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After Facebook fails

blogs.law.harvard.edu

11–20 of 214 posts

Re: After Facebook fails

#11

And what about when all TV is served over the internet? Or when all billboards are controlled over the internet? Or all magazines are displayed on epaper via the internet? 95% of advertising will be done over the internet, and if the author is too short-sighted to see that well then that speaks poorly on him. Of course if he had any insight maybe he'd be building something and not whining about it. He just sounds bit…

[deleted]

Re: After Facebook fails

#13

Every time I read about how online targeted ads have poor returns for advertisers, I think to myself: "These advertisers know that the ads have low ROI because things are measureable online. How (in)effective would traditional advertisements prove to be, if they were as measurable as their online counterparts? How (in)effective would traditional advertisements prove to be, if they didn't interject themselves into the…

Two points:

1. There are lots of digital ad tools that have great ROI. No one clicks on ads....until that one time they do. Critics of digital advertising like to hone in on anecdotal examples of online ads failing to support their points. This blog post is a great example of that.

2. Your second point is why Madison Avenue was so horrified by Google when they started selling ads. Tracking the performance of each individual ad was so scary they couldn't fathom it. Online ads are no worse than offline ads, we're just able to measure online ads in ways that we can't with offline.

Re: After Facebook fails

#14
FB has bought itself some more time with this IPO. How much time does $15BB buy? Even if advertising executives and industry analysts give up on FB, FB stil has the cash to sit and wait for their muse to appear (like Google's discovery of ad feeds in search). Given that FB no matter what they do, no matter how much they fail to perform, is now subsidized with $15BB, will they drive the ad market down?

Re: After Facebook fails

#15

Every time I read about how online targeted ads have poor returns for advertisers, I think to myself: "These advertisers know that the ads have low ROI because things are measureable online. How (in)effective would traditional advertisements prove to be, if they were as measurable as their online counterparts? How (in)effective would traditional advertisements prove to be, if they didn't interject themselves into the…

Measurement adds value, but sometimes the value it adds is that of knowing not to bother using the thing you are measuring any more.

Re: After Facebook fails

#16
I have no idea if Facebook is valued correctly or not, however I think this misses a vital point. Facebook is not nearly the same as other web ventures. It's ability to target ads seems secondary to this:

From http://www.kenburbary.com/2011/03/facebook-demographics-revi..., slightly out of date, but still useful:

  - Average user visits the site 40 times per month
  - Average user spends an 23 minutes (23:20 to be precise) on each visit
  - Global users 629,982,480 (I believe this has passed 800 million now)
So, on average hundreds of millions of people are spending about 1/2 an hour looking at Facebook.com every day.

As much as their ability to target ads is hyped (or derided), does it really matter? Isn't targeting just a way to charge a premium, or drive click-thru on massive volume?

Facebook isn't competing with other websites for online advertising. It's competing with the entire entertainment sector for all advertising, everywhere. That isn't going to change soon.

Re: After Facebook fails

#17
Interesting... I was just going through the phase of unsubscribing from all of the legitimate info/news sources I had subscribed to over the years to try to reduce my daily Inbox levels, and it got me to thinking about reversing the tables so I could announce when I _wanted_ to partake and for what reason, and THEN get appropriate emails, links, ads, etc.

Re: After Facebook fails

#18
post #3

He points out some of the terribly targeted ads that Facebook pushes on users. I think this is a huge issue that's not discussed enough. Facebook has all the data but no real targeting. This stems from two core issues: 1) they don't seem to use their immense datasets as effectively as Google does and most importantly 2) they rely on the advertisers to target their ads. Advertisers, even when handed the best demograph…

Based off the ads the author cites in the article the issue is the lack of data, not poor targeting by advertisers. For example the author wouldn't see the "Boyfriend Wanted" ad if he listed himself as married in his Facebook profile (Facebook aggressively forbids dating ads targeted towards people who list themselves as married or in a relationship).

All online advertising platforms rely on advertisers to target their ads. If this really is the issue, which I doubt, it applies to the entire advertising industry not just Facebook.

Re: After Facebook fails

#19
Isn't this the same Michael Wolf that Loeb, the activist hedge fund manager, picked for Yahoo's board? If this is how he feels about businesses driven by online ads I wonder what he thinks of Yahoo's odds.

Re: After Facebook fails

#20
post #9

I could see facebook being replaced by nothing more fancy than a web design app with a social webring gizmo.

Facebook's advantage over any competitor is that everyone is already on Facebook. I could see early adopters moving to what you're describing, but it would take ages to move the other 90% of the users over. So at least for the next few years, it's unlikely that people will transition en masse to a completely new service.
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