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The Facebook Fallacy

technologyreview.com

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Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#41

Post by lmm »

intellegacy wrote: post #35
redwood wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's where we NEED to move toward some easier way of frictionless micro-transactions that are secure, safe, and ubiquitous... how to do it is unclear, but perhaps a mega-site like Facebook could create such a thing.

If you are referring to micro-transactions whereby readers pay content authors, tipjoy and others have already tried the "e-tip" model and failed. Also, paypal's donate feature has existed for some time now but it doesn't seem to be able to replace ads. If anybody could implement the safe, seamless microtransaction model I'd think it'd be paypal as they have the existing infrastructure already. Either they have overl…

Many good ideas have to be tried a few times before someone gets them right. Witness Sun's "network computer" ideas in the '90s. As far as I can tell Flattr is doing well and gradually growing.

Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#42

Post by lmm »

intellegacy wrote: post #26
codex wrote: post #23

My hope is that advertising, as an industry, dies (or morphs) sooner rather than later. At best, it is visual pollution, and at worst employs subtle forms of mind control to encourage people to do what the advertiser wants. No thank you! However, it is useful: it helps disemenate information. Didn't know about the all new BMW i3 electric car? Thanks to some ad, now you do. Most of the time you don't care, but when yo…

What happens to all the newspapers/ news sites that run on ads? Advertising money has allowed the public access to non-subscription news on the web for some time now. If you take all that money away, doesn't the free content mostly dry up?

There is more than enough will to write. If newspapers are providing anything more valuable than amateur bloggers, people will start paying for it. If not, then I guess their time has come.

Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#43

Post by lmm »

andrewflnr wrote: post #40
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #31

Here's the thing: I hate ads. All forms of ads. The reason I hate ads is that 99% of the time are interrupting me and telling me about things I do not want to know about. If I am chatting with a friend on Facebook, there's no way any kind of ad is going to do anything but get in my way. If, however, I am actually looking to solve a problem, I go to a search engine and start bringing up web pages. In this scenario I a…

I have an idea: how about a "this is interesting, save it for later" button on ads? So if something comes up that's useful, you can minimize the distraction for now. Maybe it would wait a while to put another ad up. Advertisers still pay per click in the "looking at it later" phase. Of course you would need a natural way to put them back in front of the user. Some of my app ideas already have a natural "deal with it…

I mostly hate ads. But I go out of my way to look at my amazon recommendations, which are basically ads, and work the way you describe (wishlist). I can see a future where they or something like them (I guess pinterest is kind of similar?) displace most advertising - as long as people who want your product (whether they know it or not) can find it, you don't need ads.

Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#44

Post by 7952 »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #31

Here's the thing: I hate ads. All forms of ads. The reason I hate ads is that 99% of the time are interrupting me and telling me about things I do not want to know about. If I am chatting with a friend on Facebook, there's no way any kind of ad is going to do anything but get in my way. If, however, I am actually looking to solve a problem, I go to a search engine and start bringing up web pages. In this scenario I a…

Targeting ads based on activity is a dangerous game. I was once shopping online for underwear. For the next couple of days ads would show up from this site showing pictures of men in underwear, trying to make me go back and buy the garments in question. That is very annoying, and creepy. Surely the more profitable the product, the more creepy it will seem.

Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#45

Post by 7952 »

Facebook should look at doing financial services. Price credit based on who your friends are. If you don't keep up with repayments you get a permanent blot in your profile. It is a sector in need of disruption, and Facebook have the worlds best dataset for assessing risk. You could start out with small transfers between individuals. Then move on to group based credit card rates.

Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#46

Post by lmm »

paulsutter wrote: post #21
jacques_chester wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Advertising is a $600B a year business The point is that, from an advertiser's point of view, most of that money is wasted. Insofar as they can target ads and pay less for them, they will. That $600 billion is not going to transfer on a 1:1 basis into the internet advertising market.

Are you willing to make a $1 bet predicting the general demise of the Internet advertising business? (I think the article called it a "collapse")? I'm having a hard time understanding exactly what concrete outcome you are predicting based on your post. Are you predicting a 1:0.9 ratio? 1:0.001? 1:1.1?

I'd put $1 on the following proposition: 30 years from now, the advertising industry (i.e. in which sellers of products pay directly for advertising - advertising which is not content and does not attempt to confuse the receiver about this) will have less than 1/10th the revenue it does today, as a proportion of the total revenue of all industries put together (I'd say "GDP" but I think that may be defined in terms of profit rather than revenue - and I expect margins to shrink everywhere).

(I think we'll see a big rise in viral marketing, shill and semi-shill reviewing (Klout, amazon's programme where they send products to highly rated reviewers), product placement and sponsored content (the my little pony cartoons; mad men with jack daniels; akb0048), which will blur the line between advertising and content creation. But I think outright ads will collapse)

Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#47

Post by paulsutter »

lmm wrote: post #46
paulsutter wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you willing to make a $1 bet predicting the general demise of the Internet advertising business? (I think the article called it a "collapse")? I'm having a hard time understanding exactly what concrete outcome you are predicting based on your post. Are you predicting a 1:0.9 ratio? 1:0.001? 1:1.1?

I'd put $1 on the following proposition: 30 years from now, the advertising industry (i.e. in which sellers of products pay directly for advertising - advertising which is not content and does not attempt to confuse the receiver about this) will have less than 1/10th the revenue it does today, as a proportion of the total revenue of all industries put together (I'd say "GDP" but I think that may be defined in terms o…

I love the position you're taking on this. It's a specific view of the future that is plausible, and contrary to my position. Nice work.

To restate: I bet $1 that the ratio of total ad revenue (not including product placement revenue) to GDP will be substantially greater than 10% of what it is today.

Hope we're able to track each other down in 30 years, love to see how it turns out!

Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#48

Post by mindstab »

I don't understand why people are so focused on Facebook's ad revenue and it's supposed unsustainability, since Google has been around longer, are way bigger, and you know what? The overwhelming majority of their income is also from online ads.

And you know what? Before that we had TV, Radio, and newspaper ads. Those industries didn't implode (or start to) until better ad delivery systems (the web) showed up?

So you know what's going to kill Facebook (and google)? Not some realization ads "aren't working". A newer and even better ad delivery system. (also unlike old media, there doesn't yet seem to be a reason to say FB or google won't be behind this new system either).

This is tired old bollocks.

Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#49

Post by mcguire »

7952 wrote: post #44
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #31

Here's the thing: I hate ads. All forms of ads. The reason I hate ads is that 99% of the time are interrupting me and telling me about things I do not want to know about. If I am chatting with a friend on Facebook, there's no way any kind of ad is going to do anything but get in my way. If, however, I am actually looking to solve a problem, I go to a search engine and start bringing up web pages. In this scenario I a…

Targeting ads based on activity is a dangerous game. I was once shopping online for underwear. For the next couple of days ads would show up from this site showing pictures of men in underwear, trying to make me go back and buy the garments in question. That is very annoying, and creepy. Surely the more profitable the product, the more creepy it will seem.

And now everyone knows you like to look at pictures of men in underwear.
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