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The Facebook Fallacy

technologyreview.com

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Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#51

Post by larrys »

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…

"Wonder how much lost productivity are they creating? How many man-years? How many people making purchases for things they never wanted? How many people playing games with imaginary farms and such for hundreds or thousands of hours?"

How much of a difference is there with that and time spent on HN?

Before anyone jumps at that you might say FB is pure entertainment, voyeurism and HN is learning with bits of enjoyment and entertainment (and maybe some voyeurism as well).

But the truth is much learning is actually enjoyment not something you have a reasonable chance of needing at any time. Sure it enhances your life and sure maybe it makes the rest of your day go better. (But so would a nap in the afternoon, right?) And all of these things create "addicts" in a way and the question is also "how many people". HN has setting for to much activity so this has been recognized as an issue.

The problem with all of these things (FB, HN, Twitter) is that they are addicting and so there is no doubt lost productivity. So is TV. But that was generally confined to being in the right place (around a TV) at the right time (not at work).

Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#52

Post by larrys »

malandrew wrote: post #16

It's not that internet advertising isn't effective. It's that all the content it's wrapped around is too engaging. The reason ads in real-life are effective is that they traditionally haven't had to compete for your attention. Examples: (1) Standing on a subway platform you are looking straight at a piece of advertising for minutes until your train arrives. (2) Driving down the road, you're staring at a billboard for…

"Over the next for years you're going to see a massive drop in the effectiveness and reach of ads in real life"

The good news is that most forms of traditional ads are only mildly calibrated to what purpose they are supposed to achieve. With the exception of coupons (highly trackable) an ad on a billboard for a new type of liquor isn't going to be noticed in non-effectiveness immediately. It will be a slow death.

"that will survive a while are billboards and even they will only last until we have self-driving cars"

Otoh, ordinary car occupants, if not engaged in conversations are more likely to be on a mobile device and not looking out the window. And maybe conversing with the driver about what they read on the mobile device instead of sitting there looking out the window looking at the billboards. Same with billboards viewed from trains (riders on devices certainly more than would be reading books or magazines..)

Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#53

Post by pmboyd »

aswanson wrote: post #37

I think facebook should try a groupon style model. They have locations and intentions of users. They should just have a deal feed, or some type of email listing with possible low prices they could get if they join in a deal. To filter it better, maybe ask each user for a list of things they want cheap.

Facebook has tried copying Groupon. This is their Groupon Now! clone announcement (http://www.facebook.com/blog/blog.php?post=446183422130). www.facebook.com/deals appears dead so not sure if they've abandoned the project entirely.

Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#54

Post by ixacto »

1. Install Trueblock plus + cookie monster and disable third-party cookies. 2. You just broke google/facebooks business model. Haha.

goog/fb are relying on peoples stupidity and not going to tools>adons and installing ad-blockers.

Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#55

Post by malandrew »

larrys wrote: post #52
malandrew wrote: post #16

It's not that internet advertising isn't effective. It's that all the content it's wrapped around is too engaging. The reason ads in real-life are effective is that they traditionally haven't had to compete for your attention. Examples: (1) Standing on a subway platform you are looking straight at a piece of advertising for minutes until your train arrives. (2) Driving down the road, you're staring at a billboard for…

"Over the next for years you're going to see a massive drop in the effectiveness and reach of ads in real life" The good news is that most forms of traditional ads are only mildly calibrated to what purpose they are supposed to achieve. With the exception of coupons (highly trackable) an ad on a billboard for a new type of liquor isn't going to be noticed in non-effectiveness immediately. It will be a slow death. "th…

I look forward to a future where everyone producing every product and offering every service comes to the conclusion that product and service discovery tools are so effective that they render the concept of advertising completely inept and the only two vectors on which they can realistically compete are value (price x quality).

Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#56

Post by malandrew »

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?

Free content is not always necessarily honest content, especially at scale. Large sites aren't charities, but a personal blog often can be.

Free content will never dry up. Free content from organizations that produce at scale will dry up.

Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#57

Post by einhverfr »

paulsutter wrote: post #20
einhverfr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will say that in my experience, depending on audience, I have found radio ads and general PR efforts to both be more effective at reaching consumers than I have found internet ads. Speaking strictly of ROI. I am willing to say that the following forms of advertising are doomed: * rotating banners * rotating in-content image ads * pop-up ads (whether div- or window-based) * side-bar ads in content The real challenge…

I'm asking for a bet on the future of Internet advertising generally. Not to take a collection of the shittiest known implementations of advertising and bet on them. I'll interpret your response to mean you think Internet advertising (considered broadly) will be successful, and I agree with you. In contrast with the technology review post which predicts some sort of bizarre general "collapse" of the Internet (presuma…

paulsuttder, sure email me.

In general I found when I was starting out, radio ads delivered the best ROI, and internet ads were down there with yellow pages ads.

Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#58

Post by astrodust »

7952 wrote: post #45

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.

It'll get cluttered up with ads for denture cream and adult diapers once they realize what their true market is.

Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#59

Post by snapdata »

Wilya wrote: post #34
malandrew wrote: post #16

It's not that internet advertising isn't effective. It's that all the content it's wrapped around is too engaging. The reason ads in real-life are effective is that they traditionally haven't had to compete for your attention. Examples: (1) Standing on a subway platform you are looking straight at a piece of advertising for minutes until your train arrives. (2) Driving down the road, you're staring at a billboard for…

I find it fascinating that, with all the talk about new and creative ways to do ad business, the only ads that I find myself interested in are Youtube ads, which are, in some way, a very old school and tv-like technique. I tune out ads on Google search, on websites, and ads on Facebook are about as relevant to me as the spam I get in my inbox ([0]). But, on Youtube, I'm stuck with them, so I might as well try to enjo…

You don't have AdBlock? I haven't seen an ad (youtube or otherwise) in as long as I can remember.

Re: The Facebook Fallacy

#60

Post by snapdata »

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…

Paypal? No. I just signed up for an account using my debit card. Instantly, my account is suspicious. They then demand access to my bank accounts and scans of my social security card, birth certificate, photo ID, etc. No thank you.
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