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This reminds me of my experience with Google Adwords. My target was to increase signups for travellers to selected cities looking for 'events nearby'. So, I sel

This reminds me of my experience with Google Adwords. My target was to increase signups for travellers to selected cities looking for 'events nearby'. So, I selected my cities and customer segments and had a limit set of 30 Dollars / day. Regularly, I paid for 2-5 Dollar more per day than my max price. I reduced the price to actually match my max price, but this would as a result out-price me of the relevant keywords. In addition, it never brought the clicks they charged me for. Yes, I was tracking the other side of it as well. I believe there is a whole world of click-fraud with Google and Facebook in this which noone is tracking. I am looking forward to a world where Silicon Valley is tackling the 'hard' problems of this world again (Space/ Marine Exploration, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data Analytics, etc) rather then the optimization of click bait.

michaelvoz 9y ago
Perhaps rather anecdotal, but this is why I joined Uber, and did not take my Facebook or Google offers. It feels nice to work on tech that directly impacts lives and how a persons day flows. As opposed to, as you correctly put it, optimizing click bait.
- jy1 9y ago
  There are a lot of teams at Uber optimizing for click bait lol.
- nostromo 9y ago
  If Google or Facebook were gone tomorrow, I'd definitely notice. If Uber was gone tomorrow, I'd use Lyft.
  - sgt101 9y ago
    My point would be that if Uber vanished Uber drivers wouldn't, and very rapidly they would be providing their services via alternatives. My feeling is that no one would lose if this happened, apart from Uber's investors.
  - sgt101 9y ago
    My point would be that if Uber vanished Uber drivers wouldn't, and very rapidly they would be providing their services via alternatives. My feeling is that no one would lose if this happened, apart from Uber's investors.
  - blacktulip 9y ago
    Well only if you are in US
  - samfisher83 9y ago
    You could use bing. Its about 90% as good.
    - JBReefer 9y ago
      DuckDuckGo has been fantastic lately, and the bang system keeps me from using anyone else.
- Jach 9y ago
  Both Google and Facebook work on "tech that directly impacts lives and how a person's day flows". So far producing more value than Uber has, but Uber provides a valuable service too. And while Google & Facebook's revenue is primarily from their ad business, they're not ad companies, like, say, Rubicon Project.
  - saimiam 9y ago
    How are they not ad companies? Together, FB and GOOGL receive a massive proportion of online ad spend.
    - sah2ed 9y ago
      They are tech companies not ad companies. It just happens that Google and Facebook draw most of their revenue from being middlemen in the advertising industry, the same way Uber is a middleman in the transportation industry -- Uber doesn't have the fixed costs that you'd expect a large cab company to have.
      - milesvp 9y ago
        All companies are tech companies in this day and age, it's a meaningless classifier. But not all companies recieve most of thier money from advertising and selling personal information, which makes ad company relevant classifier. Google is an ad company. Facebook is an ad company.
        sah2ed 9y ago
        I'm sure Warren Buffet will disagree with that generalization of all companies being tech companies, especially since he, the quintessential value investor, doesn't consider Berkshire Hathaway as one. Neither would Carlos Slim. Not that it means anything but at different times, each was once adjudged the wealthiest in the world. Calling a company a "tech company" speaks primarily to its competitive advantage in printing money, not the industry it is in.
      - briandear 9y ago
disiplus 9y ago
inside google adwords you have a invalid click rate, right now i have cca 13% per search campaign and 70% display from the start of this month till now, im sure thats not everything because for some time i tracked those invalid clicks from my side and those where bigger then what google reported. its frustrating but i can hardly do anything.
- inimino 9y ago
  How did you identify the invalid clicks?
  - dhimes 9y ago
    In some cases you'll see that they leave your page immediately- too fast for a human to process that it's not what they want if they've actually clicked on an ad. Like, one or two seconds.
    - mden 9y ago
      One or two seconds sounds pretty long to me. I think I close accidental ad clicks well under a second a lot of the time as I realize what I did without waiting for the site to load.
      - dhimes 9y ago
        Yeah I do that too but I don't want to pay for those clicks either. I want genuine interested clicks. Google is set up to get me to pay for clicks, not to give me the right clicks. Or at least it was when I used them. It's been a while because of that.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      One or two seconds is not too quick for a human to reject your page after clicking on an ad.
      - dhimes 9y ago
Silhouette 9y ago
Our brief experience with Google's ad network was similarly disappointing. A tiny fraction of the visitors we received were genuine, unless you think people coming from pages at bizarre domain names where the content is mostly a bunch of keyword spam in tiny, almost-white text are likely to be legitimate... I'm delighted to see a big, influential advertiser pulling serious money out of the market and openly saying why. Both Google and Facebook have some very dubious practices and very little transparency around their ad programmes. The little guy can't do much about that, but it won't take many nine-figure advertisers pulling the plug to force a change in how the whole online ad market works.
1_2__4 9y ago
> I believe there is a whole world of click-fraud with Google and Facebook in this which noone is tracking I believe it's actually a little more subtle than that. Google and Facebook don't have to commit fraud, and arguably their business model is to be a kind of middleman for fraudsters. They can be doing everything ostensibly above-board (and I would argue are) but profiting from the combination of advertisers and click farms.

