Forum Moderators: goodroi
Google co-founder Sergey Brin said on Thursday advertising on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace was getting better, but was still not perfect."In general, it's been improving but we still have a long way to go," Brin told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Jerusalem to mark Israel's 60th anniversary.
"Things have been going well this year...it's hard to predict where social networking will come out."
Google's Sergey Brin Says Social Network Ad Business Getting Better [uk.reuters.com]
If all ads were targeted like social ads can be then no under 30 year olds would ever see those stairlift adverts, instead advertisers have to guess what the majority demographic will be at any particular time. AFAIK TV ads are priced on the number of viewers, if only 10% of those visitors are your customers then you have to pay for the 90% even if it is useless to you therefore social ads are more appealing than TV ads or search ads.
The keyword is targeting.
Notmuch different from selling tv ads
Maybe they're concentrating too much on "learning" the pages and trying to target the ads that way. When instead, they should just display random ads and hope for the best?
Either way, I'm not sure what Mr. Brin is looking at. The ads on Myspace haven't improved one bit (IMO).
That's the problem. No one wants to admit that, at best, these social networks can display untargeted advertisements. They look at the page views and drool over the possibilities only to realize later on the traffic is tough to crack.
The flaw in valuing these social networks is the misunderstanding of why people join or participate. They're not shopping, they're not looking for information, they are there to socialize.
Did you ever meet someone at a social gathering that was trying to sell you something? What goes through your head is "How can I get away from this guy?" Not "Great, I was hoping to meet a used car salesman at this wedding!"
ads on Myspace haven't improved one bit (IMO)
Exactly celgins. What a load of bull - they have overpaid and yes they get all these lovely page impressions and access to users but they can't admit they are no closer to being able to monetise than anyone else (despite their superior algos) - except their headache is that much worse thanks to the $billion they spent!
