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Google launches Contributor, a crowdfunding tool for publishers

160 points by plantain 12y ago

netcraft 12y ago
so if I am reading this right this is a potential competitor to patreon? Interesting concept. Let me pay some money that gets split between the sites I actually visit and get out of seeing ads - I wonder how many users of adblock today would use this instead. I guess the problem is that google isn't the only ad network.
- Filligree 12y ago
  Running on the adsense network, though... I bet this'll be a powerful incentive for publishers who don't want to annoy their users to switch to adsense.
- TillE 12y ago
  Patreon has the key advantage of creating a direct emotional link with one person, or a small group of creators. Asking people to support a mostly faceless company is a much harder sell. There's an enormous gap between Mashable and Jim Sterling, or Red Letter Media. Creating something people care about is doable, but being someone that people care about is far more difficult for any of the listed publishers.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
conradk 12y ago
That's amazing. Google has taken over the web with ads. And now that everybody hates ads, it's suggesting you remove those ads with another Google product. It doesn't get any smarter than that. (this is not sarcasm, I actually think this is amazing in terms of strategy)
- peloton 12y ago
  Yeah, not only that but it's not easy for an org as big as Google to experiment with stuff like this when they have a huge advertising operation that's trying to sell more ads, not less. Moves like this have to be top down driven by a strong leader.
  - sidoxic 12y ago
    Doesn't matter money wise. Google will make its buck anyway. They confess that only part will go to the content owner. So business/strategy perspective, not much different for regular google ops. Transaction by user, rather than advertiser, is the only difference.
- grecy 12y ago
  > And now that everybody hates ads, it's suggesting you remove those ads with another Google product. It doesn't get any smarter than that. ...but how will they grow revenue in ~5 years when everyone has paid to remove ads? Won't they put themselves out of business because if nobody is looking at ads, nobody will be paying for ads, so then there won't be any ads to display, and everyone will stop paying to not see ads. (genuine question)
  - conradk 12y ago
    I don't think this will happen. Most people will probably cope with ads. So Google will keep making business that way. But the ones that don't want to see ads may pay Google instead of using AdBlock. Also, some publishers may decide to use Google's solution instead of an in-house one, which allows Google not to be bypassed. If all that was to fail, I'm sure Google will find new problems to solve and more ways to grow revenue.
Nogwater 12y ago
Is there anything like this to remove pre-rolls and mid-rolls on YouTube?
- ismavis 12y ago
  Yes, only for music videos though. Youtube Music Key.
minimaxir 12y ago
> Google said the new feature is launching with 10 publishing partners, including Mashable, Imgur, WikiHow and Science Daily. Er, aren't most of the listed parters known for reposting unoriginal content from other parts of the web? I'm a fan of Patreon because it helps facilitate good original content which the internet needs. This doesn't.
- Filligree 12y ago
  They mention adsense, and this is an early version. I bet it'll be rolled out more broadly over time.
- judk 12y ago
  It's just weird because those are sites that people only go to because they are too cheap to pay for quality content. Why would they pay for these sites?
bsimpson 12y ago
Sounds a lot like Flattr, but with Google scale, it might actually get used.
schmrz 12y ago
Not sure if I'm reading this right, but is the amount limited to 3$? If it is, that's a pretty low limit. I wonder what's the reasoning behind that.
- opinali 12y ago
  One reason is that it's still beta. But it's not too low, a $3 budget will buy some 1000 impressions at average CPM rates for display ads.
chris_va 12y ago
Some math: -- $3/month/user 10 sites the user visits daily (for argument's sake) 3 pages visited per site (for argument's sake) 30 days per month => Each site: $3 * 1/10 * 1/30 => $0.01/day/user Each page: $0.01/day/user over 3 sites/user/day => ~$3.33 CPM. -- Publishers right now average higher (~$5, up to $15) CPM, so this sounds like something that will lose them money for a non-biased set of users. Of course, maybe this selects for folks who otherwise wouldn't click on ads... I guess we will find out. It could also just select for publishers that are not able to monetize their content effectively.
- Throwaway12928 12y ago
  $5 - $15 CPM is way above average.
  - chris_va 12y ago
    I got my numbers from the news publishers directly. They do a better job of selling to ad networks than a typical website.
    - cheald 12y ago
      Direct sales CPMs are substantially higher than remnant inventory CPMs; Google is "competing" with the latter here.
- hayksaakian 12y ago
  Your CPMs are innacurate for view based web content.
cylinder 12y ago
This is one of the strangest things I've seen from google.
- oceanplexian 12y ago
  You mean other than Google Glass - right?
kissickas 12y ago
Here's the link, because that website is gross: https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/ https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/
rgovind 12y ago
Fun thought experiment. Take all ad-supported services you are using now. If you were asked to pay for them, how much would you pay? For me, it comes to $100+ per month but that seems like a steep price to pay.
- Filligree 12y ago
  :O How do you compute that number?
  - rgovind 12y ago
    I use Skype, gmail, google search, youtube, Skype == $10/m Gmail = $5/m Search = $20/m (Information is valuable) Youtube = $20/m (Equivalent to cinema) Rest is made of long tail. These are what I would be willing to pay for these services
    - Filligree 12y ago
      I'm pretty sure those numbers are too high, if you use the CPM of ads on those services as your source of truth. EDIT: And I just realized that means you'd be willing to pay.
      - rgovind 12y ago
        For Skype, I compared with my phone service. Youtube...with my movie going...etc
- hayksaakian 12y ago
  I agree. When it comes down to it, I would pay 100$/m for the top 10 ad supported websites i use the most. The thing to keep in mind is that the ad supported model is amazing for trying things out, so we really need both. Having used gmail since I was in high school, I would not have been able to pay for it then, but nowadays its invaluable, and 10$/m is a drop in the bucket.
- lettercarrier 12y ago
rgovind 12y ago
So, we will see startups spring up that will compare whether it is profitable for you to use ads or solicit contributions from users. Also, this ties in with Google's efforts in payment space.
Throwaway12928 12y ago
