Developer Made an Ad Blocker That Works On Podcasts and Radio (vice.com) 31
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Meet AdBlock Radio, an adblocker for live radio streams and podcasts. Its creator, Alexandre Storelli, told Motherboard he hopes to help companies "develop alternative business models for radio and podcast lovers that do not want ads." "Ads exploit the weaknesses of many defenseless souls," Storelli told Motherboard. "Ads dishonestly tempt people, steal their time and promise them a higher social status. Blocking them will be a relieving experience for many."
Most audio ads exploit "auditory artifacts" to produce an ad that can't be ignored or tuned out because it feels louder than it actually is -- this has gotten so bad that there has actually been a "sonic arms race" where ads have been made increasingly louder over the years. "Adblock Radio detects audio ads with machine-learning and Shazam-like techniques," Storelli wrote about the project. He said he's been working on it for more than three years and that it uses techniques such as speech recognition, acoustic fingerprinting, and machine learning to detect known ad formats. It uses a crowdsourced database of ads and "acoustic fingerprinting," which converts audio features into a series of numbers that can be combed by an algorithm. Storelli has made Adblock Radio open-source and given detailed instructions on how to build on it, integrate it into user devices, and deploy it in a way that pressures radio stations (and podcasts) to self-regulate the quality of their ads.
Most audio ads exploit "auditory artifacts" to produce an ad that can't be ignored or tuned out because it feels louder than it actually is -- this has gotten so bad that there has actually been a "sonic arms race" where ads have been made increasingly louder over the years. "Adblock Radio detects audio ads with machine-learning and Shazam-like techniques," Storelli wrote about the project. He said he's been working on it for more than three years and that it uses techniques such as speech recognition, acoustic fingerprinting, and machine learning to detect known ad formats. It uses a crowdsourced database of ads and "acoustic fingerprinting," which converts audio features into a series of numbers that can be combed by an algorithm. Storelli has made Adblock Radio open-source and given detailed instructions on how to build on it, integrate it into user devices, and deploy it in a way that pressures radio stations (and podcasts) to self-regulate the quality of their ads.
Won't work for my fave podcasts (Score:2)
I listen to 538 and other podcasts where the staff there (and at NPR) read the ads in a normal voice, so it won't pick those up as ads.
Might help with The Stranger's Blabbermouth podcast, though.
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the staff there (and at NPR) read the ads in a normal voice
Those are the most insidious ads, blurring the line between editorial and advertising, fact and fiction. It destroys trust and credibility.
It is like the old days of television.
Re:Won't work for my fave podcasts (Score:4, Informative)
"Blurs the line?" NPR says "Sponsored by X, ten word tagline about X". That's it.
There are (right-wing) hosts who do blur the line.
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I love my podcasts, but the intros and ads have gotten awful lately. My work truck has steering wheel audio controls but no USB or bluetooth audio streaming, so I ordered a Bluetooth remote so I can easily fast forward and skip past them. It seems like half of a 15 minute podcast is an intro, ads from their sponsors, ads for another podcast, or a recap.
S. R. Hadden? (Score:1)
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Begun, the Ad Wars have... (Score:2)
Release the Meme Kraken! Fire the earworm cannon! Crank up the Brain Rays!
Ads don't respect your time, money, or space (Score:5, Insightful)
Been saying this for a while now:
Ads don't respect your time, money, or space -- they are nothing more manipulation -- usually emotional such as the DeBeers diamonds scam, funerals, etc. (See Adam Wrecks Everything.)
In the 90's we would read mags like PC Magazine, Consumer Reports, etc. for the reviews to learn about BOTH the pros and cons of a product. There was always the issue of companies "paying off" the reviewers (for some reason notorious with Audio gear) but for the most part we believed reviewers were intellectually honest.
These days I ask my friends. "Hey I'm looking for a new _. I'm thinking about products X, Y and Z. Based on your experience how good or bad are they?"
With all the hyper commercialization and blatant product placement I'm starting to wonder "Are commercial ads immoral?" Because they sure as hell are completely disrespectful.
