> Meta is built on attention and Google and others like amazon are built on intent

I'm having trouble seeing the difference. They both capitalise on attention, i.e. eyeballs. And they both try to predict what you're likely to click on so they can show you the most-relevant ads.

▲

m4tthumphrey 6 hours ago | parent [-]

When you use Google you are generally actively looking for something. When you use Facebook you get ads for things you aren't looking for.

▲

JumpCrisscross 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I get that from the product perspective. I'm just not seeing it from the ad side. Attention is a prerequisite to serving an ad. Correctly predicting intent is how you maximise its value.

	▲	ethbr1 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Parent is presumably making the case (and I'm assuming this extends to their respective ad pricing models) that it's revenue equivalent but profitable either way. Either you have intent but little attention (Google et al.) and so can charge a decent amount. Or you have lots of attention but little intent (Facebook et al.) and so can charge a decent amount. You can't charge a decent amount if you have little intent and little attention. OpenAI presumably has intent, but hasn't done all the Google-esque adtech sausage making to expose that to ad space buyers.

▲

georgemcbay 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> When you use Facebook you get ads for things you aren't looking for.

When you use Facebook you get ads for things you are looking for in a broad sense, they just happen to figure out what you are looking for via fingerprinting and spying on all your web and app activity (to the maximum extent allowed by platforms and regulators).

Google, of course, also does this in addition to looking at your currently active web search.

▲

m4tthumphrey 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Sure, they retarget ads they think you might want to see, but the difference is when using Google you are actively looking for something, not passively.

	▲	georgemcbay 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Sure but I still don't think there is much meaningful difference. Google looks at both your current search/browse activity and gathered data (the gathered data being especially important for all the very many Google-served Ads off of google.com) Facebook also looks at your current search/browse activity and gathered data. The only real difference is Facebook search is universally entirely worthless so far less of that signal gets used relative to more passive snooping.