[joshfraser]

I was at lunch with a couple friends and they were making fun of Juicero. I hadn't heard of it at this point. I didn't look it up on my phone, but at least one of my friends did. That afternoon I started seeing Juicero ads non-stop on Facebook. Was Facebook listening or did they connect the dots that my phone was in the same restaurant as friends who were Googling Juicero and figured we had been talking about it?

Another time I was on a road trip with a friend, driving through a food desert. We were talking about our food options -- stuff we never eat like McDonalds, Wendys, etc. Guess what pops up on Facebook moments later? An ad for Wendys! Were they listening? Or did they just connect the dots that it was lunch time, that we'd been driving for a long time without eating & that Wendys was one of the only options around?

In both instances, there were non-microphone explanations but creepy/impressive nonetheless.

[notahacker]

There's also the it's all about how you react explanation: brands blanket people with advertising which you wilfully ignore except for those rare instances where it coincides with something you want or something that happens to resonate because you were talking about it moments earlier. And maybe your friends were making fun of Juicero at the time after being prompted by being bombarded with ads for it, rather than you being bombarded with ads because your friends made fun of it...

I think I've got a lot of Facebook ads blocked, so I'm looking at a right hand column which is recommending me pages of random companies one of my friends has once liked and suggesting translations into two languages I don't speak which are spoken in countries I've never visited and have minimal connection with. Which I guess is an upgrade on all the dating ads which didn't even bother to match my "interested in"...

[notatoad]

>Guess what pops up on Facebook moments later? An ad for Wendys! Were they listening?

If you saw an ad for Wendy's in any other context, would you have been surprised?

I saw an ad for Wendy's shortly before coming to comment on this post. Are HN's advertising algorithms predicting the future, or is it just a coincidence due to the overwhelming volume of fast food advertising?

[joshfraser]

I can't remember seeing one before & haven't seen one since.

[pbhjpbhj]

"Feynman's Grandmother"!

[FanaHOVA]

I bet Wendy's also had a billboard on the highway leading to that food desert uh? They know people are on their phones looking for food options (since clearly they aren't easy to find) so they target that area with their ads. It's not that hard.

This is getting similar to horoscopes. When they are wrong, whatever. When they are right, it's "creepy".