willz

vor 13 Jahrendiscuss

Instead of selling to publishers, the "ad network" sells to advertisers, so it's the same enterprise sales except publishers are smart and dingy vs advertiser are dumb and rich.

Early ad networks did well, but now there's too many ad networks.

willz

vor 16 Jahrendiscuss

I'm the partner and co-founder a PPC Agency.

The right way is to do it yourself first. But make sure you have conversion tracking, so that you know the basic metrics. For instance, if you are doing PPC for sign-ups, how much are you paying per sign-up.

Then you try to improve it, by either cut Cost per acquisition (CPA), and/or increase your volume of acquisitions.

Increase volume of acquisition is always harder. Most people only know little bit of Search, but Content and Retarget works great too. A lot of product are so new that no body is searching for it, so there are challenges.

You should try this yourself until you hit your bottleneck, e.g. can't increase volume without a much bigger CPA, then you should try find a good agency that can bring your PPC to a whole new level. And it's better doing it now, because you already know your basic metrics, and it will be easy to judge is an agency is doing a good job or not.

Judging by the people who commented there, my feeling is that few of them really had the experience of spending serious PPC money PROFITABLY.

A good ppc program is a pure profit center.

Do it yourself just means that you as founder won't have time for other stuff. Do it in-house means you pay a salary of someone doing it. Agency's cost is most likely lower than a full-time employee, and a good agency knows PPC way more than an individual who had some years of experience.

p.s.

Another point, I happened to work with a lot of start-ups. People seem to assume that only big stupid companies spend serious money on line, small smart start-ups don't. But this is just wrong. Small smart start-ups are spending very aggressively online, because they know they are making profit, vs big stupid companies are often too timid to spend anything. So, a small start-up actually need more PPC expertise than the big companies.

willz

vor 16 Jahrendiscuss

oh, well, I think you and I agree ... The death idea is inspiring, but is an overkill. 99% death are natural death. For people who worry about it, they should add their logins to their will. But then, dead people are supposed to be gone, with most of their stuff.

willz

vor 16 Jahrendiscuss

Great. My question is, if I use your service, what if you die before I die :)

willz

vor 16 Jahrendiscuss

Just curious. You can also just write down the logins on a piece of paper, and tell a family member to open it just in case. Isn't this simpler/safer?

willz

vor 16 Jahrendiscuss

This is the "smart" guy trying to save the world type of thinking. See what Steve Jobs said in his 1996 interview:

".... When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth. ...."

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.02/jobs.html?pg=4&t...

willz

vor 16 Jahrendiscuss

Do anybody know how many servers is typically used by WordPress for a "VIP" site like TechCrunch?

willz

vor 16 Jahrendiscuss

He is obsessed with "being open" - that's the only "point", all other people are "missing the point".

Ask the phone users, TV users, ... do they care? They didn't miss any point, they just want a better phone, open or not open doesn't matter.

Ask Google, if they care about "open", why not open source Google search?

willz

vor 16 Jahrendiscuss

I didn't read the terms, so I don't know.

But a fair system should be that the App owner should decide what ad network to use within its app.

The argument that Google doesn't allow Yahoo ad to show in Google search result is invalid, because Google search is entirely owned by Google, so Google can do whatever.

I don't think Apple will be so stupid as to kill AdMob. A lot of free apps depend on AdMob to make money. Without AdMob, those apps will die, and that will be bad for Apple. So, there is no way Apple will kill AdMob.

willz

vor 16 Jahrendiscuss

The guy's main point is that you should decide which girl you are: the "Consequentialist" (relativist), or the "Categoricalist" (absolutist).

He said: "... I find it helpful, before I consider a dilemma, to at least debate whether I’m in that girl’s situation, and what kind of girl I’m going to be for this particular question..."

This shows that he is the "Consequentialist" girl.

willz

vor 16 Jahrendiscuss

"As our ability to search for media content improves, the economic value of that content will approach zero."

In simple words, he's just saying:

    Piracy makes your content worth nothing.

I just don't think this is true. Piracy has been rampant in movies, but movies continue to make money in theaters, pay-per-view, netflix, or just good old TV.

willz

vor 16 Jahrendiscuss

There is pretty much nothing Apple can do to counter Android. Android is free, and doesn't bundle with hardware. So, Android will just grow like Microsoft did, because all the hardware makers will get on Android. So it's basically:

   Apple vs Google+World

The only thing Apple can do is to keep improving itself. Or, I am guessing, Apple may want to enter the advertising market.

Apple's hardware can push ads through iAd to make more money. But with Yahoo's property as an extra, iAd all of a sudden has enough advertising value to justify itself. Without Yahoo properties, iAd is a much smaller network.

willz

vor 16 Jahrendiscuss

Thanks for the links. For your yahoo link, what does "BRK-A" vs "SPY" mean?

willz

vor 16 Jahrendiscuss

Right on!

The part I liked the most is the Michael Jordan quote. I didn't know MJ so statistical, and now I respect him a lot more.

A trader should do the same. A simple system of logging trading decisions like MJ did will greatly help a trader improve.

I always wish there are some web app that logs what those pundits (stocks or whatever) said, and keep a tab of their accuracy.

willz

vor 16 Jahrendiscuss

I agree with you. I said he failed but his vision isn't wrong. He is as convinced about his vision as when he saw the GUI. In fact, what he saw in 1996 remains the same - web dev is still in the everything-custom age (stone age). Every new app is a reinvention of lots of wheels already made ...

What I am curious is that why he failed. My hunch is that he just isn't a fit for this project.

It sounds like you and I and Steve Jobs agree on this fundamental thing. Care to get together offline? I live in Sunnyvale Bay Area.

willz

vor 16 Jahrendiscuss

Very very good interview.

So, Steve Jobs were, in 1996, 100% certain the Web Objects will be the future of web development. It didn't happen, and he failed.

Do anybody care to think why he failed?

I have a very "simpleton" theory. Just throw it out here:

Steve Jobs can almost make anything work. He's smart, and he has resources. He can make a good washing machine if he want to. But I think that "anything" will have to be something that he can use, touch, play with, i.e. Mp3, phone, laptop ... But Web Object is an enterprise server software. I can't imagine Steve Jobs playing with it. So, he picked something that he cannot love or even touch. Based on the interview, he picked WO because he believe enterprise will need it and it's gonna make a lot of money.

My belief is that an entrepreneur works best when working on a product that he personally use.

willz

vor 16 Jahrendiscuss

I don't use Digg. Do you guys use it, regularly? If you don't use it regularly, how can you judge?

I think Alexis is probably right because it's part of his business he looks at this everyday.

I like dmix's point. "It's about what clicks with the companies own customers." VC will always meddle, but if their meddling doesn't click with the customers, they just lose more money.

willz

vor 18 Jahrendiscuss

Great insight. Very practical. I hope Google founders are NOT reading this.

willz

vor 18 Jahrendiscuss

I agree. To criticize Google still working like a start-up is a big complement.

willz

vor 18 Jahrendiscuss

The author must had some success as he completely ignores how many google-wanna-bes are out there two or three years ago, and then the YouTube-wanna-bes, the Digg-wanna-bes ... There are always tons of dead-bodies in the wanna-bes.

I think the key is to avoid the "hot" wanna-be market. Google got into search when it's not hot. So is YouTube, java, digg ...

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