

How Digg Found a Way to Make Money - hshah
http://gigaom.com/2010/02/26/how-digg-found-a-way-to-make-money/

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sanj
FUIs (fake user interfaces) are bad business.

Even magazines have the decency to print "Special Advertising Section" at the
top of their faux articles.

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ojbyrne
Press releases disguised as breathlessly praising blog posts also seem like
bad business.

Edit: s/described/disguised/

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kimfuh
I think you guys are underestimating the consumers. Ads are supposed to be
entertaining, just like tv shows and movies. They're supposed to blur the line
between real and fake. At the end of the day, it will be up to the viewer if
they'll believe it or not. If you point out that it's fake from the start, it
kinda defeats the purpose of ads.

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ojbyrne
If the ads are meant to be entertaining, they could be more clearly labeled as
ads and still be entertaining. They're supposed to "blur the line between real
and fake" by being creative and entertaining on their own, not by mimicking
the real content.

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kimfuh
I disagree. Mimicking real content is a valid expression of creativity and
entertainment.

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ojbyrne
It can be. But when the primary goal is to get unsuspecting viewers to click
(by mistake) on ad content, it's not.

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proee
This really makes me sad. Webiste are moving from "click-the-monkey" ads to
"camouflage" ads.

Surfing... Surfing.... Doh! (Clicked on camouflage ad).

Facebook is using this hard - it takes considerable horsepower to try to
determine what's linkbait vs. what's actually going on in your social network.

I'm hoping that someone (hopefully a HN member) will come up with a "better
way" and in turn make the web a better place.

// updated Dow -> Doh

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wushupork
I was just going to say the same thing. Disguising the ad has value in that
most users of digg have no clue how digg makes money outside the overt ads.
Same goes with google. I would dare say 99.99% of google users have no idea
how google makes money because the text link ads look so much like regular
search results

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proee
The more I think about it, you're right. We were recently explaining to one of
our clients about some basic SEO topics. They did not understand that the
links on the side of Google are paid links.

I wonder what the CTR is for Google Ads on typical Google search?

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benologist
You mean they didn't find a way to make money when they drowned out the
content with all the other ads?

I wonder how long they'll continue pulling traffic, the community aspect of
the site looks a lot like it's in its death throes.

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nazgulnarsil
to be fair AOL,MySpace, and yahoo social stuff has looked that way for years.
idiots don't know any better. and idiots is a huge demographic.

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maukdaddy
I prefer "unwashed masses" to "idiots". Definitely a huge demographic though!

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clistctrl
so what you're saying is that hackers are a part of the "washed" masses?

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sp332
nope, unwashed loners :)

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nfriedly
I'm getting tired of people bashing Toyota. I recognize that it's a serious
problem, but I think they did the right thing and I just feel like the media
is trying to drag it out like it's some huge scandal.

(FWIW, I've never even owned a Toyota, but this recall does not make me any
less likely to buy one in the future.)

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pbiggar
The most interesting (and least shady) idea here seems to be paying for
internal links. This could work in the local model: restaurants could pay for
Digg links to their reviews for example. Sounds really promising.

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mattmanser
I know that in England at least Newspapers have to clearly distinguish content
from adverts.

Doesn't this completely violate this principle?

On a side note, I've also always though Google's sponsored links were also
pretty shady in that they barely distinguish themselves from actual search
results (very slight colour difference, 'sponsored results' tag hidden in top
right).

Just makes me wonder if this is actually a viable business model or will turn
out to be something that legislators slap down in the next few years to level
the playing field.

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rapind
However, I think there's a pretty big difference between Google and Digg in
terms of the service they provide. Digg is way more reliant on their user's
participation in order to be relevant. If Digg alienates their user base
somehow (perhaps with camouflaged spam?), they're toast.

I actually think google's advertising is significantly less annoying than any
other company that provides even less value to their consumer.

