
Google Begins Testing Display Ads in Gmail - The Atlantic - bound008
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/01/google-begins-testing-display-ads-in-gmail/70355/
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plinkplonk
(imo) Just another sign that Google, like any other big company, is being
overrun by incompetent PowerPoint slinging managers with stupid ideas,
optimizing for short term results. Or maybe they are just running out of ideas
as the company bloats and ages. See the catch-up-to-bing-with-junk-UI-redesign
efforts for example.

If this is a success then one more small step and we'll get image ads for
search. The same justifications(and PowerPoint Decks) can be reused with minor
tweaks.

This does seem like bait and switch, as jacquesm points out. Sad, but IMAP +
Adblock should be enough as a short term fix I guess.

I haven't yet used AdBlock on Google ads because they are largely unobtrusive
text ads, but if this junk starts showing up in my Inbox I will.

Longer term Google needs some decent competition, especially in the search
space. Too dominant a position in any market is fertilizer for hubris.

~~~
bioh42_2
What pushed me into using Adblock is that every so often adds turn out to be
security problems. Sure, it is rare and fixed quickly but if they show up in
my gmail account, which I use for authentication, I will start looking for
another email service.

Anyone know of a great, secure and add free email service?

~~~
pasbesoin
This is a good point. If and as they proceed, they'd better run more than the
usual level of due diligence to insure they don't become a vector for
something nasty.

Google properties are some of the few I let through without a lot of filtering
(Gmail in particular). If it looks like they are becoming a vector, this will
lessen their utility for me and I will tighten the hatches on them.

(Of course, I suppose this factor won't apply for 99% of their users. We may
be the outliers having no statistical significance. At least, until something
big enough and bad enough slips through.)

I have mixed feelings about blocking advertising that provides supporting
revenue, but two factors override: Motion (and occasionally, sound), that
completely and thoroughly distracts me from the page content and which, over
prolonged exposure, leaves me "frazzled" and ineffective; and malware. (Also,
when graphics are overwhelmingly "bright" compared to the content, I need to
dial them down.)

Nothing that hasn't been said a thousand times before, I suppose.

~~~
bioh42_2
I too fear we are outliers.

But surely there must be a market for people like us who are also more likely
to be high earners and tech opinion setters. And surely there must a way for a
company to build trust and explain how/when/where advertising will be
displayed that is acceptable to people like us, and everyone wins. Market
opportunity?

~~~
pasbesoin
I've thought so. Haven't gotten my act together, yet, though, with respect to
tackling it.

EDIT: I guess that can sound kind of narcissistic. But, this is a forum with a
start up focus. So I feel I have some license to at least think in that
direction. :-)

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Smerity
I'd love to see the effect that these ads have on the users of Gmail, both
from Google's statistical end and also from a customer sentiment angle.

Gmail has touted the clean and simple feel as one of their main features for
so long that users may come to expect that of Gmail now. Understandably Google
has the right to show these ads considering it's a free service but will their
users see it the same way?

Could this open the field back up for new email competitors?

~~~
JacobAldridge
On a personal note (and I'm not seeing them at this stage - just checked a few
emails), the graphic ad _per se_ won't bother me. I use Gmail personally, in
basically the same headspace I use Facebook - I doubt Gmail ads will phase me
if they become as graphical and ubiquitous as Facebook ads, and frankly
they'll get just as many click-throughs from me (read: zero).

What does concern me is the point you raise about the fact that Gmail "touted
the clean and simple feel as one of their main features". In a world of
garishly fugly html emails, my inbox is rarely clean and simple, but Google
changing their position on this does create a market opportunity. And not
everyone will feel as non-impacted as I do.

I also agree with you that Google has the right to do this in their own free
service - if they want to, they can go for it, and if that creates a
competitor, I look forward to another webmail battle.

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jacquesm
Bait and switch. At least it took a few years.

This is typical, I remember when gmail was rolled out and the lack of display
advertising was touted as one of the big advantages over competitors (the
others were a very large amount of storage and a really effective spam
filter).

Let's see if the competition uses this as a way to get an edge over google.

~~~
axod
Yeah damn them for giving the world an awesome free email service and then
having the audacity to try and make some revenue from advertising. They should
be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Scratch that, they should be done for
fraud.

I want my money back!!! Oh wait...

~~~
jacquesm
Right. When you launch a service and point at the competition and say 'look,
no display ads, come join us' then you will be reminded of that when you
change tack later.

That does not diminish the quality of the actual service and does not diminish
the right of google to try to make as much revenue as they can.

It's just a good reminder that corporate promises amount to very little.

~~~
axod
Can you cite a reference there? I never heard GMail being touted as "Like the
competition, but no display ads". I was a fairly early user, and never heard
it talked of like that. Infact I remember the opposite - they got quite a lot
of flack basing the advertising on the content of your emails.

Some references to these "promises" would be cool also.

Personally, I don't use GMail because it doesn't have display ads, I don't
care about advertising, sometimes it's useful, sometimes not. I like seeing
it, because often it is useful.

