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Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

blog.desk.pm

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Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#31

Post by saddington »

jusben1369 wrote: post #30

This was very helpful and thanks for publishing. Right near the end you just touched upon what i think is an important topic (perhaps its own post) If you could chart it your first exposure to John's (or anyones) audience is probably 80% of the bang for the buck. Sponsoring again 4 to 6 months later really only exposes you to net new readers since your first exposure or those that missed your first exposure and/or we…

This is a great point and something that I thought was going to "pay off" but didn't. The results were significantly different but still beneficial... what I should have done is waited a few more months to dive in.

Will I do this again? Probably... but not until a major release, like a 2.0...

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#32

Post by mcphage »

jonas21 wrote: post #10
cmyr wrote: post #5

Really interesting to see these numbers. I've been reading DF for years and years, and its is the only advertising model I've encountered that doesn't grate. His advertising is considerate, audience appropriate, and vetted. I feel good supporting his advertisers, because I feel good supporting him, and because they're just consistently things I'm happy to hear about. I would really love to see more independent journa…

I'd rather not. It introduces a pretty big conflict of interest (for example, Gruber would probably think twice before writing something negative about a former sponsor when he's on the record endorsing them) and blurs the line between advertising and editorial content. As mentioned in the article: > the cost today ranges between $8,000 – $10,000 dollars per placement and you get to write your own post, essentially M…

> I'd rather not. It introduces a pretty big conflict of interest (for example, Gruber would probably think twice before writing something negative about a former sponsor when he's on the record endorsing them)

Generally the companies that advertise on his site are companies that his readers would find useful, but generally aren't the kind of companies that he discusses in his blog posts. Although [I believe] he has had Microsoft and Google products advertise on his site periodically, and his coverage of those companies has still been on his own terms.

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#33

Post by oddevan »

jonas21 wrote: post #29
Moto7451 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PBS and NPR have to deal with this issue every year and their solution is pretty simple. They report it as they would want to, mention that X Co sponsored them in the past/present, and don't take their advertising dollars for that piece.

There's a big difference between saying "this segment is sponsored by X Co" and letting X Co write their own endorsement that they can then quote as a testimonial from you.

If you're referring to Desk quoting Gruber on their home page, they quoted from Gruber's "thank you" post which, while it borrows a lot from the original sponsor-written post, is still written by Gruber himself.

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#34

Post by nicky0 »

jonstokes wrote: post #24
saddington wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always get a refund for the app... and I'm really sorry it didn't work for you. It's honestly really tough being an indie developer... I have to do EVERYTHING related to not just building the DAMN THING but all of the business, marketing, Q/A, financials/accounting, blogging... the list is eternally-long. v1.0 was lucky... in a lot of ways. v1.1 addressed a shit-ton of issues... v1.2, out in a week (hopefully…

Believe me, I understand how hard it is. I've been working alone on a project for the past 2.5 years now (not quite ready for prime-time, but soon), so I know exactly what you mean. However, two things are just inexcusable to me: 1) this is a writing app /with no support for paragraph breaks/. That is unbelievable to me. Nobody who writes for a living can use an app that shows all of your text to you as a really larg…

Actually it is pretty easy to get Apple's customer service to refund an app. Just say it didn't behave as expected and you would like a refund.

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#35

Post by saddington »

oddevan wrote: post #33
jonas21 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a big difference between saying "this segment is sponsored by X Co" and letting X Co write their own endorsement that they can then quote as a testimonial from you.

If you're referring to Desk quoting Gruber on their home page, they quoted from Gruber's "thank you" post which, while it borrows a lot from the original sponsor-written post, is still written by Gruber himself.

Yeah, i felt good about using this quote but was definitely not going to use something that I wrote myself. ... because that would be super-lame.

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#36

Post by saddington »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #26

I suspect this is a lot more informative about the future of journalism. The 'old school' magazine/newspaper group was all about getting 'readership' and then 'blasting their eyeballs'. And there was a tremendous amount of loss to their madness. 6 months after a magazine was published it was entirely unlikely that someone would pick up that issue, see an advertising message, and act on it. But on the web the long tai…

In addition, I think the ultimate litmus test is whether or not they create "value" for readers... or is it just marketing fluff? Even with my own blog post I tried to create value for people reading it... and making sure they could not just read my experience but learn something from it for their own usage.

