Derek Thompson at The Atlantic has a story about a new study on the effectiveness of eBay ads which might spell trouble for the rest of the internet ad industry. From the article:
Nineteenth-century retailer John Wanamaker is responsible for perhaps the most repeated line in marketing: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is I don't know which half."
Today, marketers are grappling with the Wanamaker Paradox: The more we learn which half of advertising is working, the more we realize we're wasting way more than half.
Perhaps you're nodding your head about now. Most people you know don't click online ads. At least, not on purpose. But now research is getting closer to quantifying exactly how few people click on Internet ads and exactly how ineffective they are. It's not a pretty picture.
The paper in question can be found here. (Paywalled)
(Score: 3, Informative) by SlimmPickens on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:03AM
I started using the net back when ads strobed at you, I trained myself to ignore them. Nevertheless I'd say I've probably spent a few hundred dollars over the years on things I wouldn't have known about if not for a Google text ad.
We have a highly specific, high value, high margin product and we can truthfully tell people it's both better performing and better value than our major competitors. We can easily pay $15 per click, and even more with a specially crafted ad. I don't understand how other businesses do it though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:58AM
Nevertheless I'd say I've probably spent a few hundred dollars over the years on things I wouldn't have known about if not for a Google text ad.
Be careful you aren't fooled by the rock that keeps tigers away. [sguforums.com]
How do you know that you wouldn't have found the same product through some other means?
There are two types of advertising -
Benign - Informs you about products
Manipulative - Creates a need for a product
If the google ad created the need in you to buy the product, then your analysis is correct. But if it simply informed you, then you may well have found the same product while researching your choices independent of advertising - it was just that the google ad got to you first.
FWIW, I think the sales pitch for "targeted advertising" - that it is showing you stuff you are interested in - is bullshit, it would take a full-blown AI to figure out what people are really interested in and show that to them with any reasonable level of accuracy. Instead we see ads for stuff we already bought last week.
I expect the only kind of targeting that works is the kind that figures out your mental weak spots and targets them - playing on your fears, like that of a parent for their child's safety and future, their gonads like beer commercials with bikini babes or even more insidiously your mental illness, like figuring out that your family has a lot of alcoholics so there is a good chance you would be one too if they could just get you started drinking, so they show you ads for free samples.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Tuesday September 09 2014, @04:03AM
How do you know that you wouldn't have found the same product through some other means?
I don't, but I think you're over-analyzing it. Time is not unlimited and in those cases I didn't know about those things until I saw the ad, and they led to a sale. I also consider my time pretty valuable, so if an ad cuts short the amount of time it takes me to solve a problem then I consider that a good thing. Since someone is going to question how "valuable" spending time at Soylent is, I'll preemptively say that I consider my own happiness and leisure time more important than accumulating resources.
It's probably worth pointing out that a few hundred dollars over fifteen years is pretty tiny amount of my (in)discretionary spending.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @04:31AM
You are creating a false dichotomy. The question isn't whether or not the ad saved you time, the question is whether absent the ad you would have ended up at the same place anyway.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Tuesday September 09 2014, @04:39AM
The question is weather ads are worthwhile for advertisers, not some philosophical shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @04:50AM
The question is weather ads are worthwhile for advertisers, not some philosophical shit.
If you would have bought it anyway, then the advertising was clearly NOT worthwhile for advertiser.
No philosophy needed, just cold hard results. BTW, if you had RTFA you would already be familiar with this criticism.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Tuesday September 09 2014, @05:27AM
This comes from me posting that I bought things I didn't previously know about. Maybe I should have been clearer but I'm confident that I would not have bought those things without the ad. I reject AC's story about Homers rock.
I also think that few products that stand out that much. As above, we have such a product and yet our competitors are getting plenty of sales. Getting the sale early is better and preventing your competitor from getting it is better.
Also, if people can't quantify what they're getting back from their spend, then I just don't know how to respond to that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @05:35AM
> Maybe I should have been clearer but I'm confident that I would not have bought those things without the ad.
I recognize that you are confident in your belief. All I'm doing is saying that the basis for your belief is one of faith, not science.
