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I'm a technical guy, that description is accurate. Minor terminology changes to be spot on: Former MySpace executives say News Corp dragged its feet over imple

by DougBTX 17y ago

I'm a technical guy, that description is accurate. Minor terminology changes to be spot on: Former MySpace executives say News Corp dragged its feet over implementing Ajax, a [set of libraries] which allow users to send a message, an e-mail or to post a comment on their friends’ pages without having to open a new browser [page]. The real problem is the hard link between page views and ad revenue. That leads to quotes like this: "We went to News Corp and said: ‘We want to change this but in the short term our revenues will drop.’ It became a long back and forth." Bickering like that kills time and blinds you to other uses of Ajax, such as how Facebook lets users rate ads, each click loading up a new ad without another page view.

patio11 17y ago
The real problem is the hard link between page views and ad revenue. This is one of the many, many instances in which your business model can potentially collide with your user experience. When I heard AJAX could let you do things without requiring a page view, I said "HOLY COW! FREE MONEY!", because when you're selling things to customers every additional page view is just another opportunity to stop using your site.
NathanKP 17y ago
The way I look at it is that if you are already doing the work to implement AJAX and remove the need for more page views to submit comment forms or do other things, why not go a little farther and write code to load new ads at the same time? There shouldn't be any reason why AJAX would reduce ad revenue if you simply made each major AJAX call change the ads.
- wgj 17y ago
  My guess is that their existing ad contracts would forbid that. The contracts were probably worded to have an ad displayed for the entire duration the page was open.
  - NathanKP 17y ago
    Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.
dasil003 17y ago
They also claimed it wasn't proposed until the beginning of this year. I don't care who was dragging their feet, that is pathetic.

by DougBTX 17y ago

patio11 17y ago

The real problem is the hard link between page views and ad revenue. This is one of the many, many instances in which your business model can potentially collide with your user experience. When I heard AJAX could let you do things without requiring a page view, I said "HOLY COW! FREE MONEY!", because when you're selling things to customers every additional page view is just another opportunity to stop using your site.

NathanKP 17y ago

The way I look at it is that if you are already doing the work to implement AJAX and remove the need for more page views to submit comment forms or do other things, why not go a little farther and write code to load new ads at the same time? There shouldn't be any reason why AJAX would reduce ad revenue if you simply made each major AJAX call change the ads.

wgj 17y ago
My guess is that their existing ad contracts would forbid that. The contracts were probably worded to have an ad displayed for the entire duration the page was open.
- NathanKP 17y ago
  Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.

dasil003 17y ago

They also claimed it wasn't proposed until the beginning of this year. I don't care who was dragging their feet, that is pathetic.