Big Websites Start Running Bigger Display Ads. Big Mistake. | Hacker News Reader

Big Websites Start Running Bigger Display Ads. Big Mistake.

techcrunch.com

10 pointsvaksel16 comments

We don't know if it's a big mistake or not. Of course I'd prefer smaller, zero, or at least very well targeted ads, but whether the new ads are a big mistake or not depends entirely on the data: when the sites roll the ads out and do the analysis, they'll discover how the bottom line is affected.

In business, mistakes aren't generally a matter of opinion.

I'd rather be Apple than Microsoft, even if Microsoft makes so much more cash. But that's my opinion.

That's probably why you're not wealthy, which is fine, but it's something to bear in mind.

What I meant is the following: Contrary to what you wrote, there is opinion in business. There are strategic decisions to be made, which are affected by political and cultural goals. And these are off course opinions. As an example I wanted to have cited Apple against Microsoft. A culture that values making money with the right product over making money with as much products as possible.

Once again, the tech blog assumes everyone outside its own industry is stupid. My guess is every one of those sites a/b tested those ads to see if they lead to significant drops in user retention, and found that the extra eCPM grossly outweighed that.

Of course, I'm assuming they're not stupid and know about basic split testing. But the people running New York Times are probably not as smart as Robin Wauters, who is making $10 an hour blogging in his underwear.

Robin Wauters, who is making $10 an hour blogging in his underwear

I'm not sure what kind of point you're trying to make with a bitchy statement like that. Are you saying he makes a lot of money for a blogger or more than he should for someone who writes in his briefs? Also, has he in fact admitted to working in his underwear or are you just trying to smear him? Perhaps it's just a popular sport around here to make ad hominem attacks on Techcrunch writers behind their backs.

Yeah, make ads more annoying so that even Joe Average installs Adblock. Great plan.

Six months from now, TechCrunch will quietly start running XXL boxes instead of the dual-skyscrapers it's running now, and we can all move on.

It's kind of ironic that in the overlaid page, there's two skyscraper ads side by side right above the "fixed panel" and they take up the same space as it does.

I've seen the "pushdown" and find it's a great cue for taking a break from the computer.

Humorously TechCrunch has a 300px wide ad sidebar on its pages.

I've been seeing more large, interstitial display ads on Forbes.com et all recently, and I think they are more promising than these formats.

I don't mind ads, but I don't like it when they're injected into the content so awkwardly that they detract from the experience. For example, I don't mind Hulu's full-screen ads, but YouTube's smaller overlays drive me crazy.

And they neglect the fact that not everybody has wide display or high resolutions. From my google analytics, i still see people using 800x600. Wow.

If they care about user experience, they'd detect the window size, and adjust the ads / layout accordingly. Hopefully they'd do that, but I'm skeptical.

I assume (hope) that any sites doing this are already at a fixed width of at least 1024 (or whatever it is to allow for browser chrome).

Anecdotally, the place I work has people with wide screen, 19inch monitors that insist on using them at 800x600. It looks awful, but they're used to it being huge, and they refuse to change.

I've seen a few people like that before myself. I think that at least some of them know they can increase the resolution, and they try it, but they switch back before their eyes can adjust.

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