The title of the advertisement email I received from Amazon today:
World’s Largest REESE’S Peanut Butter Cups
The title of the advertisement email I received from Groupon today:
79% Off Acupuncture Sessions
I think someone’s algorithm is working better.
17 comments
Skip to comment form ↓
IslandBrewer
March 7, 2012 at 11:05 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I think I can poke holes in that marketing plan.
VeritasKnight
March 7, 2012 at 11:28 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
And over in one.
npyundt
March 7, 2012 at 12:36 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
HA HA HA, yup, four fifths off of worthless is still a waste of money. On the other hand chocolate actually has medicinal value, oh the irony.
GeekGirlsRule
March 7, 2012 at 1:01 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I tweeted at you, but I thought I’d mention this here just in case you might see it.
There’s a queer student organization doing a canned food drive in Red Square at UW today, and a bunch of homophobic, bigoted self-righteous religionists have set up shop to shout them down. Yes, they’re shouting down a canned food drive.
I’m trying to rally all my troops around the UW, but if you could put out a call to go support the queer students who are just trying to do something nice and are having to listen to a bunch of poison.
Jen
March 7, 2012 at 1:08 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I’m going to walk over and check it out. And for future reference my twitter account is @jennifurret – I’m just squatting on @blaghag so no one steals it.
Paul Little
March 7, 2012 at 1:17 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
The difference is that Amazon has an algorithm.
IslandBrewer
March 7, 2012 at 2:37 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
“Oh noes! Teh geys are going to turn regular god-fearing poor people gay through canned food!”
I just pictured a Charleton Heston impersonator screaming “It’s made of gay! This canned food is made of gay!”
nanoboy
March 7, 2012 at 2:40 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Amazon is not especially good at it, though. It likes to suggest things that you have already purchased from them that you would not want more of. For instance, I purchased a crock pot. Now, occasionally, they will say, you purchased a crock pot, would you like to purchase one from another brand? Generally, until a crock pot dies, you don’t want another one.
RealityBasedSteve
March 7, 2012 at 6:07 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
great…. Now I’ve sprayed PsychoProf’s manicotti all over my screen.
RBS
darius
March 8, 2012 at 1:43 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I suspect you’ve both purchased more and shopped for more at Amazon (indeed, with Groupon it’s either buy or not buy last time I checked, so browsing isn’t even an option really), so they have more data to feed their algorithm. The best algorithm in the world isn’t worth much without some delicious personal data.
The Lorax
March 8, 2012 at 7:19 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
World’s largest Reese’s peanut butter cup? I’ll take one.
… and by “one” I mean *lifts pinky finger to lip* ONE MEELYON!
… er, I mean… one… HUNDRED… billion!
npyundt
March 8, 2012 at 7:55 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I see Pierce Hawthorne the character of Community (played by Chevy Chase) screaming this. It’s totally the sort of spoof the writers would think up.
proginoskes
March 8, 2012 at 11:10 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
And Amazon has far more varieties of things to entice you with. Groupon is smaller and may be limited by self-selection of non-skeptically-oriented clients, since they have such a bad reputation for dispensing too many coupons for an offer and stuff like that.
madarab
March 8, 2012 at 6:31 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
It would seem to me that reese’s of various sizes would have different chocolate to peanut butter ratios. Do you have a size preference? (I tried several different sentances with that meaning and couldn’t find one that didn’t sound obscene.)
James C.
March 8, 2012 at 8:06 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
At least it’s not 79% off the world’s largest acupuncture needles.
Glauke
March 9, 2012 at 12:25 AM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I follow your blog (and Pharyngula) via google reader and I keep getting ads for the Dutch EO’s women’s magazine. EO being the Evangelical Broadcaster -yes really.
TychaBrahe
March 13, 2012 at 12:24 PM (UTC -7) Link to this comment
I once had a friend pick me up and drive me to work for a month while mechanics tried to figure out what was wrong with my car (broken leg on a timing chip that would connect when the engine was cold but expand out of contact when it was warm–took FOREVER to identify).
In repayment, I made her a peanut butter cup using one of those white Corelle 10 oz bowls. I think it took half a jar of peanut butter and more than one bag of chips.