College Humor -- "If Internet Ads Were Salesmen " -- repost

I keep meaning to do a post about the terrible state of targeted marketing. When I get around to it, remind me to embed this. At least half of the points I want to hit are illustrated here.





Pre-update:

After I scheduled this in the form above, Josh Marshall posted a piece on internet advertising and the death of Gawker. It contains an informative primer on how this stuff works.

Many people think that the more popular a publication gets the more ads it will sell. The bigger the audience, the more eyeballs, the more ads wanting contact with those eyeballs. That's not how it works.

There are a million dimensions to the advertising economy, just as many ways of describing it. But you can understand a whole lot about how the whole thing works by thinking in terms of three factors: 1) endemic sales proposition, 2) controversy and 3) influence.

Let's talk first about endemic sales proposition. Because I think it may have played some role in Gawker's demise (on-going legal liability may have played more of a factor or have been the entirety of the issue). A site about clothes has an endemic sales proposition: selling clothes. A site about books: books. You may say well, I only read sites about news and sports but I still buy a lot of clothes so ... Not how it works.

For a variety of reasons, some good and evidence based, others silly, advertisers want to sell you their product when you are thinking about it and in the mindset to buy. This doesn't just mean impulse purchases, but buying in general. In many cases that makes a lot of sense.

For instance, aside from people being really into tech, why do you think there are so many tech sites? Right, because there's a ton of money in video games, devices, computers, everything under the sun. People also tend to buy those things online. Again, we're not just talking about impulse buying. It can be more nuanced and less direct. But if you stand up a site about tech, gaming, computers, etc. and it does well, you have a ready made channel for ad sales. And in the case of tech an extremely lucrative one.

Sometimes it's a little more amorphous but no less ad driven. Why so many 'lifestyle' publications? Well, we all need a lifestyle, of course. And general interest magazines cover many interesting topics. But by and large that's because you're aiming for an audience of people who are affluent and want to read about cool things affluent people do: travel, toys, aspirational personal development. Not that there's anything wrong with that, as they used to say on Seinfeld. But that's what it's about.

Next, controversy. This largely speaks for itself. Advertisers don't want to be around things that upset people or divide people. They want to be everyone's friend. They don't want negative ideas or stories to rub off on them. This isn't an absolute of course. Plenty of sites which court controversy sell tons of ads. Gawker's a prime example. But controversy is always a constraint on ad sales. You just may have other factors that overcome it.

Next, influence. This is an inherently small and nebulous part of the equation. But it's key for many publications. Many ads aren't trying to sell you anything directly. They're trying to tell you stories, shape your thinking, advocate positions. Political ads are like this. But they're mass market since obviously everyone can vote - at least in states without Republican governors and Secretaries of State. But where the money is is with people who are considered influential in various communities, so-called "opinion-leaders".

Here's an example. Go to the subways in New York you'll see ads for storage rentals, lawyers, grocery deliveries, breast augmentations, ESL courses. Go to Washington DC and you'll see ads for ... Kazakhstan or Northrup Grumman or PhRMA or well ... you get the idea. There are lots of people who care a lot about what people in the nation's capital think. And yes, TPM very much plays in that ad space. TPM and similar sites lose big on #1 and #2. But #3 is where there's a business that can drive ad sales.

As a marketing statistician, I'd like to emphasize the point about "reasons, some good and evidence based, others silly." Most of the people buying these ads, including high-level executives at Fortune 500 companies, have a very weak grasp of how targeted advertising works.

The people who brought us the greatest TED Talk ever

We'll have more on this later.

As of today, the venerable comedy concern CollegeHumor Media is mostly dead. In the words of Sam Reich, its chief commercial officer, IAC “has made the difficult decision to no longer finance us,” he wrote in a Twitter thread this afternoon. “Today, 100+ brilliant people lost their jobs, some of whom are my dear, dear friends.” That means the cuts hit every vertical: CollegeHumor, Dorkly, Drawfee, and Dropout — only five to 10 people are left, according to Bloomberg.

