Moderator: Soñadora
SemiSalt wrote:I
Or maybe, they just don't care as long as the ads get served and the checks clear.
Orestes Munn wrote:SemiSalt wrote:I
Or maybe, they just don't care as long as the ads get served and the checks clear.
I think that's the truth, at least for now. It would seem very hard to close the feedback loop and I doubt anyone has an accurate or sensitive enough system to measure the effect of ad blockers.
BeauV wrote:Orestes Munn wrote:SemiSalt wrote:I
Or maybe, they just don't care as long as the ads get served and the checks clear.
I think that's the truth, at least for now. It would seem very hard to close the feedback loop and I doubt anyone has an accurate or sensitive enough system to measure the effect of ad blockers.
OM, the folks who serve up the ads measure everything very very carefully. They even know if you moved your mouse or selected another window while you were waiting for the ad to load. It's the most highly instrumented part of the entire computer.
SemiSalt wrote:Or maybe, they just don't care as long as the ads get served and the checks clear.
BeauV wrote:The really weird thing about all this is that I use Giigle all the time (Google but my finger slipped) and I would actually PAY to find the thing I want. For someone who is looking for a new car a car comparison article is HELP not an ADD.
So the question is: What is the biz model that let's you pay $X for a version of Giigle that has NO ADDS and you pay a flat rate or per search or something that ties to you actual use??
kdh wrote:
Eric, is there any evidence that advertising warps our brains, makes us materialistic, even fat by watching food commercials that incite an insulin response? My guess is it's a greater effect than bacon on the obesity epidemic. 80 million people, out of 300 million, that are at great risk of type II diabetes? We're fucked.
Orestes Munn wrote:kdh wrote:
Eric, is there any evidence that advertising warps our brains, makes us materialistic, even fat by watching food commercials that incite an insulin response? My guess is it's a greater effect than bacon on the obesity epidemic. 80 million people, out of 300 million, that are at great risk of type II diabetes? We're fucked.
My God, we are such geeks! Here's the off the top my head response: I think for that visual insulin response not to extinguish over serial exposures, it would have to be associated with a sugar load pretty often.
On the fucked question? Definitely. If not for this, then for a myriad of other reasons!
Olaf Hart wrote:Orestes Munn wrote:kdh wrote:
Eric, is there any evidence that advertising warps our brains, makes us materialistic, even fat by watching food commercials that incite an insulin response? My guess is it's a greater effect than bacon on the obesity epidemic. 80 million people, out of 300 million, that are at great risk of type II diabetes? We're fucked.
My God, we are such geeks! Here's the off the top my head response: I think for that visual insulin response not to extinguish over serial exposures, it would have to be associated with a sugar load pretty often.
On the fucked question? Definitely. If not for this, then for a myriad of other reasons!
Safe bicycle pathways, that's what we need.
Ish wrote:Olaf Hart wrote:Orestes Munn wrote:kdh wrote:
Eric, is there any evidence that advertising warps our brains, makes us materialistic, even fat by watching food commercials that incite an insulin response? My guess is it's a greater effect than bacon on the obesity epidemic. 80 million people, out of 300 million, that are at great risk of type II diabetes? We're fucked.
My God, we are such geeks! Here's the off the top my head response: I think for that visual insulin response not to extinguish over serial exposures, it would have to be associated with a sugar load pretty often.
On the fucked question? Definitely. If not for this, then for a myriad of other reasons!
Safe bicycle pathways, that's what we need.
With a requirement that you have a person carry a lantern at least 20 feet in front of you, shouting "BICYCLE" at the top of their lungs.
Bull City wrote:Interesting topic. At lunch with a couple of friends today, one remarked that Facebook, with 130 million users is still not making money, yet it is valued at $50 billion. Does that make sense? If I were selling 130 million tubes of toothpaste and not making money, I doubt I would have a market cap of $50 billion. I understand Facebook is a platform for ads and a source of personal data to be mined and used, but really.
Uber and Airbnb, while problematic in some ways, at least provide a real service, i.e. bringing two parties together in a transaction.
BeauV wrote:Bull City wrote:Interesting topic. At lunch with a couple of friends today, one remarked that Facebook, with 130 million users is still not making money, yet it is valued at $50 billion. Does that make sense? If I were selling 130 million tubes of toothpaste and not making money, I doubt I would have a market cap of $50 billion. I understand Facebook is a platform for ads and a source of personal data to be mined and used, but really.
Uber and Airbnb, while problematic in some ways, at least provide a real service, i.e. bringing two parties together in a transaction.
I think you should look at FB as a company that is busy establishing one of THE major platforms in the entire computer biz. Keep in mind that Amazon still doesn't make money and never has, but clearly could if Jeff ever slowed the growth rate down for a bit. For example, the Amazon Web Services (AWS) division is growing at 78% per year and amazingly profitable. All that profit, and then some, gets put into building a bigger and bigger market controlling enterprise. FB is much more like Amazon than like Uber. Another way to look at it is that FB Messenger has gone from zero to the second largest messenger (to Twitter I believe) in only two years. These sorts of messaging businesses have started to destroy the lethargic phone company SMS businesses; which represented billions in revenue.
