

Contenture - an anti-ad network? - sadiq
http://contenture.com/

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patio11
I got an advertisement from these folks in my inbox this morning because I pay
for Clicky. (Totally worth it, by the way.)

Here's the fundamental problem with this advertising venture: everybody in the
ecosystem freeloads on the site that makes the "sale". (Convinces a user to
pay $X for access to the content on that site "and by the way get access to
all these other sites, too!") This makes a lot of sense for, e.g., Paypal.

Quick aside on how Paypal works: everybody else in the ecosystem freeloads on
eBay, because eBay is far and away the #1 source of Paypal accounts and every
marginal Paypal account helps every other Paypal merchant. However, a user
signing up for a Paypal account in _your_ checkout funnel sucks for
conversion. Ideally, you'd want to get new accounts generated by other
businesses but never have to pay the "new account" tax yourself. However,
since Paypal makes a cut of all transactions and eBay makes a huge direct
profit for every additional account they sign up, it makes sense for eBay to
grossly subsidize the rest of the ecosystem. (Plus, they can control it such
that you can't play in their ecosystem without paying the new account tax.)

OK, now take this to content businesses: remember, everyone freeloads off the
site that wins the account -- you don't have to convince an existing account
to open their wallet again, you merely need to attract their eyeball. But
users don't perceive value from "Get access to X... and, by the way, a bunch
of other sites you might not care about and we won't list right now". They're
willing to pay for X. If you're X, where X is presumably something massive
like the New York Times or deeply meaningful to users like, I don't know, HN
would be, and you know people will pay you money for your content, _why the
heck_ would you offer to split that money with other people who are _not_
sharing appreciable amounts of money with you? (Because you're massively
bigger and better monetized than them, you directly generate far more accounts
in the system -- losing money, brand value, and user attention on each -- than
you receive from, e.g., my site which has 50k visits a month.)

Ecosystems based on freeloading don't work unless the equilibrium is such that
all players benefit from the freeloading. In this system, the players which
you need to enable the freeloading are greatly disadvantaged by it. Sucks to
be them. Accordingly, they won't sign up, and without them there is no
ecosystem to speak of.

~~~
GavinB
The idea is that you get paid based on how many people visit your site. There
should probably be significant bonuses based on sign ups coming from/through
your site.

~~~
patio11
So imagine I'm the New York Times. OK, I can charge people $1 to read the NYT.
If I was Joe Shmoe, my revenue share from that $1 would have been fifty cents.
However, since I'm the freaking NYT and generating more accounts than everyone
else on the system, the network bumps my payout to 80 cents. Whee!

Wait, _absense of whee_. Its _my_ content that was worth the dollar to the
user. Why should I give twenty cents to Joe Shmoe?

And without the NYT on board, Joe Shmoe's Blog About Things You're Not Quite
Willing To Pay For But Are Glad Exist On The Internet is screwed.

~~~
DTrejo
Aren't forgetting the page view element of contenture? I think payment is
driven by page views not sharing.

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petercooper

      Your post advocates a
      
      ( ) technical ( ) legislative (X) market-based ( ) vigilante
      
      approach to "fixing" advertising. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't
      work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may
      have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law
      was passed.)
    
      (X) Advertisers will not stand for it
      (X) The advertising industry will not go away anytime soon
      (X) Unintrusive, legitimate advertising would be affected
      ( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money
      (X) It won't reach critical mass
      ( ) It will make things better for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
      (X) Google will not put up with it
      ( ) The police will not put up with it
      ( ) Requires too much cooperation from advertisers
      ( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
      (X) Many existing sites cannot afford to lose existing deals
      (X) Users won't pay for it
      ( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
      
      Specifically, your plan fails to account for
    
      ( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
      ( ) Lack of a centrally controlling authority
      ( ) People who will ignore it
      ( ) Asshats
      ( ) Jurisdictional problems
      ( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of advertising
      (X) Huge existing software investment in advertising
      (X) All the other sites that will still have advertising
      (X) Extreme profitability of regular advertising
      (X) Trustworthiness of provider
      ( ) Technically illiterate politicians
      (X) Extreme stupidity on the part of webmasters
      (X) Dishonesty on the part of webmasters themselves
      
      and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
      
      (X) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
        been shown practical
      (X) Paying for stuff sucks
      ( ) Not paying for stuff sucks
      ( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored
      (X) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
      ( ) Incompatiblity with existing business models
      ( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
      (X) I don't want a third-party tracking my site visits
      
      Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
      
      (X) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
      ( ) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
      ( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
          house down!

