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Yes, because the primary "user" for a company like Yahoo! or Google is the advertiser, not the mailing list user.
by zedshaw 17y ago
Yes, because the primary "user" for a company like Yahoo! or Google is the advertiser, not the mailing list user.
- stcredzero 17y agoAnd it's not as if they exactly roll out the red carpet for all of their advertising users either. One runs across complaints all the time. So expect to be treated just a little worse than those other guys who make Google & Yahoo money.
- netcan 17y agoThe primary "user" for a TV show is the advertiser. Doe that mean they don't care about ratings?
- viraptor 17y agoThey do... That's why you will get ads in the middle of the most popular shows. (advertiser's business over user experience again) Ratings are per show, not per channel really.
- scott_s 17y agoThe ratings for a show determine how much a network can charge the advertisers for commercial time.
- netcan 17y agoYes that is true. But that isn't the point of the question. The implication of the parent is that since Google (by analogy TV companies) make money from advertising, they have less incentive to take care of users. Ratings determine how much a network can charge the advertisers for commercial time. Ratings are a measure of viewer satisfaction. This isn't coincidental.
- scott_s 17y agoThe analogy fails because networks have a finite amount of air time to sell every day. Shows with low ratings get dropped. Google and others can literally create advertising space. Applications with relatively low usage cost them little, but they are also unlikely to invest in improving it.
- netcan 17y agoGoogle have an equivalent of limited space.
- stinkytaco 17y agoNo they don't. They have limited attention, but their space is, for all intents and purposes, infinite. Networks have 24 hours of programming, Google has millions of page views, application users, etc. But, even if something gets very small amounts of attention, it is still incredibly cheap to serve ads (because that's all automated) and, as a result, make money. The user experience only has to be good enough to keep enough people using it that you break even on the infrastructure.
- netcan 17y agoThat's not true. The world of online advertising has not been rewarding to those that provide not very popular services cheaply. This has certainly never been the case for Google. The only services doing well from advertising on a large scaleare the very popular ones This thread is awful. Every comment is completely on its own. No context. I say 'Google has the equivalent of online space and of course I have to prove that to be true in every possible context. It is the earlier post by zedshaw that made a general claim that when the provider gets paid by an advertiser, a user cannot count on being looked after (more then in direct payments). I gave an example of industry that for decades has been proving this statement wrong. I get pounced, red herrings swinging. If you are continuing the argument of the GGparent comment as you seem to be, you are arguing that TV is completely different from web because TV shows need to meet a certain threshold to stay on air. This is why TV people care about ratings/customer satisfaction.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- zedshaw 17y agoI said the primary user, not the ONLY user. TV, search engine results, magazines, news papers, radio, pretty much anything that's ads support has two (maybe more) users. Primary is the advertisers since they actually pay for things, and secondary is the viewers. The delicate balance is satisfying the viewers while also satisfying the advertisers. Networks cancel shows not because nobody watches them, but because nobody will advertise on them, and they sure as hell don't care if the viewers who do watch it want to keep watching. Just ask Joss Whedon. :-)