> Also, if people can't quantify what they're getting back from their spend, then I just don't know how to respond to that.
The proper response is to say that it is entirely possible that the metrics in use are flawed. That was also the point of TFA which tried to apply more rigorous metrics than have been traditionally used.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Tuesday September 09 2014, @05:55AM
Just faith or science is it?
I did skim TFA btw. It's a bunch of anecdotes with no prices.
(Score: 2) by monster on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:12PM
Maybe he would have bought it anyway, but from a different provider.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @04:44AM
so if an ad cuts short the amount of time it takes me to solve a problem then I consider that a good thing.
There is an underlying assumption in that belief -- that the solution you got via advertising was optimal or at least near optimal. But you simply can not know that to be true without putting in at least as much research time as you would have without advertising.
Everybody has a "short list" because nobody has time to research all possible choices. But getting on your short list means it bumped something else off your short list. That bumped product may well have been cheaper and a better match. But you'll never know because it got bumped.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Tuesday September 09 2014, @05:43AM
It's my fault the conversation went this way, but it's definitely optimal for the advertiser, they got a sale. The alternative was nothing at all.
Also, by saying I've said I only spent a few hundred dollars on such things over fifteen years I've set a context. To my mind at least, it's obvious that saving time here is preferential to saving money.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday September 09 2014, @06:25AM
Also, by saying I've said I only spent a few hundred dollars on such things over fifteen years I've set a context. To my mind at least, it's obvious that saving time here is preferential to saving money.
Well I've spent thousands. It usually starts out with me searching for something, computers, cars, other tech products. Soon Google notices and ads on pages start reflecting what I have been searching, showing the exact products, competing products, and sources I didn't even know existed.
So from my point of view, advertising only works IF I've already decided to buy something. Then it helps me choose. But I can't think of vary many things I've FIRST seen in advertisements and THEN decided I needed. I'm sure there has been a few things, but nothing comes to mind. I'm just not an impulse buyer.
Advertising my work place does with Google certainly does not pay according to our accountant.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Tuesday September 09 2014, @06:50AM
I'm not counting things I was already looking for, just things I wouldn't have bought without an ad. These were all problems I knew I had that I didn't know could be fixed cheaply.
I think I started this by saying I've trained myself no to look at them (obviously not that well).
Right there in my first post I said I don't know how other companies make it work.
This went way out of hand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @04:28AM
Well, instead of focussing on not always so moral ways of advertising, companies could focus on providing higher quality and lower priced products? If a product is really good, people will know it. It will advertise for itself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @05:04AM
> Well, instead of focussing on not always so moral ways of advertising,
Not going to happen. Think of such less-than-morals ways of advertising as the marketing version of social engineering, but on crack.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by FakeBeldin on Tuesday September 09 2014, @09:52AM
FWIW, I think the sales pitch for "targeted advertising" - that it is showing you stuff you are interested in - is bullshit, it would take a full-blown AI to figure out what people are really interested in and show that to them with any reasonable level of accuracy. Instead we see ads for stuff we already bought last week.
You might be interested in this [nytimes.com] NY Times story (abbreviated and more to the point version from Forbes here [forbes.com]).
In a nutshell: if 90% of the people who bought product A in week one buy product B in week 40, you know what to advertise in 38 weeks to people who bought A. This case: the supermarket started advertising pregnancy products to a teenager, whose father was furious about the suggestion of his daughter having sex... until he found out she was, actually, pregnant.
Statistics isn't AI, but can be more than sufficient to predict some things.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bugamn on Tuesday September 09 2014, @03:10AM
I agree with the parent post, it all depends. I usually ignore ads with a little help from NoScript, but some I allow and I even find interesting. I particularly like webcomics and I have discovered some through ads in other comics. As those ads are usually just small images or gifs I don't really mind them. I really hate those that expand, have noise, capture the cursor or block the site until I wait or click some links. Those make me block ads even when I had an exception for that site.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday September 09 2014, @11:52AM
The internet really is ugly unless you block ads.
The most likely end result is a lot more product placement and to put it nicely "paid complimentary copy".
