Making sense of the 'ad'

Log on to Facebook, you see a video that your friend has posted which already has a lot of 'shares' and 'likes', you want to check it out for yourself, you click 'play' and instead of the video, an advertisement begins....and you have to wait another minute before your video begins.....sounds familiar?
Advertisements, or ads, are found all over the internet today. As part of videos posted on the internet, flashing and distracting internet users by flanking both the sides of most of the pages on the internet.....it is very common to see these commercials, so common that nobody finds it annoying anymore. (Some advertisements, though, have a 'close' button so that you can skip watching the ad altogether......but the ads are there all the same.

Advertisement is a very smart industry which tries to capture the maximum attention that it can, through the most effective means available. Ads mean wide reach, ads mean varied consumer base, ads mean an effective means of reaching out your product to an unknown, unseen and unlimited target base......but more to the point, ads mean revenue, plain and simple. Television, radio, newspapers, billboards, every advertisement costs money to those who wish to advertise their products/services; and earns money for those who display them. And like in every money making enterprise, there is no getting enough of it. On TV, more time is devoted to ads than for actual programmes, on radio, there are more ads than songs, in newspapers, there are entire pages devoted to ads, especially come festivals and holidays....
These ads are of different types too. Most show happy smiling families with no worries living in big houses, some show good looking people working in offices and looking fresher at the end of the day than a person would normally look even in the morning, some show college-student lookalike moms who are always smiling at their children, some feature children (this latest trend is getting more and more successful day by day), and then there are others, they show explicit content like bathing scenes or intimate scenes between a couple, these may or may not have any connection to the actual product but are meant to 'catch your eye' through their explicit content.
True, this effective means of mass targeting is essential, both for advertisers as well as those who earn through it; but which ads should be shown where is important to be determined because not all types of ads are suitable for all audiences. For example, when I recently played a video of a nursery rhyme on the internet, I had to first go through a commercial for a deodorant depicting an intimate scene! This was too much! Why should a toddler see this? Isn't there anybody anywhere watching what goes where on the internet?
Our Communications Minister is making news currently, urging the social networking and interactive sites to vet the content appearing on their websites......well there is a far greater need to decide which commercial appears on which sites or as part of what videos......

A Break In The Pattern

The train stops. She looks around. It is a big station, large and open, nothing like the big city railway stations that she has seen. This station is surrounded by lush greenery as far as the eye can see. There is a chill in the air. And a sense of belonging. She breathes it in, deeply. She walks towards the end of the platform to the foot-overbridge that will take her out of the station. A few taxis and auto rickshaws are lined up near the exit, and she hires one at random. The driver helps her stow her one bag near her feet, while she sits to one side of the wide seat, as if she is sharing space with someone. Because she is used to taking up only so much space – always in a corner, trying not to make her presence felt. Now as she thinks this, she moves a little towards the centre of the seat, as if to affirm to herself that she is now travelling all by herself, for the first time in her life. You wouldn’t really know it now, to look at her, but she is scared out of h...

The Past That Binds...

The sound of the raindrops hitting the window panes in a quiet residential part of a small town is so different from that in a big city. That is the thought in her mind now, as she looks out of her kitchen window. The trees around her property are thick and dark as they stand drenched in the heavy downpour. It is the second day in a row that heavy rains continue to lash their area. She has heard in the morning on the radio that the rain will continue for a couple more days. It is good, she thinks, that she has just picked up her groceries, having moved in only a few days ago. From the small gap in the trees, she can see across to the blue-walled house, just as she could see as a child. It is drenched too. The creepers outside its kitchen wall making a brave attempt at holding on through the heavy downpour. She can see its kitchen window clearly from here. How amazing, she thinks, how few things change over a period of time, although everything is chan...

Start Over

The light was too harsh. Even at 2 am, when the world slept outside, oblivious to everything going on around him, that was the one thing Rahul noticed. White, stark, bright light – illuminating even the tiniest of corners. Much like the last time he had been waiting in this space. No, not this. A similar space. He had decided never to go back there. And he hadn’t. He was hoping that would change the outcome this time. That it would make it different from what had happened the last time. He was hoping, that changing the place would ensure that his fate changed too. Although, it wasn’t merely the place that was now different. The nurse coming out of the operation theatre, at a run, broke his reverie. Rahul stood up to ask her how things were, inside. But before he could even manage an ‘excuse me, sister,’ she had run past him in her hurry. Rahul swallowed the rising panic in his throat and held on to the back of a plastic chair for support. The chair was bolted to...

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