The AdWords platform is extremely complicated nowadays, and try as I might I can’t get any impressions from it. I then went through a period with an AdWords specialist from their team who also couldn’t get any impressions. It’s like they don’t want or need my money.
Google is dead. Where do we go now?
541–550 of 873 posts
Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?
#542I recently took someone to go and watch a hockey game. Been a little while but I personally played as a goalie myself. The person kept making the comment that she couldn't see/find the puck and it made it frustrating to watch. As a goalie, not being able to see the puck is pretty normal (especially with big bodies trying to screen you). What I told her was that what matters a lot more than where the puck is, is where…
> ...vertical, shortform video. Not sure how that plays out in terms of advertising... I have seen a comment about them being terrible for advertising, it looks like a "good" idea but it is not. The problem is that the attention of people watching these videos drop to almost zero, too much is happening in a too short amount of time, and as a result nothing is remembered, including the ads. It is a very good deal for…
It's kinda interesting to see how advertising is evolving. I'll mindlessly scroll Instagram reels once in a while and every other reel is an ad with the sponsored tag, with an obvious thing being sold and advertised. A fair amount of non-"ads" are influencers or celebrities promoting a product on their personal IGs with the #ad.
It's like advertising and social media are slowly merging together.
I couldn't say how effective it is. Who knows how much they paid that influencer and how much revenue it drives. But it sure is common.
Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?
#543Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a very interesting discussion with a friend today, where I was talking to her about the /r/golang thread about Rob Pike's comments to OpenAI and how the thread was full of bots talking with other bots. No idea why the density of bots was so high in that thread, it was kind of absurd to see. Then she said: "I know nobody that comments on online forums. Nobody would ever comment to strangers on the internet. It's…
Most of her friends are probably women. Try making an account with an obvious female name and you will see a marked difference on most social platforms I am saying this as a guy we really don't understand the world women live in online or offline.
Over the whole population, I bet the difference between sexes is very small when it comes to what % posts online comment. You're saying "most social platforms" - what's the biggest one in the world? Probably still Facebook. Yet I'm fairly sure it has a higher female than male DAU, at least in the West.
r/kpop has 3 million subscribers. Take a look at the most followed accounts on Instagram. How many of them have female-dominated comment sections?
> I am saying this as a guy we really don't understand the world women live in online or offline.
You're saying this as a guy who doesn't understand the world the general population lives in, outside your highly-educated male-dominated tech bubble. You're considering only the spaces you have been visiting for most of your life.
Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?
#544Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's been some years since I've had to put ads on the web, but I found Reddit ads insanely effective. Really, Google ads have been dead for a long time. I found them hardly effective at all since maybe 2011.
> Really, Google ads have been dead for a long time. For you perhaps. I work with a huge amount of businesses whose profits are still driven almost entirely by them, who have seen not even a blip and make money hand over fist.
I wish I knew the difference. I’ve ran or been close to tens of businesses over the last 20 years and we’ve always paid the Google tax, but I’m not sure it’s ever had a positive ROI.
Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?
#545Earlier quoted context omitted.
> their search product is dead Do we have any evidence search volume is down? Don't get me wrong, I'm an avid Kagi user. But I'm sceptical anyone outside tech is using anything other than Google.
I watch people search for PlatformName Login every single day because they don't know how URLs work. Google isn't search. It's a crutch for people with too much time and money. p.s. not google labs, not tpu's, but specifically search.
> Google isn't search. It's a crutch for people with too much time and money
…wouldn’t this make it an advertiser’s dream?
Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?
#546Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The person kept making the comment that she couldn't see/find the puck and it made it frustrating to watch. Lifelong hockey fan, I never understood this complaint. I believe it was FOX that did the 'highlight the puck' thing for a few years in the 1990's. You can't see the ball in American football, either. But you don't need to. The guy that's running and everyone is trying to tackle? He has the ball. Just like th…
You're right - it was called FoxTrax, it's a fairly interesting piece of engineering. It's pretty wild they were able to convince the NHL to use a modified puck with a battery and PCB inside, all so American viewers could better follow the action. It was not well received in Canada :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FoxTrax
It was not well received anywhere. However, in a bit of defense of the idea, TV at that time was still NTSC (~480p resolution at 24 frames/s) and it was pretty hard to see the puck even if you knew where it was.
Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?
#547Earlier quoted context omitted.
None of the numbers I've seen on web usage, platform usage, etc. indicate people are significantly pulling away from online lives. Though, there has been a slight dip in daily social media browsing time in the last couple of years (of course, it also follows the end of the pandemic, and it hasn't ceded back to where it was prior). That does sound like a rather charmed life though. Could also be a sign that people are…
I think the platforms have changed. FB used to be 100% posts by people you know. I opened it today, and maybe 1 out of 50 posts were by someone i know, the rest was "trending" content. Its essentially an entirely different website now.
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Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?
#548Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the platforms have changed. FB used to be 100% posts by people you know. I opened it today, and maybe 1 out of 50 posts were by someone i know, the rest was "trending" content. Its essentially an entirely different website now.
For what it is worth, here is my experience with Facebook, [a platform that I have learnt to love after my Twitter ban]: I go to the main page, I immediately click the magnifying lens, so I get the list of unread posts of the 10to20 groups I follow. I read them quickly. Then leave. I do that, on a daily basis. Time spent: usually 20 minutes. Reddit is 99% search only. I go there only on a purpose. [might be replaced…
I knocked up a browser plugin that, whenever I land on / redirects me to /?filter=all&sk=h_chr
It's a much less sticky place, now.
Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?
#549This post and these comments give me low confidence in our HN community. No one here seems to understand ad platforms.
Google is far from dead. It still has the majority of the world’s online ad revenue, with Microsoft coming in second, then Meta at a far third. People assume that TikTok and Insta _must_ have the most since they assume that’s what all of their friends use, but even though they’re growing, they’re still not there yet.
Video ads on YouTube and others have a lot of play also, and everyone thinks of the TV commercials played during the Super Bowl.
But Google is still f-ing everywhere.
It’s fine to call them dying, but are they really when they are best positioned for ads in AI? OpenAI or Anthropic don’t have the data about users that Google has. There’s a reason that Buffett invested in Alphabet recently.
Re: Google is dead. Where do we go now?
#550Surprised to see this upvoted because the takeaway is completely incorrect, and based on the anecdotal evidence of one advertiser. As someone who spends seven figures every month on Google ads, what’s much more likely to be happening here is that the individual advertiser is either getting outcompeted or they’re executing ads poorly. Google ads revenue in the US continues to grow every quarter. And, since advertisers…
> seven figures every month on Google ads What are you advertising?
Either Claude or OpenAI, going by all the ads I see.