I have gotten suckered in by social media type stuff. You wanna get a bunch of EE excited about buying your new low power microscopic SMD processors, try starting a fad of "worlds smallest webserver" which is fundamentally pretty stupid. Next thing you know people are searching your stuff out, not you selling to them. For what its worth it led me down a weird path of screwing around with small MCs like the microchip PIC series in SOT-23 package (that means 2 mm by 3mm in size, no kidding). Although the lowest power MCs are/were the TI series in the nanoamp range. But I've got all the software and hardware to work with PICs so thats what I did. Sometimes its amusing to calculate how small of a solar panel it would take to run on, and then what you could do with it. Anyway you can sell more by getting people to talk about stuff than by banner ads most people block.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @01:43PM
The examples cited in the parent post are examples of pull-based advertising.
Pull-based advertising DOES NOT blare 'BUY ME' or 'WE EXIST' to potential customers like traditional ads.
Instead these ads showcase some feature or benefit of the product to generate curiosity (then [sizeable] demand) for the product and subsequent purchases 'if the price is right'.
All other advertising can be considered push-based advertising and can be tuned-out and ignored or blocked with extreme predjudice by those individuals willing to do so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @03:06PM
I've seen a couple of companies with website sponsoring programs that are not advertisement driven. Sort of a throwback to the old days of TV sponsorship. I know about them because the bloggers made an explicit post saying that they were in corporation X's program, which offered hosting or other benefits in exchange for an occasional mention of the program. Not necessarily of any product, and it wasn't to be considered endorsement of any product, just that the company had this neat program to support blogs (based on their content, quality, and relevance to the company's products).
I like that style of advertising: it's a form of community building and looks more like artistic patronage than like advertising. Johnson & Johnson or P&G or something. Not blogs I frequent, or I think I'd remember the names.
(Score: 1) by richtopia on Tuesday September 09 2014, @03:42PM
Web comics are a good example of properly executed ads. By targeting other webcomics you have found your demographic without any user tracking. Also, taking Project Wonderful for example (advertising specifically for webcomics), there is a policy of pleasant looking non-invasive adverts.
However, I imagine most products find it difficult to advertise in this fashion, particularly not using user tracking. However I am confused why flashing "CLICK HERE" ads still exist.... who would ever click them? I guess they work on someone, somewhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:03AM
Don't kill the cash cow!
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday September 09 2014, @06:56AM
Certainly don't kill the cow if you rely on outsourcing to India.
(Score: 0) by dltaylor on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:06AM
I would MUCH rather see a subscription model than the advertising. Advertising (anywhere) can only make me avoid a product, never buy one. There's an aphorism related to food which seems apropos: "If it is advertised, it isn't any good.". That pretty much summarizes all advertising, AFAICT (the only exception I can think of, off hand, is a very old Range Rover series of print ads, such as a Range Rover nosing into a river, with the caption "We brake for fish.").
Yes, a subscription here is in process.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tathra on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:25AM
i already pay a subscription for the internet, i'm not going to pay twice (even though its a flawed, incorrect premise, its still how people feel). aside from that, subscription-only internet would fail for the same reason a la carte cable tv would fail - you need the popular, crappy channels to subsidize all the niche ones. anyone who wanted to create a website wouldn't be able to unless they had the funds to support it from the time of creation until the time it finally pays for itself; it wouldn't even resemble the internet we have today. a subscription-only internet would be exactly what the cable and other media companies want to turn the internet into, a service for people to consume, with no ability to create.
(Score: 1) by naff89 on Tuesday September 09 2014, @04:48AM
People feel like it's "paying twice" because of how absolutely GOUGED most of us are on those subscriptions.
This effect is even more clear with cable TV subscriptions/advertisements.
(Score: 2) by keplr on Wednesday September 10 2014, @07:36AM
I don't see the premise as flawed at all. You pay for bandwidth. Bandwidth is the élan vital of the Internet. It's the magic protoplasm to which everything reduces. We've already solved the problem when it comes to bulk data transfer of arbitrary files when there's no need for expediency: Bittorrent (or some analogous P2P system). We now need to tackle the harder problems of creating high availability, low-latency, distributed data storage and retrieval with verifiable authorship and authentication.
