The Ad Council is my least favorite government agency. It takes billions of dollars from the public. In exchange it produces such necessary propaganda as "if you smoke pot, you'll kill babies on accident".
Meanwhile, no Ad Council advertisement has ever been shown to make a quantitative difference in the social dynamic it was meant to address.
Every time I see an AdCoucil ad, I can't help but thinking that they could have refunded a few thousand people their tax money instead of providing me with this "public service".
Although the issue at hand is not exactly hacker-news, the solution (thatsnotcool.com) and the way they are reaching out to their target market is very similar to a web startup.
This article also suggests some new trends that we'll see in the next generation that's quite scary - sometimes we think that as the tech trendsetters we're on the cutting edge of micro-blogging, twitter, and connectivity. I suspect that in the next generation these ideas are already mainstream.
Social taboos are also being redefined in the next generation as well, which can be important if you're looking to build a website for next-gen users.
It's like a startup, except they have huge resources and the impact they have won't be measured in any way (while the market is brutally honest with startups).
Meanwhile, no Ad Council advertisement has ever been shown to make a quantitative difference in the social dynamic it was meant to address.
Every time I see an AdCoucil ad, I can't help but thinking that they could have refunded a few thousand people their tax money instead of providing me with this "public service".