

Digg Will Charge Less for Ads Its Users Like - newacc
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/03/digg-will-charge-less-for-ads-its-users-like/

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blhack
I will be honest, I like ads.

Wait, I should rephrase that...."I like _useful_ ads." Yeah, thats better.

My alter-ego is a recording engineer. You know the best place to learn about
recording gear is? Recording industry mags!

"Well, OBVIOUSLY, blhack, the articles teach you about the gear! DUH! NEXT!
DOWNVOTE!"

But wait, young troll, wait. The reason that those recording industry
magazines are such great places to learn is the ads! The ads are targeted at
recording engineers, and people working in studios. You may start out thinking
to yourself "gee whiz, fellas, them recording equipments sure are neat!", but
that is all you know about it! YOu know that there is a mythical land called a
"studio" where magicians called "engineers" cook things in their cauldrons
called "digital audio workstations" to produce wonderous audio adventures for
your listening pleasure, but that is about it. You don't yet know the norms
for how those DAWs work, what mics are useful for what, how much things cost,
where they go, how they connect to each other, what ELSE you can do (outbourd
effects [spells, I call them]) etc. etc.

This is what the ads are there for. They're there to give you cues about what
you should be looking at if you're building a studio.

THIS is the holy grail of what google is trying to do! The advertisers know to
just advertise their new condensor mics in the recording industry mags because
they know who is reading them.

What they DON'T know is who is reading _BLOGS_ about the same things. That is
where google steps in. Google crawls your site and tries to GUESS what sorts
of ads you would be interested in. This can be highly effective, but it isn't
as good at targeting as real people are.

What digg is trying to do is figure out a way to bring humans back into the
targeting equation. My prediction is that it will be a total failure, but it
WILL mark a revolution in the way that ads are being delivered. (Affiliate
marketers are already starting to do this to some extent by localizing their
ads).

~~~
ALee
My girlfriend once called me the advertiser's dream, because I honestly would
watch Nike Basketball commercials or find ads that I loved and make her watch
them.

It'll be interesting to see how this does, but advertising in NYC has been
talking about this stuff all the time. Tying content to the advertising, this
is just another way I think to reward creative advertising.

~~~
blhack
The frustrating thing is that most designers really _WANT_ to make
interesting, artistic, beautiful ads. The types of things that people seek
out.

This doesn't happen because, often times, the people they're designer for look
at it and don't "get" it.

Look at the "think different" ad that TBWA did for apple way back when. The
one that starts out "Here's to the crazy ones, this misfits, the rebels, the
troublemakers".

What does that have to do with apple computer? Absolutely, positively NOTHING,
but you know what? I have that typed out and hanging on the wall in my office
and I've watched the ad close to 100 times.

Why is this? Because I love apple computer? Because I love TWBA?

No. It is because this "ad" is art.

This ad is the type of thing that happens when you turn a creative team loose
and tell them to _gasp_ get creative.

Howabout the ads during the superbowl? Granted these are usually very very
expensive, but my point is that if you create your ads as something that
people WANT to watch (like movie trailers or music videos), they will.

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kn0thing
I must say, the sponsored link model has served us quite well at reddit for
the last few months. I think digg is on the right track to profitability with
this as an advertising method.

Some of our most successful sponsored links ended with higher than a 10%
clickthru rate. And the very best advertisers have sought our advice when
crafting the ads. I'm happy to write copy if it means the ad will be better
received since it's written by someone who intimately knows the community.

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calambrac
The current economic incentives for sock-puppetry were just too subtle?

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timmaah
I wonder how good their up vote fraud detection will be. Or if it even matters
to them for ads.

Someone should (and probably will) start a service to buy up votes on ads. Pay
out less then what your up vote discount from digg is and there is the
business model.

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adamhowell
It'll be interesting to see if advertising can get any lowest common
denominator than it already is -- i.e. eventually all ads not featuring
boobies or explosions being downvoted into oblivion, etc.

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rythie
My thought is that WWDC is on soon and Apple will get on digg (probably
several times) and everywhere else.

It seems some companies have already got themselves into a position where they
don't need to pay to access that audience, where as EA and Intel clearly do.

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rythie
I find adverts (in the U.K.) at quite entertaining more so than the programmes
sometimes. If advertisers could emulate that on the web they would be onto a
winner I think, which I guess is what viral adverts already do.

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redorb
This is very similar to googles quality score - that means you can be the 2nd
highest bidder on a keyword and still get the 1st spot.

\- The problem is if they share the up and down votes; gaming will ensue.

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whatusername
Well - it seems to be working for Google. digg have a slightly different
audience though.

