On the occasions when the story sounds interesting, you click the link and get asked to install a social reader, rather than just taken to the story. Install the reader and you become one of the people pumping out endless ‘X read Y’ updates to their friends’ timeline.

The problem is that you can’t turn it off, so imagine my joy this morning when I encountered this:

Yes please!

Imagine the crushing disappointment when I discover that, like marking the fucking things as spam, it doesn’t work.

It actually stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart, and while they’re a pain in the arse they do serve a purpose – helping sites work out whether you’re a human or an unthinking robot. If you’re filling out a reCAPTCHA, in particular, console yourself that you’re also helping recognise words that have defeated the computers processing real book scans.

Wasted attention

However you feel about CAPTCHAs, I guarantee that you have never, ever, seen them as a wasted opportunity to be advertised at. Have you?

Well, all hail Solve Media’s TYPE-IN™, a proprietary branded CAPTCHA “which places relevant brand messages where users are already engaged”.

I encountered one of these for the first time this morning, and felt that being forced to sit through a short video advertisement before seeing a conventional CAPTCHA was offensive enough to merit swears. Isn’t the whole point of a CAPTCHA to stop automated spammy adverts spoiling a website for humans?

According to Solve Media, the ads offer “Guaranteed engagement for advertisers”, which is true in a sense because one particular format of TYPE-IN asks you to parrot back a “Brand Message” to prove that you’re a human.

That’s right; obediently mumbling back some advertiser’s unique selling proposition goes to show that you’re a human. Rather than, say, some kind of empty, unthinking machine.

Possibly more.

I’ve never, for example, told Facebook where I live, although it obviously knew when I joined the city’s group. I left the group a while back, but I recently realised Facebook had taken it on itself to complete the relevant fields in my – previously blank – address.

But it’s Linked in that’s really freaking me out.

For various reasons my girfriend and I aren’t connected on any social sites. We come from different groups of friends and, to date, have none in common on any online services. To put it another way, there’s nothing obvious that could connect us from Linked in’s perspective: no mutual friends, no address information, no common employer. Nothing.

So why does Linked in keep telling me I may know her? It’s right, of course, but how the hell does it know?

I got in touch with them a while back to ask if they’d kept my login details for Hotmail after I let the site search my contacts. They said not, and I’m pretty sure I believe them: I’ve changed the password since then anyway. The only other possibilities I could think of are that one or both of us has searched for the other’s profile and it’s picked up on this, or that they’ve noticed that we both access the site from the same IP address.

Whatever it is, it keeps suggesting us to each other, and today it went one further and began recommending my friends to Elaine.

It started with my ex-girlfriend, which was nice.

Lately this has disappeared, which is bad news for anyone who doesn’t want to be a Zombie/Pirate/Farmer/Digger/whatever and who doesn’t much care, if you are, how it’s working out for you.

What gives? Many of my friends work in games and play them often. I do want to know what these people are doing when they’re not playing games, so hiding all their updates isn’t appropriate.

There’s no mention of the missing feature on Facebook’s help pages. I’m not being spammed, which suggests that applications I’ve previously hidden remain so, and I’m only being told when someone first starts playing a new one.

Has Facebook forced app developers to cut down on the status spam, and decided as a result that the all updates filter isn’t needed any more?

I love getting these emails. They almost invariably contain a codicil explaining that you’re receiving the email because you signed up to receive it. Almost invariably you didn’t.

I’m a particular fan of this work by RS, who, unless I’m mistaken, I once ordered from back when I was running Hand Painted Dog, perhaps seven years ago.

Translation:

We’re really good with data. Shit hot, in fact.

Here’s a way we use data that you specifically opted out of.

We know that you specifically opted out of it, but we assume you must be an idiot.

Here’s a big button you can press to fix it.

I’ve whinged about regional settings before, but it turns out I’m bilingual. Who knew?

While the Mail has since tracked down the unhurt 31-year-old Clio driver, details were thin on the ground on Thursday last week as the surely-it-can’t-be-real video started to spread. Without much background we decided not to run it.

But I’ve been fascinated by the way that mainstream news sites covered the story, and by the way that they’ve all felt free to use the video (which, let’s face it, has to be seen to be believed).

The footage was originally posted by the YouTube user dogswick. His notes explained that it wasn’t his film, but that he’s a friend of the truck driver involved, who had been given a copy.

Video diary

Looking at different papers’ approaches, I wonder how some stand with regard to copyright law. The Sun didn’t bother sourcing the story or its stills, and felt entitled to repackage the video into its own flash player, complete with an advert prequel.

Perhaps that’s what you’d expect from the tabloids, but the Mail did much better, reproducing stills from the clip that were each credited to ‘dogswick / Youtube.com’, and embedding the original video at the foot of its article.

The Guardian also embedded the YouTube video and had managed to speak to haulage firm Arclid transport. The Telegraph had less information and reposted the video in its own player, albeit with a credit to dogswick and YouTube.

Finally, the BBC had the most in the way of background, but while it linked to the YouTube homepage it repackaged the video into its own player. While Steve Herrmann’s link policy post acknowledges that a link from BBC News can generate an overwhelming amount of traffic, this is YouTube we’re talking about.

Anyway, you get the idea. No two sites seem to have the same approach, but at least those embedding the original video are acting within YouTube’s terms. Of course, even then we may all be infringing someone’s copyright if it turns out dogswick didn’t have the right to post the video in the first place, but that’s his lookout.

And I’d love to know exactly what’s happened there, because after getting some half-million views he’s decided to take down the video.

I wonder why? The approach from ITN might explain it – as many subsequent comments on his channel imply – but I have an alternative theory.

Might his mate, the lorry driver – now suspended from his job and the subject of a police investigation – have administered the sort of shoeing that would have Malcolm Tucker taking notes?

I wonder if dogswick knows what hit him.

As Herrmann points out, the BBC has always provided relevant links – something I think is essential to good web journalism – but to date it hasn’t seemed comfortable bringing them into the body copy. That’s where the majority of the web seems agreed they should be – perhaps because the context tends to make them self-explanatory.

But the post is interesting not just because of what it asks, but because it shows the importance of clear linking policy to journalists. It shows how news organisations are only too aware of the value of links to the reader.

It’s also interesting for something it doesn’t mention – the value of links to the receiving site which, if they come from a goliath like BBC Online, is immense. This adds an extra dimension to considerations such as those raised by commenter Bob Almond – will you link to the websites of controversial or illegal newsmakers?

The BBC’s strategy review sets out that it should double click-throughs to third-party sites over the next three years. I wouldn’t be surprised if simply bringing the links into the body copy would achieve this.