  2 - google knows more about me than I do. 

ListensToYou is the first way for users and marketers to connect on websites without needing all of that tracking and guess-work.  That is very important to ListensToYou.  We would like to see users have control over the ads they see online, but we realize that the best way to make that happen is to offer a solution that works better not only for consumers, but also for advertisers and website publishers.

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!