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Problems coming for online publishing

blogs.harvard.edu

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Re: Problems coming for online publishing

#21

Post by zo7 »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #4

This is a rather asinine line of argumentation. (a) The New York Time's newsroom and editorial staff are rather well-separated from their business department which makes decision about ad tech on their website. If you don't believe me, see this paragraph from a recent article at The Atlantic, which operates by the same principle: As you read this article on The Atlantic, roughly three dozen ad trackers are watching y…

> (b) There's one big difference between Facebook and generic advertising technology: the New York Times doesn't require you to sign up.

> (c) Ad tracking knows which websites I visit. Facebook knows which nude parties I attended in 2005

Facebook tracks you off the site and has been known to build shadow profiles of non-users.

Re: Problems coming for online publishing

#22

Post by dom96 »

jedwhite wrote: post #6
Scaevolus wrote: post #5

The title should end with "publishers", not "pubs".

There is an 80 character title field limit on the HN input field so the title had to be shortened.

The title should be reworded, I had to read the article's title to understand it.

Edit: and as I say this it was just modified.

Re: Problems coming for online publishing

#23

Post by blablabla123 »

empath75 wrote: post #9

I think adtech companies are at greater risk than publishers. Publishers will move to a subscription model and most of them will be okay. A whole lot of adtech companies’ entire business model is sleazy at best and outright criminal at worst.

Yeah but it's also crazy how many pubs (the word is nice ;)) already had to close or at least merge which others. Google News made it quite obvious how redundant a lot of content is. Often articles are just exact copies of Reuters, AP, ... texts.

If subscription is the only solution, I expect more pubs to disappear. Being from Germany, if I had to subscribe to nytimes.com to read articles from there I'd stop reading them probably. Just pretending I would subscribe, I would also have to subscribe to 5 more US Newspapers, 2-3 UK ones and 10-15 German ones. NYT Basic is 1.75 € a week, Washington post 10 $ a month. That would be more than 140 € a month. No way :-) (Oh, I forgot all the commercial tech pubs I read)

I hope the publishers come up with a better model.

Re: Problems coming for online publishing

#24

Post by chillybean »

benatkin wrote: post #18
osrec wrote: post #10

I am rather skeptical of the effectiveness of online advertising, despite all the tracking and profiling. I see companies like Google and Facebook post bumper profits, yet I see users becoming smarter at avoiding ads. Something doesn't quite add up, and because the validity of clicks is shrouded in mystery, it's not difficult for the platform owners to play dirty. I have had very little success with online ads for my…

To see what's most effective it might be better to watch how ad companies are selling their own services than to follow their advice. It seems like they're getting more through sales staff and content marketing and that online ads are only a small part of what gets them sales.

I like this idea. I mean, how often do you see an ad for Facebook ads or Google AdWords?! They do pop up every now and again, but are infrequent at best.

Re: Problems coming for online publishing

#25

Post by gcb0 »

osrec wrote: post #10

I am rather skeptical of the effectiveness of online advertising, despite all the tracking and profiling. I see companies like Google and Facebook post bumper profits, yet I see users becoming smarter at avoiding ads. Something doesn't quite add up, and because the validity of clicks is shrouded in mystery, it's not difficult for the platform owners to play dirty. I have had very little success with online ads for my…

you don't see users getting smarter about ads. trust me.

you see your close circle of acquaintances getting smarter about ads.

the general population is going downhill, by all metrics we have access to. In one case, people were trying to access a (fake) bank site, which had ads. it was an ad scammer that bought mistyped domains and cloned the homepages, in an automated way. and very badly. yet it had millions of impressions, most with several PVs from same user showing that they did click around.

Re: Problems coming for online publishing

#26

Post by elorant »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #17
osrec wrote: post #10

I am rather skeptical of the effectiveness of online advertising, despite all the tracking and profiling. I see companies like Google and Facebook post bumper profits, yet I see users becoming smarter at avoiding ads. Something doesn't quite add up, and because the validity of clicks is shrouded in mystery, it's not difficult for the platform owners to play dirty. I have had very little success with online ads for my…

I know someone who has a company with over a billion unique visitors a year and they only bring in tens of millions a year in revenue. I have a site with over a million uniques a year and we did almost thousands a year in revenue. We are far from experts on selling ads but still it’s a tough way to monetize something small.

Your examples aren't contradictory. A site with a bn uniques can have let's say 10bn impressions. With a CTR of 1%, assuming by the the high number of users that it's news related and so doesn't get that many clicks, and a CPC of $0,15 it could bring a low 8 figure income.

It all depends on the kind of content. Target women and you get higher CTRs. As for the guy with the billion uniques, well he should start contacting advertisers himself. With that kind of traffic it's a crime not to.

Re: Problems coming for online publishing

#27

Post by fareesh »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #4

This is a rather asinine line of argumentation. (a) The New York Time's newsroom and editorial staff are rather well-separated from their business department which makes decision about ad tech on their website. If you don't believe me, see this paragraph from a recent article at The Atlantic, which operates by the same principle: As you read this article on The Atlantic, roughly three dozen ad trackers are watching y…

Arguing against one's interests should not necessarily be taken at face value. It's a viable persuasion strategy if you are in for a long con.

Re: Problems coming for online publishing

#29

Post by packet_nerd »

gcb0 wrote: post #25
osrec wrote: post #10

I am rather skeptical of the effectiveness of online advertising, despite all the tracking and profiling. I see companies like Google and Facebook post bumper profits, yet I see users becoming smarter at avoiding ads. Something doesn't quite add up, and because the validity of clicks is shrouded in mystery, it's not difficult for the platform owners to play dirty. I have had very little success with online ads for my…

you don't see users getting smarter about ads. trust me. you see your close circle of acquaintances getting smarter about ads. the general population is going downhill, by all metrics we have access to. In one case, people were trying to access a (fake) bank site, which had ads. it was an ad scammer that bought mistyped domains and cloned the homepages, in an automated way. and very badly. yet it had millions of impr…

Almost everyone tech savvy that I know runs an ad blocker and I've installed one for all my family members who aren't. At family holiday gatherings they've even started asking me to "do that thing you do" to clean up their browsers. Regular people are getting very very tired of so many obnoxious ads, and even though they don't think about it much, no one is like "hey, I have WAY to much privacy! I need to give away my data!!"
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