5 ms·

I think this article missed a huge reason for the race to the bottom, and that's internet advertising. Articles are not written for "engagement" (per se), they'

by tetrep 10y ago

I think this article missed a huge reason for the race to the bottom, and that's internet advertising. Articles are not written for "engagement" (per se), they're written to make the publishers money. I think nobody is actually expecting anyone to click an advertisement (at least not on purpose), but getting people to view the article, and therefore view the ad, is likely the website's primary source of income. And as more and more ads are viewed and not clicked, (there's probably some adtech term for this) the price per view is going to go down, which will encourage more clickbait, which will drive the value of an impression down, etc. The article struck me as a bit weird, it complains about yellow journalism, but it doesn't really dig into why it's happening. It just declares that shitty articles are written for the metrics, and leaves it at that. As if "metrics" had any intrinsic value. The mapping of metrics to money, as done by internet advertisements, is the actual problem. While engagement is certainly a way to get more people to view more ads, it's but a tool and symptom of the system it's a part of, not the genesis of it.

rashkov 10y ago
You're right when it comes to publishers, but this article most resonated to me about why I stopped sharing on facebook, which does not involve money. I found that getting few or zero likes on a post was a negative signal and it really shaped the content that I was willing to share. I've felt for a while that I liked facebook when it was weirder and there was more diversity in the types of content, but that has really declined in their pursuit for optimizing engagement. Twitter still has this so I appreciate that network quite a bit more for it.
acomjean 10y ago
i would agree advertising is definitely polluting the content Im taking a genomics class, so I figured I'd look up to see if there are any videos for more information on some topics... Turns out there seems to be a cottage industry of having the computer read a definition, and post it on YouTube: for example this user. These videos show up often in searches and crowd out some of the more interesting stuff. https://m.youtube.com/user/medicaldictionaryapp https://m.youtube.com/user/medicaldictionaryapp
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
stevesearer 10y ago
I can't speak for everyone, but my site (https://officesnapshots.com https://officesnapshots.com) keeps the advertising very much aligned to the content so I do expect that readers will click the ads on purpose and actually gain value from them. When you're browsing around looking at office design projects and photos, you're seeing static advertisements for office furniture and services you might be interested in if you're in the industry. And if you're spending time on a website that consists only of office photos, you are probably are in the group interested in the advertisements.
- yjftsjthsd-h 10y ago
  > I do expect that readers will click the ads on purpose and actually gain value from them. I would be interested to know whether you have any stats to back this up; if it works this would be great.
  - stevesearer 10y ago
    What sort of stats are you looking for specifically?
    - netsecmonkey 10y ago
      Click Through Rate?
      - corin_ 10y ago
        CTR doesn't differentiate between accidental clicks and clicks from people who appreciated the advert. Sure, you could give it a gut judgement based on industry standard CTRs / personal experience, but it would be very rough. To actually judge whether users wanted to see the advert the best metric would be conversions, but that's likely data the site owner wouldn't have (and even with that data, you'd need something to judge it against - for all the talk that most adverts are ignored, the fact remains that some adverts through Google/Facebook/whatever ad-network can lead to direct conversions with a positive ROI). Not saying it wouldn't be interesting to hear what his typical CTRs are, just that nobody should look at the answer and think you can make significant judgements based on them.
kristianc 10y ago
> And as more and more ads are viewed and not clicked, (there's probably some adtech term for this) Wastage
davemel37 10y ago
> And as more and more ads are viewed and not clicked, (there's probably some adtech term for this) the price per view is going to go down, which will encourage more clickbait, which will drive the value of an impression down, etc. If that is true, the problem will solve itself eventually. As someone with more experience than most advertisers when it comes to native ads (i.e. outbrain, taboola, revcontent, etc...) I can assure you that clicks and impression costs are going up, not down. As people learn what works and the competition gets fiercer, the costs go up. The race to the bottom you fear is actually, a race to the bottom of what advertisers can afford to continue advertising. Right now, Native ads are dominated by supplements, which is essentially snake oil salesmen, and also some casino, and other either mass appeal or shady enterprises. Most legit businesses are priced out of the game...Paid Search and Paid Social have done a good job keeping out these low quality advertisers... Essentially, the race to the bottom of creating clickbait that you are pointing out, is actually a race to the top. A race to the highest margin, most mass appeal advertisers. If you really think about publisher incentives, they are more likely to create clickbait when the value of clicks goes up, not goes down. At some point of time when prices drop, it becomes easier to make money in other areas...so why bother. Edit: corrected spelling on a word
- pharrington 10y ago
  He was talking about the price advertisers pay to their customers, not the cost advertisers pay to run their networks.
kartan 10y ago
> nobody is actually expecting anyone to click an advertisement (at least not on purpose) This is problematic for me. The more a site knows about me, the better and more interested are the ads. But at the same time, it gets more scary. Look for an item on Amazon, and you will see it advertised in a lot of pages that you visit. It can be useful to remember that it is there, also tempting. But it is the same feeling that being at home and when you look back there is the guy from the gadgets shop with the camera that you were looking in his hand. Creepy. Scary.
- fjdlwlv 10y ago
  Technically all that really is is the website opens an iframe and loads a tiny Amazon.com window in it. It's like web browsing is a ride in a cab and the cab keeps driving by a store so maybe you'll stop there and shop.
FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
That a great deal of thr largest tech/Internet companies sell ads for shit we don't want to impress people we dont like is disheartening. I believed in the promise of the Internet to create a more informed, compassionate, open, and enlightened society and that hope is turning into disillusionment.
- freshhawk 10y ago
  I feel you on that one. I was never a utopian, it's just allowing more people to communicate with more people after all and people are what they are (mostly not informed, compassionate, open or enlightened). But I didn't expect the result to be this bad.
trapperkeeper79 10y ago
For the past few years, I've noticed that a major news site (CNN) has titles that I would term click-baity. Seems wrong to me.
kristianc 10y ago
The article is a bit strange. Is this really anything new? What you describe has been happening since at least the 1890s, where text heavy, low value adverts appeared in newspapers and magazines. The metric and the medium may have changed, but fundamentally the same thing was happening. Somewhere along the line (probably with the demise of AOL) it was decided that the model of the internet wasn't going to be such that we paid a subscription for the content we consume, but that the model would be akin to freesheets and completely ad funded. It's natural that people who invest in that kind of advertising are going to want some kind of metrics in return, and probably also natural that publishers will try to optimize for that metric too.
rayuela 10y ago
That was really well articulated.

