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Suggest PG: Put ads on HN and donate revenue

7 points by ssn 15y ago

I think that even a discrete ad on Hacker News home page will result in revenue. This revenue could be used to fund some charity, e.g. related to CS education. Ads data could also be made public and used as a case study.

conorgdaly 15y ago
People have to click the ads for revenue to be made. This being HN, an aggregator for people who spend most of their day on computers(& the web), I think it's safe to say most of us have become immune to ads, and the effort(however minimal) in setting up\managing ads would ultimately be futile. What HN could possibly do is have an affiliate link when a product is featured; I think most people would make the conscious effort to buy via HN to support it.
- DanBC 15y ago
  > People have to click the ads for revenue to be made. Is that true? I remember someone saying that ad-blockers were evil because the website got revenue for views, not just clicks, and ad-blockers were killing that revenue. (http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/03/why-ad-blocking-is-devastating-to-the-sites-you-love.ars http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/03/why-ad-blocking...) >There is an oft-stated misconception that if a user never clicks on ads, then blocking them won't hurt a site financially. This is wrong. Most sites, at least sites the size of ours, are paid on a per view basis. If you have an ad blocker running, and you load 10 pages on the site, you consume resources from us (bandwidth being only one of them), but provide us with no revenue. Because we are a technology site, we have a very large base of ad blockers.
  - conorgdaly 15y ago
    OK, my initial post was premature, After some googling, sites can get income using the CPM/CPI model(Cost per thousand impressions). I stand corrected.
    - conorgdaly 15y ago
      Continuing with that thought though: if the people advertising didn't see some sort of gain(financial or otherwise), they wouldn't be long in pulling the ads from HN. It's great getting eyeballs & all but if that doesn't turn into something more concrete, nobody's gonna pay. Sure, other advertisers would step in but they'd see the same results(minimal\zereo ROI) as previous advertisers, and before long, HN would be regarded as a no go for CPI/CPM ads.
    - fakelvis 15y ago
      There's also another way of making money from advertising: flat rate. While I'm opposed to the idea of ads on HN, if it were to be implemented I can't imagine PG looking at CPI/CPC methods. Rather, I suspect advertising space would be 'rented' on a monthly basis for a much higher fee to technology companies, etc. But I'll reiterate: I'm against advertising on HN for multiple reasons (poor revenue model for a community like this; there are better alternatives; I don't like them), and I would not be surprised if PG was too (although I've not way of knowing).
DanBC 15y ago
I would pay a small sum to read / post to HN, especially if I can avoid ads. I don't care what they do with that money. I do not use an ad-blocker. I wouldn't if HN got ads, but it'd be a shame.
mooism2 15y ago
We're a tech savvy bunch who know how to use AdBlock. Yes, some of choose not to block ads, but at a lower rate than on the average site. Why not donate directly to a charity of your choice, instead of asking PG to sell your attention and donate the proceeds to a charity of his choice? How useful would the ad data be? Would having ads on HN detract from the usefulness of HN as a marketing tool for YC?
jgrahamc 15y ago
I would be very strongly opposed to this idea. Advertising is a distraction, and one of the great things about HN is the lack of distraction. The site layout is simple, the stories are relevant. The last thing I want from HN is noise. The signal/noise ratio is fantastic here. Let's keep it that way. It's often the case that people want to get the public (in this case the HN public) to accept some ill in the name of charity. I truly believe that members here should make private donations to charities if they wish to, there's no need for us to become another site covered in ads for charities no matter how closely 'related' they are to the content.
huhtenberg 15y ago
Better yet - Allow reddit-style promoted posts on relevant subjects. Make them behave like those locked "XYZ is hiring" posts - start on top and drop a couple of positions per hour. Except allow the comments too. Limit the number of spots to one or two per day and auction them off. That should greatly help with launching projects on HN, which seems to be an emerging trend that is not likely to be going anywhere soon.
ssn 15y ago
Do you think that something like the deck ( the ad network for designers ) would make sense for developers? Ads are not uninteresting by design.

