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It just occurred to me that the custom themes offered by gmail and other programs are a great way of getting users to volunteer information about themselves. People probably wouldn't fill out a survey about their general temperament as a person, but they'd happily take the chance to customize their environment to suit their general temperament.
General temperament isn't that useful in terms of figuring out what ads to show -- knowing what the user is looking for RIGHT NOW is far more helpful for targeting. However, understanding a person's temperament is very important in understanding HOW to advertise to them. Someone who picks a very serene theme likely will hate any ad that's overly aggressive or flashy. Someone who chooses an edgy hip-hop theme might be attracted by more flashy ads.
So far I haven't seen much of an attempt to use different methods of advertising to reach different users on the same site, but it seems like offering customized themes would be a great way to do that.
General temperament isn't that useful in terms of figuring out what ads to show -- knowing what the user is looking for RIGHT NOW is far more helpful for targeting. However, understanding a person's temperament is very important in understanding HOW to advertise to them. Someone who picks a very serene theme likely will hate any ad that's overly aggressive or flashy. Someone who chooses an edgy hip-hop theme might be attracted by more flashy ads.
So far I haven't seen much of an attempt to use different methods of advertising to reach different users on the same site, but it seems like offering customized themes would be a great way to do that.