Finally, in my industry, the customers like to choose a "winner" and only buy from that winner. They effectively create monopolies for a time that are then overturned by the next wave of new technology. Thus Intel and Microsoft are overturned by mobile devices (basically Apple), Twitter and FB Messenger overturn SMS, and the beat goes on and on and on. Because of this consumer behavior, it is critically important to become the "winner" in your market. Every other competitor will die when you do that. Given this, it's idiotic to try to be profitable when you can run for a few years of looses and then close the jaws on the market and become a Microsoft, Intel, Google, Facebook, etc....
Bull City wrote:BeauV wrote:Bull City wrote:Interesting topic. At lunch with a couple of friends today, one remarked that Facebook, with 130 million users is still not making money, yet it is valued at $50 billion. Does that make sense? If I were selling 130 million tubes of toothpaste and not making money, I doubt I would have a market cap of $50 billion. I understand Facebook is a platform for ads and a source of personal data to be mined and used, but really.
Uber and Airbnb, while problematic in some ways, at least provide a real service, i.e. bringing two parties together in a transaction.
I think you should look at FB as a company that is busy establishing one of THE major platforms in the entire computer biz. Keep in mind that Amazon still doesn't make money and never has, but clearly could if Jeff ever slowed the growth rate down for a bit. For example, the Amazon Web Services (AWS) division is growing at 78% per year and amazingly profitable. All that profit, and then some, gets put into building a bigger and bigger market controlling enterprise. FB is much more like Amazon than like Uber. Another way to look at it is that FB Messenger has gone from zero to the second largest messenger (to Twitter I believe) in only two years. These sorts of messaging businesses have started to destroy the lethargic phone company SMS businesses; which represented billions in revenue.
Finally, in my industry, the customers like to choose a "winner" and only buy from that winner. They effectively create monopolies for a time that are then overturned by the next wave of new technology. Thus Intel and Microsoft are overturned by mobile devices (basically Apple), Twitter and FB Messenger overturn SMS, and the beat goes on and on and on. Because of this consumer behavior, it is critically important to become the "winner" in your market. Every other competitor will die when you do that. Given this, it's idiotic to try to be profitable when you can run for a few years of looses and then close the jaws on the market and become a Microsoft, Intel, Google, Facebook, etc....
Beau, my reference to platform is platform as in an ad billboard - nothing special. I think you're referring to something more.
I don't see anything special in FB other than a sandbox that caters to the Narcissism in each of us. I guess if it causes people to freely give up oodles of personal information that FB can sell for oodles of money (provided they don't seriously alienate their users) that's genius.
Aside from developing the Kindle, and while I some some things from them, Amazon is kind of disturbing. I think they will run afoul of anti-trust laws, if they haven't already. I recall a NYT piece about the company several weeks ago. You had to wonder whether such things as minor reductions delivery times were worth the madness that was described. Bezos seems to be something between a driven visionary and a megalomaniac.
- Old Fogey
BeauV wrote:Yes, in the software biz a Platform is a bunch of software that people build other software on top of. FB is a "platform" in the sense of putting up a billboard for ads. But that is a very very very small part of their "Value" as a company. FB's value is based upon all the things that you can do with the data that FB has (as you say freely provided by FB users - who pay nothing for FB's service) and the tools that they provide that lets a company understand their customers.
You're certainly entitled to your opinion of what FB does or doesn't do, but those buying the company's stock clearly don't agree with your view that they are nothing "special". FB has become the #1 way for people to communicate, with many days in which over one billion people are simultaneously communicating. Your position is roughly analogous to saying that the telephone is just a tool that is used to gossip on and people should go back to writing letters. You might be right but it doesn't matter. Each new technology is disliked by we older folks, and what we think doesn't really matter because we are neither the target market for the new technology nor do we usually understand how younger people really use it.
As to Amazon, the board game is called "Monopoly" for a reason. Every CEO in the world is attempting to create a monopoly for her company, or at least as close as they can legally get. Amazon has actually got a much smaller monopoly that companies like Standard Oil and Microsoft. If you're taking about the NY Times article about the working conditions at Amazon, I think that folks should get a lot thicker skin. I personally worked at a boat yard, 12 hours per day when there was work, with a 10 lb grinder over my head sanding bottom paint, and with a crazy Italian guy screaming at me. I have very very little sympathy for someone who sits at their nice comfortable clean desk and cries because someone spoke harshly to them. Given me a break. As they say where I used to work in NY City: "Want a friend, get a dog."
These companies have made billions of dollars for their shareholders and they've done so without the pollution and personal injuries of industries like oil, and coal, and fishing, and timber, and the list goes on and on. The workers at Amazon who don't like their working conditions should try a week in a Kentucky coal mine.
Bull City wrote:Beau, you were being honest and frank. I respect that. Underlying my view of Amazon, is the fact that in a lot of the "professional" jobs today, people are expected to be on call 24/7. Between email, cell phones and other devices, bosses have the ability to do this. I don't think it's a good thing, but perhaps in a global economy we have no choice.