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The math’s not pretty on digital advertising’s future revenues? (2017)

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Re: The math’s not pretty on digital advertising’s future revenues? (2017)

#81

Post by chiefalchemist »

> "There is zero reason to think that a tech company can create content better than anyone else — which is the only way anyone knows of to capture any future ad growth. They have zero advantage over Disney."

I was following but til this point. Unfortunately, it is false assumption, fatally false.

I'm going to over-simplify a bit but...The tech companies know what you watched, how much you watched, at what point you stopped, what you shared (or didn't), etc. If Spotify can guess / predict what you might want to hear, the same can be done for other content.

Furthermore, the traditional media companies spent a fair amount on marketing hoping to get the message out to the appropriate target markets. FB and Google already know who is where, when, why, etc.

Correct me, but didn't Netflix use viewing data / analysis to understand which film's and even scenes "worked" and which did not in order to grow their own content.

Re: The math’s not pretty on digital advertising’s future revenues? (2017)

#82

Post by chiefalchemist »

themagician wrote: post #62
MarkMc wrote: post #41

Wow this article is so very wrong - Google and Facebook have enormous advantages over Disney because (a) they have other people producing valuable content for free ; (b) they know much more about each viewer than Disney. Google's revenue today is six times as large as it was a decade ago. And I expect its revenue in a decade to be at least 3 times as large as it is today. The reason is that many of the causes of past…

The content that Google and Facebook produce is garbage. It’s only barely better than nothing at all. Most people would not pay for the kind of content that shows up on Facebook and YouTube by so-called “content creators”. Facebooks ads are garbage except in certain circumstances. Everyone knows this, including the big brands, but they continue to do it because it makes the board happy when they see their brand on FB…

> "Most people would not pay for the kind of content..."

I'm fairly certain an economist would tell you they are paying now. That is, in simple layperson's terms: "Time is money." All that time on FB - contributing and consuming - is being paid for. AND FB gets to serve them ads as well.

It's hard to believe it's legal ;)

Re: The math’s not pretty on digital advertising’s future revenues? (2017)

#83

Post by user5994461 »

manigandham wrote: post #27

Another nonsensical article about adtech. This is not how the industry works. Apple does not have a chance at buying Google because they have the same market cap. Google and Facebook have a massive advantage in scale and precision which is why 2 of the top 10 biggest companies on the planet are ad networks. The valuations come from the sheer profit they generate, not their assets, and how much Disney spends on conten…

>>> What matters is getting a positive return.

In theory yes but not in practice.

Many companies run ads as strict losses, until they stop spending or die, then another company will eventually the spot.

The revenue equilibrium is about where Google is paid all revenues from the customers it brought. The company gets more customer but makes neither a profit nor a loss. It's very close to that in practice.

It's really brutal. Google can effectively capture all profit margin from every web business in the world. That's what is happening.

Re: The math’s not pretty on digital advertising’s future revenues? (2017)

#84

Post by z3t4 »

Web ads is already dead, but if you have users, you can still monetize, for example by product endorsement, up-selling additional services, etc. Companies will still pay for the top spots in the search result though, and Facebook will make it harder to block ads. But for normal web sites, like news sites, they have to focus on quality instead of quantity in order to make people pay. And also we badly need micro-payments for the web.

Re: The math’s not pretty on digital advertising’s future revenues? (2017)

#85

Post by StevePerkins »

darkpuma wrote: post #77
themagician wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The content that Google and Facebook produce is garbage. It’s only barely better than nothing at all. Most people would not pay for the kind of content that shows up on Facebook and YouTube by so-called “content creators”. Facebooks ads are garbage except in certain circumstances. Everyone knows this, including the big brands, but they continue to do it because it makes the board happy when they see their brand on FB…

The success many youtube creators have on Patreon demonstrates that many people would gladly pay for their content. Whether they'd pay google for the content instead of the creator themselves is another matter entirely... People like the content creators a lot more than they like google/youtube itself.

I believe your second sentence negates the first.

But even if it didn't, Patreon is a glorified busker's tip jar. There are only a small number of individuals on earth who can make a full-time living from it. There's no sign that this model could work at scale for a large corporation. Even if it theoretically could, in practice your second sentence would again come into play.

Re: The math’s not pretty on digital advertising’s future revenues? (2017)

#86

Post by b_tterc_p »

themagician wrote: post #62
MarkMc wrote: post #41

Wow this article is so very wrong - Google and Facebook have enormous advantages over Disney because (a) they have other people producing valuable content for free ; (b) they know much more about each viewer than Disney. Google's revenue today is six times as large as it was a decade ago. And I expect its revenue in a decade to be at least 3 times as large as it is today. The reason is that many of the causes of past…

The content that Google and Facebook produce is garbage. It’s only barely better than nothing at all. Most people would not pay for the kind of content that shows up on Facebook and YouTube by so-called “content creators”. Facebooks ads are garbage except in certain circumstances. Everyone knows this, including the big brands, but they continue to do it because it makes the board happy when they see their brand on FB…

99% of YouTube may be garbage but there’s still some great content in there

Re: The math’s not pretty on digital advertising’s future revenues? (2017)

#87

Post by checkyoursudo »

manigandham wrote: post #28
qha wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going back to what it was 20 years ago? I'm sold!

There was basically nothing on the internet 20 years ago.

There was battle.net already. I needed very little else from the internet back then.

Re: The math’s not pretty on digital advertising’s future revenues? (2017)

#88

Post by jammygit »

everdev wrote: post #9
tomrod wrote: post #4

This is an open secret among techonomists and others in the arcane space of digital campaign measurement.[0][1- preprint] Digital advertising has a lot of smoke and mirrors. There is _some_ incrementality, but it seems oversold. [0] https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/130/4/1941/191... [1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2498290_cod...

And how much of the internet is powered by digital advertising? The web will look a lot different if that bubble bursts.

It seems like that particular article is mostly about variance and methodological concerns. I only saw the abstract though

Re: The math’s not pretty on digital advertising’s future revenues? (2017)

#89

Post by arthurofbabylon »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #81

> "There is zero reason to think that a tech company can create content better than anyone else — which is the only way anyone knows of to capture any future ad growth. They have zero advantage over Disney." I was following but til this point. Unfortunately, it is false assumption, fatally false. I'm going to over-simplify a bit but...The tech companies know what you watched, how much you watched, at what point you s…

I think you’re fundamentally misinterpreting the value of creativity here. While audience data is valuable for marketing existing shows, it currently has almost no value for creating new shows.

Just take a look at YouTube creators. Some guy in Australia who ignores data and makes things with mud and plants produces content more popular than almost anything else.

Sure, Google owns the platform, but they remain reliant on the creative, anti-data processes of others.

Re: The math’s not pretty on digital advertising’s future revenues? (2017)

#90

Post by qha »

tomrod wrote: post #50
qha wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I vividly remember lots of things... what I wouldn't give for seeing IRC rise up again

It's still here!!! I love IRC -- especially being able to connect with open source project maintainers. Mad respect for all of them.

I mean, the old IRC, not freenode which is full of power-tripping autists.
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