Thord D. Hedengren

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Tag: advertising

  • Love it or hate it, The Outline hits a nerve

    The Outline’s Joshua Topolsky:

    On the design front, it’s true that some people love the way The Outline looks, and some hate it. But no one is neutral about it. No one says “eh” when they see it. And no one thinks we’re another anonymous blog populated by random people churning out random content. But perhaps most importantly: The web is ugly. Media brands are ugly. They all look the same. They all use the same tools. They all try and replicate a form that is ancient by any conceivable metric. They all rely on someone else’s idea about what storytelling looks like.

    I’m in the “hate it” corner, although that’s too strong a word obviously, but he’s right. The Outline not only has good content, it’s also a publication that make you react upon first glance.

    Topolsky also fires a salvo at the banner industry in his piece. You should read it if you’re interested in online publishing and the future of media.

  • The Deck closes

    The Deck, one of those minimalistic and overly nice ad networks, is throwing in the towel. Founder Jim Coudal writes about the journey, which is interesting for those of us who’s been in the so-called blogosphere since way back when.

    In 2014, display advertisers started concentrating on large, walled, social networks. The indie “blogosphere” was disappearing. Mobile impressions, which produce significantly fewer clicks and engagements, began to really dominate the market. Invasive user tracking (which we refused to do) and all that came with that became pervasive, and once again The Deck was back to being a pretty good business. By 2015, it was an OK business and, by the second half of 2016, the network was beginning to struggle again.

    John Gruber and his popular blog Daring Fireball was number four in the exclusive network. He has a lot of good things to say about The Deck, but this snippet from his post underlines why The Deck stood out:

    I was chatting with Jim earlier this evening. Someone wrote to him to ask, “Why didn’t you sell the network instead of shutting it down?” Jim’s answer: “The Deck was built exclusively on close, personal relationships. I don’t think those are mine to sell.”

    Things do change, advertising isn’t what it used to be, and The Deck really shouldn’t have lasted this long. That’s a compliment, by the way.

  • Wired's folly

    Wired is taking an aggressive approach to ad blockers come February 16. Either you turn off your ad blocker, or you pay to see the site sans ads. From Bloomberg’s piece on the matter:

    Wired plans to charge $3.99 for four weeks of ad-free access to its website. In many places where ads appear, the site will simply feature more articles, said Mark McClusky, the magazine’s head of operations. The portion of his readership that uses ad blockers are likely to be receptive to a discussion about their responsibility to support the businesses they rely on for information online, McClusky said.

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  • Bucket ad blockers

    Digiday on Dennis Digital’s take on ad blocking:

    It has now split ad-blocker users into three buckets: “zealots” whom publishers will never win over, “privacy protectors” who are wary of being tracked in general, and finally those concerned with the speed of the Web and data usage.

    A representative for Dennis Digital also said they’d yet to see any real mobil ad apocalypse, but points out that it could change. Don’t worry, it will.

  • Mozilla launches iOS content blocker

    Mozilla joins the content blockers – I don’t know, arms race? – with an option of their own for iOS, called Focus by Firefox. This content blocker isn’t about stopping ads, but rather limit tracking scripts. It only works in Safari in accordance with Apple’s content blocker rules.

  • The advertising bubble

    Hard words about the online advertising bubble, from Maciej Ceglowski:

    The prognosis for publishers is grim. Repent! Find a way out of the adtech racket before it collapses around you. Ditch your tracking, show dumb ads that you sell directly (not through a thicket of intermediaries), and beg your readers for mercy. Respect their privacy, bandwidth, and intelligence, flatter their vanity, and maybe they’ll subscribe to something.

    This route is not wrong, it would even make it easier to manage content blockers since the ads wouldn’t be laden with third party spy scripts. However, it does require a sales organization capable of reaching not only ad buyers, but premium ones at that. That costs a lot of money, which has to be earned by even more ads. It’s never as easy as it sounds, is it?

  • Anti-ad blocker hacked

    Ars Technica, reporting on the hack of analytics firm PageFair:

    The compromise started in the last few minutes of Halloween with a spearphishing e-mail that ultimately gave the attackers access to PageFair’s content distribution network account. The attacker then reset the password and replaced the JavaScript code PageFair normally had execute on subscriber websites. For almost 90 minutes after that, people who visited 501 unnamed sites received popup windows telling them their version of Adobe Flash was out-of-date and prompting them to install malware disguised as an official update.

    One of those sites were the Economist, as is widely reported. Third party scripts and services is a forgotten security hazard today. Probably more so than ever, since PageFair is an anti-content blocker. From their about page:

    We started PageFair because we personally experienced the damage adblocking can do to a website. While we recognize that visitors need to defend themselves from distracting, intrusive, inappropriate, disingenuous or malicious advertising, the rise of adblocking is now leading to the death of quality free websites.

    Add PageFair to a service you should block, for your own safety.

  • IAB goes LEAN, still clueless

    IAB, writing from an admittedly high horse, about how they messed up online ads, and manhandled the trust of their visitors, launches Light, Encrypted, Ad choice supported, Non-invasive ads – L.E.A.N. for short. It’s all somewhat positive, up until this load of bullshit:

    L.E.A.N. Ads do not replace the current advertising standards many consumers still enjoy and engage with while consuming content on our sites across all IP enabled devices. Rather, these principles will guide an alternative set of standards that provide choice for marketers, content providers, and consumers.

