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How Facebook’s Oracular Algorithm Determines the Fates of Startups

nytimes.com

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Re: How Facebook’s Oracular Algorithm Determines the Fates of Startups

#11

Post by lithos »

tw1010 wrote: post #4

One day there will be a cottage industry focused specifically on exploiting the edge-case behaviour of these algorithms. It doesn't matter that the specifics of the algorithms are secret, there are always ways of reverse engineering them. That's the whole point of statistical inference.

There already is looking at Russian ad campaigns during the election. and youtube junk videos shown here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15637504

SEO is pretty much the same thing in my opinion.

Re: How Facebook’s Oracular Algorithm Determines the Fates of Startups

#12

Post by forkLding »

I've used FB ads before for business purposes and I feel its a lot more accessible to SMBs than your standard advertising agency or news media group where you have to phone up, wait for a quote and then have not-so-transparent results where you have to be constantly in touch with the news media group/agency.

FB ads is definitely improvement in terms of the time spent and approachability, cost on the other hand depends on how effective your marketing is so its definitely more variable.

Re: How Facebook’s Oracular Algorithm Determines the Fates of Startups

#13

Post by ben_jones »

lithos wrote: post #11
tw1010 wrote: post #4

One day there will be a cottage industry focused specifically on exploiting the edge-case behaviour of these algorithms. It doesn't matter that the specifics of the algorithms are secret, there are always ways of reverse engineering them. That's the whole point of statistical inference.

There already is looking at Russian ad campaigns during the election. and youtube junk videos shown here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15637504 SEO is pretty much the same thing in my opinion.

50% of SEO is convincing non-technical users that they need to pay more for SEO. I imagine this'll be much of the same.

Re: How Facebook’s Oracular Algorithm Determines the Fates of Startups

#15

Post by wsinks »

ballenf wrote: post #8

How Facebook determines ad placement in news feeds: > Millions of auctions take place every minute as users across Facebook load their feeds. ... The algorithm is constantly learning, using past results to inform how it weighs bids in the next auction. The intent, Facebook says, is to maximize value for everybody: to pair the advertiser with its likeliest customers, and to show ads that users want to see . And, of co…

Sounds like Asimov's 3 laws.

Re: How Facebook’s Oracular Algorithm Determines the Fates of Startups

#16

Post by drawkbox »

lithos wrote: post #11
tw1010 wrote: post #4

One day there will be a cottage industry focused specifically on exploiting the edge-case behaviour of these algorithms. It doesn't matter that the specifics of the algorithms are secret, there are always ways of reverse engineering them. That's the whole point of statistical inference.

There already is looking at Russian ad campaigns during the election. and youtube junk videos shown here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15637504 SEO is pretty much the same thing in my opinion.

This is definitely happening.

Another type of YouTube video that is taking advantage of youtube blocking/copyrights are happening.

Basically these are YouTube videos that are about current events, content or blocked content with a robotic voice or music that describes the event with a series of photos, text, news and sometimes video clips.

Basically anything that is blocked from youtube, the algorithms post these robotic news videos that drone on that are algorithmically generated on any small news event that may fit this gap.

Lots of events like terror attacks, shootings, sports clips that have been removed, etc will flood in as soon as other content is blocked or removed or copyrighted and youtube can't have real videos about it.

This happened frequently after the Vegas shooting and other major events.

It also happens all the time to NFL content. For instance I was looking for Pierre Garcon's injury on youtube to see how serious it was, here's the type of fluff you will find (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1hZibQCdR8 & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lI1CN0uDu-w & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2cJqaE4Em4 as an example and there are thousands of just Pierre Garcon's injury) because nfl videos are blocked immediately. If you search in google "pierre garcon injury youtube" you will get nothing but these videos.

Re: How Facebook’s Oracular Algorithm Determines the Fates of Startups

#17

Post by 659087 »

sparkzilla wrote: post #9

I'm surprised the author didn't mention that Facebook has a history of screwing small business owners. A few years ago I spent more than $4000 on Facebook to build up about 4000 fans for a karaoke venue I ran at the time. I'd put some news out, and reach most of the fans. Then Facebook told me that to reach all of my fans I would now have to "boost" my posts, while the company simultaneously cut the organic reach to…

> I suspect many many small business people feel that same way, and will abandon Facebook as soon as a less greedy alternative comes along.

By sticking around on Facebook waiting for this to happen, you're also contributing to it not happening.

Re: How Facebook’s Oracular Algorithm Determines the Fates of Startups

#18

Post by denzil_correa »

> And Facebook has even been taking steps to influence offline sales, in order to bring traditional retailers into its orbit. In September, the social network introduced a tool that lets businesses with physical stores show ads to shoppers and their Lookalikes even if they visit the store but don’t buy anything.

Does anyone know how this works?

Re: How Facebook’s Oracular Algorithm Determines the Fates of Startups

#19

Post by alexbeloi »

sparkzilla wrote: post #9

I'm surprised the author didn't mention that Facebook has a history of screwing small business owners. A few years ago I spent more than $4000 on Facebook to build up about 4000 fans for a karaoke venue I ran at the time. I'd put some news out, and reach most of the fans. Then Facebook told me that to reach all of my fans I would now have to "boost" my posts, while the company simultaneously cut the organic reach to…

>They used the excuse that "people have to much stuff on their feed" but we all know that is BS.

It's really not BS. People's feeds are flooded with content from tons of sources.

Why would posts from company that I've 'liked' get guaranteed display when family/friends/friends-of-friends don't get that treatment. Moreover what if I've 'liked' 100+ bands/restaurants/celebrities/businesses/news-sources, they can easily produce enough posts each day that I would never scroll far enough see all of it, nor would I want to.

The thing you want already exists and is called a newsletter.

Re: How Facebook’s Oracular Algorithm Determines the Fates of Startups

#20

Post by sparkzilla »

659087 wrote: post #17
sparkzilla wrote: post #9

I'm surprised the author didn't mention that Facebook has a history of screwing small business owners. A few years ago I spent more than $4000 on Facebook to build up about 4000 fans for a karaoke venue I ran at the time. I'd put some news out, and reach most of the fans. Then Facebook told me that to reach all of my fans I would now have to "boost" my posts, while the company simultaneously cut the organic reach to…

> I suspect many many small business people feel that same way, and will abandon Facebook as soon as a less greedy alternative comes along. By sticking around on Facebook waiting for this to happen, you're also contributing to it not happening.

The business closed. And, I'm doing my part...
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