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Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

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Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#241

Post by elastolin »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #40
ComodoHacker wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pavel clearly has a social agenda behind Telegram. He wants to provide access to independent uncensored communication platform to everyone for free. So looks like ads is the only other option left for now.

Today ads never come without tracking. This is the problem. And even without tracking ads are a kind of garbage I don't want anyway. So, the day I get ads in Telegram I'm leaving. At the same time I wouldn't mind a reasonable (~1$/month, I don't do anything heavy, text messaging only) subscription.

> ~1$/month, I don't do anything heavy, text messaging only

Won't work. The vast majority people don't pay for messaging service, and without people, there's no messaging app. Ads are the only way forward.

Will they offer an optional ad-free subscription? Maybe, but I wouldn't count on that, and it's likely to be higher than $1/month.

> So, the day I get ads in Telegram I'm leaving

Nobody cares.

Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#242

Post by eptcyka »

tomComb wrote: post #216
eptcyka wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the nasty things around the internet can be traced back to personalized ads.

But again you are conflating the irresponsible handling of my personal data - eg. my ISP collects and sells my personal data without my authorization - with personalized ads. There are lots of companies that have a history of never selling, losing, leaking etc. their users' data, such as Apple & Google. So why is it one of the defining battles of our times to force Google etc. to show me less relevant (and therefore…

Both of Apple and Google are leaking my data into prism. I don't care about ad personalization as much as I hate tracking. These are related, but not one and the same.

I think personalized ads are overvalued and their price is driven up by either global conglomerates that are looking to make vast amounts of money from small margins or startups with VC cash to burn. I've never heard an organic business success story about adwords.

Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#243

Post by nomel »

cwhiz wrote: post #239
tomComb wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> User data will not be used to target ads. I actually prefer personalized (targeted) ads, as long as it is a company I trust with my data. And they generate more revenue so they would need fewer ads. I realize people will argue that they don't generate more revenue, but if that were true then how has this whole industry developed around them? By tossing out personalized ads we are throwing out the baby with the bath…

>I realize people will argue that they don't generate more revenue, but if that were true then how has this whole industry developed around them? If it were so obvious that targeted ads increase revenue, you’d think that the advertising industry would be able to prove it. They can’t.

I find this unlikely. If I had a random sampling of ads shown to me, 50% would be for women, and the majority wouldn't even be in English. I definitely exist in some relatively small demographic, where the majority of any non targeted scatter shot would be annoying noise.

Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#244

Post by tomComb »

eptcyka wrote: post #242
tomComb wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But again you are conflating the irresponsible handling of my personal data - eg. my ISP collects and sells my personal data without my authorization - with personalized ads. There are lots of companies that have a history of never selling, losing, leaking etc. their users' data, such as Apple & Google. So why is it one of the defining battles of our times to force Google etc. to show me less relevant (and therefore…

Both of Apple and Google are leaking my data into prism. I don't care about ad personalization as much as I hate tracking. These are related, but not one and the same. I think personalized ads are overvalued and their price is driven up by either global conglomerates that are looking to make vast amounts of money from small margins or startups with VC cash to burn. I've never heard an organic business success story a…

Not sure I follow you. Tons of companies make money from digital advertising - most from ad networks (it's pretty hard for a startup to run their own). Much as most consumer startups would like to abandon advertising and just charge for their product/service, it is extremely hard to get people to pay for things.

Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#245

Post by brodock »

newscracker wrote: post #137

Pavel Durov, the CEO of Telegram, has repeatedly said the following on his Telegram channel about ads on Telegram: - ads will be only on very large public channels and not on all public channels - there won’t be any ads in chats - the ads will be contextual, and not based on tracking or profiling users and their activity - users will be able to opt out of ads Other monetization options like donations and subscription…

Telegram can also sell "premium reaction packs" (steam hats), and/or go Discord mode and have people "boost" private groups etc with "premium features"... I would actually pay for better video calls (no one is giving us 1080p or greater)

Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#246

Post by jyrkesh »

eptcyka wrote: post #206
vinay427 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm honestly not sure what I'm missing when avoiding Telegram's non-private conversations. There's no desktop client support (unlike Signal which works on a desktop mostly seamlessly, including group video) and no option at all to backup and sync conversations between devices (unlike Signal's rather limited options). If I was alright with Telegram's non-E2EE conversations, I would prefer WhatsApp for its wider adopti…

What do you mean, no desktop client support? There's a fully featured desktop client for Telegram, and I've never had my desktop clients have their sqlite database corrupt itself.

Windows user here: secret chats are not supported on the desktop client at all.

That's my only gripe. The rest of the app is incredible, and absolutely the most delightful app I use every day. I cite it often as an example of a native app that beats the pants off of anything Electron-based, it's just so damn fast.

Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#247

Post by jyrkesh »

Aloha wrote: post #149

I'm an early adopter for telegram, and I'd be glad to give them some money. I signed up in 2014, basically the first or second time it hit HN, and over time, I've built out a pretty decent social network on there, and run a dozen or so specialty community chats. I'd be glad to pay them something, 25 a year or so, even if I don't get anything special from it (though, if I did want something, it'd be better access to s…

Yeah, I also admin a few topical groups of 10-40 people with a few friends, and the level of engagement I've gotten is insane. I've never had a long-term group chat with so much content sharing, long-form opinions, etc, and I credit Telegram's UX and desktop clients for most of that engagement.

In many ways, it reminds me of the Web 0.x days on which the HN crowd so frequently reminisces.

Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#248

Post by brianacton »

f1refly wrote: post #183
ddeck wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may not prefer it, but I don't think it's moronic; it was a design choice. Whatsapp messages pass through their servers, but do not remain there. They are effectively sent from the sending device to the receiving device. This means that your messages reside on your device. When you use the desktop or web client, it's basically remote operating your phone. This famously allowed Whatsapp to achieve massive scale wi…

Whatsapp is pretty much proprietary xmpp, and xmpp handles multi-end to multi-end encryption graceously.

Not true. While WhatsApp may have started with xmpp / ejabberd at the beginning, it quickly diverted away from xmpp and has its own protocol

Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#249

Post by Aloha »

jyrkesh wrote: post #247
Aloha wrote: post #149

I'm an early adopter for telegram, and I'd be glad to give them some money. I signed up in 2014, basically the first or second time it hit HN, and over time, I've built out a pretty decent social network on there, and run a dozen or so specialty community chats. I'd be glad to pay them something, 25 a year or so, even if I don't get anything special from it (though, if I did want something, it'd be better access to s…

Yeah, I also admin a few topical groups of 10-40 people with a few friends, and the level of engagement I've gotten is insane. I've never had a long-term group chat with so much content sharing, long-form opinions, etc, and I credit Telegram's UX and desktop clients for most of that engagement. In many ways, it reminds me of the Web 0.x days on which the HN crowd so frequently reminisces.

It reminds me of how IRC used to be, in many ways Telegram is the idealized lovechild of IRC and AIM, it has the best of both worlds.

Re: Telegram is booming but needs advertisers and $700M soon

#250

Post by brianacton »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #201
josu wrote: post #154

The founder's response to the article: Why users shouldn’t worry about ads on Telegram I read an article that cautioned users from switching to Telegram from other apps, because "Telegram is going to introduce ads". This is misleading for at least 3 reasons: 1. There will be no ads in chats on Telegram. Users who rely on Telegram as a messaging app, not a social network, will never see ads. Private chats and group ch…

Those are the types of promises one should never trust profit-seaking enterprise to keep, though. The only way to to be accountable to users is to remove the profit motive, or charge a fee to use.

I agree.
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