I don't respond to ACs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @03:01AM
> There's an aphorism related to food which seems apropos: "If it is advertised, it isn't any good."
That's the reverse of most advertising. Advertising also acts as a single that indicates quality [sguforums.com] - that if a company can afford millions of dollars for an advertising campaign then that imples they have the resources to do high quality manufacturing. Not that it always holds true, but advertising is never about 100% certainty, it is about manipulating the audience.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @03:21AM
Oops: Advertising also acts as a single that indicates quality [stanford.edu]
(Score: 2) by dcollins on Tuesday September 09 2014, @03:42AM
SIGNAL.
Not that I believe it.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @03:37AM
I would MUCH rather see a subscription model than the advertising.
And yet the is no start next to your I.D.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @03:50AM
Stars can be explicitly turned off.
One of the main reasons for that feature was to prevent asshats from claiming that people without stars are not as deserving of their opinions as those with stars.
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday September 09 2014, @05:44PM
I pay the "subscription" on Soylent, even though I could get the content without paying. I also pay for some youtube content on the internet via Patreon. I pay money because I enjoy the content, yet the content is released freely afterwards anyhow. However i would have never have found those things if they were paywalled. So the simply subscription model isn't exactly the solution here.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Horse With Stripes on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:11AM
Part of the problem is that there are too many ads thrust upon us at every possible opportunity. So many that I don't really pay attention to any.
On the internet it's so bad that ad blocking extensions are a must just to be able to identify the content on some sites. On TV or radio a sporting event will have ads tossed in at every possible place. The 15th pitch or out? Geico ... Passing leader this week in the NFL, and the top running back? FedEx Air and Ground awards. Ads on TVs in the checkout lanes at the store. I'm already in line! I'm not giving up my spot to go get your product!
I'm numb to ads. Sometimes they make me aware a new product exists, but influence my purchasing? Only when their ads are so annoying that I vow never to encourage the practice by never buying their product(s). Some will say that ads are a necessary evil. I say that they suck and haven't been effective or imaginative for the last decade or two.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @03:58PM
Famously, in the US they defined the rules of their main sport (i.e. American football) to accommodate advertising. US is a weird place...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @04:42PM
Do you have a citation/source for this claim?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @05:51PM
Let me enlighten you on the TV timeout.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_timeout [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by zocalo on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:19AM
Maybe Bill Hicks is finally getting his wish... [youtube.com] We can only hope!
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @03:09AM
> I know for a fact that ads simply wash over me at this point.
Sucker. Seriously, you are just lying to yourself. Advertising is only rarely about affecting your conscious mind. It is about manipulating your subconscious, to bias you in your choices. Part of that is to suggest to your subconscious that you need the product, to generate a craving where there wasn't one. But it is also about pushing you towards one brand or another, so that when you are at the store looking at the choices on the shelf, you'll pick one brand over another and not even know why. Sure you'll tell yourself you think that brand is the better one for some reason, but it all comes down to generating a positive association in your subconscious and sometimes all that takes is to expose you to the brand enough times.
You remember that car ad, but you don't consciously remember the brand. Your subconscious does and even if it only has a small effect, say 10% increase in interest, that ad will have more than paid for itself because a 10% response is HUGE when you apply to thousands or millions of people.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Tork on Tuesday September 09 2014, @04:23AM
Geico
Di Giorno
Starbucks Fizzio
State Farm
Verizon FIOS
Verizon Wireless
T-Mobile
Huggies
Nyquil
Playstation 4
I've never had to purchase diapers before, I know nothing about them. So if I were to go shopping for them right now I'd wager that I'd gravitate towards Huggies. Why? Because I'd be looking at a bunch of featureless products trying to get one to jump out at me, and some little voice in my head would go "ah well you've heard of this one...." and... boom. Also, I've tried Fizzio (overrated) and if I left my insurance company State Farm is the first I'd look at. I wish I could claim I'm immune to advertising but I'm not. I don't have time to thoroughly research every dumb little consumable that crosses my path, so ... yeah advertising works. It's just not something I click on.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday September 09 2014, @05:54PM
Well it sounds like you are the kind of sucker that the advertisers are looking for. But I don't think you give yourself enough credit.
