virtual ads

[Dan.Strassberg]

I wonder whether the advertising/PR community is proving itself to be
as inept at naming of technologies as engineers have been. I'm an
engineer and I spent 16 years as an editor at a trade magazine that
circulates to electronic engineers. I did not think anyone could be as
bad at naming things as engineers are. My favorite stupid name in the
EE world is synthetic instruments, which are not synthetic; they are
real--just unconventional combinations of general-purpose devices and
specialized software. A perfectly good name for them would have been
synthesized instruments. Of course, all instruments are synthesized in
some manner of speaking, but to my ear and sensibilities synthesized
would have been tons better than synthetic, which over many decades
has been accepted as meaning fraudulent or phony. As for virtual ads,
I guess an appropriate name would be inserted ad images. Somehow, that
doesn't sound as cool as virtual ads even though I had no clue what
virtual ads were.

-----
Dan Strassberg (dan.strassberg@att.net)
eFax 1-707-215-6367

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Chonak" <rac@gabrielmass.com>
To: "Boston Radio Interest Board"
<boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 20, 2009 1:52 AM
Subject: Re: virtual ads


> On 12/20/2009 01:48 AM, A. Joseph Ross wrote:
>> On 20 Dec 2009 at 0:25, Paul B. Walker, Jr. wrote:
>>
>>> If you looked at the link in the post, you'd know.
>>
>> I asked because I looked at the link, and I'm still not sure I
>> understand it.
>>
>
> I think it refers to the lottery ad, which is presumably a
> computer-generated image (CGI) integrated into the scene.
>
> "Virtual" isn't that good a word for it: it's an ad all right.  Why
> not call it CGI, or Image Fraud, or something that describes it more
> clearly?
>
> --RC
>