Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: NZME and you, in reply to Cameron Pitches,
Russell, what's your take on Google ads? It's not unheard of for NZ blogging sites to bring in a hundred bucks a day. Surely better than a kick in the pants?
Maybe things have changed, but Google ads didn't work for us at all. Google had trouble matching ads to content – it works much better for product and technical blogs.
And they're performance-based and hardly anyone in our readership clicked on them, or any other performance-based advertising. When Scoop reluctantly sold some performance-based campaigns, Public Address performed worse than any other site in the network.
Only stupid people click on ads, clearly.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Alfie,
O'K... to be fair I know this has nothing to do with Key's Dirty Politics, but I can see a loose connection, even if it's only wondering how Crosby Textor will try to spin this one. Maybe they'll claim that someone is telling porkies?
The same lot of reporting includes the claim that Lynton Crosby thinks Cameron is a prick ...
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I must go and see this film. I'm not a climber, but I went to school with Jan Arnold and was great friends with her brother Peter. I thought about her a lot when it all went down.
One nice thing is that lots of the family made to the US (where Peter and his family live) for the premiere.
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Here's some irony.
NZME's random-cost-cutter-in-chief, head of publishing Phil Eustace, was sacked today too.
It always seems to happen after these guys have done their damage ...
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Hard News: NZME and you, in reply to Stansta,
I work with a large number of NZ's digital publishers and am genuinely concerned about the commercial viability of many of them.
The current ad funded model is broken as it relies on advertisers paying a premium for an audience they can find cheaply elsewhere (Facebook, Google.....)Exactly. It's particularly difficult for independent publishers, because we can't offer the necessary scale. I'm guessing it's hurting magazines esecially, which has long been the sector with the most independents and the greatest diversity of ownership.
As the ad dollars decline, so too do the resources the publisher has at its disposal (journalists, designers, ......) This is a death spiral.
As a number of commenters have alluded to, the industry needs to be reimagined if we are to have quality local content in the (not to distant) future.If you think of anything, let me know :-)
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Hard News: NZME and you, in reply to Moz,
FWIW there is active discussion around the geeky traps of how to replace online ads with a workable system, but it's a non-trival challenge. The human factors and repeated failures of micropayments make it difficult, but the music and tv subscription services do point to ways forward. In general, "pay for what you use" breaks because people don't like knowing that everything they do has a cost (and the cost is as much the mental effort of wondering it it's really worth paying for this).
Yeah, if micropayments mean "paying for what you use", page by page, they're not really a good solution. Paying a fixed sum and having it divided up between publishers is better.
Our house responds to occasional Wikipedia fundraising drives and we became a Guardian member for a few quid (got a shopping bag to show off at Farro). I don't mind paying for something everyone can use for free.
But I also don't think advertising is terrible. Our glorious spell – about a decade ago – when Scoop was selling for us and the agencies were buying was really good. I was able to invest in the site and treat the contributors to drinks and dinners. I blogged most days.
But we really don't fit into the programatic advertising model that is now ubiquitous. What people aren't seeing is the automated system underlying web ads that is running constant micro-auctions to place campaigns with advertisers. It's the reason you see shitty, low-value ads on high-quality websites. It's actually also not doing the advertising industry any good – it's kind of the enemy of creativity.
I initially thought we'd be able to sell more retail-level advertising, but we've been mediated out in a different way there. Restaurants and frock shops have direct relationships with their customers via Facebook and email databases now. If they want to advertise, Facebook ads deliver an amazing bang-for-buck. No one will remember your ad tomorrow, of course.
We actually have access to a really good ad-serving infrastructure. We sell a few ads, very cheaply, to music and the arts, but that's about it for the moment. What has worked in the past is working with comms companies and getting brands alongside specific things we do – especially events – but there are diminishing returns on effort there too.
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Hard News: NZME and you, in reply to Moz,
I can and do already block ads as much as possible, and one reason I avoid apple is because they insist on ads everywhere.
Genuine question: what ads are these?
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Hard News: NZME and you, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
I can't help thinking that Apple's embracing of ad-blocking on iOS is only going to make things worse.
Separating itself from the less appealing trappings of internet advertising – tracking cookies et al – is something Apple is beginning to define itself with. I can see how it works for them to say "we want to sell you goods and services – not follow you around the internet".
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Hard News: NZME and you, in reply to David MacGregor,
Arrrgh!
I don't know who pisses me off more - you or the fuckwits who are running media companies into the ground.
Pardon?
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Irish fans in Cardiff go mental over the Japanese win. Bless.
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