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I've removed all ad network code from my blog

troyhunt.com

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Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog

#261

Post by Gracana »

pmlnr wrote: post #251
bazillion wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! It's not lightweight -- the average script include I have right now is around 280k. I'm going to be able to reduce it in the next few months to around 150k, I believe. Once downloaded, the processing of it itself is not too intensive.

You consider 280k script lightweight? Wow. Have you tested this on some cheap, low-end, Chinese phones with the default browser?

> > It's not lightweight -- the average script include I have right now is around 280k.

> You consider 280k script lightweight? Wow.

They do not. :P

Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog

#262

Post by wrsh07 »

fiatjaf wrote: post #4

Ok, you have a sponsorship model that works because you're probably very famous. That doesn't solve anyone's problem, because almost no one is famous. How can we replace ad networks with something better and saner?

[I agree, let's solve the general problem].

Consider a not-famous person Em who writes posts. Most posts don't get enough views to be profitable anyway, but Em has ads in case one of their posts goes viral.

Viral posts are only successful while they're on the front page of HN, so Em can't wait until they have a successful post to get a sponsorship.

How can we enable Em to profit from their successful post without all the ad network code?

[Famous people can do sponsorship. Not famous people wouldn't make much money from ads anyway - maybe a hundred bucks a month. What about the sometimes famous?]

Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog

#263

Post by pmlnr »

Gracana wrote: post #261
pmlnr wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You consider 280k script lightweight? Wow. Have you tested this on some cheap, low-end, Chinese phones with the default browser?

> > It's not lightweight -- the average script include I have right now is around 280k. > You consider 280k script lightweight? Wow. They do not. :P

Right, I probably misread it. Sorry. The 150k version will be the lightweight.

Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog

#264

Post by rhizome »

wheaties wrote: post #119
mrweasel wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also doesn't solve the issues for most advertisers. I can't imagine that a large e-commerce site would want to make thousands of individual deals with sites that may or may not generate the desired traffic. His solution doesn't really scale, for the advertisers, which is why the ad networks exists. My main issue with ad networks is that they simply aren't technically competent enough to run an internet facing busi…

>> My main issue with ad networks is that they simply aren't technically competent enough to run an internet facing business. As someone who works in Ad tech, let me be the first to say that there are a few A-players and a ton of C-players. The problem is, the C-players are so crappy that everyone associates all of ad tech with them. A good analogy is the difference between Black Hat and White Hat SEO. Most of the C-…

Which class is Zedo in?

Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog

#265

Post by bjterry »

komali2 wrote: post #187
vintageseltzer wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask: if one is not "famous" (i.e. popular), why should one expect their site to be profitable from ads alone? If my limited edition, 250-prints-per-month 'zine isn't making money, is that the advertising industry's fault, or is there an issue with my expectations? People ask the "how do we fix dwindling ad-based revenue" question all the time. The answer is clear, it's just not what people want to hear: metered…

On the other hand, this will lead to us only being able to read the blogs and personal websites of people who are able to dip into their own money and time to make and host a blog. I'd be very interested in reading about the life of exactly not that kind of person.

Many of my favorite websites from the old Internet were exactly this, and I think it's sort of a shame that I can no longer find sites like that with Google. For example, I once read a site about this person's journey for the perfect pizza dough. It was obviously a labor of love and he had tried tons of permutations and research into the topic. The site was very web 1.0, presumably doesn't have great SEO, but the guy had better, more in-depth information than anything in the first several pages of the Google search results.

ALL THE TIME when I'm researching topics, I'll think about how there is probably someone out there for whom it's their one true passion, and they have probably put up a little website on some corner of the Internet with more research and depth than 1000 well SEOd blog sites, but it's completely impossible to find.