It's a tragedy that we have let greed destroy society instead of upholding word-of-mouth-sales. :-/
Is the mass populace really zombies that they have to watch another person's fake life and be told what things are valuable such as bullshit watches > $10K instead of intrinsically knowing that people are irreplaceable??
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These days I ask my friends. "Hey I'm looking for a new _. I'm thinking about products X, Y and Z. Based on your experience how good or bad are they?"
The problem with this is I'm the guy they all come to for these questions, and I don't really have a good source to go to to form an informed opinion.
Reminds me of the 80's and 90's when everyone asked my opinion on music. Back then I could afford to buy a bunch of CDs and could give recommendations. Now, I can't afford, nor do I care to, buy enough of x, y, and z to form an opinion.
even worse (Score:3)
Advertisements normalize lying, which is really bad for society.
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Thats great and all (Score:1)
I find the ads kind of charming (Score:2)
Sad to say it, but: (Score:5, Insightful)
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And?
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And it's all the way up to 14.25 minutes! Oh, the humanity!
Of course, I seem to be the only entity left on this planet who, upon hearing an ad, don't immediately run out (in a zombie sort of way) to buy, Buy, BUY!!!
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And it's all the way up to 14.25 minutes! Oh, the humanity!
With some shows it's 14 minutes per half hour. I was on a cruise and one of the in-room TV stations would show TV shows. Before each show they would a summary screen with the show title, a summary of the show, and run time. Most shows that would run in a 30 minute time slot on broadcast TV had a run time in the neighborhood of low-mid 20s. Then the showed an episode of Big Bang Theory. 17 minute runtime. Half the damn time slot is spent running ads
Re: Sad to say it, but: (Score:1)
I bought seasons 1-5 of Big Bang Theory at Goodwill a few weeks ago. Commercial free and $2.99 per season. Now I can try to figure out what the big deal was with the show. I already know from partway through season one that I don't like "barenaked ladies "
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And?
There are questions if the number of subscribers will be enough to support the service, also the number of consumers will definitely drop significantly as many people wont be willing to pay for it. This is problematic for podcasts that want to connect with the most people possible but still need cash to keep the service running.
I kind of wonder if selecting which ad to watch from a list, or voting on ads to remove the obnoxious ones, would help any. Not as viable with radio ads of course.
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Hulu launched with the "choose the ad from a list" model and someone (YouTube?) does the "this ad isn't for me" feedback.
Don't mind the live reads, but (Score:4, Interesting)
I loathe the programmatically injected ads. The live reads are fine, and I’ve even bought a few things from them. Skipping them is no trouble, and they tend to be slotted in a convenient break in the show. Some good shows even have ad reads that are entertainment themselves and I listen all the way through.
The injected ads are the usual corporate drivel, sometimes mashed into the show mid-sentence or even mid-word, the same repetitive garbage, but in a way that completely ambushes you and usually without any regard for who the audience of the show is and whether it makes sense to advertise the product to them.
Podcasters have to make money somehow, so I get ads. But at least do them yourself.
There already is an ad free alternative... (Score:3)
There already is an ad free alternative business model to advertising. It's called paying cash.
For example:
Startalk All Access [startalkradio.net]
Stitcher Premium [stitcher.com]
And numerous podcasts don't run ads, and instead rely on Patreon.
That should be simple (Score:2)
It seems like just about every ad in a podcast now is for a web hosting company so all they had to do is wait until there were no other advertisers in podcasting and then make their ad blocker just look out for that company.
Ad blocker detectability? (Score:2)
Why is nuclear fusion theoretically closer to implementation than an undetectable adblocker? I had to turn off Ad Block entirely because every site on the Web now demands that as a condition of access. I have no objection to seeing banner ads, but it's the popups I want to get rid of.
I better not listen to this with one Podcast (Score:2)
I listen to one podcast called Under the Influence and it's about marketing. It's a really good listen about the history and the thought that goes into advertising. However a lot of clips of advertisements get played so this blocker might take something away from this podcast!
NordVPN (Score:1)
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kahoot (Score:1)