Wait, that's AIDS.  Never mind.  Though annoying, ads are generally pretty harmless.  While reading Hacker News a while ago I began thinking about whether ads should exist on this stupid blog.  After several cups of coffee and some wasted thought imagining Scarlett Johansson nude, I finally came up with a solution:  targeted ads.  Enter Adpinion, an interesting idea with excellent implementation.

I like to support startups whenever possible, and the idea of Adpinion is worth supporting.  The basis of this innovation is that ads work best when they involve something a person cares about.  Tailoring ads to individual viewers is difficult for a site without cookies, but Adpinion not only allows me to see what various visitors of my site like, but also allows repeat visitors to view more relevant ads.

So how does this magical mystery work?  Adpinion uses a very simple and tried-and-true method:  voting.  If it serves an ad you dislike, click the thumbs down.  The ad will disappear until the page is refreshed and the site serves a new ad for you to vote on.  If you like the ad, click the thumbs up.  You'll see more like it in the future.

I decided to apply for a beta invitation, got it a few weeks later, and decided to try it out last week.  It will be interesting to see what (if anything) people vote up and down.

And I just put that picture of Scarlett up there to aid in my ruminations of her nude body while I wrote this.