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Ads on paulgraham.com -- Check the bottom of any PG essay

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Re: Ads on paulgraham.com -- Check the bottom of any PG essay

#31

Post by daniel-cussen »

ivankirigin wrote: post #26

I hate ads. Everyone hates ads. Why would we take what is largely an automated process (extracting information from a site to guide ads), and make humans do it? With the idea to "make something people want", isn't it a bad idea to make something a minority want and the vast majority will fight against? Especially considering the majority's clicks are all that matter.

When they say they will make something people want, they mean the advertisers. Besides, this is the Internet. Ads are here to stay, so why not make them suck less than Google's Adsense?

Re: Ads on paulgraham.com -- Check the bottom of any PG essay

#32

Post by myoung8 »

myoung8 wrote: post #30
eposts wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will be an interesting experiment to watch. Its taking the reddit/digg style voting to the world of internet ads and hoping that users will tell what kind of ads they want to see. If every user is like me, it'll mean no ads... maybe everyone is not like me.

Actually, most people aren't. Apparently, most people actually LIKE ads--so long as they are relevant. I don't know about you guys, but I actually enjoy looking through the ads in Wired. Usually they're catchy and they are almost always relevant for me. I can't say that about most ads on the web, and certainly not for TV (I will never buy a truck in my life so stop 'effin showing me ads for them!) Obviously the probl…

Edit: so long as they are relevant and done well. Despite, for example, my desire to buy a Wii, I would not tolerate a "hit the monkey and win a Wii" ad.

Re: Ads on paulgraham.com -- Check the bottom of any PG essay

#33

Post by vegashacker »

Leon wrote: post #15

Oh snap! I went to some random PG essay to see which ad agency PG would put up and was immediately disappointed to see an ad for Mortgages, which was entirely off-base for the page, but then an up/down mod appeared! What?! That was awesome! Down clicking made a 'Sorry' box appear and the ad was gone! Huzzah! But still, what will happen when an advertisement that a group pays for is consistently down-modded into obliv…

Maybe the YC company only charges advertisers for each impression -- or maybe for each click-thru. If an advertiser's goods are "down-modded into oblivion", then the advertiser at least didn't have to pay anything. And they can take their ad to, say, AdSense, or some other less exclusive network.

Re: Ads on paulgraham.com -- Check the bottom of any PG essay

#34

Post by vegashacker »

Tichy wrote: post #11

Hm, interesting, but slightly weird concept. If the users are willing to vote actively for their favorite ads, why not let them do it on your homepage to begin with? On the other hand, why voting, isn't click/no click sufficient information to judge the effectiveness of ads (seems to work for Google Adwords)?

That's a really good point about the click/no-click. That said, I could see myself down-voting ads for which there's no chance I'd ever click, leaving ads I might be interested in at some point, but didn't actually want to click at that moment.

Also, there's the type of ad where you think you might be interested in it, so you click it to see what it's about, only to find that the product or whatever actually sucks. That's where the down-vote would help.

I don't know if this idea will work, though. Assuming it's used by web surfers, then I think advertisers will want it. But that's a big assumption. What's the incentive for web surfers to use it? Looking at ads, even "high-quality" ones, isn't really a priority of mine. And there are other tools like StumbleUpon or del.icio.us that suggest content to me, but don't really have the commercial agenda that an ad does.

Re: Ads on paulgraham.com -- Check the bottom of any PG essay

#35

Post by vegashacker »

ivankirigin wrote: post #27
lukexi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi ph0rque, the theory is that even the most ardent of ad-downvoters would eventually like an ad enough to not down it (or, that they would get bored of compulsive negativity, and start being more selective). That one ad would be an extremely valuable piece of information. -Luke

Sorry, but that doesn't make sense. The haters won't down-vote. They just won't click at all.

That's still a piece of information though, especially if the same user has actively down-voted other items.

Re: Ads on paulgraham.com -- Check the bottom of any PG essay

#36

Post by vegashacker »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #22
randallsquared wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you already know you want a VW Golf, the ad isn't very useful for the advertiser.

Yes it is. If there are 4 cars dealers in my state who have what I am looking for, they can all serve ads to me, then I compare and buy the best car with the best payment option.

I may be a minority, but that's not how I buy stuff if I know what I want to buy. If I know what I want to buy, then I research the item using Google.

I don't click on ads often, but when I do, it's usually because something caught my attention that I wasn't directly searching for.

The one exception is that I occasionally try to "trigger" ads that give me a discount once I know exactly what I want.

Re: Ads on paulgraham.com -- Check the bottom of any PG essay

#37

Post by vegashacker »

daniel-cussen wrote: post #29

I hate ads as much as the next guy. But somehow, I still voted up an ad at the end of a pg essay. It worked on me. The UI is good, the idea is really elegant, and it is well executed.

I did the same thing, but I'll bet you did it for the same reason as me -- you wanted to try it out because it was a YC company and you were curious.

Now I wasn't "lying" when I up-voted the ad -- it did seem generally interesting (some Ruby site that provided tutorial screencasts), but I'm not sure I would have voted if it wasn't linked off news.yc.

Re: Ads on paulgraham.com -- Check the bottom of any PG essay

#38

Post by mark-t »

ivankirigin wrote: post #26

I hate ads. Everyone hates ads. Why would we take what is largely an automated process (extracting information from a site to guide ads), and make humans do it? With the idea to "make something people want", isn't it a bad idea to make something a minority want and the vast majority will fight against? Especially considering the majority's clicks are all that matter.

I don't hate ads. I hate companies that sell products or services that only benefit themselves. When ads come from legitimate businesses providing products/services that are actually valuable, I think it's a wonderful thing that it's getting a lot easier to reach people who need them.

Re: Ads on paulgraham.com -- Check the bottom of any PG essay

#40

Post by daniel-cussen »

vegashacker wrote: post #37
daniel-cussen wrote: post #29

I hate ads as much as the next guy. But somehow, I still voted up an ad at the end of a pg essay. It worked on me. The UI is good, the idea is really elegant, and it is well executed.

I did the same thing, but I'll bet you did it for the same reason as me -- you wanted to try it out because it was a YC company and you were curious. Now I wasn't "lying" when I up-voted the ad -- it did seem generally interesting (some Ruby site that provided tutorial screencasts), but I'm not sure I would have voted if it wasn't linked off news.yc.

You're right. I was well-disposed because I figured it was a YC startup.
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