They're starting incredibly small with 10 publishers. Users have a bigger incentive to signup when ads will be removed from a large number of sites they visit. For example, if I just use Imgur, why don't I just upgrade to Imgur Pro for the same price, get the ads removed, and the extra Imgur perks? Now, if Google ads would be removed from a dozen of the most popular sites I visit, then yes, I'd consider it. I'm hoping this doesn't fail due to lack of publishers. Google has a tendency to lock everyone out for too long, so I'm worried it'll be another invite only flop.
sp332 12y ago
It looks like they keep an ad-shaped piece of the page to avoid breaking the layout of the page. Does the number of ad spots change the amount they get per page view?
ealize 12y ago
Just this morning, I was just listening to NPR's Planet Money: What's A Penny Worth? and wondering about this problem. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/05/16/312732409/episode-539-whats-a-penny-worth http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/05/16/312732409/episode-...
primitivesuave 12y ago
I think any site that wants to have an ad-free version that subscribers pay should do so without Google's involvement. I cannot imagine anyone voluntarily giving money to Google for something like ad filtering when ad blocking extensions to Google's own browser accomplish this for free. What I do see as realistic is someone loving The Onion or WikiHow so much that they pay for additional features that enhance your ability to use that site or enjoy your experience on it. For example, Urban Dictionary offers an option to print any definition onto a t-shirt or mug (although I don't know how successful this model has been for them, especially considering how vulgar most popular UD definitions are). Right now content creators are implementing freemium in an unattractive way - I completely stopped reading wsj.com after recent changes to their paywall, and I will immediately close a news article that throws a video in my face. But if the motley banners of Adwords are merely converted into "thank you" messages after I pay a couple bucks every month, the website hasn't suddenly become attractive to me, just less unattractive.
- opinali 12y ago
  One problem with paying individual websites is that you don't really want to create an account, providing your credit card information, to dozens of sites do you? What you suggest works well for heavily used websites (e.g. my daily feed of Ars Technica) but completely fails for stuff you visit every one in a while (e.g. my every-couple-months visits to The Onion). The existing ads infrastructure is almost perfectly suited to solve this problem. And when you compare this to ad blocking, hopefully you realize that ad blocking is not the most ethical thing to do; you are effectively stealing content. Most ad-supported websites clearly forbid this with TOS wording like: "The copying, reproduction, ..., or other use or change by you, directly or indirectly, of any such Website Content, including but not limited to the removal or alteration of advertising, is strictly prohibited" (Ars). Not all websites are good players either, but if the advertising practices of specific sites are bad then your only ethical choice is to not visit them at all.
munificent 12y ago
One way to look at this is that you're purchasing your own attention. An ad supported site works like this: 1. They spend effort producing some content. 2. You want to give all of your attention to that content. 3. Advertisers also want your attention. 4. To support their efforts, the creator diverts a fraction of your attention away from the content to the ad and the advertiser pays them for it. With this system, you basically bid and buy back that fraction of the attention diverted to advertising, and that money goes directly to the creator. One really interesting aspect of this is determining what your own attention is "worth" on the open market. By building this on top of AdWords system, they can calculate that automatically. If advertisers decide your attention is worth more and want to keep those ads in front of your face, they have to pay more, which again goes to the content creator. I think it's brilliant.
- eevilspock 12y ago
  Brilliant? Is it brilliant to simply revert to how the free market is supposed to work, where consumers pay producers because they think the product is worth it? Ad-supported sites fool consumers into thinking they're getting something for free, when in fact they're still paying, just indirectly . And not just the original straight-up price, but a host of additional costs[1]. Don't believe me? Where do you think the advertisers get the money to buy ad space? Of course it's baked into the products consumers buy from them. There is no free lunch. What does it say about your product if users aren't willing to pay for it? What does it say about your business when you tell users its free but don't tell them you've hidden your charges in the prices of the products that are advertised? That it's actually costing them more?[1] - [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237
  - tobltobs 12y ago
    "Ad-supported sites fool consumers into thinking ...." Maybe those ad supported sites just have to pay the server bills. And what does it say about you if you want to use a product and not aren't willing to pay for it? Not even indirectly via ads?
    - 12y ago
ilamont 12y ago
It is encouraging to see Google working on a new product to help publishers generate revenue, but it looks like it only disables Google advertising. Most publishers use multiple ad platforms. Unless those are disabled too, users may question the value of donating money if it's not creating a true ad-free experience.
jacques_chester 12y ago
Well this is annoying; I've been trying to start what is, now, a competitor.
tonydiv 12y ago
Seems to me like the people that would consider using this generally use Adblock... I really can't even use the Internet without Adblock. I install it on every computer I use. I don't think this will succeed. I am not willing to pay when I have other options available.
- dalek_cannes 12y ago
  In other words, you want free content. But content costs time and money to produce. And content is inevitably colored by the source of the money. When the source is advertising, the content you receive is optimized for advertising. Of course, this is not a problem if you're happy with the content you're getting now.
Flimm 12y ago
How does this work for me as a user? If I pay Google contributor $1 a month, do I see any ads at all in participating sites? Or do I only get a limited number of impressions ad-free, to encourage me to increase my spending? How does this work for publishers? Do they get paid a fixed amount per impression? Is it proportional to the time spent on the website? Does the website benefit from having higher spenders visit their website?
balladeer 12y ago
Shall Google be still tracking me? Because they had said they track me to show me those ads and now that I've paid them to remove those ads, I hope they can stop tracking me, shall they?
mikebay 12y ago
Google, don't be evil as you seems to be!

