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You misunderstood the point of the article. Gmail is an ad conduit - but it's a glorified contextual display ad conduit. There's only so much upside there. How

You misunderstood the point of the article. Gmail is an ad conduit - but it's a glorified contextual display ad conduit. There's only so much upside there. However - selling email advertisers prime position for their precious emails and conveniently "bouncing", "hiding", or marking any non-paid emails as "spam" is much, much more lucrative. He's not arguing that gmail isn't an ad conduit - he's arguing that they're not efficiently monetizing the email sector as best they can (and Inbox is another attempt to improve that).

otterley 12y ago
On the other hand, customers will leave in droves if Google starts obscuring the visibility of legitimate emails. This would diminish the value of its ads, so I think they're unlikely to do that in the name of ad revenue optimization.
- IBM 12y ago
  >On the other hand, customers will leave in droves if Google starts obscuring the visibility of legitimate emails. There's no guarantee of that at all.
  - lern_too_spel 12y ago
    Obnoxious advertising is the reason I left Yahoo! Mail many years ago. It's even easier with Gmail because you can copy your old emails out with IMAP and forward new emails, all for free. All these conspiracy theories about Inbox seem to be using overly simplistic black and white reasoning. If Google didn't enrich emails with relevant information that users might eventually find as indispensable as a spam filter, somebody else would and steal their users, given how easy they've made it to move off their service. The jury's still out as to whether Inbox represents such an improvement, but it is obvious to me what its purpose is.
    - joelrunyon 12y ago
      How is it a conspiracy theory to think that an ad-based company is trying to make ads perform more effectively with one of their high-profile properties by trying out a new app medium?
      - lern_too_spel 12y ago
        You're right. Conspiracy theory may be overstating it. My point is that so far, everything points to Inbox falling on the "get/keep more users" side of the spectrum as opposed to the "increase monetization on existing users" side, similar to how Google Now tries to keep users giving information to Google as opposed to show them ads directly. It may eventually do both, but the former is what the current features target.
  - vonklaus 12y ago
    I mean, there is no guarantee of anything, to the extent that there is uncertainty. However, if I have email to receive messages, and I don't receive messages, I would obviously leave. That is emails utility, a message conduit. It would be silly for a company to obscure legitimate messages and it would be baffling if anyone was stupid enough to try.
magicalist 12y ago
What? This isn't the point of the article--nothing in it even implies anything about people buying a spot in your inbox--and selling an advertising email slot guaranteed not to fall into the spam folder would be the dumbest move an email provider could possibly make. We also only have to look as far as the fact that sometimes email from Google themselves gets put in the spam folder to see the likelihood of this coming to pass.
- joelrunyon 12y ago
  "Buying a spot" is hyperbole, but that's the direction it's headed (not saying that will be the exact iteration). The point of the article is that Google is moving / transitioning businesses into areas where they can effectively monetize it (and gmail is a great tool, but doesn't bring in the desired cash flow atm). > and selling an advertising email slot guaranteed not to fall into the spam folder would be the dumbest move an email provider could possibly make. Explain your thinking here?
  - magicalist 12y ago
    > The point of the article is that Google is moving / transitioning businesses into areas where they can effectively monetize it Except it's not the point. The article points out that it's moving to mediated consumption of email instead of just a good interface on "here's all your email". There's no argument about cash flow in the article, and you'll have to actually demonstrate that they're moving in that monetization direction to assert it. Meanwhile I'm not sure what a non-hyperbolic version of "buying a spot" would be, so you'll have to specify for me to respond to it. >> and selling an advertising email slot guaranteed not to fall into the spam folder would be the dumbest move an email provider could possibly make. > Explain your thinking here? Google makes money if people choose to use their products. Since so many people already use Google products today, there is some lock in due to convenience (all my email is already in there, I have an Android phone at least until my contract renews, etc), but offering a spam filter that doesn't work as long as someone is willing to pay would be a death blow. The Promotions tab contains advertising in email, but it's the advertising you signed up for. For some reason this blows people's minds, but people really do sign up for those email updates from businesses to see new products and deals. Having a way to organize those emails is not some sinister new advertising plot by google. Not to mention that an offer by google to make sure spam bypasses the spam filter for only 1 cent per 1000 messages or whatever is kind of going to get noticed.
cromwellian 12y ago
Inbox doesn't show ads, and marketers are complaining that if anything, the promos folder hides their marketing spam by moving into something easily ignored.
- joelrunyon 12y ago
  > Inbox doesn't show ads. (Yet). Google is an ad company. They will. > the promos folder hides their marketing spam Would it surprise you that some people actually sign up for newsletters they want to read?
  - cromwellian 12y ago
    Would it surprise you that you can turn off the Promos folder, or train the classifier to put it into a different category with a simple drag and drop?
    - joelrunyon 12y ago
      Nope - did that a while ago.
vidarh 12y ago
Not only is it glorified contextual display ads. I worked at Yahoo a decade ago, and the mail team always took care to point out how hard it was to monetize the inbox compared to other parts of Yahoo: When people read their mail they are immersed in content they care about. Your ads are the furthest thing from their mind. When people browse news etc., their connection to the content is far more relaxed. When they are searching, they are often happy to see ads if well targeted. Yahoo got as aggressive about mail ads as they did because people were extra blind to ads in Mail. I know I behave that way: I never click on ads in Gmail, but in Google search results I quite often intentionally look at the ads and sometimes prefer the ads to the organic results. Mail was seen as a traffic driver, rather than mainly a revenue source: People check their e-mail a lot; and when they're done, or if there are no new messages, they may very well look at other content. Of course many things change in a decade, but I don't think peoples mail behaviour has changed all that much.

otterley 12y ago

On the other hand, customers will leave in droves if Google starts obscuring the visibility of legitimate emails. This would diminish the value of its ads, so I think they're unlikely to do that in the name of ad revenue optimization.

