Earlier quoted context omitted.
You piqued my curiosity. What's the Carlos Slim comment related to?
He's probably referring to the New York Times.
Yup.
Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?
51–60 of 109 posts
Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?
#52What's often under appraciated about sponsored content is that it does seem to be catching on as valuable channel to acquire customers not just branding exposure.
Here is a case study from Dash as well.
https://syndicateads.net/casestudy/dash.pdf
(Full disclosure I'm on the team at SyndicateAds)
Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
I won't win this argument (and I won't try), but, I appreciate the time you took to write me a response! 1. I'm working on this and the feature was an attempt to combine both WYSIWYG and Markdown into one formatting experience. This ended up being a gamble and one that I lost and the newest updates will address this. It sucks, i failed, i got it wrong. 2. A lot? sure. i guess. there are tons of great alternatives, fo…
Re.: 2. Don't worry about the price point atm. He might be right that it is not worth currently for him, but it looks like that a lot of other people value it. If you continue adding features and continue making the product as a whole better and more valuable for a larger and larger audience. So eventually he should be happy as well. That requires obviously, that you mostly add features. i.e. you don't re-invent feat…
a great reminder. i'm keen on keeping it simple... and focused. i don't need to be the next microsoft word... i'd rather not actually.
i think one of the most important things any developer or business does is decide who their customer is... and who their customer isn't.
Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?
#54Earlier 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…
John has been sponsored by Google(1) and by Microsoft(2) both of which he has written some decidedly negative things about. I think he takes conflict of interest seriously, and has a strong division between his editorial and his advertising content. 1: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/08/10/ios-at-google 2: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/04/20/windows-azure-mo...
I feel like there's a big difference in talking negatively about a billion dollar company that pays for an advert and a small sub million dollar company. Would Microsoft even notice or care that he spoke critically about them once compared to a small startup that blew their advert money on his blog care?
Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?
#55Earlier 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…
John has been sponsored by Google(1) and by Microsoft(2) both of which he has written some decidedly negative things about. I think he takes conflict of interest seriously, and has a strong division between his editorial and his advertising content. 1: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/08/10/ios-at-google 2: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/04/20/windows-azure-mo...
Azure itself is pretty safe from Gruber's crosshairs. Google was less successful, but there is a common trend of companies paying their way into the good graces of Apple bloggers' inner circle (Squarespace, Backblaze, Everpix).
Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?
#56Congratulations to the author and a succesful campaign. My favourite part of his post reminded me of a quote my marketing professor once told me "The most important thing in a marketing campaign is a great product" Had desk been a poor product, I doubt the Halo-effect would have happened.
I dunno dude, I bought it, tried to use it, and quickly discovered that it's a pretty poor product. I won't go into it here, because it's off-topic and I left a two-star review in the App Store anyway. But my impression of the app is that its success is mainly due to marketing savvy and the current infatuation with "minimalist" writing apps that use Markdown. So I would say yes, DF advertising clearly worked here, an…
As a writer, I like the idea of a minimalist writing app. I really do. It feels natural. Just you and a blank screen so you can tap away and kill whatever demons are haunting you.
Except there is a problem: serious writers need more than 'minimalism'.
All the authors and novelists and long-form fiction writers I know have reams upon reams of notes, plot information, and character data cluttering up their MS Word (argh) and Scrivener screens. I even know some to use spreadsheets to keep track of complicated family trees and plots in long fantasy novels.
This is why I use Scrivener. It's bulky and far from minimalist, but it has the tools I need.
Minimalist apps are for people who want to play 'pretend' at writing. Or write a blog post a day and call that 'substantial writing'. But if you really, really need to put together a story, you will need to do your research. And minimalist apps are of no use to you then.
Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?
#57A previous amusing note from Gruber[1] on his sponsorship system and a sales email from Taboola, purveyor of the obnoxious click-bait grids that you're starting to see all over: > Speaking of revenue and pageviews, true story: I got an email yesterday from a sales rep at Taboola, pitching me on running their ads on DF. It included this line: “I see your site is not monetized at present, and I think there is room to d…
I try to boycott as many sites that use Taboola as possible... this can leave very few sites left to visit without hating myself... Them and Outbrain have to be the absolute worst that I see on "reputable" sites. You begin to truly understand a site's revenue integrity when you see these in their "Sponsored Content" sections.
Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?
#58If you have a Mac App or iOS app, Daring Fireball would be a great place to advertise. I'd like to here from some of the web apps that are promoted, do they have a same uptick in subscribers?
Azure Mobile has been a sponsor. I guess at that point it becomes difficult to even extrapolate the impact of the sponsorship...
Yeah. The acceptable cost for acquiring a customer for something like Azure, AWS, Heroku, New Relic, et al. dwarfs the cost of most advertising that reaches the ideal audience (so, yeah, ROS banner ads on Yahoo might not cut it). I'm in the email newsletter space and had the cloud division of a very major three letter company send me an IO to buy >$100k of advertising without us ever having communicated before - I couldn't fill the order as we don't have that sort of capacity, but it blew my mind and certainly got me thinking about where to take the business.
Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
John has been sponsored by Google(1) and by Microsoft(2) both of which he has written some decidedly negative things about. I think he takes conflict of interest seriously, and has a strong division between his editorial and his advertising content. 1: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2014/08/10/ios-at-google 2: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/04/20/windows-azure-mo...
Azure itself is pretty safe from Gruber's crosshairs. Google was less successful, but there is a common trend of companies paying their way into the good graces of Apple bloggers' inner circle (Squarespace, Backblaze, Everpix).
I'm sorry, but what you're implying is that these companies have sub-par products that unscrupulous writers have been willing to treat as well-made in exchange for cash payment. As someone who (very happily) uses both Backblaze and Squarespace I can safely say this is not the case, and that they're not just "buying their way into" bloggers' good graces.
I'm pretty sure that if they're in anyone else's good graces, it's because they provide a great product with solid service at a decent price. It's absolutely not because they had to bribe people to overlook the fact that they weren't really any good.
In essence, DF is an endorsement-based model. This is one where a justifiably trusted source uses their hard-won credibility to promote products that reinforce their credibility. It's pretty much the opposite of a model that allows people to "buy their way in". Indeed, that's the whole point. You can't buy your way in. If you don't have a decent product, you're not getting listed.
Re: Does Sponsoring Daring Fireball Work?
#60This 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…
On the other hand, repetitive ads are less interesting for the reader (at least, I feel that way when reading DF), so they have a higher 'cost' to Gruber. Though this is more relevant to multiple consecutive sponsorships than a few of them spread over months.