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Ads in Gmail displayed as normal emails?

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Re: Ads in Gmail displayed as normal emails?

#121

Post by takluyver »

Lerc wrote: post #98
ryan-allen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree with this. I rarely, if ever, click on ads because they seem interesting. I mostly see an ad and say "oh that is interesting, I was searching for cars before and now I'm being advertised cars on a music site, how completely useless". The truth is I think Google's adsense business has never had any real true value to customers (except for perhaps their 'first page at the top' paid ads, I use them a lot…

>The truth is I think Google's adsense business has never had any real true value to customers. I doubt that adsense has positive overall value to advertisers either. Weigh the amount you spend on the ads against the amount of profit you get from the revenue resulting from that advertising. Some people will be able to make it work but I really don't think it's a large percentage. According to Wikipedia Google made $4…

> Weigh the amount you spend on the ads against the amount of profit you get from the revenue resulting from that advertising.

I'm kind of assuming that every company doing advertising is continually making that calculation, and deciding that it does come out in their favour. Otherwise we wouldn't see nearly so much advertising.

Re: Ads in Gmail displayed as normal emails?

#122

Post by csomar »

harrytuttle wrote: post #103
OoTheNigerian wrote: post #29

So this is why they wanted to "help us" sort out our inbox? I feel defrauded into believing their motivation. Like suddenly realizing I was given a lift solely because my presence in the car allowed the driver to enter my estate or place of work. This is wrong.

Did you pay for it? No. Quit complaining, pay for it (Google Apps), or move on.

There is a difference between a service monetized by Ads, and a service which tries to trick you into clicking on Ads.

Re: Ads in Gmail displayed as normal emails?

#123

Post by minikites »

freehunter wrote: post #117
josteink wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fastmail[1] is looking very nice, very fast and makes Google look like a bloated pig. The prices too are similar to Google apps, but I'm not sure I'm going to move all my stuff there (Google Docs at least needs a competitor). I've yet to decide if I'm going full scale when I'm through my free trial. [1] http://fastmail.fm/

I looked at Fastmail recently, but then I saw the Opera logo and hesitated. I want to know what would happen to them if Opera cannot maintain profitability. I'd like to know my mail provider is going to stick around a while.

Fastmail has been around since 1999, I think it's going to be okay.

Re: Ads in Gmail displayed as normal emails?

#124

Post by 6ren »

tiziano88 wrote: post #113
6ren wrote: post #70

Cue: If you're not the customer, you're the product. For balance: linux and open source in general.

What do linux and open source have to do with this at all?

They are a counter-example: you are not the customer (you aren't paying for it), but you also are not the product.

Re: Ads in Gmail displayed as normal emails?

#125

Post by fauigerzigerk »

harrytuttle wrote: post #103
OoTheNigerian wrote: post #29

So this is why they wanted to "help us" sort out our inbox? I feel defrauded into believing their motivation. Like suddenly realizing I was given a lift solely because my presence in the car allowed the driver to enter my estate or place of work. This is wrong.

Did you pay for it? No. Quit complaining, pay for it (Google Apps), or move on.

I'm letting them occupy a piece of my screen real estate and grab a share of my personal attention every day. I consider that a form of payment.

Now they're coming up with this massive price hike, putting us in a position to choose between accepting a higher price and spending a lot of time moving our data elsewhere. Many people don't even know how to move existing email to a different provider.

So this is definitely something we can legitimately complain about.

Re: Ads in Gmail displayed as normal emails?

#126

Post by josteink »

markdown wrote: post #74
lostlogin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gmail I have now is a shadow of what it was when I was invited in more than a decade ago. I so rarely login (it's a backup dumping ground now) that I can't find what I want, it's non-intuitive, things aren't where they used to be and I can't stand it. I might just be getting old though...

> I can't find what I want, it's non-intuitive, things aren't where they used to be and I can't stand it. I might just be getting old though... Definitely getting old. You sound exactly like every old person (3 of them) who i've moved from Outlook to Gmail.

If you joined Gmail when it was new and on an invite-only basis, you'd know just how much worse things has gotten.

Back then Gmail was better than everything else. Now it's an abomination which makes me want to jump ship.

Re: Ads in Gmail displayed as normal emails?

#127

Post by workbench »

maxer wrote: post #64
AndrewDucker wrote: post #10

I'd love for Google to work out how much money they make from me in a year, and then to offer to go ad-free for 50% more than that. At least then I could make an informed decision.

i have been waiting for this on youtube for years- i do not want to see the same video pre-roll i have already clicked skip on 30 or 40 times. Being a technology company who are seen as leaders in personalised adverts you think they would over come this terrible user experience

The "terrible user experience" which adds numbers to their impressions statistic each time you encounter it?

Re: Ads in Gmail displayed as normal emails?

#128

Post by Lerc »

takluyver wrote: post #121
Lerc wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The truth is I think Google's adsense business has never had any real true value to customers. I doubt that adsense has positive overall value to advertisers either. Weigh the amount you spend on the ads against the amount of profit you get from the revenue resulting from that advertising. Some people will be able to make it work but I really don't think it's a large percentage. According to Wikipedia Google made $4…

> Weigh the amount you spend on the ads against the amount of profit you get from the revenue resulting from that advertising. I'm kind of assuming that every company doing advertising is continually making that calculation, and deciding that it does come out in their favour. Otherwise we wouldn't see nearly so much advertising.

I tend to assume the reason why we see so much advertising is because they _don't_ make that calculation.

Re: Ads in Gmail displayed as normal emails?

#129

Post by jasonlotito »

josteink wrote: post #108
rfnslyr wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you use? Better yet, what's an alternative to Google Apps I can use for my domain?

Fastmail[1] is looking very nice, very fast and makes Google look like a bloated pig. The prices too are similar to Google apps, but I'm not sure I'm going to move all my stuff there (Google Docs at least needs a competitor). I've yet to decide if I'm going full scale when I'm through my free trial. [1] http://fastmail.fm/

Do they have support for Gmails keyboard commands?

Re: Ads in Gmail displayed as normal emails?

#130

Post by jusben1369 »

anExcitedBeast wrote: post #114
harrytuttle wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you pay for it? No. Quit complaining, pay for it (Google Apps), or move on.

I don't think I buy this idea, and I don't think most honest developers would either. People want to know when their users aren't happy with their service, and they especially want to know if they're feeling alienated.

I think this is always a confusion point. Prior to the internet "user" and "customer" were pretty much synonymous. Now they can be entirely different. Users get confused when they miss this critical distinction.
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