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I'm sure what I am about to say is no great insight here on HN, but I like saying it so here it is: There are two kinds of advertising: 1) Advertising that hel

by Amadou 14y ago

I'm sure what I am about to say is no great insight here on HN, but I like saying it so here it is: There are two kinds of advertising: 1) Advertising that helps you find what you need 2) Advertising that convinces you to spend money you would not otherwise have spent The lofty ideal has always been (1) but the reality seems to always turn out to be (2). We should stop giving lip-service to the lofty ideal.

TillE 14y ago
Mostly true, but #1 is still necessary. You just made a cool thing. You want people to know about it. How do you tell the world? Ideally, it'd be nice to have a thriving community of independent journalists and reviewers covering just about every topic and using their experience to evaluate new things. Consumers would know where to go to get the information they need. But reality is so much messier. It's February 2013 and I want to buy an X that does Y and Z. How do I truly make an informed decision to buy the absolute best product that meets my needs? Who the hell knows. The resources just aren't there, at least not in a convenient, comprehensive, and objective form. Consumer Reports does some of that, but they're limited in scope. Therefore, advertising and branding.
moxie 14y ago
Another way to look at it might be that #1 did happen, it's just called the internet. Twitter, for example, has an entire team of people working on "search and relevance." This is essentially #1, but it's not advertising, it's just how Twitter works. The core concept of sites like Twitter, Facebook, and even HN is that you should be seeing the content that you find interesting. What we call advertising in that context necessarily has to subvert #1. If it was the content that is already the most "relevant" to a user, there would be no reason for an advertiser to pay in order to make it visible to that user, since it would be what is naturally presented.

by Amadou 14y ago

TillE 14y ago

Mostly true, but #1 is still necessary. You just made a cool thing. You want people to know about it. How do you tell the world? Ideally, it'd be nice to have a thriving community of independent journalists and reviewers covering just about every topic and using their experience to evaluate new things. Consumers would know where to go to get the information they need. But reality is so much messier. It's February 2013 and I want to buy an X that does Y and Z. How do I truly make an informed decision to buy the absolute best product that meets my needs? Who the hell knows. The resources just aren't there, at least not in a convenient, comprehensive, and objective form. Consumer Reports does some of that, but they're limited in scope. Therefore, advertising and branding.

moxie 14y ago

Another way to look at it might be that #1 did happen, it's just called the internet. Twitter, for example, has an entire team of people working on "search and relevance." This is essentially #1, but it's not advertising, it's just how Twitter works. The core concept of sites like Twitter, Facebook, and even HN is that you should be seeing the content that you find interesting. What we call advertising in that context necessarily has to subvert #1. If it was the content that is already the most "relevant" to a user, there would be no reason for an advertiser to pay in order to make it visible to that user, since it would be what is naturally presented.