5 ms·

Digg Will Charge Less for Ads Its Users Like

21 points by newacc 17y ago

whatusername 17y ago
Well - it seems to be working for Google. digg have a slightly different audience though.
adamhowell 17y ago
It'll be interesting to see if advertising can get any lowest common denominator than it already is -- i.e. eventually all ads not featuring boobies or explosions being downvoted into oblivion, etc.
calambrac 17y ago
The current economic incentives for sock-puppetry were just too subtle?
timmaah 17y ago
I wonder how good their up vote fraud detection will be. Or if it even matters to them for ads. Someone should (and probably will) start a service to buy up votes on ads. Pay out less then what your up vote discount from digg is and there is the business model.
redorb 17y ago
This is very similar to googles quality score - that means you can be the 2nd highest bidder on a keyword and still get the 1st spot. - The problem is if they share the up and down votes; gaming will ensue.
blhack 17y ago
I will be honest, I like ads. Wait, I should rephrase that...."I like useful ads." Yeah, thats better. My alter-ego is a recording engineer. You know the best place to learn about recording gear is? Recording industry mags! "Well, OBVIOUSLY, blhack, the articles teach you about the gear! DUH! NEXT! DOWNVOTE!" But wait, young troll, wait. The reason that those recording industry magazines are such great places to learn is the ads! The ads are targeted at recording engineers, and people working in studios. You may start out thinking to yourself "gee whiz, fellas, them recording equipments sure are neat!", but that is all you know about it! YOu know that there is a mythical land called a "studio" where magicians called "engineers" cook things in their cauldrons called "digital audio workstations" to produce wonderous audio adventures for your listening pleasure, but that is about it. You don't yet know the norms for how those DAWs work, what mics are useful for what, how much things cost, where they go, how they connect to each other, what ELSE you can do (outbourd effects [spells, I call them]) etc. etc. This is what the ads are there for. They're there to give you cues about what you should be looking at if you're building a studio. THIS is the holy grail of what google is trying to do! The advertisers know to just advertise their new condensor mics in the recording industry mags because they know who is reading them. What they DON'T know is who is reading BLOGS about the same things. That is where google steps in. Google crawls your site and tries to GUESS what sorts of ads you would be interested in. This can be highly effective, but it isn't as good at targeting as real people are. What digg is trying to do is figure out a way to bring humans back into the targeting equation. My prediction is that it will be a total failure, but it WILL mark a revolution in the way that ads are being delivered. (Affiliate marketers are already starting to do this to some extent by localizing their ads).
- ALee 17y ago
  My girlfriend once called me the advertiser's dream, because I honestly would watch Nike Basketball commercials or find ads that I loved and make her watch them. It'll be interesting to see how this does, but advertising in NYC has been talking about this stuff all the time. Tying content to the advertising, this is just another way I think to reward creative advertising.
  - blhack 17y ago
    The frustrating thing is that most designers really WANT to make interesting, artistic, beautiful ads. The types of things that people seek out. This doesn't happen because, often times, the people they're designer for look at it and don't "get" it. Look at the "think different" ad that TBWA did for apple way back when. The one that starts out "Here's to the crazy ones, this misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers". What does that have to do with apple computer? Absolutely, positively NOTHING, but you know what? I have that typed out and hanging on the wall in my office and I've watched the ad close to 100 times. Why is this? Because I love apple computer? Because I love TWBA? No. It is because this "ad" is art. This ad is the type of thing that happens when you turn a creative team loose and tell them to gasp get creative. Howabout the ads during the superbowl? Granted these are usually very very expensive, but my point is that if you create your ads as something that people WANT to watch (like movie trailers or music videos), they will.
kn0thing 17y ago
I must say, the sponsored link model has served us quite well at reddit for the last few months. I think digg is on the right track to profitability with this as an advertising method. Some of our most successful sponsored links ended with higher than a 10% clickthru rate. And the very best advertisers have sought our advice when crafting the ads. I'm happy to write copy if it means the ad will be better received since it's written by someone who intimately knows the community.
rythie 17y ago
I find adverts (in the U.K.) at quite entertaining more so than the programmes sometimes. If advertisers could emulate that on the web they would be onto a winner I think, which I guess is what viral adverts already do.
rythie 17y ago
My thought is that WWDC is on soon and Apple will get on digg (probably several times) and everywhere else. It seems some companies have already got themselves into a position where they don't need to pay to access that audience, where as EA and Intel clearly do.

