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Contenture - an anti-ad network?

contenture.com

11–20 of 28 posts

Re: Contenture - an anti-ad network?

#11

Your post advocates a ( ) technical ( ) legislative (X) market-based ( ) vigilante approach to "fixing" advertising. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.) (X) Advertisers will not stand for it (X) The advertising industry will not go aw…

I'm sorry this is necessary, but yes, it's a bad attempt at humor based on the "why your anti-spam proposal won't work" meme of many years ago: http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt

HN is not the place to regurgitate stupid old slashdot memes that add little or nothing to the conversation.

There are a number of ways that you could have phrased your response that would have stimulated real discussion instead of "har har lolz anti-spam newbz"

Re: Contenture - an anti-ad network?

#12

Your post advocates a ( ) technical ( ) legislative (X) market-based ( ) vigilante approach to "fixing" advertising. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.) (X) Advertisers will not stand for it (X) The advertising industry will not go aw…

I'm sorry this is necessary, but yes, it's a bad attempt at humor based on the "why your anti-spam proposal won't work" meme of many years ago: http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt

This is a very bad attempt at humor and is not in the spirit of HN. From what I have seen, we are all about encouraging innovation, new ideas, and discussion. The GP simply discourages them.

I make a point not to spend time around the pessimistic downer crowd, and it ticks me off when someone shoots down an idea offhandedly. I sincerely hope HN does not move in this direction.

Re: Contenture - an anti-ad network?

#13

Your post advocates a ( ) technical ( ) legislative (X) market-based ( ) vigilante approach to "fixing" advertising. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.) (X) Advertisers will not stand for it (X) The advertising industry will not go aw…

Wow! How long did it take you to type up all that?

Re: Contenture - an anti-ad network?

#14
post #9
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is that you get paid based on how many people visit your site. There should probably be significant bonuses based on sign ups coming from/through your site.

So imagine I'm the New York Times. OK, I can charge people $1 to read the NYT. If I was Joe Shmoe, my revenue share from that $1 would have been fifty cents. However, since I'm the freaking NYT and generating more accounts than everyone else on the system, the network bumps my payout to 80 cents. Whee! Wait, absense of whee . Its my content that was worth the dollar to the user. Why should I give twenty cents to Joe…

Aren't forgetting the page view element of contenture? I think payment is driven by page views not sharing.

Re: Contenture - an anti-ad network?

#15
post #2

People want to support the sites they depend on. Contenture makes this possible. Contenture users pay into the system, their money is distributed to the Contenture-enabled sites that they visit. Anyone who thought ad revenues were low as they are should wait to see how really low tip revenues can get. Disclaimer: I run an ad network :-)

What's your ad network?

Use the email in my profile, Luke! :-)

(I had to choose between keeping a "corporate" image while shilling my company left and right, and being honest and true to myself among my hacker peers. I am doing traditional advertising with nothing "startupy" about it; and if we're doing anything new/different I don't intend to "share" it, so you guys are stuck with my closet Real-Self ;-)

Re: Contenture - an anti-ad network?

#16
Love the idea... hate the name; hope they can transition to another. The name is crucial because this needs to become a movement: responsible readers and publishers who agree that ads alone are not enough, or not appropriate for all kinds of content.

There are lots of ways paid users could get enhanced service: no interstitials, no ads, enhanced comment privileges, access to new content before an embargo expires, automatic single-page-views, badges to show on their other sites, etc.

Re: Contenture - an anti-ad network?

#17

Your post advocates a ( ) technical ( ) legislative (X) market-based ( ) vigilante approach to "fixing" advertising. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.) (X) Advertisers will not stand for it (X) The advertising industry will not go aw…

Your main issues seem to be privacy and that advertisers "won't stand for it". The privacy angle makes no sense given the context, as ad networks are already tracking your site visits. Plus, the average user doesn't care. As far as advertisers, what are they going to do? There's already tons of websites that offer the ability to remove ads for users who purchase a premium subscription...this is basically the same thing, just that your subscription amount is effectively based on pageviews, rather than a fixed price.

All that said, my biggest concerns would be that it's a huge chicken-and-egg problem, plus the difficulty of getting users to pay for content they're used to getting for free.

Oh, and you come across sounding like a real asshole.

Re: Contenture - an anti-ad network?

#18
To pull this off, several great sites will have to launch as Contenture-enablers/providers all at once, or it will go down as a flop (imagine a console launching without games!)

This is pretty much as hard as making sure multiple startups launch successfully simultaneously. It would probably help if they had a VC working with them. Either way, I wish them luck.

Re: Contenture - an anti-ad network?

#19
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry this is necessary, but yes, it's a bad attempt at humor based on the "why your anti-spam proposal won't work" meme of many years ago: http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt

HN is not the place to regurgitate stupid old slashdot memes that add little or nothing to the conversation. There are a number of ways that you could have phrased your response that would have stimulated real discussion instead of "har har lolz anti-spam newbz"

I disagree. This "form style" response may be a meme, may be in a humourous vein, but it serves the important purpose of ramming home to the inventor the well-known difficulties of implementing their scheme and the long, long history of similar inventions in the past.

I don't even have to look at this new scheme to know it won't work. It won't work because it relies on a critical mass, and until it gets that critical mass sites won't switch, and until they do users won't sign up, so there's no critical mass .. your classic chicken and egg problem. No-one is going to pay unless everyone else has to pay. There is nothing to force everyone to move at once. See: history of "penny stamp" email anti-spam ideas.

The form style helps ram these notions home; it's a welcome reality check in situations like these.

(updated to stay on topic)

Re: Contenture - an anti-ad network?

#20
post #18

To pull this off, several great sites will have to launch as Contenture-enablers/providers all at once, or it will go down as a flop (imagine a console launching without games!) This is pretty much as hard as making sure multiple startups launch successfully simultaneously. It would probably help if they had a VC working with them. Either way, I wish them luck.

We've got access to the people who run the 100,000 web sites being monitored by getclicky.com (same team). We shouldn't have a problem there.
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