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Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

mattcutts.com

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Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#261

Post by austenallred »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #255
austenallred wrote: post #46

I've been a contributor member for several months now, because I firmly believe in two things: 1. Content creators have to be paid, or much of the web I know and love will cease to exist. 2. Life without ads is much better. So here's what people need to know about Google contributor: 1. I pay for the highest level available. 2. I love not seeing ads. 3. This only works for Google-based ads, which are certainly common…

> 1. Content creators have to be paid, or much of the web I know and love will cease to exist. YMMV, I suppose we may be browsing different parts of the Internet, but I know content I love would mostly stay intact. From my personal and subjective experience, nearly everything that is actually worth anything on the Internet is made by unpaid volunteers for whom creating content is an end in itself, and not a way to ea…

> Topical subreddits

And how is reddit funded?

Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#262

Post by xorcist »

I see a couple of issues with programs like this.

First, if this were to take off it would move the industry to impression based pricing wholesale. Reprinted content is already on of the biggest problems today, and with this model there is obvious risk that original creators get nothing as reprinters take everything.

Second, given that we can't have a monopoly on this business, a webmaster is incentivized to join every Contributor-like program there is. We would end up with every website loading hundreds of javascripts for tracking visits from every provider there is, which would massively increase load times on the web.

Third, there are also incentives to game the system by splitting your content over many web sites, using iframes or javascript, each making a call to every possible provider. Similar ad fraud schemes are already a problem today and this will only make them easier.

One easy fix would be to make a system opt-in for the end user on a site-by-site basis. This is similar to how Flattr and Patreon works. I pay to both of them, and will probably not join Contributor, but it will be very exciting to see where Google is taking this.

Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#263

Post by kbenson »

Nursie wrote: post #251
kbenson wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also a good argument for holing up in a cave somewhere and never coming out. The whole of human culture and communication is full of subtle cues and plays on how our mind works, and has been for millennia.

In a way, when it comes to advertisements, I do that already. I don't watch broadcast tv, I don't read newspapers or magazines on paper, I listen to BBC radio if I listen to the radio, I have adblockers for the internet. Th world can be a quieter, calmer place when you stop letting people make sales pitches at you constantly.

That's an easy decision to make when you stop letting them make the sales pitches, but still take what they offer in exchange for those sales pitches. If you stopped the advertising and didn't view the content they offered in exchange, it would be quieter, calmer and a lot more boring.

Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#264

Post by bduerst »

Nursie wrote: post #238
bduerst wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you, specifically, are only remembering the intrusive ads that have at one point negatively affected you. Whenever there is a good branding ad, you're not thinking about or remembering how great of an ad experience you're having. There are exceptions, like Superbowl commercials, but it's still a cognitive bias.

Well, I don't really watch ads so it's true I'm not thinking about how great an ad experience I'm having, because I'm not having them. As a result I find nearly all advertising, when I do come across it, to be intrusive and annoying.

That's exactly my point - you're only remembering your negative experiences as advertising experiences. You're even saying "watching", which leads me to believe that most of your negative experiences have been online or on television.

Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#265

Post by Animats »

untog wrote: post #196
lighthawk wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> or much of the web I know and love will cease to exist I get what you are saying, but I don't buy it. Much of the web is noise and regurgitation. The reason that publications have started to churn out poorly thought out crap is that they have to get their pagerank up and stay relevant. The reason they have to do that is because if they don't do it, there are ad revenue dependent content generators out there that wi…

> Much of the web is noise and regurgitation. Much of it is, yes. Meanwhile, publications like the New York Times still depend on online advertising to continue to exist in the way they do. Not that I have any answers here - I think your DVR comparison is fair.

"Meanwhile, publications like the New York Times still depend on online advertising to continue to exist in the way they do."

Not any more. The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Economist are all paywalled. Those are some of the few remaining newspapers with sizable reporting staffs.

Most other US "newspapers" have a few reporters, but mostly regurgitate wire services and press releases. The "fluff" sections (cars, real estate, food and wine, sports) are outsourced, sometimes to Demand Media, the content-farm company.

Buy a newspaper and mark all the articles that didn't originate as a press release, press conference, national news service, or ad. There will not be many.

Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#267

Post by Nursie »

kbenson wrote: post #258
rndmind wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think he can determine his buying habits far better than you.

