Publishers Are Rethinking Those ‘Around the Web’ Ads • Hacker News Board

Re: Publishers Are Rethinking Those ‘Around the Web’ Ads

#81

Post by davemel37 » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 3:26 PM UTC

malchow wrote: post #76

davemel37 wrote: post #47

It is surprising to me how little people seem to know about native/ content amplification ads. Here is a brief primer: First, as far as quality goes, there are different networks with different quality policies. In general, Outbrain is very strict, Taboola is also, but less so, and RevContent, Content.ad, and the 50 or so other native networks (including mantis targeting marijuana publishers and jewish content networ…

In our experience the vast majority of the money into the system is from arbitrageurs. We've been fighting these guys for a long time. Here's a better solution, now in private beta: http://pubsub.publir.com/

I wrote in a different thread about Cointent that I believe the "pay for ad free" model is addressing the problem in the wrong way. First, the pain of annoying ads already has a solution. We are already bombarded by content that its not very painful to just switch to another publisher and read a different article that is less annoying (unless its breaking news.)

Also,Your solution doesnt address the problem at the moment I am experiencing the pain. You need to win on intellectual grounds without the emotional drivers. Youll probably get some traction and users but never mainstream scale. its too disconnected from the pain point.

My idea/opinion, "charge a donation for sharing content." When someone feels compelled to share, they are seeking emotional validation, thats worth paying for.

Re: Publishers Are Rethinking Those ‘Around the Web’ Ads

#82

Post by davemel37 » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 3:31 PM UTC

malchow wrote: post #79

davemel37 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically, all advertising is arbitrage between the value of the eyeballs and the cost to reach those eyeballs...Adwords and Facebook were swamped with arbitrage advertisers until they got better at relevancy. Arbitrage by definition will stop working eventually. you are exploiting information assymetry and a market inefficiency. Once better targeting is in place and mainstream advertisers crack the native cookie y…

Totally fair. I meant ad arbitrage. I.e., the advertisers are themselves running ad-supported sites.

Even ad arbitrage can be a net win. If Foxnews buys a native ad on drudge report for a timely article, thats probably a net win for users... but technically, since Fox is supported by ads, its ad arbitrage.

The "viral" and "slideshow forced pageview" sites will never be a net win in my opinion...

but a quality publishers who is ad supported running arbitrage with native can be a net win. (Although, I would quicker call that audience building than straight arbitrage.)

but, I agree. These single click ad arbitrage sites are pure evil and should be kicked off the native networks.

Re: Publishers Are Rethinking Those ‘Around the Web’ Ads

#83

Post by davemel37 » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 3:52 PM UTC

dreamcompiler wrote: post #80

davemel37 wrote: post #47

It is surprising to me how little people seem to know about native/ content amplification ads. Here is a brief primer: First, as far as quality goes, there are different networks with different quality policies. In general, Outbrain is very strict, Taboola is also, but less so, and RevContent, Content.ad, and the 50 or so other native networks (including mantis targeting marijuana publishers and jewish content networ…

Wow. I understood very little of what you wrote above. It's like you're speaking a foreign language. I can write a TCP/IP stack in assembler, but thinking about ad networks hurts my brain.

TL;DR dont throw out the ad networks with the bad advertisers. Its often a precursor to a better solution for everyone involved.

All you really need to know is that when ad networks work, the first people to exploit are bad actors taking advantage of little competition. The networks need these guys to survive, so they tolerate it until they can afford to kick them out.

As the network matures, it kicks out the bad actors amd it becomes a healthy and effective medium for brands to communicate with consumers in a win-win-win way.

Re: Publishers Are Rethinking Those ‘Around the Web’ Ads

#84

Post by eropple » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 4:07 PM UTC

posterboy wrote: post #59

eropple wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have heard good things about block-this, which creates a VPN connection that just strips out ads, but it seems (unscientifically, because Android doesn't track VPN battery usage) a battery suck.

yeah and it collects those ad avoiding users' data easier than any conent network could. way to go. I mean, that's what I'd suspect.

Uh. It's open source. I built it from source myself.