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#37

Post by jusben1369 »

jonas21 wrote: post #10
cmyr wrote: post #5

Really interesting to see these numbers. I've been reading DF for years and years, and its is the only advertising model I've encountered that doesn't grate. His advertising is considerate, audience appropriate, and vetted. I feel good supporting his advertisers, because I feel good supporting him, and because they're just consistently things I'm happy to hear about. I would really love to see more independent journa…

I'd rather not. It introduces a pretty big conflict of interest (for example, Gruber would probably think twice before writing something negative about a former sponsor when he's on the record endorsing them) and blurs the line between advertising and editorial content. As mentioned in the article: > the cost today ranges between $8,000 – $10,000 dollars per placement and you get to write your own post, essentially M…

I think you have to ask yourself the fundamental question. How does John make a living? Perhaps he could move to a paid subscription model. That seems fraught with risk but it's true it's a possibility. But even then you pander to your paid audience vs the paid advertiser (if all your paid subscribers are Apple fans and you noticed a 10% subscription cancellation when you belittle the Apple Watch what happens to your behavior?)

The next alternative is he relies on advertising. When there is a conflict of interest in advertising it's mostly around transparency (the site does legitimate and paid product and service reviews side by side and so you don't know what is paid content and what isn't) This approach though seems very transparent. The worse case scenario is a product or service he advertises becomes crappy (based on his backlog he wouldn't need to accept an upfront crappy product) and he doesn't allow them to sponsor again. The biggest crime is he holds off calling out said crappy product because at one time he took money from them. I'm not sure he'd do that and that would only be a real issue if JG was the sole or primary source of reviews for the service vs all the other channels that review products and give you a wide range of opinions to draw on if you need them.

TL;DR: All commercial models involving information sharing are flawed so you have to deal in shades of gray and this seems good to me.

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#38

Post by armandososa »

dilap wrote: post #12
jonas21 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather not. It introduces a pretty big conflict of interest (for example, Gruber would probably think twice before writing something negative about a former sponsor when he's on the record endorsing them) and blurs the line between advertising and editorial content. As mentioned in the article: > the cost today ranges between $8,000 – $10,000 dollars per placement and you get to write your own post, essentially M…

It's a valid concern, but honestly I think the distorting effects are probably much less than e.g., having to chase clickbait topics for CPM advertising or having Carlos Slim be your largest single investor, etc.

You piqued my curiosity. What's the Carlos Slim comment related to?

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#39

Post by Multiplayer »

Great post. Thank you for sharing all of this - really great information and I'm thrilled for you that you took a risk and it really paid off. Cheers to that!

That said, your site has so few images on it of the actual product, that for a price of $30, I feel like you are holding back for a reason. I buy anything and everything, but this doesn't feel right. When someone displays their admittedly very nice logo far more than the product I get a flashing warning sign. My 2 cents.

When I can either get a demo or see more of the product I will probably buy.

Again, congratulations on your successful launch!

Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?

#40

Post by underwater »

jusben1369 wrote: post #37
jonas21 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather not. It introduces a pretty big conflict of interest (for example, Gruber would probably think twice before writing something negative about a former sponsor when he's on the record endorsing them) and blurs the line between advertising and editorial content. As mentioned in the article: > the cost today ranges between $8,000 – $10,000 dollars per placement and you get to write your own post, essentially M…

I think you have to ask yourself the fundamental question. How does John make a living? Perhaps he could move to a paid subscription model. That seems fraught with risk but it's true it's a possibility. But even then you pander to your paid audience vs the paid advertiser (if all your paid subscribers are Apple fans and you noticed a 10% subscription cancellation when you belittle the Apple Watch what happens to your…

Traditional journalism doesn't try and mix advertising and content to the level this does. This feels closer to BuzzFeed's infamous organic content (http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/12/buzzhome/) than it does to what a newspaper might do.
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