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Please Stop Working on Ads

diegobasch.com

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Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#51

Post by axian »

sriramk wrote: post #18

The funny thing is that the people I know who've worked on ads have some of the most in-demand skill sets around. It turns out that most successful consumer internet companies in the last decade have had to turn to some form of advertising (FB, Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Pandora, etc). And knowing how to build those systems makes you someone in high demand.

Just because something is in high demand doesn't prove anything. There is high demand for homeopathic sugar pills and suburban shamans who charge $100/hr for consultation.

All those companies you've mentioned have huge problems which points them directly at the revenue streams they've bet on.

Facebook is taking a beating because they can't monetize the fastest growing mobile sector. Google is desperately working against the clock to beat the bubble by branching out in all kinds of industries unrelated to AdSense Yahoo has been bleeding money for a decade Twitter is in the same position as Facebook sans the stock market pressure ...and Pandora has been charging monthly fees for a service because they've seen the writing on the wall.

No company on that list is doing anything exciting or disruptive that's tied to ads. It's a dead end.

"The people you know". Yeah.

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#52

Post by axian »

petercooper wrote: post #26

No thanks. While ads are less than ideal, I'd rather be enriching the lives of my 75,000 subscribers and run ads than have 500 people paying me $10 a month for the same publications (75k paying $10 would be even better but wouldn't have happened ;-)). Apps powered by ads are a different kettle of fish but advertising is still a big deal for media and publishing businesses.

Unless it's a company that cures cancer over the internet, your startup isn't enriching anyone's life. "Capture eyeballs, monetize later" mantra has failed in almost all cases, save for few select companies who are just breaking even on momentum alone.

Media and publishing business are dying. What a strange example to illustrate a point.

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#53

Post by eschutte2 »

axian wrote: post #52
petercooper wrote: post #26

No thanks. While ads are less than ideal, I'd rather be enriching the lives of my 75,000 subscribers and run ads than have 500 people paying me $10 a month for the same publications (75k paying $10 would be even better but wouldn't have happened ;-)). Apps powered by ads are a different kettle of fish but advertising is still a big deal for media and publishing businesses.

Unless it's a company that cures cancer over the internet, your startup isn't enriching anyone's life. "Capture eyeballs, monetize later" mantra has failed in almost all cases, save for few select companies who are just breaking even on momentum alone. Media and publishing business are dying. What a strange example to illustrate a point.

As one of those 75,000 subscribers, I'm happy to say that's not correct. To state the obvious, if the product or service weren't enriching people's lives, why do you think they would choose to subscribe to it?

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#54

Post by JoeAltmaier »

potatolicious wrote: post #46
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The point of the article was that it Wasn't, in fact it was a drag on the business model.

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#55

Post by dev1n »

This goes back to the old adage by Tom Preston-Werner on making Gravatar (I think); paraphrasing, but if you don't design for revenue generating parts into a site, you're gonna have a bad time trying to make money off of advertisements.

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#56

Post by raldi »

diego wrote: post #3
potatolicious wrote: post #2

Please stop writing articles telling people not to work on ads. I don't disagree with the point, but we've seen a deluge of these recently and not a single one has had something fresh to say. Pissing all over people working on ads, is the new working on ads.

Have you read it?

Don't let him get you down. I enjoyed your article, as did all the other people who voted for it.

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#57

Post by justincormack »

justjimmy wrote: post #24
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…

"People are highly reluctant to spend on this" I'd dump money at Google if they monetized Gmail. While Google brand is great and proven, other services that are 'free' gives me the impression that it won't last and not safe or guaranteed. Gmail is the exception - and I'd fork money gladly if they ever decide to charge for it.

You can pay for it, just use Google apps for business as they call it. You get to use your own domain. I pay for it.

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#58

Post by dm8 »

guga31bb wrote: post #20
dm8 wrote: post #11

Somewhat agree with Diego. But unfortunately, people are not used to pay on the web. I've built an extremely useful service but only 1 in 100 was willing to pay, which is ridiculous to say. On a side note, what if you are building a startup to deliver ads? :) (Any thoughts on building a startup for ad-tech)

> I've built an extremely useful service but only 1 in 100 was willing to pay, which is ridiculous to say. To play devil's advocate, if only 1 in 100 people are willing to pay for your service, how useful can it really be? I'd think those 100 people are more qualified to judge how useful it is for them than the person who built the service.

Well, we were competing against "free" service offered by big co. Average user doesn't want to pay. They would say us, "ohh we will go to free service by big co". And I learnt big lesson that you can't compete against big co's especially their free products directly.

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#59

Post by aretiste »

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…

2. Things like Adwords have allowed businesses to exist...

What sort of businesses? SEO?

You fail to to recognise that business directories aka the yellow pages in some countries were around long before Google or Adwords existed. That's where small business advertises.

Neither Google nor Adwords is anythng like print, radio or TV. It's like the yellow pages. Except Google has has the lure of being a gateway to noncommercial content. There's reason to use Google even when you have no intent to purchase. There's little reason to use the yellow pages unless you are planning a purchase of some sort.

As such you have millions of people looking at Google search pages who are not looking for anything commercial in nature. And that audience presumably makes Google look like a more attractive place to advertise to a small business than the yellow pages. Whether it is actually more effective for these advertisers in terms of sales is another question.

We come back to that word again: intent.

For an advertiser, targeting a large crowd of people, _some_ of who may have an intent to purchase might seem more appealing than targeting a small group of people who _all_ have intent to purchase.

Whether it's more cost-effective for small business to devote its limited resources toward targetting the crowd or toward targeting the small group is still an open question. For Google, it's not necessary to answer that question. As long as advertisers believe the big crowd, which may include lots of people lacking any intent to purchase, is a better choice, there's no reason to question if it's true.

Maybe public libraries should start selling ad space? Surely some patrons might have an intent to purchase or could be persuaded to make one.

Google has its origins in a web-based library project at Stanford so this comparison is not as bizarre as it might sound. Subtract the non-commercial "library" aspect of Google and what's left? Adwords? SEO? Content farms, on-demand "articles" laced with display ads?

Re: Please Stop Working on Ads

#60

Post by theorique »

thesash wrote: post #29

The consumer packaged goods industry generates two TRILLION dollars a year in the US, by selling us things we don't think we need, through branding and marketing. Bottled water is an entire industry that was built on selling us plastic bottles filled with an abundantly free resource by convincing us we needed it through, you guessed it: advertising. There are many, many industries that rely on brand awareness to sell…

The consumer packaged goods industry generates two TRILLION dollars a year in the US, by selling us things we don't think we need

This is kind of misleading.

We certainly do need a substantial portion of that two trillion dollars worth of consumer packaged goods.

Perhaps not all of it - the electric powered corn buttering gadget is not a "fundamental need" - but things like kleenex, towels, soap are pretty basic, no?

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