Google Profits Surge on Strong Ad Demand • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Profits Surge on Strong Ad Demand

#171

Post by pixl97 » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 4:26 PM UTC

angry-hacker wrote: post #150

cheriot wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they'll find a way to serve the content and the ad from the same domain.

Simply serve them from your own subdomain, the ad networks still do the heavy lifting, you just fiddle around with domain settings. It's one possibility. Let's face it, ad networks have done nothing to fight back and adblock itself is really simple software based on rules that block domains and some class names in the DOM.

>Let's face it, ad networks have done nothing to fight... malware and scams

Re: Google Profits Surge on Strong Ad Demand

#172

Post by mathattack » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 4:29 PM UTC

bogomipz wrote: post #160

toast0 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yahoo's stock price hasn't been crushed, unless you're comparing to 2000; in the last 10 years (because it's conveniently available), it's up 33% vs s&p500 up 66%. Not good, but hardly crushed like say Blucora (formerly Infospace), down 53% over the same time period.

But it is "crushed" if you consider that during the same time by putting your money into an index fund, you would have twice the return on your money with nowhere near the volatility. Getting half the return and twice the drama is kind of crappy.

Yes. And all the value in them came from external investments. There was only $5 billion in value left in core Yahoo.

Re: Google Profits Surge on Strong Ad Demand

#173

Post by mathattack » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 4:34 PM UTC

loqwe wrote: post #87

mathattack wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can (and should!) argue that their great growth prospects are baked into their stock prices already.

Then why do the prices keep going up?

Hindsight bias. It's very easy to look at the 3 winners over a long time horizon and say, "Look, they keep on going up and up." If this were a real trading strategy, then Momentum would sustain itself over a longer time, but the empirical academic evidence is that it's short term.

Over long time horizons, this tends to reverse itself. (Both companies and markets with unusually high PE ratios underperform low PEs over long time horizons) This is well accepted in finance. [0] [1]

[0] https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/t...

[1] https://faculty.fuqua.duke.edu/~charvey/Teaching/IntesaBci_2...

Re: Google Profits Surge on Strong Ad Demand

#174

Post by disgruntledphd2 » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 9:03 PM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #168

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that views definitely have an impact. However, especially on mobile, this impact is very difficult to measure. So most of the DR industry uses last click, even though they know its incorrect, because there is nothing better.

The impact is difficult to measure everywhere all the time. How do you think they measure impact of billboards? Radio ads? TV ads? All by the same hand-wavy "there is nothing better" types of metrics. I didn't say they don't have an impact, I said it's obscenely difficult to gauge attribution and online ads weren't the panacea they were supposed to be because it turns out people don't click ads. Despite this, adverti…

Definitely. This is a part of my professional life, so I get exposed to these issues all the time. TV, in particular, tends to be measured in very strange ways by DR advertisers because they appear to believe that advertising was invented along with the click, by Google (really Overture, but hey).

To be fair to offline, you can get a pretty good read on store sales as a function of advertising if you do geographical splits. Its modelled, and statistical, but there's definitely nothing wrong with that.

I think the online problem is harder because its so easy to measure clicks that people focus entirely on them without considering other approaches, whereas with offline its hard to get any measure, so people are willing to try different things.

Re: Google Profits Surge on Strong Ad Demand

#175

Post by ethanbond » Fri, Jul 29, 2016, 9:16 PM UTC

murbard2 wrote: post #170

nostrademons wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Erie Railroad [1], founded 1832, bankrupt in 1859, 1878, 1893, 1938, and 1976, now largely in disrepair. Woolworths [2], founded 1878, the first department store in the country, once owned the tallest building in the world. Started losing market share to Sears & catalog retailers in the 1930s, defunct in 1997. Sears was itself eclipsed by WalMart, which is on the verge of being eclipsed by Amazon. International M…

Agreed, I was just trying to point out that it's not uncommon for very old companies to still be giants in the economy. Even older companies I forgot to include: Citigroup, the NYSE.

Which is not at all my point.

My point is not that old juggernauts don't exist, it's that if big companies didn't fail often, they'd be far more commonplace and dominant than they are.

Re: Google Profits Surge on Strong Ad Demand

#176

Post by murbard2 » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 12:21 AM UTC

ethanbond wrote: post #175

murbard2 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, I was just trying to point out that it's not uncommon for very old companies to still be giants in the economy. Even older companies I forgot to include: Citigroup, the NYSE.

Which is not at all my point. My point is not that old juggernauts don't exist, it's that if big companies didn't fail often, they'd be far more commonplace and dominant than they are.

And your parent's point was that:

"These types of companies do not dislodge so easily such that they get "eaten for lunch" in the mere span of ten years."

Re: Google Profits Surge on Strong Ad Demand

#177

Post by WWKong » Sat, Jul 30, 2016, 7:06 PM UTC

patrickk wrote: post #145

gregshap wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the parent didn't say they can't go down, just that they won't implode within a decade of today. If IBM, Microsoft, or Cisco are dying it's a multi decade process. The dot-com companies that imploded 15 years ago were mostly losing money from day one.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say they are now longer relevant in the sense they are not at the cutting edge. IBM like you mentioned is a good example. They earn billions still, and will for the foreseeable future, but they're hardly technological pioneers.

Do they have to be? No glory in being a multi-billion successful business?