~~~
petercooper
I'm sorry this is necessary, but yes, it's a bad attempt at humor based on the
"why your anti-spam proposal won't work" meme of many years ago:
<http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt>

~~~
DTrejo
This is a very bad attempt at humor and is not in the spirit of HN. From what
I have seen, we are all about encouraging innovation, new ideas, and
discussion. The GP simply discourages them.

I make a point not to spend time around the pessimistic downer crowd, and it
ticks me off when someone shoots down an idea offhandedly. I sincerely hope HN
does not move in this direction.

~~~
petercooper
"Pessimistic downer crowd"? I thought we were above personal attacks here.
This is more of a "downer" action than engaging in a little poorly placed
humor. I was poking fun at an idea, whereas you're making a bunch of personal
judgments which is rather disappointing and unfortunate.

Did you miss my post where I said it was a bad attempt at humor? Shame on you
for trying to make me personally feel bad.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
You don't think your callous attempt at a humorous put-down of someone's
business concept could make them personally feel bad? I love that because
you're railing on someone's idea, it's all fun and games, but if someone calls
you on it, you play the victim card. Stop defending yourself for your immature
and dismissive comment and just apologize.

~~~
petercooper
You are missing the difference between disparaging an idea versus a person.
They are totally different situations.

Shame on you for thinking that disparaging people is valid revenge for people
who merely poke fun at ideas. Talk about making it personal.

------
mahmud
_People want to support the sites they depend on. Contenture makes this
possible. Contenture users pay into the system, their money is distributed to
the Contenture-enabled sites that they visit._

Anyone who thought ad revenues were low as they are should wait to see how
really low tip revenues can get.

Disclaimer: I run an ad network :-)

~~~
antiismist
What's your ad network?

~~~
mahmud
Use the email in my profile, Luke! :-)

(I had to choose between keeping a "corporate" image while shilling my company
left and right, and being honest and true to myself among my hacker peers. I
am doing traditional advertising with nothing "startupy" about it; and if
we're doing anything new/different I don't intend to "share" it, so you guys
are stuck with my closet Real-Self ;-)

------
derefr
To pull this off, several great sites will have to launch as Contenture-
enablers/providers all at once, or it will go down as a flop (imagine a
console launching without games!)

This is pretty much as hard as making sure multiple startups launch
successfully simultaneously. It would probably help if they had a VC working
with them. Either way, I wish them luck.

~~~
schammy
We've got access to the people who run the 100,000 web sites being monitored
by getclicky.com (same team). We shouldn't have a problem there.

~~~
swombat
Having access doesn't mean they'll all sign up to it. Case in point, I'm a
Clicky user (and I love it), but I'm not going to be signing up to this until
I see evidence that it's worth the hassle. So there's a typical chicken and
egg problem there, basically.

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knightinblue
Am I the only one who thinks the comic book superhero motif for the intro
pitch on the homepage is way too cheesy?

Clean that up to something a lot more professional (and attractive) and it can
be a big boost in getting people to sign up.

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gojomo
Love the idea... hate the name; hope they can transition to another. The name
is crucial because this needs to become a movement: responsible readers and
publishers who agree that ads alone are not enough, or not appropriate for all
kinds of content.

There are lots of ways paid users could get enhanced service: no
interstitials, no ads, enhanced comment privileges, access to new content
before an embargo expires, automatic single-page-views, badges to show on
their other sites, etc.

------
schammy
FYI, Contenture is about a lot more than ads. It's also the dead simplest way
to create premium features for your site with very very little work.

