Did Twitter Just Deliver Third Party Apps A Death Blow? • Hacker News Board

Re: Did Twitter Just Deliver Third Party Apps A Death Blow?

#41

Post by shurane » Sat, Jun 30, 2012, 3:08 PM UTC

sedev wrote: post #26

simonsarris wrote: post #2

Maybe there's a trend here, but maybe its just me being short-sighted. I'll type out what I'm thinking. I think that the uncomfortable future for a lot of the e-properties that people enjoy happens to hinge on the fact that the way they are the most useful clashes with the ways they can make money. Big time. Facebook will sponsor stories, alienating users a little for eyeball time. Twitter will make sure promoted thi…

The takeaway lesson for me is that user-generated content is incompatible with advertising. Now, as a caveat, I'm the sort of person who thinks that modern advertising is 99% toxic sludge in the mental environment: I am firmly in the Kalle Lasn camp. However, here's how I see it working: users come to the site because of the UGC, but advertising, by nature, has to grab attention at some level. You can't design for bo…

This is sort of inspiring, but until I see more legitimate businesses making money off of a better model than advertising, it just doesn't mean much to say it. If people didn't have to pay for costs for things like bandwidth and marketing, we would probably see a lot less advertising too.

Re: Did Twitter Just Deliver Third Party Apps A Death Blow?

#42

Post by notatoad » Sat, Jun 30, 2012, 4:05 PM UTC

sedev wrote: post #26

simonsarris wrote: post #2

Maybe there's a trend here, but maybe its just me being short-sighted. I'll type out what I'm thinking. I think that the uncomfortable future for a lot of the e-properties that people enjoy happens to hinge on the fact that the way they are the most useful clashes with the ways they can make money. Big time. Facebook will sponsor stories, alienating users a little for eyeball time. Twitter will make sure promoted thi…

The takeaway lesson for me is that user-generated content is incompatible with advertising. Now, as a caveat, I'm the sort of person who thinks that modern advertising is 99% toxic sludge in the mental environment: I am firmly in the Kalle Lasn camp. However, here's how I see it working: users come to the site because of the UGC, but advertising, by nature, has to grab attention at some level. You can't design for bo…

Your arguments about why UGC is incompatible with advertising seem like they could apply equally to all content.

i think a better argument is that unstructured UGC is incompatible with advertising. Pinterest, for example, seems to be doing all right, because their site is basically a repository of things people want to buy. StackOverflow doesn't seem to be having any issues using ads to monetize, because their niche makes their ad-space valuable to advertisers and relevant to users. Where facebook and twitter fail is that they have tons of data about users, but not about what users want at that particular instant. An ad for windows server hosting on ServerFault is not competing with the content, it's complementing the content. it's a natural progression that doesn't require me to refocus to be effective. Facebook knows what i like, but not what i'm thinking about. When i'm looking at pictures of friends, any advertisement requires me to refocus onto a different topic.

Re: Did Twitter Just Deliver Third Party Apps A Death Blow?

#43

Post by dmor » Sat, Jun 30, 2012, 7:02 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #2

Maybe there's a trend here, but maybe its just me being short-sighted. I'll type out what I'm thinking. I think that the uncomfortable future for a lot of the e-properties that people enjoy happens to hinge on the fact that the way they are the most useful clashes with the ways they can make money. Big time. Facebook will sponsor stories, alienating users a little for eyeball time. Twitter will make sure promoted thi…

As I start building a social sharing startup I know we might be crazy telling users, from day one, how we are making money on Referly (shared commissions on purchases they generate when they share product links - and matching social disincentives for spamming your friends and having a crappy signal to noise ratio of clicks to purchases) but I just don't see how companies doing the "bait and switch" of adding a business model later is going to keep working. People are getting smarter about this, and more aware that they are becoming the product when they use these services that are eventually ad-funded.

