[josefresco]

Notification style advertisements, that bubble up as you move about could be a gold mine if users could get over the potential privacy concerns.

Advertising models like this (contextual notification powered offers) must exist for smartphones already - anyone know the leader in this segment?

[wpietri]

It could be a gold mine for advertisers, whose job is mostly to manipulate people into buying particular things. For watch owners, though, it's being mined.

My concern is only modestly with privacy; it's more about intimacy. Defending against manipulation requires a bit of space, a bit of distance from the manipulator. There is zero chance I would let ads on my watch, a surface I paid a fair bit of money for because there's some information so useful that I basically want it to be part of my body.

[josefresco]

I work for small business owners, to say their "advertising" is primarily to "manipulate people into buying particular things" would be a very skewed characterization.

Characterizations like that show a bias, and while they may "feel right" when talking about large brands, when you realize your local market, or restaurant wants to "advertise" or promote a special - suddenly advertising doesn't seem all that evil.

[wpietri]

And tell me again the point of promoting a special? It's to manipulate people into becoming regular customers of restaurant A over restaurant B. Even the notion of specials has mainly become a promotional device; the tail of advertising has now wags the dog of cooking.

I like small business owners. And I get the necessity of advertising in today's markets. It's an arms race; if your competitors advertise, you generally have to do so as well. People being people, I'm also provisionally ok with some modest level of manipulation. But let's be real: advertising is mostly calculated manipulation of other people for your own profit.

[__david__]

> suddenly advertising doesn't seem all that evil.

Speak for yourself. An ad is an ad, even if I like the company or product. I'm in agreement with the grandparent, ads would be even more intrusive on a watch than on my phone (where they are already annoying).

[s73v3r]

I would hope that this type of thing would die in a fire, and those who try to push it be drug out into the street and shot.