michaelvoz 9y ago

Perhaps rather anecdotal, but this is why I joined Uber, and did not take my Facebook or Google offers. It feels nice to work on tech that directly impacts lives and how a persons day flows. As opposed to, as you correctly put it, optimizing click bait.

jy1 9y ago
There are a lot of teams at Uber optimizing for click bait lol.
nostromo 9y ago
If Google or Facebook were gone tomorrow, I'd definitely notice. If Uber was gone tomorrow, I'd use Lyft.
- sgt101 9y ago
  My point would be that if Uber vanished Uber drivers wouldn't, and very rapidly they would be providing their services via alternatives. My feeling is that no one would lose if this happened, apart from Uber's investors.
- sgt101 9y ago
  My point would be that if Uber vanished Uber drivers wouldn't, and very rapidly they would be providing their services via alternatives. My feeling is that no one would lose if this happened, apart from Uber's investors.
- blacktulip 9y ago
  Well only if you are in US
- samfisher83 9y ago
  You could use bing. Its about 90% as good.
  - JBReefer 9y ago
    DuckDuckGo has been fantastic lately, and the bang system keeps me from using anyone else.
Jach 9y ago
Both Google and Facebook work on "tech that directly impacts lives and how a person's day flows". So far producing more value than Uber has, but Uber provides a valuable service too. And while Google & Facebook's revenue is primarily from their ad business, they're not ad companies, like, say, Rubicon Project.
- saimiam 9y ago
  How are they not ad companies? Together, FB and GOOGL receive a massive proportion of online ad spend.
  - sah2ed 9y ago
    They are tech companies not ad companies. It just happens that Google and Facebook draw most of their revenue from being middlemen in the advertising industry, the same way Uber is a middleman in the transportation industry -- Uber doesn't have the fixed costs that you'd expect a large cab company to have.
    - milesvp 9y ago
      All companies are tech companies in this day and age, it's a meaningless classifier. But not all companies recieve most of thier money from advertising and selling personal information, which makes ad company relevant classifier. Google is an ad company. Facebook is an ad company.
      - sah2ed 9y ago
        I'm sure Warren Buffet will disagree with that generalization of all companies being tech companies, especially since he, the quintessential value investor, doesn't consider Berkshire Hathaway as one. Neither would Carlos Slim. Not that it means anything but at different times, each was once adjudged the wealthiest in the world. Calling a company a "tech company" speaks primarily to its competitive advantage in printing money, not the industry it is in.
    - briandear 9y ago

disiplus 9y ago

inside google adwords you have a invalid click rate, right now i have cca 13% per search campaign and 70% display from the start of this month till now, im sure thats not everything because for some time i tracked those invalid clicks from my side and those where bigger then what google reported. its frustrating but i can hardly do anything.

inimino 9y ago
How did you identify the invalid clicks?
- dhimes 9y ago
  In some cases you'll see that they leave your page immediately- too fast for a human to process that it's not what they want if they've actually clicked on an ad. Like, one or two seconds.
  - mden 9y ago
    One or two seconds sounds pretty long to me. I think I close accidental ad clicks well under a second a lot of the time as I realize what I did without waiting for the site to load.
    - dhimes 9y ago
      Yeah I do that too but I don't want to pay for those clicks either. I want genuine interested clicks. Google is set up to get me to pay for clicks, not to give me the right clicks. Or at least it was when I used them. It's been a while because of that.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    One or two seconds is not too quick for a human to reject your page after clicking on an ad.
    - dhimes 9y ago

Silhouette 9y ago

Our brief experience with Google's ad network was similarly disappointing. A tiny fraction of the visitors we received were genuine, unless you think people coming from pages at bizarre domain names where the content is mostly a bunch of keyword spam in tiny, almost-white text are likely to be legitimate... I'm delighted to see a big, influential advertiser pulling serious money out of the market and openly saying why. Both Google and Facebook have some very dubious practices and very little transparency around their ad programmes. The little guy can't do much about that, but it won't take many nine-figure advertisers pulling the plug to force a change in how the whole online ad market works.

1_2__4 9y ago

> I believe there is a whole world of click-fraud with Google and Facebook in this which noone is tracking I believe it's actually a little more subtle than that. Google and Facebook don't have to commit fraud, and arguably their business model is to be a kind of middleman for fraudsters. They can be doing everything ostensibly above-board (and I would argue are) but profiting from the combination of advertisers and click farms.