Edit: I found the pizza website, it was halfway down the second page of google's search results. I only clicked it because it was the only one without a picture http://www.varasanos.com/pizzarecipe.htm

Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog

#267

Post by rhizome »

croon wrote: post #47
mrweasel wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also doesn't solve the issues for most advertisers. I can't imagine that a large e-commerce site would want to make thousands of individual deals with sites that may or may not generate the desired traffic. His solution doesn't really scale, for the advertisers, which is why the ad networks exists. My main issue with ad networks is that they simply aren't technically competent enough to run an internet facing busi…

> It also doesn't solve the issues for most advertisers. I can't imagine that a large e-commerce site would want to make thousands of individual deals with sites that may or may not generate the desired traffic. Agreed. Idea: Is it possible to replace ad networks with ad brokers? The broker keeps a ledger of interested parties on both sides. Someone looking to buy ad space specifies relevant market segments (data ana…

This is already the current state of the art. One problem is that you get chains of "brokers" inflating the middle of the ad-serving equation, each one trying to price their position in the chain with a just-in-time auction. The milliseconds (if we're lucky) add up.

Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog

#268

Post by rhizome »

jerf wrote: post #126
chriswarbo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mostly we're wandering around hither and yon, not showing any site loyalty. I agree with your main point, but to clarify: Flattr was specifically designed for this sort of one-off usage. Clicking a Flattr button doesn't subscribe to anything, it just adds that person/site to a list on your Flattr account. At the end of the month, your money is divided evenly between those on the list, then the list is cleared . You…

The only problem with Flattr is that it doesn't work. Other than that it's great. I mean this both straight and a bit sarcastically. I'm ideologically inclined to want to see it work. But it doesn't, it hasn't, and I see little reason to expect that to change in the future. Patreon doesn't work perfectly, and perhaps there's an even better model waiting for someone to find it, but it does work. It does strike me as t…

Patreon doesn't work perfectly

Where does patreon fail, aside from adoption and popularity?

Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog

#269

Post by imgabe »

munificent wrote: post #223
vintageseltzer wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask: if one is not "famous" (i.e. popular), why should one expect their site to be profitable from ads alone? If my limited edition, 250-prints-per-month 'zine isn't making money, is that the advertising industry's fault, or is there an issue with my expectations? People ask the "how do we fix dwindling ad-based revenue" question all the time. The answer is clear, it's just not what people want to hear: metered…

> The answer is clear, it's just not what people want to hear: metered paywalls or a subscription model (or, you know, selling an actual product / service). That basically says the art only worth caring about is art produced by artists who produce a large, consistent volume of work. Any one who produces small things, or infrequent things, falls under the threshold where the perceived effort to set up a subscription o…

Websites costing single digit dollars per month can handle thousands of visitors. At the mom-and-pop level you're talking about it, just about anyone working a job capable of supporting themselves can afford to put up a website.

And yes, the default state of art is for nobody to care about it. The art we care about tends to be exceptional. That's why we care about it.

Re: I've removed all ad network code from my blog

#270

Post by username223 »

cr0sh wrote: post #179
vintageseltzer wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask: if one is not "famous" (i.e. popular), why should one expect their site to be profitable from ads alone? If my limited edition, 250-prints-per-month 'zine isn't making money, is that the advertising industry's fault, or is there an issue with my expectations? People ask the "how do we fix dwindling ad-based revenue" question all the time. The answer is clear, it's just not what people want to hear: metered…

I kinda agree with you; I run a personal website, it isn't very popular (and I don't update it often - hmm, maybe there's a link there!) - but it is my website, and I've kept the domain active since 1998 or thereabouts. ie - a "labor of love" How do I pay for it? Well, I reach around to my back pocket for my wallet, and... I don't have ads, I don't have a sponsorship, and I don't care - what I have and what I put on…

Thank you!

I also have a personal site, and when Wordpress started shoving ads into their free blogs, I started paying a few bucks to host it ad-free. I recently published a book, and people can buy that if they want to thank me, or just keep reading my blog if they don't or can't. I will not sell out my readers (or "monetize my brand," or whatever you're supposed to call it), because I believe in the web as it used to be.

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