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Please Stop Working on Ads

diegobasch.com

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Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#41

Post by JoeAltmaier »

ianstormtaylor wrote: post #35
hapless wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. First item first: Gmail is free because the rich consumers using it are worth a few dollars a month in ads. Those free users in Africa who don't have the money can only exist due to cross-subsidy. The ad model helps them only by accident. Until they have money to spend, they can only detract from the value of Google's ad inventory. 2. To address the second question, the cost of traditional media: Adwords made new…

I'm confused. Is #1 supposed to be a rebuttal? Or was your point to reiterate why ads are beneficial to "free users in Africa".

I'll chime in. If we want to provide GMail free to people in Africa, then we just do it. Govt subsidize it or something. Quit shoe-horning philanthropic efforts into somebody's business model.

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#42

Post by TylerE »

hapless wrote: post #16
cletus wrote: post #12

This wasn't quite the diatribe I was expecting. I basically agree that what Amazon (and Google for that matter; disclaimer: I work for Google on display ads) is intent and intent is huge. Much as Facebook would like to become the de facto Internet, I don't see it ever capturing that intent (let alone Twitter). That being said, I think people discount what an inordinate amount of good advertising has done and just foc…

1. First item first: Gmail is free because the rich consumers using it are worth a few dollars a month in ads. Those free users in Africa who don't have the money can only exist due to cross-subsidy. The ad model helps them only by accident. Until they have money to spend, they can only detract from the value of Google's ad inventory. 2. To address the second question, the cost of traditional media: Adwords made new…

I wonder if Google could "solve" #1 by moving to more of an affiliate model. Like say Gmail went to a model where it cost $10/yr - but you could earn it for free for a year by performing various tasks - spending $100 on Amazon, book a hotel through Hotwire, whatever, stuff like that.

For the "desirable" 1st world citizen, that's still free - it's stuff they do anyway. Everyone else either pays the $10 or goes elsewhere. Win-Win-Lose

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#43

Post by AznHisoka »

I think the most compelling reason to not build a business around ads is that it has a poor ROI. Just do the math, and even with the most optimistic estimations, you'll still be disappointed.

1 million uniques a month => 10,000,000 PV/month => $5 CPM => $500,000/month => $50,000/month => $600K/year.

Sounds great, but then you realize coming up with 1 million uniques by yourself is highly unlikely, and will probably depend on high costs as well.

Side Rant: Those people saying 10 million users is the next 1 million users... most of them are investors who invested in Twitter or Instagram. They have NO clue how hard it is to get even 100K users, let alone 10 million or 1 million. Give me a break.

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#44

Post by Lukeas14 »

The internet still hasn't figured out a way to profitably produce a high quality service or content with ads as the primary revenue source. So far, the only profitable approach is to reach the scale of Facebook/Google which would enable you to create your own ad network large enough to attract individual ad buyers. But, this does not mean that it's impossible or that we won't come up with a solution in the near future. And the people who I would bet on to create such a solution are those who are currently "working on ads".

It's a problem in desperate need of a solution simply because there are so many services (yelp, craigslist, pandora, etc.) that are free to users but expensive to build and maintain. It would be a shame to miss out on the next generation of ad supported content simply because we gave up on trying to make it profitable.

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#45

Post by aretiste »

If search engines starting charging I'd teach people to scrape and if necessary to crawl, for free. Others would too. The web is about sharing knowledge.

I dare any search engine to start charging. Go for it.

They would end up like Twitter is going to end up (if they continue down the path they're on).

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#46

Post by potatolicious »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #41
ianstormtaylor wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused. Is #1 supposed to be a rebuttal? Or was your point to reiterate why ads are beneficial to "free users in Africa".

I'll chime in. If we want to provide GMail free to people in Africa, then we just do it. Govt subsidize it or something. Quit shoe-horning philanthropic efforts into somebody's business model.

If philanthropy is an emergent property of a business model, I'd count my blessings and keep it.

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#47

Post by rdevnull »

This is not entirely accurate because: 1) True google ads can be more effective but are much more expensive vs. Facebook; 2) On facebook you can in fact target users by age and interests. You cannot target by age on google and with an higher CPC it doesn't always pay off.

The model of facebook or twitter is not wrong. It is the same used by TV ads, newspapers etc. you try to target your potential consumers that might be perfectly good passive buyers. Not only people that search for an Hawaii vacation would buy one ....

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#48

Post by jemka »

diego wrote: post #8
jemka wrote: post #4

>Facebook and Twitter are different. Not many people think: “I want to buy a Veeblefetzer. I’m going to Twitter / Facebook to start my research.” Likewise, I'm not sitting on the couch watching prime time television and thinking, "I need a new car, I'm going to start my research by watching car commercials." Nor is it my intent to "start my research" for any product that appears in magazines, or road side billboards,…

Oh, but I don't. What do you think is the valuation of TV networks these days? Brand reinforcement advertising is worth much less than intent-based ads that leads to instant conversion. "A stat like $3.5 million for 30 seconds of airtime may see a serious hit in the future as advertisers realize that the internet can yield just as big an audience as football without having to go through NBC." http://www.forbes.com/si…

>"A stat like $3.5 million for 30 seconds of airtime may see a serious hit in the future"

Ok, and until then the advertisers are still writing checks. You're not making a point that convinces people to stop using an advertising revenue model right now.

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#49

Post by brudgers »

I've been wondering how much of the total bandwidth and electrical energy consumed by the internet is the result of advertising infrastructure. I've also been wondering about how much time is lost waiting for pages to load because of it.

I got interested when a vBulletin site I frequent added a Facebook "Like" button. I was amazed at how much crap went back and forth to Facebook every time I visited a page. I didn't have a Facebook account at the time, but it prompted me to switch to Firefox fulltime and install NoScript.

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#50

Post by rgbrgb »

thejteam wrote: post #34
cletus wrote: post #12

This wasn't quite the diatribe I was expecting. I basically agree that what Amazon (and Google for that matter; disclaimer: I work for Google on display ads) is intent and intent is huge. Much as Facebook would like to become the de facto Internet, I don't see it ever capturing that intent (let alone Twitter). That being said, I think people discount what an inordinate amount of good advertising has done and just foc…

To expand on the concept of intent from the point of view of the user... I don't mind ads... when I am looking for ads. Otherwise they are at best a nuisance and at worst polluting. Here is a useful heuristic for a search engine that wants to improve on Google: If(contains adsense), then (probably a junk article, exclude). What ad platforms like Facebook, Google, and most others is missing is some form of curating. A…

Why not just go to a store?

http://www.hamradio.com/

What's in the ads that makes you enjoy them?

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