My point is that it isn't always about buying habits, at least not immediately (and sometimes never). Sometimes advertising is about awareness. Sometimes that's brand awareness, but it's also issue awareness. There are ads about social issues. They are often about making sure you are aware of the organization that put the ad out in case you want to get involved/help financially, but often it's also just to raise awar…

>> In what way is a site showing an ad about children going hungry in America (as Hulu used to play quite often) and him not clicking on it scamming the organization that put the ad out?

It's one 'view' (well page-load, because I'm not going to view it regardless) that's going to get them nowhere that they don't have to pay for.

>> In what way is his blanket rejection of the ad before actually seeing it making helping that organization?

Again, they don't have to pay for me to completely ignore them.

Are you trying to argue that I should watch all advertising that comes my way in case some of it is socially responsible?

I'm not sure who has the more naive view here...

Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#268

Post by TeMPOraL »

kbenson wrote: post #234
TeMPOraL wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same as Nursie and can give at least one concrete example - I purposefully avoided buying any Groupon ever only because once upon a time they spammed living shit out of the Internet with pink animated ads.

Are you sure it didn't also have to do with the slew of bad press they received for a while, especially here? Do you actually have a memory of avoiding groupon and at that time remembering the ads, or are you now remembering avoiding groupon because you disliked them and now remembering the ads? (I ask because I find perceptions of past actions interesting, not because I specifically doubt you).

I am aware that memory plays tricks over time, so I am not 100% sure, but I have a distinct memory of sitting at work and getting seriously pissed off at the astounding amount of same, ugly, pink Groupon adverts I've seen in the space of few hours. I recall how ridiculous a lightweight-layout site looked when all available ad boxes got filled with variants of the same animated pink ad at the same time.

I'm pretty sure (let's say ~80%) that it was before I started hearing the bad press about Groupon. I recall being initially biased against them because of ads, and then slowly learning more reasons to not participate.

Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#269

Post by a3n »

austenallred wrote: post #46

I've been a contributor member for several months now, because I firmly believe in two things: 1. Content creators have to be paid, or much of the web I know and love will cease to exist. 2. Life without ads is much better. So here's what people need to know about Google contributor: 1. I pay for the highest level available. 2. I love not seeing ads. 3. This only works for Google-based ads, which are certainly common…

If viewing contents without viewing ads is damaging to a site, they can block. Or they can provide N free views per X days, and then block. And provide a subscription mechanism.

I think I must have been turned away from a site once or twice, but I really can't remember specifically.

So they don't block. Which means, they get something out of the visit. Exposure, at least. The hope of an eventual subscription, as I subscribe to the NYT digital.

But if they don't block, then they either get something out of those visit, or they're foolish. Either way, I'm not worried about them.

At all.

Re: Give Google Contributor a try: Pay to remove ads

#270

Post by blumkvist »

sqrt17 wrote: post #248
blumkvist wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>ads stopped being pay-per-impression around 2001 or so. Care to back that up with some proof. Cuz I have a pretty clear picture of ad spending and this is not true at all.

A clearer way to write this would be, pay-per-impression stopped being the default (or only) way of doing business sometime between 1999-2001. After a brief period where ads were predominantly text-based, ad inflation brought graphical ads and CPM back and nowadays can do CPC as well as CPM or CPA (cost per acquisition) links: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2472725?hl=en&ref_... But don't let your clear pi…

Practically all of the advertising on the internet is purchased on per impression basis. It falls into 2 categories:

1) Advertisers paying straight per mille i.e. mr. Proper, Coca-Cola, Lays, etc. Direct outcomes are secondary to them (at best). This is the ovewhelming majority of the display ad spend. Yes, you read that right. The majority of the online ad spend does not care about sales on a website.

2) CPC based ads (ala adwords). Although you are charged per click, this is primarily because it is easier to explain to you. At the end of the day, there are back end calculations in google (the most famous one being called "quality score"), which transform per-click to per-mille. The reason for that is as simple as supply and demand.

This is true for all publishers who sell on CPC. They calculate how much they make per 1000 impressions and calibrate the CPCs towards balanced equilibrium that will extract the most money out of the ad buyers. Publishers deal with visits and they need to know how much they make per visit.

I made my initial comment just to see where crybabies will go with their nonsense and couch expertise. Response as expected...

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