

Will There Ever be a Viable Adsense Competitor? - epi0Bauqu
http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2008/04/will-there-ever-be-a-viable-ad.html

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tom_rath
I think the question to ask instead is if there will be a viable _AdWords_
competitor. Without a strong pool of ads, you won’t have a competitive
alternative.

Looking at the system from my own perspective as an advertiser:

Google AdWords is absolutely amazing in its flexibility, customization, speed,
return on investment, etc. The tools provided are wonderfully helpful and I
happily shovel gobs of cash to The Google every month.

Microsoft AdCenter (Live.com) isn’t quite as flexible, but it’s getting there.
The tools are decent and improving, with the only limiting factor being the
modest number of visitors their search engine receives. The dribble of click
traffic from Live.com / MSN is small, but it’s worth paying for.

Yahoo Search Marketing by contrast is an absolute joke. The ad system is slow,
inflexible, unreliable and a complete waste of time and cash. Even the most
basic filtering option –- displaying ads only on Yahoo’s Search page –- isn’t
available, and so your ads will appear on every spammy domain squatting and
adware site under the sun. If you’ve a high per-click cost, advertising cash
spent at Yahoo is completely wasted and is best directed back to (you guessed
it) Google.

Ask.com, etc: Similar. Within a day of signing up and advertising, you’ll see
a remarkable number of clicks, all originating from sleazy domain squatters
and link farms. As far as competing for ads goes, these guys aren’t even in
the race.

My dream: I’d love to see Microsoft acquire Yahoo and replace Yahoo’s joke of
an ad management system with Live.com’s halfway decent alternative. That one
action alone would probably do more for Yahoo’s bottom line than any number of
new niche content network improvements... but that’s another rant entirely.

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maurycy
People always seem to make the same mistakes in their thinking, again and
again.

Few years ago no one thought that IBM can be crushed. It looked like an
eternal company that nearly monopolized the market. Then, Microsoft appeared
and changed the computer industry we know. After few years, everyone
recognized Microsoft as a giant forever. Of course, it didn't take too much
time to Yahoo! to appear, and then, to Google to appear.

Other thing we can learn from the history is that today's market doesn't
matter in the long run. You don't innovate by fighting their own game, but by
creating your own, with your rules.

~~~
epi0Bauqu
I'm not sure if you are referring to me (the post's author) or not. In any
case, what I was trying to say, is "where is the viable AdSense competitor?"
and not "that there will never be one." In fact, the post casually argues the
opposite, i.e. that there should be one already!

Or are you trying to say that it is a waste of time to chase AdSense and
instead one should concentrate on some end-run around it? To that I would say,
well, both! There seems no no reason to forgo billions of dollars in yearly
revenue for the foreseeable future.

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maurycy
Yes, I partially reffer to you, but in a broader sense.

The most important to recognize, in my opinion, is that there is no such thing
as a huge market of delivering Google-alike ads. There's only a market of
finding right customers for companies, and this is the market that makes
billions of dollars every year. (just like there's no "Turkish food market" --
there's only "cheap quickly delivered food for busy people market")

This is how the innovation works: you find completely new answers to old
problems. And what you asked for is a mere slighty better reiteration of the
answer that works pretty well. Unfortunately, if you want to grab the money
from the desk, you can't do this.

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epi0Bauqu
I see your point, but I respectfully disagree with the notion that you need a
new solution to grab some of this money. If there was a credible company that
offered an exact clone of AdSense (i.e., no further innovation) but they paid
more, I believe people would switch. I know I would.

~~~
davidw
Right. There are some network effects in this market, but they're not _that_
strong. Offer more money, and people will jump. It's not like the MS Office
market where people have to be dragged kicking and screaming to a free
alternative.

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rw
Yes.

~~~
caudicus
So either you are working on some startup that will be a viable competitor but
are still in the famed "stealth mode", or you know public information you are
not sharing with us. C'moonnn, tell us more. ;)