160 points by plantain 12y ago

so if I am reading this right this is a potential competitor to patreon? Interesting concept. Let me pay some money that gets split between the sites I actually visit and get out of seeing ads - I wonder how many users of adblock today would use this instead. I guess the problem is that google isn't the only ad network.

Filligree 12y ago
Running on the adsense network, though... I bet this'll be a powerful incentive for publishers who don't want to annoy their users to switch to adsense.
TillE 12y ago
Patreon has the key advantage of creating a direct emotional link with one person, or a small group of creators. Asking people to support a mostly faceless company is a much harder sell. There's an enormous gap between Mashable and Jim Sterling, or Red Letter Media. Creating something people care about is doable, but being someone that people care about is far more difficult for any of the listed publishers.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

conradk 12y ago

That's amazing. Google has taken over the web with ads. And now that everybody hates ads, it's suggesting you remove those ads with another Google product. It doesn't get any smarter than that. (this is not sarcasm, I actually think this is amazing in terms of strategy)

peloton 12y ago
Yeah, not only that but it's not easy for an org as big as Google to experiment with stuff like this when they have a huge advertising operation that's trying to sell more ads, not less. Moves like this have to be top down driven by a strong leader.
- sidoxic 12y ago
  Doesn't matter money wise. Google will make its buck anyway. They confess that only part will go to the content owner. So business/strategy perspective, not much different for regular google ops. Transaction by user, rather than advertiser, is the only difference.
grecy 12y ago
> And now that everybody hates ads, it's suggesting you remove those ads with another Google product. It doesn't get any smarter than that. ...but how will they grow revenue in ~5 years when everyone has paid to remove ads? Won't they put themselves out of business because if nobody is looking at ads, nobody will be paying for ads, so then there won't be any ads to display, and everyone will stop paying to not see ads. (genuine question)
- conradk 12y ago
  I don't think this will happen. Most people will probably cope with ads. So Google will keep making business that way. But the ones that don't want to see ads may pay Google instead of using AdBlock. Also, some publishers may decide to use Google's solution instead of an in-house one, which allows Google not to be bypassed. If all that was to fail, I'm sure Google will find new problems to solve and more ways to grow revenue.

