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Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

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Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#291

Post by WoahNoun »

scarface74 wrote: post #190
craftinator wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's be adults here. This is SO, and I imagine you've used and enjoyed the use of their services just like the rest of us. Support them by letting passive ads sit on the edges of the page, and appreciate that they are actually trying to solve this issue.

They could “solve” the issue by not having third party ads. Of all the sites on the internet, StackOverflow has the demographics that any advertiser would crave. How large of an inside ads sales force would you need to target higher than average income earners? How large reputable sites trust third party ad servers is a mystery to me. Besides, native ads that could be served from StackOverFlows own servers would be h…

> Of all the sites on the internet, StackOverflow has the demographics that any advertiser would crave. How large of an inside ads sales force would you need to target higher than average income earners?

I'm curious what you think the world wide demographics of SO are.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#292

Post by WoahNoun »

Nick-Craver wrote: post #252
inferiorhuman wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nick, how did things go so wrong from three years ago? e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20289841

I don’t know. I am so very much trying to find out and push to make things better.

So no vetting on new ad tech?

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#293

Post by PopeDotNinja »

keyle wrote: post #145
dabeeeenster wrote: post #76

"It's not very straightforward to find where it's coming from, but we are working on it." This encapsulates the entire problem with the current state of digital advertising in 1 simple sentence.

But you know, we wouldn't stop serving ads until we work it out... no no imagine the loss in revenues.

Or you could just not use Stack Overflow.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#294

Post by stevenjohns »

wtmt wrote: post #289
Nick-Craver wrote: post #68

I just wanted to chime in from Stack Overflow here and let people know: we are aware of the issue. And we're NOT okay with it. We're trying to sort out how to kill the audio behavior now. It's not very straightforward to find where it's coming from, but we are working on it. We've also reached out to Google for their assistance in tracking it down. If anyone can offer advice, we'll more than happily take it. - Nick C…

If you're "NOT okay with it", how about stopping ads completely until you resolve this problem? That should give a bigger impetus to solve it ASAP as the bottom line gets hit for multiple stakeholders. This is not just ads, but about fingerprinting and tracking users somehow or the other by third parties. It's plain evil, and not a decent thing to continue foisting on your unsuspecting users after you've known it. Te…

Probably not his call. By "we" he's probably talking about the engineering team, which in many cases is nothing more than a conduit for whims of the marketing and sales teams.

The only time they'd do that is if the marketing team decided that the value-add from taking ads off cancelled out the profit loss from taking the ads off.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#295

Post by manigandham »

csdreamer7 wrote: post #279
manigandham wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just not how digital ad campaigns are run. Advertisers, agencies, media buyers and the rest of the supply chain don't negotiate with individual sites like that, not at any scale that can sustain a site like SO.

Youtubers run ads and sponsorships in their videos all the time (not the automated ads from Adsense). Squarespace, Dollar Shave Club, Ting, PIA; they all directly pay Youtubers to run ads. Youtube even had to block Youtubers from using brand's logos outside their ad network in videos.

There are a million channels for every one that gets any sponsorship, and there's an equivalent ratio for the pricing of these ads. The CPMs on sponsored content are usually lower than network CPMs until you cross over to the very popular channels, but even then it's really just shifting the production costs of a video ad to the youtuber and paying some premium for their reputation.

It's very hard to scale and again there are networks and agencies that aggregate channels for most campaigns and buyers. Anyway, Stackoverflow isn't producing their own content and the pricing mechanics of Youtube/video advertising is very different than display ads so this isn't really comparable.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#296

Post by arpa »

manigandham wrote: post #281
zrobotics wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who paid for the content I actually visit StackOverflow for? It surely wasn't SO; they provide a nice platform but they also get that content for free. This isn't a journalism site, the value in SO comes from freely provided user answers. Yes, SO provides some value vs. forums via their q/a platform, but it is a marginal amount of value. Sure, SO is easier than parsing a forum thread, but the actual value that I care…

SO doesn't pay for the content, they pay for the space to host that content and community. Since users aren't paying, SO needs to monetize it somehow and that's what the ads are for. I'm sure you could return to the old internet, but many billions of other internet users enjoy the content they consume for free. Use your adblocker and stick with paywall/subscription sites because we're unlikely to ever go back to a pr…

A tiny nitpick: nothing is free, the internet users just pay with a different currency: their data and attention. Both of these things are much more valuable than most internet users think.

As far as a non-commercial internet goes... well, we can always hope. We just have to wrangle the means of content production and control (heh, heh, see what I did there?). The resources are there to do that and have a free (both as in beer and in freedom) and high-quality internet, what we are missing is... attention of the masses, the most expensive thing.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#297

Post by huac »

manigandham wrote: post #202
scarface74 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stack Overflow has a known demographic and is not some unknown site. Are you really saying that companies like Amazon (AWS),Microsoft, JetBrains, Google (GCP), Slack, etc would ignore a sales pitch from SO?

It doesn't work like that is what I'm saying. You dont just pitch those companies. They have layers of agencies (a master agency of record, creative agencies, media buying agencies) that handle all the advertising duties. These shops create and traffic these ad campaigns in demand-side platforms (DSPs) which connect and bid on inventory in adexchanges and supply-side platforms (SSPs). Then there's layers of targeting…

well, facebook and google have that much power (at least wrt the many 3rd party layers), but literally nobody else does :)

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#298

Post by manigandham »

scarface74 wrote: post #264
manigandham wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is a necessity, that's how SO exists, and it wouldn't sustain its current size if it required JS-free network campaigns or tried to sell all ad space directly. Simple doesn't mean it's easy or realistic. Yes, adtech has major problems but they're being slowly worked on and won't change overnight. This applies to any other industry where you think can just walk in and solve everything if everyone just did X. Rea…

Maybe the business model of ExpertsExchange where they charged money wasn’t such a bad idea....

The fact that everyone uses StackOverflow and nobody uses ExpertsExchange seems to say otherwise.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#299

Post by huac »

zrobotics wrote: post #276
manigandham wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You didn't get Stackoverflow, and barely any of the content today. You may be fine with the internet of the early 90s but most people are not.

Who paid for the content I actually visit StackOverflow for? It surely wasn't SO; they provide a nice platform but they also get that content for free. This isn't a journalism site, the value in SO comes from freely provided user answers. Yes, SO provides some value vs. forums via their q/a platform, but it is a marginal amount of value. Sure, SO is easier than parsing a forum thread, but the actual value that I care…

"it wasn't as convenient but it worked" - this is the story of every single dead product. Zunes were less convenient than iPods and iPhones. Books are less convenient than Kindles. AltaVista and Yahoo Directories were less convenient than Google.

Re: Why is Stack Overflow trying to start audio?

#300

Post by luckylion »

manigandham wrote: post #207
bamboozled wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I would argue if billions will see the content, that gives more reason to have it checked over before serving no?

Billions? No single creative is seen by that many. In fact, with dynamic creative optimization (DCO) and all the optimization that happens, you can easily get creatives that are custom generated and only see by a few individuals or even a single person.

The comment was referencing the parent: Digital ad impressions number in the billions with 10s of millions of ad creatives
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