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I think you misread the article, which is not about the segment of the ad market that wants to know so much about its audience. Instead it’s about the ads that

I think you misread the article, which is not about the segment of the ad market that wants to know so much about its audience. Instead it’s about the ads that are currently on TV. The ads that are about broad brand recognition, not about microtargeting the audience. The point is that Google and Facebook already won the battle for their markets but they have no particular advantage over other media companies in competing for the rest of the ad market. In fact they are worse off because they have no existing brand of TV like content and they don’t have the cash reserves to buy their way in. This article is a couple of years old but in the interim Facebook and Google have both had to back up and re-assess their media production strategies because so far they’ve been failing exactly as this article predicted.

aasasd 8y ago
Personally I didn't even know Google and Facebook tried to produce something. What was that? I've only heard about YouTube's programs for creators, with workshops, free studio time and such.
- ethbro 8y ago
  This article was from a little over a year ago, and detailed what Google and Facebook were producing. I think your ignorance of their offerings (and I couldn't name anything either!) says what we need to know about their success.
  - aasasd 8y ago
    I'm sorry, but by "this article" you mean ... ?
    - ethbro 8y ago
      The submitted link. "Oct 16, 2017"
  - MarkMc 8y ago
    So Google have complety failed in producing popular content themselves, yet still managed to grow revenue at 22% per year. What does that say about Google's need to produce in-house content?
MarkMc 8y ago
My point is that even without the brand-recognition TV-style ads, Google has six sources of growth which in aggregate refute the idea that "the math's not pretty on digital advertising's future revenues". And even in brand advertising I'm skeptical of the idea that detailed knowledge of each viewer is not a significant advantage. When Mercedes advertises its brand, wouldn't it be prepared to pay more to target males older than 30 who last purchased a car more than 3 years ago? When McDonald's does brand advertising, shouldn't it prepared to pay more to show the ad to people who are overweight and pay less to show the ad to people who go to the gym 3 times a week and haven't been in a fast food restaurant in 6 months? And if the sales director of a large company has a wedding anniversary coming up, wouldn't a jeweller be willing to out-bid McDonald's for the right to place an ad in front of that sales director?

aasasd 8y ago

Personally I didn't even know Google and Facebook tried to produce something. What was that? I've only heard about YouTube's programs for creators, with workshops, free studio time and such.

ethbro 8y ago
This article was from a little over a year ago, and detailed what Google and Facebook were producing. I think your ignorance of their offerings (and I couldn't name anything either!) says what we need to know about their success.
- aasasd 8y ago
  I'm sorry, but by "this article" you mean ... ?
  - ethbro 8y ago
    The submitted link. "Oct 16, 2017"
- MarkMc 8y ago
  So Google have complety failed in producing popular content themselves, yet still managed to grow revenue at 22% per year. What does that say about Google's need to produce in-house content?

MarkMc 8y ago

My point is that even without the brand-recognition TV-style ads, Google has six sources of growth which in aggregate refute the idea that "the math's not pretty on digital advertising's future revenues". And even in brand advertising I'm skeptical of the idea that detailed knowledge of each viewer is not a significant advantage. When Mercedes advertises its brand, wouldn't it be prepared to pay more to target males older than 30 who last purchased a car more than 3 years ago? When McDonald's does brand advertising, shouldn't it prepared to pay more to show the ad to people who are overweight and pay less to show the ad to people who go to the gym 3 times a week and haven't been in a fast food restaurant in 6 months? And if the sales director of a large company has a wedding anniversary coming up, wouldn't a jeweller be willing to out-bid McDonald's for the right to place an ad in front of that sales director?