Nogwater 12y ago

Is there anything like this to remove pre-rolls and mid-rolls on YouTube?

ismavis 12y ago
Yes, only for music videos though. Youtube Music Key.

minimaxir 12y ago

> Google said the new feature is launching with 10 publishing partners, including Mashable, Imgur, WikiHow and Science Daily. Er, aren't most of the listed parters known for reposting unoriginal content from other parts of the web? I'm a fan of Patreon because it helps facilitate good original content which the internet needs. This doesn't.

Filligree 12y ago
They mention adsense, and this is an early version. I bet it'll be rolled out more broadly over time.
judk 12y ago
It's just weird because those are sites that people only go to because they are too cheap to pay for quality content. Why would they pay for these sites?

bsimpson 12y ago

Sounds a lot like Flattr, but with Google scale, it might actually get used.

schmrz 12y ago

Not sure if I'm reading this right, but is the amount limited to 3$? If it is, that's a pretty low limit. I wonder what's the reasoning behind that.

opinali 12y ago
One reason is that it's still beta. But it's not too low, a $3 budget will buy some 1000 impressions at average CPM rates for display ads.

chris_va 12y ago

Some math: -- $3/month/user 10 sites the user visits daily (for argument's sake) 3 pages visited per site (for argument's sake) 30 days per month => Each site: $3 * 1/10 * 1/30 => $0.01/day/user Each page: $0.01/day/user over 3 sites/user/day => ~$3.33 CPM. -- Publishers right now average higher (~$5, up to $15) CPM, so this sounds like something that will lose them money for a non-biased set of users. Of course, maybe this selects for folks who otherwise wouldn't click on ads... I guess we will find out. It could also just select for publishers that are not able to monetize their content effectively.

Throwaway12928 12y ago
$5 - $15 CPM is way above average.
- chris_va 12y ago
  I got my numbers from the news publishers directly. They do a better job of selling to ad networks than a typical website.
  - cheald 12y ago
    Direct sales CPMs are substantially higher than remnant inventory CPMs; Google is "competing" with the latter here.
hayksaakian 12y ago
Your CPMs are innacurate for view based web content.

cylinder 12y ago

This is one of the strangest things I've seen from google.

oceanplexian 12y ago
You mean other than Google Glass - right?

kissickas 12y ago

Here's the link, because that website is gross: https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/ https://www.google.com/contributor/welcome/

rgovind 12y ago

Fun thought experiment. Take all ad-supported services you are using now. If you were asked to pay for them, how much would you pay? For me, it comes to $100+ per month but that seems like a steep price to pay.

Filligree 12y ago
:O How do you compute that number?
- rgovind 12y ago
  I use Skype, gmail, google search, youtube, Skype == $10/m Gmail = $5/m Search = $20/m (Information is valuable) Youtube = $20/m (Equivalent to cinema) Rest is made of long tail. These are what I would be willing to pay for these services
  - Filligree 12y ago
    I'm pretty sure those numbers are too high, if you use the CPM of ads on those services as your source of truth. EDIT: And I just realized that means you'd be willing to pay.
    - rgovind 12y ago
      For Skype, I compared with my phone service. Youtube...with my movie going...etc
hayksaakian 12y ago
I agree. When it comes down to it, I would pay 100$/m for the top 10 ad supported websites i use the most. The thing to keep in mind is that the ad supported model is amazing for trying things out, so we really need both. Having used gmail since I was in high school, I would not have been able to pay for it then, but nowadays its invaluable, and 10$/m is a drop in the bucket.
lettercarrier 12y ago

rgovind 12y ago

So, we will see startups spring up that will compare whether it is profitable for you to use ads or solicit contributions from users. Also, this ties in with Google's efforts in payment space.

Throwaway12928 12y ago

They're starting incredibly small with 10 publishers. Users have a bigger incentive to signup when ads will be removed from a large number of sites they visit. For example, if I just use Imgur, why don't I just upgrade to Imgur Pro for the same price, get the ads removed, and the extra Imgur perks? Now, if Google ads would be removed from a dozen of the most popular sites I visit, then yes, I'd consider it. I'm hoping this doesn't fail due to lack of publishers. Google has a tendency to lock everyone out for too long, so I'm worried it'll be another invite only flop.

sp332 12y ago

It looks like they keep an ad-shaped piece of the page to avoid breaking the layout of the page. Does the number of ad spots change the amount they get per page view?

ealize 12y ago

Just this morning, I was just listening to NPR's Planet Money: What's A Penny Worth? and wondering about this problem. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/05/16/312732409/episode-539-whats-a-penny-worth http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/05/16/312732409/episode-...