If you cared at all about the products you were buying, you would simply pull out your smartphone and do a quick check on them. Or at the very least take a look at that "unit cost" metric that most markets place on products these days.
But my guess is you are more discerning than you realize. For example there actually are things I buy that I simply do not care which one I get. Paper towels, for instance. I get whichever one is the cheapest without being complete crap in quality based on a cursory glance.
On some products, there is a slight difference between the competitors and people stick with the brand they like. Some people prefer Coke to Pepsi, neither is superior, and my guess is the colossal amount of marketing makes no difference in these choices. (except for the ones where they get exclusive drink contracts on venues/restaurants)
Of your list of products, the only one I have is T-mobile, and that is because I performed an exhaustive search of providers to find the one that would provide the features I needed for the price I wanted to pay. (And, as far as I know, every single mobile provider is so overwhelming with ads it is out of control.)
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by Kell on Tuesday September 09 2014, @04:33AM
It is about manipulating your subconscious, to bias you in your choices.
See now, I don't actually believe this. To start with, it's a completely unfalsifiable statement in practice. How does anyone know why they chose choice Y or X (eg. generic domestic cleaning product) if their overall level of interest in the outcome is too low to pass the threshold of thoughtful concern. Maybe advertising had an effect; maybe it was that the bottle was more brightly coloured (also a form of marketing); or maybe it was just that it was closer to you on the shelf when you went to grab it? I think a lot of marketing wisdom is pseudoscience that helps sell marketing (irony!). If you can't disprove that subconscious marketing works, then how can you risk being left out when all your competitors do it??
And yet, in studies designed to determine the effectiveness of subliminal messaging and such, no causal link between the subconsciously advertised behaviour and behaviour of the target has been established. Successful behaviour-changing marketing campaigns almost entirely leverage psychological phenomena such as conspicuous consumption, association creation and peer influence; these have a well established track record in everything from cigarettes to soda to cars to jet fighters.
The problem is that using those methods is expensive and requires understanding your demographic very well. Claims of "if they see your brand on a billboard they're more likely to buy it because of subliminal recognition" are cheap and require zero proof - how could you know it doesn't work? It's subliminal!
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @04:38AM
It is about manipulating your subconscious, to bias you in your choices.
And yet, in studies designed to determine the effectiveness of subliminal messaging and such, no causal link between the subconsciously advertised behaviour and behaviour of the target has been established.
That is false. As a start the wikipedia page [wikipedia.org] cites many such studies.
The problem is that using those methods is expensive and requires understanding your demographic very well.
Enter Big Data which is all about "understanding your demographic very well," in fact orders of magnitude better than ever before.
(Score: 2) by emg on Tuesday September 09 2014, @08:48PM
If companies "understood their demographic very well," they wouldn't be pushing ads for things I've already bought.
Fortunately, I almost never see ads on my laptop. The lack of easy ad-blocking on my Android tablet is one reason I rarely use it for web browsing.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Tuesday September 09 2014, @11:33AM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by gidds on Tuesday September 09 2014, @01:32PM
Please pay attention to the parent: that AC gets it. (It's at rare times like this I wish I'd ticked the box to let me moderate...)
Seriously, it doesn't matter whether you click the advert or not; by the time you have that decision to make, the damage is already done. As he/she says, advertising is about persuading your subconscious, which is much less logical, much less suspicious, and much easier to sway than your conscious mind. And in tests, the people most certain that advertising 'doesn't affect them' are often the ones it most affects. (Something about being in denial, perhaps.)
To put it in terms that many here should understand: advertising is a strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
[sig redacted]
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday September 09 2014, @04:13PM
That's why I deliberately insult the ads or create an 'unfortunate' association. That can then sink into my subconscious and make sure no good can come from showing me an ad.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday September 09 2014, @09:37PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @09:43PM
I remember thinking a while back, when at a friend's watching broadcast (or cable?) TV, and thinking, "what is this thing I am watching?" I pretty much only Netflix TV and websurf with AdBlock + NoScript, so it was weird actually having to SEE and ad.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by cafebabe on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:36AM
I already gave my opinion when advertising was last discussed [soylentnews.org]. For completeness, I include my comment from https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=3537&cid=84706 [soylentnews.org] :-
By attempting to make advertising more efficient and more tailored, something has been lost which signaled trustworthiness to the customer. This loss is not fixed by making the perfect advert arrive at the perfect time.