I use GMail because it's a fantastic email client. Search is instant, features
other email clients only dream of. etc etc. A display ad doesn't take away
from that.

There's a line of acceptability with advertising. Display ads is still
extremely tame and non intrusive. When they start doing popups, popunders,
video ads with sound, the underlining of keywords with popup contextual ads,
etc... _then_ I'd be up in arms too.

~~~
jacquesm
> Can you cite a reference there?

No, this is not an academic paper.

But I distinctly recall the case being made that 'hotmail' and 'yahoo' mail
had interfaces that were considered inferior not because of their technical
capabilities but because of being loaded up with advertising and that this was
one of googles major plus points. The fact that the advertising was based on
the contents of your emails was the flipside of that coin at the time so
that's what people based their decision on.

> Some references to these "promises" would be cool also.

Another thing that google promised (and that I distinctly remember) was that
they wouldn't do 'paid placements' in the results, they broke that promise and
weaseled through the cracks by putting a little background colour on the ads.

(for instance: <http://www.google.com/search?q=black+socks> shows an ad for
blacksocks.com as the first result for me the first time I hit that search)

> Display ads is still extremely tame and non intrusive. When they start doing
> popups, popunders, video ads with sound, the underlining of keywords with
> popup contextual ads, etc... then I'd be up in arms too.

Ok, so we'll wait for a while then we simply draw the line in different
places.

Youtube now has video overlay ads and leaders on some videos, I don't see
anything keeping google from doing the same.

I no longer use gmail, I got a few ads that showed just a bit too much insight
in to the contents of the email than what I'm comfortable with. I do still
have a gmail account because I use it to log in to a bunch of google services
but no more gmail for me, I'll take the bit of extra spam that I get as the
price to pay for that decision.

And my email client (thunderbird) does not show any advertising at all,
keywords or otherwise.

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byrneseyeview
_Another thing that google promised (and that I distinctly remember) was that
they wouldn't do 'paid placements' in the results, they broke that promise and
weaseled through the cracks by putting a little background colour on the ads._

There's a huge difference between paid placement and ads--labelled "Ads"--that
correspond to search results.

~~~
jacquesm
The google of 2000 would _never_ have polluted their search page like that.
Not to mention all the google owned property links in the search results (and
those are not labeled 'ad').

~~~
axod
That's just because in 2000, they were trying to get as much market share as
possible. Also they probably didn't need to get more revenue at the time.

It sounds like you're trying to argue that Google has abandoned their core
beliefs, or been overrun with profit driven accountants or something.

I'm pretty sure the "get users, then figure out revenue" is a very widely used
strategy. Google are just more on the second part than the first...

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sp332
1\. Install an email client of your choice: Outlook, Evolution, Thunderbird,
etc.

2\. Enable IMAP access in GMail settings
[https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&shva=1#settings/fwdan...](https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&shva=1#settings/fwdandpop)

3\. Configure your client
<https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=75726>

Done, now I can check my email without ads! I can even (depending on client &
configuration) search emails with my platform search tool: Spotlight, Windows
Search, etc.

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shrikant
From [http://searchengineland.com/google-testing-display-ads-in-
gm...](http://searchengineland.com/google-testing-display-ads-in-gmail-62623):

 _We're always trying out new ad formats and placements in Gmail, and we
recently started experimenting with image ads on messages with heavy image
content._

Interesting. I wonder what 'image-heavy' is; attached images, or embedded
images that get blocked anyway...

~~~
rudiger
Google wants to target more (and better-converting) display advertisements on
daily deal subscription emails (ie. Groupon, LivingSocial), which always
feature plenty of images and style and are incredibly lucrative.

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motters
I only really use gmail as a spam filter anyway, forwarding mail to another
account, so I avoid seeing any banner ads or other nonsense.

My advice to any Google people who might be reading is to keep gmail as clean
looking as possible, and avoid image based ads (especially animated ones).

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sdrinf
Remember, folks: A/B testing a feature does not equal large-scale deployment.
The question isn't whether this move is right, or wrong, but rather, is a
statistically significant proportion of the target demographic going to click
through to justify the PR loss?

~~~
axod
Yes. The CTR and revenue for image ads is way above text ads. This is a good
move.

By "PR loss" I assume you mean "geeks moan for an hour or 2 on hacker news" ;)

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windsurfer
I wonder how many people would pay 3 dollars a month for a clean, usable
webmail interface for their domain.

~~~
bowmande
Some would, but most people would continue to use a free service. It would
have to seriously be causing the average user a pain to have them switch. More
likely would be another free service that could be the gmail of years past and
they would slowly become what gmail is today.

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blhack
How many of us actually access gmail via gmail.com anymore? It's an exchange
account on my phone, which syncs all of my contacts, and my calendar, and an
IMAP account on my desktops. The only time I ever actually sign into gmail.com
is when I need to set up a new filter (if I sign up for a new mailing list or
something), or if I want to use gmail's search.

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klbarry
I think the average person minds ads much less than the average
programmer/technical person. Just my personal experience. An online example
would be the constant barrage against advertising on Reddit, which you don't
really see in communities with different demographics.

