What’s Feeding Your Feed?
Enter the advertising funnel of science — for beer, oil, and Gold OA solicitations
We’re taking the week off from our podcast. If you miss us, check out our interview last week with SecularAZ.
Every morning I scroll through what the algorithmocrats think I need to know about based on what they know about me.
Here’s what they offered up the other day:
- Google thought I would be interested in this sciencealert.com article about a promising treatment for mice who lose memory when they get old.
- I sure was! Gimme a headline including “scientists,” and I’ll click.
- They also think I should eat more veggies, chill with Coors Light, and buy heavy duty diesel engine oil next time I go to Walmart.
The content feeding the sciencealert.com article was sourced from the Journal of Extracellular Vesicles, an OA journal published by Wiley that is also advertising for more submissions! From the United States! Your OA fees could be covered!
So far this article has done well in terms of online pickups as facilitated and reported out by Altmetric. Nearly 20k pageviews in just a couple of months for a basic science paper — dang!
I opened the PDF, and there was another ad — a more appropriate one for scientists who work in extracellular vesicle analysis who might actually want to read this paper in its entirety:
Is there a nasal spray that will prevent me from getting Alzheimer’s while I deal with my belly fat and stock up on Coors Light and diesel engine oil at Walmart?
Since I clicked on the article, should I submit one of my own because Wiley knows that I live in the United States?
Am I a qualified Biotium lead?
No, no, and nope.
Gold OA has become ads feeding ads feeding other ads . . . ad infinitum.