1702845791×2
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:52AM
Low click-thru doesn't necessarily mean that an ad is not working. Ads can help put or keep a company or product in the back of people's minds, as something they might want to check out when they're in the market for that category.
Local businesses that advertise on radio have known this for decades. Just because running an ad doesn't lead to an immediate increase in floor traffic, doesn't mean that it failed. In fact it usually takes awhile for radio advertising to have any impact. What it can do is make people more receptive to considering their business when they see it in a directory listing, for example. "Hey, I think I've heard of them, I wonder what they've got."
(Score: 2) by emg on Tuesday September 09 2014, @08:45PM
Yeah, that's what the ad agencies keep telling their customers who can see no benefit from advertising. It's the homeopathic theory of ad dollars.
(Score: 4, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:59AM
The paper in question is behind a paywall? Irony, thy name is Soylent! Well done, eds!
(Score: 2) by bugamn on Tuesday September 09 2014, @03:14AM
Why irony? It seems completely logical: as ads don't work, put the paper behind a pay wall instead of an ad based site.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday September 09 2014, @09:35AM
It seems completely logical:
Yes, of course. Maybe I was thinking of a bit of the ol' petitio principii , or question begging.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:31PM
I have no desire to pay them for them to tell me why their other method to make money doesn't work. What, is it my job to keep these guys afloat financially? Fuck it.
Although admittedly, anything behind a paywall would get the same reaction from me, so one could argue it's not technically irony.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @03:14AM
> The paper in question is behind a paywall? Irony, thy name is Soylent! Well done, eds!
Amateur Tip (because the professionals have paid access to journals):
When faced with a paywalled research paper, do a google search for a sentence out of the abstract. 90% of the time that will lead you to a copy, [berkeley.edu] usually hosted on the webpage of one or more of the authors.
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday September 09 2014, @05:58PM
Research papers are different. On a journalism site that is paywalled it usually means I can't be arsed to bother reading the article. How would I know if I would want to pay for a site without being able to read it first?
At least with newspapers you can look at a copy someone else had for free and if you like it, you can buy your own subscription.
And I have checked. No dead tree news in my city is even close to being worth the money, unless you like paying for 3 pounds of advertisements with mostly political or corporate shill "articles" and a few fluff pieces sprinkled in, and the sports section? Try the "paid for by the teams management" section.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Tuesday September 09 2014, @08:15AM
Seriously, that's too funny to mention. I was going to say, the real question is "do paywalled articles still work as useful news sources?" Fortunately in this case, there's no need to RTFA (and they make it impossible anyway) because they make it obvious the whole article is going to be a bunch of conjecture anyway.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday September 09 2014, @05:46PM
It's not paywalled for me. On another note, 19 ads and 23 widgets, trackers, beacons, etc. That's on a paywall site where I theoretically paid money.
I think it's not paywalled since I started using a user agent spoofer and selected Google's search bot.
The article does mention something interesting not in TFS though. eBay concluded they were receiving negative ROI on all adverts:
:D
That's something I have suspected for a long damn time as I don't see adverts anyways, but I use sites like pricegrabber (heavily in the past) and Google shopping to identify a place that has good prices *first*, then research the place. Once I have decided to use the company, I use their own search engine on their own site to find products. Not Google.
Anyhoo, I couldn't see that it was paywalled.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday September 10 2014, @03:06PM
Nope. It's behind a cookie request. Reject that cookie, and you get the paper without further ado.
That probably qualifies as "hacking" nowadays, thanks tech-ignorant Supremes.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Tork on Tuesday September 09 2014, @04:12AM
Perhaps you're nodding your head about now. Most people you know don't click online ads. At least, not on purpose. But now research is getting closer to quantifying exactly how few people click on Internet ads and exactly how ineffective they are. It's not a pretty picture.