IBM 12y ago
>On the other hand, customers will leave in droves if Google starts obscuring the visibility of legitimate emails. There's no guarantee of that at all.
- lern_too_spel 12y ago
  Obnoxious advertising is the reason I left Yahoo! Mail many years ago. It's even easier with Gmail because you can copy your old emails out with IMAP and forward new emails, all for free. All these conspiracy theories about Inbox seem to be using overly simplistic black and white reasoning. If Google didn't enrich emails with relevant information that users might eventually find as indispensable as a spam filter, somebody else would and steal their users, given how easy they've made it to move off their service. The jury's still out as to whether Inbox represents such an improvement, but it is obvious to me what its purpose is.
  - joelrunyon 12y ago
    How is it a conspiracy theory to think that an ad-based company is trying to make ads perform more effectively with one of their high-profile properties by trying out a new app medium?
    - lern_too_spel 12y ago
      You're right. Conspiracy theory may be overstating it. My point is that so far, everything points to Inbox falling on the "get/keep more users" side of the spectrum as opposed to the "increase monetization on existing users" side, similar to how Google Now tries to keep users giving information to Google as opposed to show them ads directly. It may eventually do both, but the former is what the current features target.
- vonklaus 12y ago
  I mean, there is no guarantee of anything, to the extent that there is uncertainty. However, if I have email to receive messages, and I don't receive messages, I would obviously leave. That is emails utility, a message conduit. It would be silly for a company to obscure legitimate messages and it would be baffling if anyone was stupid enough to try.

magicalist 12y ago

What? This isn't the point of the article--nothing in it even implies anything about people buying a spot in your inbox--and selling an advertising email slot guaranteed not to fall into the spam folder would be the dumbest move an email provider could possibly make. We also only have to look as far as the fact that sometimes email from Google themselves gets put in the spam folder to see the likelihood of this coming to pass.

joelrunyon 12y ago
"Buying a spot" is hyperbole, but that's the direction it's headed (not saying that will be the exact iteration). The point of the article is that Google is moving / transitioning businesses into areas where they can effectively monetize it (and gmail is a great tool, but doesn't bring in the desired cash flow atm). > and selling an advertising email slot guaranteed not to fall into the spam folder would be the dumbest move an email provider could possibly make. Explain your thinking here?
- magicalist 12y ago
  > The point of the article is that Google is moving / transitioning businesses into areas where they can effectively monetize it Except it's not the point. The article points out that it's moving to mediated consumption of email instead of just a good interface on "here's all your email". There's no argument about cash flow in the article, and you'll have to actually demonstrate that they're moving in that monetization direction to assert it. Meanwhile I'm not sure what a non-hyperbolic version of "buying a spot" would be, so you'll have to specify for me to respond to it. >> and selling an advertising email slot guaranteed not to fall into the spam folder would be the dumbest move an email provider could possibly make. > Explain your thinking here? Google makes money if people choose to use their products. Since so many people already use Google products today, there is some lock in due to convenience (all my email is already in there, I have an Android phone at least until my contract renews, etc), but offering a spam filter that doesn't work as long as someone is willing to pay would be a death blow. The Promotions tab contains advertising in email, but it's the advertising you signed up for. For some reason this blows people's minds, but people really do sign up for those email updates from businesses to see new products and deals. Having a way to organize those emails is not some sinister new advertising plot by google. Not to mention that an offer by google to make sure spam bypasses the spam filter for only 1 cent per 1000 messages or whatever is kind of going to get noticed.

cromwellian 12y ago

Inbox doesn't show ads, and marketers are complaining that if anything, the promos folder hides their marketing spam by moving into something easily ignored.

joelrunyon 12y ago
> Inbox doesn't show ads. (Yet). Google is an ad company. They will. > the promos folder hides their marketing spam Would it surprise you that some people actually sign up for newsletters they want to read?
- cromwellian 12y ago
  Would it surprise you that you can turn off the Promos folder, or train the classifier to put it into a different category with a simple drag and drop?
  - joelrunyon 12y ago
    Nope - did that a while ago.

vidarh 12y ago

Not only is it glorified contextual display ads. I worked at Yahoo a decade ago, and the mail team always took care to point out how hard it was to monetize the inbox compared to other parts of Yahoo: When people read their mail they are immersed in content they care about. Your ads are the furthest thing from their mind. When people browse news etc., their connection to the content is far more relaxed. When they are searching, they are often happy to see ads if well targeted. Yahoo got as aggressive about mail ads as they did because people were extra blind to ads in Mail. I know I behave that way: I never click on ads in Gmail, but in Google search results I quite often intentionally look at the ads and sometimes prefer the ads to the organic results. Mail was seen as a traffic driver, rather than mainly a revenue source: People check their e-mail a lot; and when they're done, or if there are no new messages, they may very well look at other content. Of course many things change in a decade, but I don't think peoples mail behaviour has changed all that much.