by tetrep 10y ago

rashkov 10y ago

You're right when it comes to publishers, but this article most resonated to me about why I stopped sharing on facebook, which does not involve money. I found that getting few or zero likes on a post was a negative signal and it really shaped the content that I was willing to share. I've felt for a while that I liked facebook when it was weirder and there was more diversity in the types of content, but that has really declined in their pursuit for optimizing engagement. Twitter still has this so I appreciate that network quite a bit more for it.

acomjean 10y ago

i would agree advertising is definitely polluting the content Im taking a genomics class, so I figured I'd look up to see if there are any videos for more information on some topics... Turns out there seems to be a cottage industry of having the computer read a definition, and post it on YouTube: for example this user. These videos show up often in searches and crowd out some of the more interesting stuff. https://m.youtube.com/user/medicaldictionaryapp https://m.youtube.com/user/medicaldictionaryapp

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

stevesearer 10y ago

I can't speak for everyone, but my site (https://officesnapshots.com https://officesnapshots.com) keeps the advertising very much aligned to the content so I do expect that readers will click the ads on purpose and actually gain value from them. When you're browsing around looking at office design projects and photos, you're seeing static advertisements for office furniture and services you might be interested in if you're in the industry. And if you're spending time on a website that consists only of office photos, you are probably are in the group interested in the advertisements.