The news, however, wasn’t all bad: IAC agreed to let Reich become the humor company’s majority owner. “Of course, I can’t keep it going like you’re used to,” Reich wrote further down in the thread. “While we were on the way to becoming profitable, we were nonetheless losing money — and I myself have no money to be able to lose.”

Until then, here's CH taking on the sacred cows of technology.





















And, as promised, the greatest TED Talk ever.

"Cosmic Crisp" is a stupid for a pretty tasty apple

Just had one of these the other day. It was good (though I'll probably stick with the Envy) and the story of the science and economics behind its development is really interestion.

What a 500 million dollar apple tastes like by Keith A. Spencer

Upon first glance, the Cosmic Crisp apple doesn't appear particularly unique nor inspiring. It is larger than the average apple, certainly, but its mottled exterior could be confused for many other reddish varietals. In other words, one would not know immediately that this humble fruit is the pinnacle of industrial agriculture — encompassing hundreds of millions of dollars of investment, two decades of planning, and hundreds of trees bred, tasted, and culled.

The phrase “apple farmer” inspires images of pastoral orchards, straw hats and wooden buckets full of fruit; yet modern agriculture practices fall far from that imagined tree. A Darwinian tasting process brought the Cosmic Crisp into being: in the late 1990s, Bruce Barrett, an apple researcher at Washington State University, picked the Cosmic Crisp out of 10,000 crossbreeds. The Cosmic Crisp, then known as WA 38, ticked all the boxes: its ability to survive in different Washington state climates, its taste and texture, and how long it lasted without decaying. (Supposedly the Cosmic Crisp can last around a year in cold storage.) A consulting firm tested the apple with focus groups, where one participant commented on the apple’s appearance as star-like, which led to the name. As with many modern seeds, Washington State owns the rights, and thus growers must pay royalties in exchange for growing the apple. The apple was so widely believed to be "the apple of the future" (as the New York Times put it) that 13 million trees were grown at a cost of $500 million. To extend the selling season, producers store the apple in a refrigerated, controlled atmosphere of 1% carbon dioxide and 2% oxygen after treating it with fungicides. Instagram influencers were hired to help hype its release, including a retired astronaut.

Tuesday Tweets

(Thread) Impeachment Law 101

Instead of answering the individual questions I'm getting about this post about John Bolton⤵️ (some doubtful, along the lines of "so what?")

. . . it's time for Impeachment Law 101: Review the rules and facts.

Take out your notebooks.🤓Here we go. https://t.co/xYy6oOgmV3

— Teri Kanefield (@Teri_Kanefield) January 6, 2020

This is basically what I had in mind with the Magic of will/belief/doubt section of the magical heuristics thread, specifically doubt.

The best advice of the decade. pic.twitter.com/o9djp2Rxux

— Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (@2xAught7) December 31, 2019

At roughly 500k trips per week in the article, and $300m in losses Uber lost $11+ per ride for ebikes and scooters in 2019. https://t.co/s51wxZ41eM

— Asher 🚶🏰🐌🌳🔰 (@AsherDeMontreal) January 6, 2020

One of the most popular claims was that the problem of liability would block innovation since the moment an AV was involved in an accident, even if it was at no way at fault, all the companies involved would be sued into oblivion.

— Mark Palko (@MarkPalko1) January 1, 2020

If there's a strategy, then the TV "analyst" can break it down. If there's none, then it's the analyst's role itself that breaks down. https://t.co/yDqSQiyyRw

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) January 6, 2020

Another way to say this: The President has no views. He has cravings and resentments. https://t.co/9cUOx80BBD

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) January 5, 2020

"The practices common to political journalism have premises to them. When the premises shatter, the practices make less sense. This has been the central problem of covering the Trump movement since 2015." https://t.co/64nLjKiXqr

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) January 1, 2020

 

This is unacceptable: "Relative to entirely white neighborhoods, residents of entirely black neighborhoods waited 29 percent longer to vote and were 74 percent more likely to spend more than 30 minutes at their polling place."