7 points by ssn 15y ago

conorgdaly 15y ago

People have to click the ads for revenue to be made. This being HN, an aggregator for people who spend most of their day on computers(& the web), I think it's safe to say most of us have become immune to ads, and the effort(however minimal) in setting up\managing ads would ultimately be futile. What HN could possibly do is have an affiliate link when a product is featured; I think most people would make the conscious effort to buy via HN to support it.

DanBC 15y ago
> People have to click the ads for revenue to be made. Is that true? I remember someone saying that ad-blockers were evil because the website got revenue for views, not just clicks, and ad-blockers were killing that revenue. (http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/03/why-ad-blocking-is-devastating-to-the-sites-you-love.ars http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2010/03/why-ad-blocking...) >There is an oft-stated misconception that if a user never clicks on ads, then blocking them won't hurt a site financially. This is wrong. Most sites, at least sites the size of ours, are paid on a per view basis. If you have an ad blocker running, and you load 10 pages on the site, you consume resources from us (bandwidth being only one of them), but provide us with no revenue. Because we are a technology site, we have a very large base of ad blockers.
- conorgdaly 15y ago
  OK, my initial post was premature, After some googling, sites can get income using the CPM/CPI model(Cost per thousand impressions). I stand corrected.
  - conorgdaly 15y ago
    Continuing with that thought though: if the people advertising didn't see some sort of gain(financial or otherwise), they wouldn't be long in pulling the ads from HN. It's great getting eyeballs & all but if that doesn't turn into something more concrete, nobody's gonna pay. Sure, other advertisers would step in but they'd see the same results(minimal\zereo ROI) as previous advertisers, and before long, HN would be regarded as a no go for CPI/CPM ads.
  - fakelvis 15y ago
    There's also another way of making money from advertising: flat rate. While I'm opposed to the idea of ads on HN, if it were to be implemented I can't imagine PG looking at CPI/CPC methods. Rather, I suspect advertising space would be 'rented' on a monthly basis for a much higher fee to technology companies, etc. But I'll reiterate: I'm against advertising on HN for multiple reasons (poor revenue model for a community like this; there are better alternatives; I don't like them), and I would not be surprised if PG was too (although I've not way of knowing).

DanBC 15y ago

I would pay a small sum to read / post to HN, especially if I can avoid ads. I don't care what they do with that money. I do not use an ad-blocker. I wouldn't if HN got ads, but it'd be a shame.

mooism2 15y ago

We're a tech savvy bunch who know how to use AdBlock. Yes, some of choose not to block ads, but at a lower rate than on the average site. Why not donate directly to a charity of your choice, instead of asking PG to sell your attention and donate the proceeds to a charity of his choice? How useful would the ad data be? Would having ads on HN detract from the usefulness of HN as a marketing tool for YC?

jgrahamc 15y ago

I would be very strongly opposed to this idea. Advertising is a distraction, and one of the great things about HN is the lack of distraction. The site layout is simple, the stories are relevant. The last thing I want from HN is noise. The signal/noise ratio is fantastic here. Let's keep it that way. It's often the case that people want to get the public (in this case the HN public) to accept some ill in the name of charity. I truly believe that members here should make private donations to charities if they wish to, there's no need for us to become another site covered in ads for charities no matter how closely 'related' they are to the content.

huhtenberg 15y ago

Better yet - Allow reddit-style promoted posts on relevant subjects. Make them behave like those locked "XYZ is hiring" posts - start on top and drop a couple of positions per hour. Except allow the comments too. Limit the number of spots to one or two per day and auction them off. That should greatly help with launching projects on HN, which seems to be an emerging trend that is not likely to be going anywhere soon.

ssn 15y ago

Do you think that something like the deck ( the ad network for designers ) would make sense for developers? Ads are not uninteresting by design.