yjftsjthsd-h 10y ago
> I do expect that readers will click the ads on purpose and actually gain value from them. I would be interested to know whether you have any stats to back this up; if it works this would be great.
- stevesearer 10y ago
  What sort of stats are you looking for specifically?
  - netsecmonkey 10y ago
    Click Through Rate?
    - corin_ 10y ago
      CTR doesn't differentiate between accidental clicks and clicks from people who appreciated the advert. Sure, you could give it a gut judgement based on industry standard CTRs / personal experience, but it would be very rough. To actually judge whether users wanted to see the advert the best metric would be conversions, but that's likely data the site owner wouldn't have (and even with that data, you'd need something to judge it against - for all the talk that most adverts are ignored, the fact remains that some adverts through Google/Facebook/whatever ad-network can lead to direct conversions with a positive ROI). Not saying it wouldn't be interesting to hear what his typical CTRs are, just that nobody should look at the answer and think you can make significant judgements based on them.

kristianc 10y ago

> And as more and more ads are viewed and not clicked, (there's probably some adtech term for this) Wastage

davemel37 10y ago

> And as more and more ads are viewed and not clicked, (there's probably some adtech term for this) the price per view is going to go down, which will encourage more clickbait, which will drive the value of an impression down, etc. If that is true, the problem will solve itself eventually. As someone with more experience than most advertisers when it comes to native ads (i.e. outbrain, taboola, revcontent, etc...) I can assure you that clicks and impression costs are going up, not down. As people learn what works and the competition gets fiercer, the costs go up. The race to the bottom you fear is actually, a race to the bottom of what advertisers can afford to continue advertising. Right now, Native ads are dominated by supplements, which is essentially snake oil salesmen, and also some casino, and other either mass appeal or shady enterprises. Most legit businesses are priced out of the game...Paid Search and Paid Social have done a good job keeping out these low quality advertisers... Essentially, the race to the bottom of creating clickbait that you are pointing out, is actually a race to the top. A race to the highest margin, most mass appeal advertisers. If you really think about publisher incentives, they are more likely to create clickbait when the value of clicks goes up, not goes down. At some point of time when prices drop, it becomes easier to make money in other areas...so why bother. Edit: corrected spelling on a word

pharrington 10y ago
He was talking about the price advertisers pay to their customers, not the cost advertisers pay to run their networks.

kartan 10y ago

> nobody is actually expecting anyone to click an advertisement (at least not on purpose) This is problematic for me. The more a site knows about me, the better and more interested are the ads. But at the same time, it gets more scary. Look for an item on Amazon, and you will see it advertised in a lot of pages that you visit. It can be useful to remember that it is there, also tempting. But it is the same feeling that being at home and when you look back there is the guy from the gadgets shop with the camera that you were looking in his hand. Creepy. Scary.

fjdlwlv 10y ago
Technically all that really is is the website opens an iframe and loads a tiny Amazon.com window in it. It's like web browsing is a ride in a cab and the cab keeps driving by a store so maybe you'll stop there and shop.

FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago

That a great deal of thr largest tech/Internet companies sell ads for shit we don't want to impress people we dont like is disheartening. I believed in the promise of the Internet to create a more informed, compassionate, open, and enlightened society and that hope is turning into disillusionment.

freshhawk 10y ago
I feel you on that one. I was never a utopian, it's just allowing more people to communicate with more people after all and people are what they are (mostly not informed, compassionate, open or enlightened). But I didn't expect the result to be this bad.

trapperkeeper79 10y ago

For the past few years, I've noticed that a major news site (CNN) has titles that I would term click-baity. Seems wrong to me.

kristianc 10y ago

The article is a bit strange. Is this really anything new? What you describe has been happening since at least the 1890s, where text heavy, low value adverts appeared in newspapers and magazines. The metric and the medium may have changed, but fundamentally the same thing was happening. Somewhere along the line (probably with the demise of AOL) it was decided that the model of the internet wasn't going to be such that we paid a subscription for the content we consume, but that the model would be akin to freesheets and completely ad funded. It's natural that people who invest in that kind of advertising are going to want some kind of metrics in return, and probably also natural that publishers will try to optimize for that metric too.

rayuela 10y ago

That was really well articulated.