primitivesuave 12y ago

I think any site that wants to have an ad-free version that subscribers pay should do so without Google's involvement. I cannot imagine anyone voluntarily giving money to Google for something like ad filtering when ad blocking extensions to Google's own browser accomplish this for free. What I do see as realistic is someone loving The Onion or WikiHow so much that they pay for additional features that enhance your ability to use that site or enjoy your experience on it. For example, Urban Dictionary offers an option to print any definition onto a t-shirt or mug (although I don't know how successful this model has been for them, especially considering how vulgar most popular UD definitions are). Right now content creators are implementing freemium in an unattractive way - I completely stopped reading wsj.com after recent changes to their paywall, and I will immediately close a news article that throws a video in my face. But if the motley banners of Adwords are merely converted into "thank you" messages after I pay a couple bucks every month, the website hasn't suddenly become attractive to me, just less unattractive.

opinali 12y ago
One problem with paying individual websites is that you don't really want to create an account, providing your credit card information, to dozens of sites do you? What you suggest works well for heavily used websites (e.g. my daily feed of Ars Technica) but completely fails for stuff you visit every one in a while (e.g. my every-couple-months visits to The Onion). The existing ads infrastructure is almost perfectly suited to solve this problem. And when you compare this to ad blocking, hopefully you realize that ad blocking is not the most ethical thing to do; you are effectively stealing content. Most ad-supported websites clearly forbid this with TOS wording like: "The copying, reproduction, ..., or other use or change by you, directly or indirectly, of any such Website Content, including but not limited to the removal or alteration of advertising, is strictly prohibited" (Ars). Not all websites are good players either, but if the advertising practices of specific sites are bad then your only ethical choice is to not visit them at all.

munificent 12y ago

One way to look at this is that you're purchasing your own attention. An ad supported site works like this: 1. They spend effort producing some content. 2. You want to give all of your attention to that content. 3. Advertisers also want your attention. 4. To support their efforts, the creator diverts a fraction of your attention away from the content to the ad and the advertiser pays them for it. With this system, you basically bid and buy back that fraction of the attention diverted to advertising, and that money goes directly to the creator. One really interesting aspect of this is determining what your own attention is "worth" on the open market. By building this on top of AdWords system, they can calculate that automatically. If advertisers decide your attention is worth more and want to keep those ads in front of your face, they have to pay more, which again goes to the content creator. I think it's brilliant.

eevilspock 12y ago
Brilliant? Is it brilliant to simply revert to how the free market is supposed to work, where consumers pay producers because they think the product is worth it? Ad-supported sites fool consumers into thinking they're getting something for free, when in fact they're still paying, just indirectly . And not just the original straight-up price, but a host of additional costs[1]. Don't believe me? Where do you think the advertisers get the money to buy ad space? Of course it's baked into the products consumers buy from them. There is no free lunch. What does it say about your product if users aren't willing to pay for it? What does it say about your business when you tell users its free but don't tell them you've hidden your charges in the prices of the products that are advertised? That it's actually costing them more?[1] - [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8585237
- tobltobs 12y ago
  "Ad-supported sites fool consumers into thinking ...." Maybe those ad supported sites just have to pay the server bills. And what does it say about you if you want to use a product and not aren't willing to pay for it? Not even indirectly via ads?
  - 12y ago

ilamont 12y ago

It is encouraging to see Google working on a new product to help publishers generate revenue, but it looks like it only disables Google advertising. Most publishers use multiple ad platforms. Unless those are disabled too, users may question the value of donating money if it's not creating a true ad-free experience.

jacques_chester 12y ago

Well this is annoying; I've been trying to start what is, now, a competitor.

tonydiv 12y ago

Seems to me like the people that would consider using this generally use Adblock... I really can't even use the Internet without Adblock. I install it on every computer I use. I don't think this will succeed. I am not willing to pay when I have other options available.

dalek_cannes 12y ago
In other words, you want free content. But content costs time and money to produce. And content is inevitably colored by the source of the money. When the source is advertising, the content you receive is optimized for advertising. Of course, this is not a problem if you're happy with the content you're getting now.

Flimm 12y ago

How does this work for me as a user? If I pay Google contributor $1 a month, do I see any ads at all in participating sites? Or do I only get a limited number of impressions ad-free, to encourage me to increase my spending? How does this work for publishers? Do they get paid a fixed amount per impression? Is it proportional to the time spent on the website? Does the website benefit from having higher spenders visit their website?

balladeer 12y ago

Shall Google be still tracking me? Because they had said they track me to show me those ads and now that I've paid them to remove those ads, I hope they can stop tracking me, shall they?

mikebay 12y ago

Google, don't be evil as you seems to be!