    Trust me, there’s no one in the world who enjoy your bloated ads. You can’t first point a finger at adblockers, then launch an ad program to remedy your faults, and then claim there are none. IAB just doesn’t get it, a global problem in the ad-driven online industry.

  • Ello's ads

    Ello, the social network you wanted an invite for, got one, and then promptly forgot, now has a chief marketing officer in the form of Rene Alegria. He’s got this to say about the future of Ello, which is totally ad free:

    “We’re currently not playing with the idea of dropping any ads,” Alegria said. “We are absolutely planning on internal campaigns that capture the spirit of our artist community.”

    Yeah…

    Ello’s due to step out of beta soon, and an app is in the works. I’m on there, just don’t expect any interaction on my part just yet, if ever.

  • Forbes puts native ad on the front page

    Sponsored content, or native ads if you will, is nothing new. Putting it on the front page of your print magazine, like Forbes are doing, however is:

    The Fidelity ad on Forbes’ cover teases an infographic about retirement, which is the editorial theme of the issue. Fidelity paid for the two-page infographic to appear in the issue as part of a larger ad buy with Forbes that includes print and digital.

    “We view this as strong content that’s part of the retirement package,” said Mark Howard, Forbes Media’s chief revenue officer. Forbes’ brand newsroom, a department that works with advertisers to create content, helped produce the infographic, he added.

  • Twitter to start snooping in your phone

    Twitter will start snooping in your phone to see what apps you have installed, to be able to send more tailored ads your way. From their very own support document:

    To help build a more personal Twitter experience for you, we are collecting and occasionally updating the list of apps installed on your mobile device so we can deliver tailored content that you might be interested in. If you’re not interested in a tailored experience you can adjust your preferences at any time (read below). Additionally, if you have previously opted out of interest-based ads by turning on “Limit Ad Tracking” on your iOS device or by adjusting your Android device settings to “Opt out of interest-based ads,” we will not collect your apps unless you adjust your device settings.

    First of all: fuck no! Turn this off, at the vey least.

    Second, if this isn’t incentive to limit ad tracking in your mobile device’s settings, I don’t know what is. Go and do that now if you haven’t already.

    And finally, third, this is just the official Twitter app snooping around, third-party apps won’t necessarily do this. Granted, the market for third-party Twitter app is strained at best, with Twitter slowly killing it off while trying to limit the backlash of their actions. If snooping around is in their business model (which it is, since ads are their way of making money), you should probably stay clear of their apps.

    These are not the actions of a company that means well.

  • Facebook pushing for their updated terms

    On January 1st, 2015, the new terms and conditions for Facebook takes effect. If you visit the social network today, you’ll get a notification of this.

    Facebook terms

    Facebook users should definitely read this one, and figure out where they stand and what they’re OK with. Don’t miss the Privacy Basics site from Facebook, it might be enlightening. Personally, I’m not big on Facebook, but I do try to peek in every now and then, since some people just haven’t figured out that I’m @tdh on Twitter and that’s way faster.

  • Disqus ads are coming

    Disqus, the hosted comment solution that’s the choice of personal blogs and big media properties alike, will get ads soon:

    Disqus is working with Xaxis, WPP’s automated ad platform, to let brands buy ads against the Disqus comments, which will be shown at the top of the discussion threads and marked sponsored. It will be up to publishers if they want to show the new ads from Disqus, and they could share in the revenue.

    Emphasis by me. I don’t see major properties being interested in this. Disqus ads will either die quickly, or they’ll kill the platform. Either way, this is a bad idea.

  • #GamerGate tries to bring Gawker Media out of business

    I’m surprised this hasn’t happened before: GamerGaters going after publications, Gawker Media in particular. From a Vox piece:

    How will Operation Baby Seal manage this trick? It’s not particularly clear (and, I should say here, the operation seems unlikely to succeed for sheer logistical reasons), but it mostly involves having aggrieved gamers send bunches and bunches of complaint emails about Gawker Media sites violating Google and Amazon’s terms of service. (Yes, the #GamerGate folks read the terms of service.) The examples are to be drawn from this wiki, which collects a bunch for easy collation into form letters.

    KotakuInAction began as a way to mock Kotaku, Gawker Media’s video game publication, for its aspirations toward discussion political aspects of video games, so the grudge between #GamerGate and the company runs deep. But Operation Baby Seal is truly a new level of loathing. The movement seems less to want to expose ethical lapses at this point and more to drive sites it doesn’t agree with from the face of the Earth.

    So I guess Vox is up next? These tactics hit on the publications themselves, but as long as they’re complying with their ad terms, they should be just fine. And if they’re not, if Amazon or Google kicks them out because there’s validity to the claims of the GamerGaters, then what’s the problem? This stunt might even bring something good with it, despite the intentions.

  • What comes next for advertising

    First there were banners, traditional display advertising for a new media. The ads started to move, to play sound, and to borrow more and more from broadcast advertising.

    Then there were the text link ads, sponsored links, affiliate links and ads tailored for the audience, and contextual ads, both within and beside the content. Some of it were for actual clicks, other ads were just about fooling the search engines with bought inbound links.

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