I'm not trying to say we are some genius with Referly, because the money from day one part does turn off some people and might be slowing our adoption a bit. But the upside is that we have to deliver a degree of utility that makes it worth it to the user to know we are making money (and they are making money too in our model).

Is this too much capitalist utopia - or could this really be a model for future businesses besides ours?

Re: Did Twitter Just Deliver Third Party Apps A Death Blow?

#44

Post by zem » Sat, Jun 30, 2012, 7:53 PM UTC

thesagan wrote: post #23

falling wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your compensation for being “used” in the advertisements is using the service, that’s how you pay for it.

No way to make it more lucrative? Edit: I don't pretend to really know how to do it, or what the outcomes could be, but I guess I'm talking about socializing social networks (part of the business value itself), if that makes sense.

no, the minute you add financial incentives people start to wonder if they're fair, and get piqued that they aren't greater

Re: Did Twitter Just Deliver Third Party Apps A Death Blow?

#45

Post by zitterbewegung » Sat, Jun 30, 2012, 9:00 PM UTC

sedev wrote: post #26

simonsarris wrote: post #2

Maybe there's a trend here, but maybe its just me being short-sighted. I'll type out what I'm thinking. I think that the uncomfortable future for a lot of the e-properties that people enjoy happens to hinge on the fact that the way they are the most useful clashes with the ways they can make money. Big time. Facebook will sponsor stories, alienating users a little for eyeball time. Twitter will make sure promoted thi…

The takeaway lesson for me is that user-generated content is incompatible with advertising. Now, as a caveat, I'm the sort of person who thinks that modern advertising is 99% toxic sludge in the mental environment: I am firmly in the Kalle Lasn camp. However, here's how I see it working: users come to the site because of the UGC, but advertising, by nature, has to grab attention at some level. You can't design for bo…

Yea, advertising isn't a long term business model... tell that to Google, and most other successful advertising firms.

Re: Did Twitter Just Deliver Third Party Apps A Death Blow?

#46

Post by markkat » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 1:37 PM UTC

markkat wrote: post #5

simonsarris wrote: post #2

Maybe there's a trend here, but maybe its just me being short-sighted. I'll type out what I'm thinking. I think that the uncomfortable future for a lot of the e-properties that people enjoy happens to hinge on the fact that the way they are the most useful clashes with the ways they can make money. Big time. Facebook will sponsor stories, alienating users a little for eyeball time. Twitter will make sure promoted thi…

A very good point. Ads are probably toxic to social media in most cases. And worse than the ads, are the advertisers, and what they want.

Can we really say that we are individuals interacting with each other? When those that we interact with are only facets themselves?

https://plus.google.com/u/0/107417838165139717795/posts/XDXa...

Re: Did Twitter Just Deliver Third Party Apps A Death Blow?

#47

Post by tikwid » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 4:03 PM UTC

markkat wrote: post #46

markkat wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A very good point. Ads are probably toxic to social media in most cases. And worse than the ads, are the advertisers, and what they want.

Can we really say that we are individuals interacting with each other? When those that we interact with are only facets themselves? https://plus.google.com/u/0/107417838165139717795/posts/XDXa...

link's broken...

Re: Did Twitter Just Deliver Third Party Apps A Death Blow?

#48

Post by markkat » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 6:09 PM UTC

tikwid wrote: post #47

markkat wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we really say that we are individuals interacting with each other? When those that we interact with are only facets themselves? https://plus.google.com/u/0/107417838165139717795/posts/XDXa...

link's broken...

Can we really say that we are individuals interacting with each other, when those that we interact with are only facets themselves?

http://bit.ly/P3zyl6

Re: Did Twitter Just Deliver Third Party Apps A Death Blow?

#49

Post by markkat » Tue, Jul 03, 2012, 6:11 PM UTC

tikwid wrote: post #47

markkat wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we really say that we are individuals interacting with each other? When those that we interact with are only facets themselves? https://plus.google.com/u/0/107417838165139717795/posts/XDXa...

link's broken...

Thanks.