21 points by newacc 17y ago

Well - it seems to be working for Google. digg have a slightly different audience though.

It'll be interesting to see if advertising can get any lowest common denominator than it already is -- i.e. eventually all ads not featuring boobies or explosions being downvoted into oblivion, etc.

calambrac 17y ago

The current economic incentives for sock-puppetry were just too subtle?

timmaah 17y ago

I wonder how good their up vote fraud detection will be. Or if it even matters to them for ads. Someone should (and probably will) start a service to buy up votes on ads. Pay out less then what your up vote discount from digg is and there is the business model.

redorb 17y ago

This is very similar to googles quality score - that means you can be the 2nd highest bidder on a keyword and still get the 1st spot. - The problem is if they share the up and down votes; gaming will ensue.

blhack 17y ago

I will be honest, I like ads. Wait, I should rephrase that...."I like useful ads." Yeah, thats better. My alter-ego is a recording engineer. You know the best place to learn about recording gear is? Recording industry mags! "Well, OBVIOUSLY, blhack, the articles teach you about the gear! DUH! NEXT! DOWNVOTE!" But wait, young troll, wait. The reason that those recording industry magazines are such great places to learn is the ads! The ads are targeted at recording engineers, and people working in studios. You may start out thinking to yourself "gee whiz, fellas, them recording equipments sure are neat!", but that is all you know about it! YOu know that there is a mythical land called a "studio" where magicians called "engineers" cook things in their cauldrons called "digital audio workstations" to produce wonderous audio adventures for your listening pleasure, but that is about it. You don't yet know the norms for how those DAWs work, what mics are useful for what, how much things cost, where they go, how they connect to each other, what ELSE you can do (outbourd effects [spells, I call them]) etc. etc. This is what the ads are there for. They're there to give you cues about what you should be looking at if you're building a studio. THIS is the holy grail of what google is trying to do! The advertisers know to just advertise their new condensor mics in the recording industry mags because they know who is reading them. What they DON'T know is who is reading BLOGS about the same things. That is where google steps in. Google crawls your site and tries to GUESS what sorts of ads you would be interested in. This can be highly effective, but it isn't as good at targeting as real people are. What digg is trying to do is figure out a way to bring humans back into the targeting equation. My prediction is that it will be a total failure, but it WILL mark a revolution in the way that ads are being delivered. (Affiliate marketers are already starting to do this to some extent by localizing their ads).

ALee 17y ago
My girlfriend once called me the advertiser's dream, because I honestly would watch Nike Basketball commercials or find ads that I loved and make her watch them. It'll be interesting to see how this does, but advertising in NYC has been talking about this stuff all the time. Tying content to the advertising, this is just another way I think to reward creative advertising.
- blhack 17y ago
  The frustrating thing is that most designers really WANT to make interesting, artistic, beautiful ads. The types of things that people seek out. This doesn't happen because, often times, the people they're designer for look at it and don't "get" it. Look at the "think different" ad that TBWA did for apple way back when. The one that starts out "Here's to the crazy ones, this misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers". What does that have to do with apple computer? Absolutely, positively NOTHING, but you know what? I have that typed out and hanging on the wall in my office and I've watched the ad close to 100 times. Why is this? Because I love apple computer? Because I love TWBA? No. It is because this "ad" is art. This ad is the type of thing that happens when you turn a creative team loose and tell them to gasp get creative. Howabout the ads during the superbowl? Granted these are usually very very expensive, but my point is that if you create your ads as something that people WANT to watch (like movie trailers or music videos), they will.

kn0thing 17y ago

I must say, the sponsored link model has served us quite well at reddit for the last few months. I think digg is on the right track to profitability with this as an advertising method. Some of our most successful sponsored links ended with higher than a 10% clickthru rate. And the very best advertisers have sought our advice when crafting the ads. I'm happy to write copy if it means the ad will be better received since it's written by someone who intimately knows the community.

rythie 17y ago

I find adverts (in the U.K.) at quite entertaining more so than the programmes sometimes. If advertisers could emulate that on the web they would be onto a winner I think, which I guess is what viral adverts already do.

rythie 17y ago

My thought is that WWDC is on soon and Apple will get on digg (probably several times) and everywhere else. It seems some companies have already got themselves into a position where they don't need to pay to access that audience, where as EA and Intel clearly do.