In-text advertising that doesn't make you vomit | Hacker News Reader

In-text advertising that doesn't make you vomit

seatgeek.com

14 pointsEverest13 comments

It doesn't make me vomit, but I can still taste bile in my mouth. This is still a very intrusive form of advertising that destroys the usefulness of linking within content (everything is assumed to be an ad), and also ruins the trust between content producer and consumer.

I don't like it - it's an improvement on the status quo, sure, but merely having an eye poked out instead of being decapitated is small comfort indeed.

I agree. It's never been a problem of aesthetics to me; it ruins the relevance of inline links. If the link said something like "Buffalo Bills ticket trends" then linking to somewhere like SeatGeek would make a lot of sense. That's not what's happening here.

Honestly, I hope this sort of subversive advertising never takes hold. If it does, Web users will lose faith in the relevance of inline links and will stop using them. And right now that's pretty much the only place you can find outbound links that aren't ads!

Honestly, I hope this sort of subversive advertising never takes hold.

No need to be worried, adblock seems to catch those just fine. I certainly have never seen one of those. In fact, I can't quite remember when I have last seen any kind of ad.

The only ad-related memory I have would be that I (very rarely) run into a scammy site that tries to launch some sort of pop-over <div>. Adblock doesn't seem to block that javascript but it blocks the content. The result is usually a blank overlay; a very nice (and often red!) indicator that the content wasn't worth my time anyways - that's what I call good customer service.

Adblock - highly recommended.

Hi, I'm the guy who developed the in-text plug in for Seat Geek...

I honestly see this type of reaction as more of an opportunity than a problem. This really shows how horrible an impressions in-text ads have made on us, and I think that reaction is totally appropriate.

I'm trying to go into this endeavor with an open mind and create something that can respect user content and yet give people the option to monetize. We're okay with Google scanning our personal emails to serve relevant ads on Gmail... I think with enough experimentation there is a solution here that will work out and convert some extremists.

Chris

Can you please explain what makes this different from all other in-text advertising? The article did not make it clear if there's any difference at all.

We're trying to focus it on specific data sets that users have more control over. We're not using the "keyword" approach like a Kontera or Vibrant allows you to link a lot, but creates a lot of crap. In Seat Geek's case we started with a simple database of the remaining NFL games; there's a limit on what can get linked so it doesn't get out of hand. We have another data set of product names that link product names to retailers and create affiliate links for people who do reviews or have users that talk about a certain product category. The goal is to focus on uniform data sets that can keep the links specific and relevant.

Hmmm...so help me understand something. As a publisher, if I'm using in-text advertising, I'm going to want to: a) increase my revenue, while b) keeping the links relevant. In the case of a), I'm assuming that more links on more keywords is better (at least up to a point), whereas for b) I'm guessing that advertisers on Kontera probably want to link relevant keywords. Apple doesn't want links for a sports team, even if it gets them traffic, because it's not relevant and won't convert. So I'm assuming that Kontera's relevancy issue would be self-correcting to some extent, in which case I'd actually prefer a broader array of options, rather than focusing on one data set. I guess I don't understand how this is better for anyone, unless Kontera really gives you zero control over what can / can't be linked, how many links there will be on the page, etc.

Regardless, this all sidesteps the primary issue IMO, which is that in-text advertising sucks.

Thanks for the feedback Ryan. Good luck on your startup.

Chris

The main problem here IMHO is that, like other in-text ad providers, there is no separation between real links and ad links. As a content producer this means I really can't use inline text links ever again - it will just cause confusion and frustration for my users. For consumers it's the loss of a valuable and oft-used feature.

Have you considered an icon like what Wikipedia uses to mark external links? It would go a long way to establish user trust if ad links were clearly labeled as such (without having to find out after mousing over) - different color, iconography... something.

"We're okay with Google scanning our personal emails to serve relevant ads on Gmail"

Because Google doesn't mix ads in with our email text. The ads stay in a limited area of the screen where they are clearly marked as ads, and never stray. There's no chance that I'll get sold flowers or exercise equipment when I read my email.

People are against this in the same way they are against product placement in movies - it reeks of dishonesty, and compromises the authenticity and integrity of the content in which it was inserted. To be honest, I do not believe you have done anything (that we can see from this demo) to significantly improve on this. You've made a somewhat less scummy implementation, but you have not fixed the broken model underneath.

Sometimes I wonder what's so insufficient about Google's format: well-targeted ads, relevant to the contents of the page, served in a fenced-off ad area. Why is it that we must invade the main body of articles?

The guys at Atma are building an innovative app that should shake up the in-text advertising market—a market that has earned a bad rep due to companies like Kontera, which often deliver spammy ads. Atma’s app eliminates the spamminess and delivers ads that are actually useful.

The Atma guys hacked up a way to integrate their in-text links with SeatGeek. Thanks to Atma, select words in this blog will now link to SeatGeek event pages. Let’s say, for example, I’m talking about the Cleveland Browns. Whenever you roll over the Brown’s name, you’ll see a small popup that links to the SeatGeek page for the Brown’s upcoming game.

Translation: all those other in-text links are spammy, but the ones that point to our service are tremendously useful!

Come on. How is this different from any other in-text advertising scheme?

Perhaps the difference is the fact that in this case, the site owner gets to choose the exact words that are linked. With traditional in-text advertisers the site owner doesn't have that control.

Actually, from this description, it sounds like any sports team names are linked. So I guess you have control in the sense that you know that if you type the name of a sports team, it'll get linked. I still think it's essentially the same thing.

So from a blogger’s perspective, adding a few lines Atma JavaScript gives their site a new feature and an additional revenue stream.

Based on a quick glance, SeatGeek is far less of an affront to my eyes than Kontera, but Kontera would look just like this if they used the same CSS styles. (Not literally, but you get my gist.)

I don't think in-text advertising is leaving us anytime soon. So, I think the best thing you can do is to make the difference between normal links and ad links very noticeable. The little pop-up should not be very large, slow to load, or look like it might be some type of legitimate information source. It should totally say in big letters at the top: "Advertising by SeatGeek." Black background, white bold text.

I've thought about this a couple times, trying to see if I could come up with something that the established companies haven't. I really can't wait for some clever person to figure out the perfect way to put in-text ads in content.

Maybe there should be no ad links at all, but a little icon to the right of the phrase, that upon mouseover will highlight the phrase and display the pop-up.

Ultimately though this method of advertising gives site owners the opportunity to deceive their visitors into clicking ad links. Less so than Adsense, I would think.

--- Edits for proof reading

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