Re: Publishers Are Rethinking Those ‘Around the Web’ Ads

#85

Post by davemel37 » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 5:45 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #61

gregmac wrote: post #19

These ads specifically were the ads that drove me to ad blockers. I resisted for years, as I took the stance I simply didn't visit sites that had overly obnoxious ads. I've had flash turned off for years so that likely cut down on a lot of that garbage anyway. Then these fake "Other things you might like" ads started appearing around many sites. Occasionally somewhat relevant, but always click-bait headlines. I was e…

Yup. And I blocked Taboola and Outbrain in my hosts file years ago after some particularly unpleasant ads of rotting teeth. To me they're a symbol of low-quality misleading advertising. I think there might be a place for good cross-advertising of articles, but that seems to not be what the public clicks on.

It has less to do with what the public clicks and more to do with the level of quality competition amongst advertisers. As more and more brands get smart about native, the networks will push out the arbitrage sites and other bad actors.

Bad advertisers is a sign that an ad network actually works but hasnt matured yet.

Re: Publishers Are Rethinking Those ‘Around the Web’ Ads

#86

Post by a3n » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 6:07 PM UTC

gregmac wrote: post #19

These ads specifically were the ads that drove me to ad blockers. I resisted for years, as I took the stance I simply didn't visit sites that had overly obnoxious ads. I've had flash turned off for years so that likely cut down on a lot of that garbage anyway. Then these fake "Other things you might like" ads started appearing around many sites. Occasionally somewhat relevant, but always click-bait headlines. I was e…

Even without these types of ads, mere performance compels me to use an ad blocker.

I've recently been playing around with different Linux distros, and so installed Firefox multiple times if it wasn't already there. I'm the type of person who queues up a number of tabs for reading.

At the NYT, at about four or five tabs open, the laptop becomes unusable, because of all the ad downloading.

And now, the absolute first thing I do after opening FF the first time is to install ublock origin. The web is all but unusable for me without it.

Re: Publishers Are Rethinking Those ‘Around the Web’ Ads

#87

Post by Jordrok » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 6:17 PM UTC

Thank goodness that the publishers are finally starting to catch on. Outbrain, Taboola, and their ilk have always been utter trash and the sooner they die the better off we'll all be.

Re: Publishers Are Rethinking Those ‘Around the Web’ Ads

#88

Post by austinz » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 7:32 PM UTC

ericthor wrote: post #22

Oh yes the "chumbox" https://theawl.com/a-complete-taxonomy-of-internet-chum-de0b...

What a great summary of the utter baseness of this type of advertising: a stomach-turning body horror image I never wanted to see, some article calling strangers "morons" based on some stupid superficiality, and gossip about the private lives of strangers that is, quite frankly, none of my business.

That being said, if these companies vanished tomorrow it wouldn't be a complete positive either, since the fine sociopaths of the advertising industry would simply use the resultant vacuum to come up with something even more contemptible. Fuck that industry.

Re: Publishers Are Rethinking Those ‘Around the Web’ Ads

#89

Post by reitanqild » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 9:36 PM UTC

Buge wrote: post #50

reitanqild wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only they never seem to quite get it: Google: here is x dating site, Me: click, mark as irrelevant. Google: here is y dating site Me: irrelevant Google: z dating site? Me: nope Google: lets try an ad for x dating site again then Me: actually, you got my mail, all my searches for the last 10 years and still you cannot find anything more relevant for a happily married sw engineer?

You can change the google settings to specifically give you ads about topics you like https://www.google.com/settings/ads

Been there, done that.

Somehow Google think dating sites fall under auto repair, gardening, computer hardware or software or a few other categories I am actually interested in.

Or more likely IMO: they don't care.

Re: Publishers Are Rethinking Those ‘Around the Web’ Ads

#90

Post by posterboy » Mon, Oct 31, 2016, 11:32 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #84

posterboy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah and it collects those ad avoiding users' data easier than any conent network could. way to go. I mean, that's what I'd suspect.

Uh. It's open source. I built it from source myself.

wat. that wasn't obvious from the comment.