Why are you counting the clicks? What you're supposed to do is chart your sales when the ad-campaign starts. If your income goes up, it's working! Let me put it this way: I have never clicked on an ad for the Playstation 4, but I am aware you can stream video of your game as you're playing... because that stupid ad has blasted through my headphones several times now. I will not purchase a PS4, but at least Sony did get their message to me and as such their money was well spent.
This whole notion of only spending money on the people who will buy stuff is a pipe dream, I cannot believe they're still worrying about ad-clicks these days.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Interesting) by archfeld on Tuesday September 09 2014, @04:33AM
If and when I DO see something that interests me I can mouse over or trace the ad origin and then go directly to the site, but just on principle I NEVER HAVE, NOR WILL I click on an ad. I have every almost Google ad server listed in my hosts file as loopback.
BTW this place is really beginning to look UP. I still lurk and comment at Slashdot but more and more I find this place better, and as a long time FARK member their new policy and claim on ownership of comments has driven me from Drew's den entirely. Keep up the good work guys and THANKS.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Tuesday September 09 2014, @06:09AM
I'm going take this quote and loop it back around to the discussion. I'm curious: how did you find out about Soylent News? I've been around since the beginning, but I'm not on staff and I don't think Soylent News advertises. I only putter around on Slashdot when I'm bored and have exhausted my Soylent News feeds. I can't remember the last time I logged in over there. -- probably about the time we kicked off Soylent News.
It's a serious question because I completely suck at getting anything of mine in front of people and generating interest. I want to "advertise" several things that I made that are free and I don't make any money off of. One day when I do finish one particular project, I do want to make money off of it but I don't like manipulating people and I don't like tooting my own horn. Both make me feel dirty. If I'm high quality, I feel like I should stand on my own... but if I don't tell anyone, how do they find out? The classic catch 22 except that I'm boxed in by my own personal set of morals and rules. My attempts with friends and family at showing some personal projects have been met with "meh". I feel like I'm doing something wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @07:48AM
I found out about Soylent News around the time of f**k beta. Someone posted a link to the IRC channel that initial discussions were taking place on. I've followed it since then. More out of curiosity than anything.
You shouldn't have to manipulate people for them to spend money with you. If what you have developed is useful or desirable then your advertising can simply be informing people that your product exists. There's nothing immoral about that. If Sony tell me their PS4 can stream games that's fine. If they imply that by not streaming games I'm a social outcast with no friends, not so fine.
(Score: 1) by archfeld on Tuesday September 09 2014, @06:24PM
I found this place through a reference from a friend on Slashdot in response to the beta program there as well. The NAME was what attracted me at first and I checked in. The first time I came here is was very sparse but has bloomed nicely. I recommend Soylentnews to my online friends as an alternative to the growing hypocrisy that is /. I really hope it continues in the vein it has started and does not become a victim of its' own success which is apparently what happened to /.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:54PM
Those beer ads with the Swedish Bikini Team were alright back in the day. But beer is not my drink of choice.
The Victoria Secret fashion show (an hour long ad) was met with interest and liked by many. But guys like me don't wear that stuff.
I like ads that have entertainment value, it is the only reason I watch the Superbowl. But I feel no need to reciprocate by buying something.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Tuesday September 09 2014, @05:51AM
It does for me... when done right. I shop online more than B&M as everything here in Oz is marked up the wazoo. If the add is done right I will click on it. Unfortunately though, my experience have been that most of the time they're done so that its bloody annoying.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Tuesday September 09 2014, @08:29AM
Another thing to this that I consider is missing when it comes to ads in searchengines are the quality (or accuracy) of the site linked..
You know how annoyed you get at all those sites that has nothing to do with what you intended with your search (and that google's new "smart" features increase manyfold unless you use verbatim)? Most ads are like this, instead of getting the kind of page you expected you get something that are so far away that your mindset goes from "curious" to "irritated".
For me it would probably have a much better "conversion" if the ads linked to the detailed specs of the product(s) instead of some animation-laden "experience"
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday September 09 2014, @12:38PM
both on the web and other media (including the floor of my grocery store), but I'm so annoyed by tracking that my browser is set to delete all cookies when I exit.
