Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well • Hacker News Board

Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#161

Post by schleyfox » Wed, Nov 23, 2011, 11:30 PM UTC

alexhawket wrote: post #138

Patrick is falling into what, I call, the marketing trap. I like some of Patrick's advice, but I wouldn't follow this... ever. Patrick has a nice little niche business but that's all it is, a niche. Niches, by definition are really small, focused and low in demand. In a niche, the stream of new customers eventually dries up and the temptation is to move further and further over to the marketing dark side to keep the…

And you are falling into the "if I build it they will come" trap.

He definitely has a niche business. Many of us do. For most of us, our niche is tech. Patrick's niche is education.

In the tech/startup niche, often the extent of marketing that is required is posting to HN and getting featured by TechCrunch. Trying to expand our niche outside of this is probably a bad sign, and most likely ineffective. I hold this thread as a prime example of how much we hate advertising.

The education niche is quite different. You don't reach them by getting coverage for raising a round of financing or writing a blog post on SEO that casually mentions your cloud based retro encabulator. This "deceptive" marketing may be an effective way to raise interest in different segments of his target market.

Traditional online advertising is increasingly ineffective because of all the bad ads in that form. Would we be so quick to ignore all ad-like content if we hadn't been tempered with the aversion therapy of flash horrors, scams, and weightloss/white teeth/work at home? The end result is even advertising that might serve a useful purpose can't exist in that environment, so, like bacteria after the invention of penicillin, it has to adapt and change and find a new way to continue. If only "good" ads make the jump, then I think we're better off as a whole. If bad ads make the jump, we'll soon get pretty good at filtering them out as well. Honestly, if scam ads can blend seamlessly into a page, what does that say about the actual content?

Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#162

Post by olaf » Wed, Nov 23, 2011, 11:38 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #122

olaf wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you automatically sanction Google's deeds? I think, they are clearly doing evil in this case.

Do you remember what Google's ad strategy was a reaction to?

I never knew. How can that justify that they deceive many users?

Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#163

Post by tptacek » Wed, Nov 23, 2011, 11:45 PM UTC

olaf wrote: post #162

tptacek wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you remember what Google's ad strategy was a reaction to?

I never knew. How can that justify that they deceive many users?

Google's Adwords strategy was a reaction to competitors who literally sold placement in search results.

Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#164

Post by sssparkkk » Wed, Nov 23, 2011, 11:49 PM UTC

ig1 wrote: post #41

Warning: This type of behaviour may be illegal. For the US see the FTC guidance: http://www.scribd.com/doc/20635261/FTC-Guides-Concerning-the... (the FTC has bought prosecutions on this topic recently) It's also illegal in the UK and presumably a lot of Europe. You can't make an ad look like an legitimate endorsement, it's as simple as that. In this case the small "sponsored placement" text could easily be taken to b…

What about when some site is raving about a product, and pointing users to the product's website using an affiliate link. No disclosure at all. Is that also illegal? Because I think it would be great if it was.

Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#165

Post by zone411 » Wed, Nov 23, 2011, 11:56 PM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #3

Look, I'm normally pretty easy going, but it's just like to say it's people like YOU that are ruining the internet. I really wish all the SEO-cretins would just go find something else to do with their time.

At least get your terminology straight, this has nothing to do with SEO.

Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#166

Post by zone411 » Wed, Nov 23, 2011, 11:57 PM UTC

dendory wrote: post #118

This is the kind of attitude that's bad for the Internet overall. Take someone like me, I probably spend more online than most 'casual' users. Yet I use noscript and adblock, so I don't see any ads or SEO crap. I spend money wisely on sites that deserve it by providing good content. The SEO people lose out on the bigger share of the pie, and instead they all go 'dark side' over trying to get as much of the tiny slice…

You don't know what "SEO" means, do you?

Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#167

Post by DiabloD3 » Thu, Nov 24, 2011, 12:03 AM UTC

MartinCron wrote: post #137

DiabloD3 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its funny that there is an almost exact same thing in audio processing called masking, where a loud signal will hide a quieter signal similar in frequency. Maybe this is the visual processing equivalent?

It's "search satisfaction", I think. People expect to look for (and dismiss) the obvious stuff. This is similar to the notion that having the TSA check for liquids at airports is dangerous, because when they find a bottle of shampoo, they stop looking for other stuff.

Are you kidding me? I knew the TSA was security theatre, but holy crap, Batman.

The terrorists not only have won, but they have all the cheat codes!

Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#168

Post by olaf » Thu, Nov 24, 2011, 12:06 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #163

olaf wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never knew. How can that justify that they deceive many users?

Google's Adwords strategy was a reaction to competitors who literally sold placement in search results .

Just to clarify: I mean the ads (mostly 2 or 3) with light yellow background at the top of the middle-column (search results), not the ads in the right column.

Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#169

Post by blahedo » Thu, Nov 24, 2011, 12:07 AM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #34

blahedo wrote: post #29

This reminds me of those newspaper ads that are crafted to look exactly like a newspaper article (columns of copy, headline, etc) but only set out with an " Advertisement " in very small print at the top of their enclosing box. I usually can pick them out because the font isn't a perfect match, but once in a while I don't notice until like a third of the way through the "article" when I'm going, "wtf? What was the ed…

I think they're a UGC site: there isn't a formal editing process., regular users just upload stuff which interests them. The publisher pre-approved the ad.

Even if the content is user-generated, there is still curation by other users, analogous to editing, that this is short-circuiting. I didn't realise the site publisher had pre-approval, or I wouldn't have said "as an editor of that site I would be furious", I'd've said "as an editor of that side I would never approve something like that."

Re: Image Ad Blending Works Really, Really Well

#170

Post by blahedo » Thu, Nov 24, 2011, 12:13 AM UTC

robryan wrote: post #152

revorad wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I find advertising such a ridiculous business model for a search engine. Let's spend all this time and money and invent the most amazing technology to find the best results for any search and then... let's sell the top spot to the highest bidder. I don't have a better business model to offer, but I do think the world would be better off if Google were more honest about ads and made it more obvious that the…

Without those ads the amazing search technology wouldn't exist.

Google's search engine predates the ads by quite a few years, actually. You'd be correct to say, "without those ads, Google would necessarily look very different than how it does today," but then, that's nearly a vacuous statement.