Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing
hilarymason.com
Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing
1–10 of 103 posts
Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing
#2Hilary Mason is brilliant. But Yahoo knows what they're doing when it comes to their advertising. YahooMail is one of the most valuable properties on the web in terms of CPM. Their ad display makes for a crappy UI experience, but it also makes them a lot of money.
Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing
#3Hilary Mason is brilliant. But Yahoo knows what they're doing when it comes to their advertising. YahooMail is one of the most valuable properties on the web in terms of CPM. Their ad display makes for a crappy UI experience, but it also makes them a lot of money.
It's easy to see the money they make from ad clicks, but it can be hard to see the money, reputation, and respect they lose to get it.
Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing
#4A great example of how user testing is a necessary complement to click data.
Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing
#5This piece confused me for several reasons.
First, if anything, this seems like an accessibility problem that would be hard to solve. Shakiness affects many of us as we get older, but it is hard to design a website around this constraint.
Second, there is an implication that this ad placement is somehow "surely wrong," and a step further, is likely only successful due to pseudo-fraudulent interactions. I want to rebut this, but she does not actually substantiate it. The most I can say is that the top-left corner of the screen is the hottest hotspot, so placing an ad there is savvy at worst.
I too have been reading her blog for a while, but this piece caught me off-guard as awkwardly personal and lacking in substance.
Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing
#6Hilary Mason is brilliant. But Yahoo knows what they're doing when it comes to their advertising. YahooMail is one of the most valuable properties on the web in terms of CPM. Their ad display makes for a crappy UI experience, but it also makes them a lot of money.
And that has always been the problem with Yahoo and their toolbars: they are predatory so you can't trust them or recommend them.
Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing
#7This piece confused me for several reasons. First, if anything, this seems like an accessibility problem that would be hard to solve. Shakiness affects many of us as we get older, but it is hard to design a website around this constraint. Second, there is an implication that this ad placement is somehow "surely wrong," and a step further, is likely only successful due to pseudo-fraudulent interactions. I want to rebu…
Shakiness affects many of us as we get older, but it is hard to design a website around this constraint.
Is it? Large link targets surrounded by empty negative space seem like an easy way to solve this problem. The issue is only an issue because Yahoo puts the links in tinytext and crowds the ad link right up next to the "Inbox" link, so a twitch can send the cursor scooting past the link you want to click on to the ad you don't.
Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing
#8Things get tense when ad-supported companies have to make money. When I ask my mom or dad to click the first Google search result, they click on an ad. When I ask them if they realized that it was an ad, the response is "no". A good portion of the ad business is confused clicks/taps (it's worse on mobile).
Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing
#9Things get tense when ad-supported companies have to make money. When I ask my mom or dad to click the first Google search result, they click on an ad. When I ask them if they realized that it was an ad, the response is "no". A good portion of the ad business is confused clicks/taps (it's worse on mobile).
As someone who has worked on all three sides of the equation (selling ad space, brokering ad space, and buying ad space), I can tell you wholeheartedly that ad purchasing companies do not want these clicks. They're paying for something of no value.
I don't know how companies can be convinced to do ad placements like these, or if they simply rely on getting enough conversions from accidental clicks from unknowing users to make out in the end.
Either way, it's a bad practice and something I'd equate with a torrent site or rapidshare.
Re: Hey Yahoo, You’re Optimizing the Wrong Thing
#10In yhis case, trackpad clicking is at fault, not yahoo. Whenever I use someone else's laptop, I find myself clicking things I didn't want to click. I believe, that the default should be for trackpad to not interpret a tap as a click.