5 ms·
> Rather it will post sponsored content paid for and approved by advertising partners—and written by the same editorial team that writes editorial posts. “They’
by nindalf 11y ago
> Rather it will post sponsored content paid for and approved by advertising partners—and written by the same editorial team that writes editorial posts. “They’re going to be just as interesting as actual content,” Chang says. “It could be a piece on Tesla, a piece on how WiFi works, no matter what it’ll be good content—and it’ll just happened to be sponsored.”
This gives me some disquiet. I realise that this is what advertisers want - high quality ads that can't be blocked, but I think its harmful. In general, I avoid going to sites that have a policy of doing this.
- anc84 11y agoSites like Buzzfeed are cashing in hard with this kind of sham so this fad will ruin a lot more sites in the coming years.
- crdb 11y agoI talked to an Australian magazine that will remain nameless where the executive on the other side of the table told me their business model was 100% sponsored content. I couldn't tell, from their website. Every single article was a sophisticated ad. He said they were doing fantastically and growing fast, users wanted that kind of stuff. It reminds me of Ogilvy's book on advertising [1]; Ogilvy's experience taught him that informative ads that explained the advantages of the product were most successful with customers. Sponsored content is exactly that, and the opposite might be something like clickbait [2]. Sponsored articles are accessed voluntarily by the customer clicking on them and reading them, and returning to the site; they are unobstrusive being mostly made of text and of (relatively) higher editorial quality, with good photography and so on. I wonder if they are the future of advertising. On the topic of being unable to filter advertorial content from, well, content, I don't think it's as clear cut as ads vs not-ads, since every writer has their own set of opinions and presents their world view only (with few exceptions). A necessary life skill is critical thinking, learning to dissect an argument, examine its assumptions and data, and come to an independent conclusion as to the point it is making. [1] core principles are summarized in his "house ad": http://smartonlinesuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/david-ogilvy-how-to-create-advertising-that-sells.jpeg http://smartonlinesuccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/dav... [2] famously (NSFW): http://www.lazygamer.net/general-news/a-history-of-evony-ads-the-insanity-continues/ http://www.lazygamer.net/general-news/a-history-of-evony-ads...
- vidarh 11y agoIn Norway, this would basically require them to disclose the sponsorship on each and every post... I wonder how having to do that would affect such a model... In other words: Do users care?
- DanBC 11y agoSame in UK. The regulators are pretty strict that sponsored content has to be clearly labelled as such before the user clicks the link. http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/nov/26/vloggers-must-tell-fans-paid-adverts-asa-rules http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/nov/26/vloggers-must-t... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30203816 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30203816 https://www.asa.org.uk/News-resources/Media-Centre/2014/Making-ads-Clear-The-challenge-for-advertisers-and-vloggers.aspx#.VhOo4XXd-Rs https://www.asa.org.uk/News-resources/Media-Centre/2014/Maki...
- oneeyedpigeon 11y agoWait, so if I link to someone else's sponsored content, I need to declare that it's such? Surely that can't be the case.
- pjc50 11y agoNo, only if you've got some connection with the content sponsor.
- DanBC 11y agoIf Oreo cookies give me money and I make videos about Oreos I need to include the word "advert" or similar in the name of the video. You can link to that how you like. I can't, I need to make sure there's a difference between promoted content and my real content.
- kawsper 11y agoIn Denmark, you are required by law to state if an article is paid content or not. The law extends to both articles in magazines, but also the web, including blogs. The ads are not only happening in articles, it is also happening on Vine, where companies sponsor videos of popular users: http://mashable.com/2014/07/22/sneaky-vine-ads http://mashable.com/2014/07/22/sneaky-vine-ads https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YhqXUekgEc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YhqXUekgEc
- wldcordeiro 11y agoSounds like the downfall of Digg all over again.
- Angostura 11y agoVery happy as long as thee is an 'Ad' tag on there somewhere - like Digg does.
- gopowerranger 11y agoRelated: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/12/the-price-is-right-emily-nussbaum http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/12/the-price-is-ri...
- TeMPOraL 11y agoMe too. Native advertising is plain evil, in a way even the worst drive-by malware flash popups aren't. They're ads designed with the sole purpose of tricking readers into thinking they're viewing a real article, and they abuse the trust readers have towards the news source. I think John Olliver covered the topic well enough[0], so let me just say that I only hope that Upvoted will label the ads clearly so that it's obvious for everyone they're reading paid content (imagine advertisers letting them do that, though...). > It could be a piece on Tesla Wait, since when Tesla does native ads? Do they do ads at all? [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_F5GxCwizc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_F5GxCwizc