There's a morning radio show I enjoy and would like to listen to, but it's almost 50% commercials. I've often wondered why they don't run half as many and charge twice as much for them? I'd be more likely to listen to the show and it's commercials than I am now.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @01:26PM
Deleting cookies does not help much.
https://panopticlick.eff.org/index.php?action=log&js=yes [eff.org]
http://mashable.com/2011/09/02/supercookies-internet-privacy/ [mashable.com]
They want to fingerprint you. They have. They can re-create the cookie very quickly because of the way our browsers tell the servers what our browser can do. Even disabling cookies helps identify you. Even the setting to remove them is factored in.
The ones that kill me in stores are the ones that say 'lets us create you a web receipt' print you a small bit of paper then 3 ft of coupons for things I am not going to buy. You are tracking me... At least get it right.
(Score: 1) by PReDiToR on Tuesday September 09 2014, @01:51PM
For the sites that I visit and allow to cookie-fy me I have other browsers that run and build a profile. I have Farcebook in its own browser so that it doesn't know more about me than I tell it.
Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger.
(Score: 4, Informative) by MrGuy on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:02PM
against a billion-dollar industry that the industry is actually useful.
If you took a poll, most people would tell you they vote based on who the best candidate for office is, based on that candidate's position on the issues they care about. And yet, the candidates with the most advertising dollars to spend frequently win. People say they hate negative campaigning, and yet there's a wealth of data that negative campaigns work.
Advertising works. This study (at least as described in the non-paywalled article) laughably undermeasures how advertising works. There's no studying of long-term effects, brand awareness, etc. Just "if we put a paid search link right there, would you click it right now?"
Web ad campaigns are longer term than that. And they work. In fact, it's the ONLY kind of advertising where you can actually measure the effects of the ads directly. A/B testing works! For example, with tracking (yes, tracking is evil, but it's effective) you can see your registered users visiting a 3rd-party site. Serve half of them an ad, don't serve the other half. See what the purchase/conversion rate is over the next week from both groups. Guess what? The group that saw the ad buys more, even if they DON'T click the link. Retargeting and other "targeted" advertising works. You can A/B test different ad copy and see different results. Guess why? Because the ads are actually effective (if ads were ineffective, all ad versions would perform identically).
This study is like economists trying to torture logic to produce theories that square economics base assertion that "everyone is a perfectly rational actor" with the demonstrable effect that "advertising works." It's a non-realistic study by someone who's never done real web advertising trying to prove something they've already set out to prove about an industry they don't understand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 09 2014, @02:42PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pet_Rock [wikipedia.org]
TL;DR: Gary Dahl creates a product as a joke and becomes a millionaire in the process due to the product becoming a red-hot fad that lasts about six months.
I actually vaguely remember SEEING these things on sale back then!
This is UNDENIABLE proof that people will buy ANYTHING if you market it properly to tap into their wants and desires. However, reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Dahl_(pet_rocks) [wikipedia.org]
I found out the 'instruction book' that came with the rock was the REAL product.
This is why traditional advertising is so insidious--it is essentially Mind Control^W^WBrainwashing [wikipedia.org]
Manchurian [imdb.com] Candidate [imdb.com] anyone?
With a bit of the old ultraviolence [imdb.com] viewed through a parallax?... [imdb.com]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday September 09 2014, @03:59PM
To me Advertisements and Micro-transactions are targeting a specific audience. Pretty much I would lump them all together and call them the uneducated masses. Even then, that leaves out a goodly number of people who don't fit that profile. At this point, I have given up on trying to educate my wife. She is informed now, but she still loves her "Free" Games on her phone. I'm not against free games or for profit apps, but I am against the deplorable practice of Micro-Transaction Games pawning themselves off as "Free". Advertisements are here to stay, unless someone can prove that they truly have no impact on a company's bottom line. Big companies with money to burn, will always use every opportunity they can to bring their product's name to your attention. It's not necessarily, "Did that advertisement make a sale?", it's "Did that advertisement make your audience remember your Product?" It's icing on the cake, if you can also track a purchase based on an advertisement seen. Then you can crunch some numbers and make more informed decisions.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"