Someone needs to sue. 🤔https://t.co/44Yr2fmqHd

— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) December 30, 2019

 

this is legit stalin, kim-family stuff. wild. https://t.co/igshsXGCGC

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) January 4, 2020

When you see someone conflating Dollar Tree and Dollar General (radically different retail models serving largely distinct markets), you should probably stop reading immediately and go looking for a more credible source.

— Mark Palko (@MarkPalko1) January 5, 2020

The @nytimes 21st Nov 1922:

“Reliable, well-informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded ...he was merely using anti-Semitic propaganda as a bait to catch masses of followers and keep them aroused, enthusiastic...” https://t.co/nU9MI4tmuv

— Soledad O'Brien (@soledadobrien) January 2, 2020

Pyro-cumulonimbus clouds https://t.co/OHEUNR8KpJ https://t.co/XXrBc1VYgl

— David M. Levinson (@trnsprtst) December 30, 2019

Word of the day “fire tornado” https://t.co/3MIH3buJIn https://t.co/wMxvGuDri3

— David M. Levinson (@trnsprtst) December 31, 2019

 

Tulsi Gabbard is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) December 31, 2019

what the future looks like ... https://t.co/hxAesXf7dm

— Emma Alberici (@albericie) January 1, 2020

Part of my framework for (what we used to call) the nightly news

On the reactions of various GOP officials to and increasingly erratic Trump administration, here is a quick outline of the assumptions I’ve been using. So far they’ve done a pretty good job explaining the situation and they are reasonably consistent with the takes of people like Josh Marshall (which always makes me feel better).

Much of the GOP and most of its base must now be treated as a cult of personality.

As of 2019, GOP elected officials can be broken down almost entirely into two groups: believers and nonbelievers trying to pass themselves off as believers.

Nonbelievers make constant displays of loyalty to trump out of both personal interest and concern for a party.

Trump demands constant praise and lashes out at even mild criticism. Given his control over primary voters, he is in a position to destroy the political careers of any party member coming up for election in the next 2 to 4 years, possibly even longer.

In addition to fear of political suicide, Nonbelievers also have to contend with the two existential threats that Trump represents to the Republican party.

In the short term, Trump could have a massive public breakdown, or act out in such an extreme way that a solid majority of the country (more than 60%) insists on his removal. As previously discussed, that makes it almost impossible for a party to be nationally competitive.

The long-term threat is that the party continues to double down on policies that cost them support from every major demographic group except for rural white men born before 1960.

The first order of business for the nonbelievers is to keep Trump calm at all cost. This is why so many senators and congressmen who had seemed reasonably sane in the past now talk like characters from that Billy Mumy Twilight Zone episode.

The long-term, on the other hand, explains why those who aren’t singing praises are so reluctant to say anything at all, why the desire to spend time with one’s family has reached such unprecedented levels, and why we are starting to see surprisingly regular trial balloons about an anonymous Senate vote.

The greatest film comedy ever made just entered the public domain

And quite a bit more (1924 was a very good year)::

On January 1, 2020, works from 1924 will enter the US public domain,1 where they will be free for all to use and build upon, without permission or fee. These works include George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, silent films by Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, and books such as Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, and A. A. Milne’s When We Were Very Young. These works were supposed to go into the public domain in 2000, after being copyrighted for 75 years. But before this could happen, Congress hit a 20-year pause button and extended their copyright term to 95 years.2

Now the wait is over. How will people celebrate this trove of cultural material? The Internet Archive will add books, movies, music, and more to its online library. HathiTrust will make tens of thousands of titles from 1924 available in its digital library. Google Books will offer the full text of books from that year, instead of showing only snippet views or authorized previews. Community theaters can screen the films. Youth orchestras can afford to publicly perform the music. Educators and historians can share the full cultural record. Creators can legally build on the past—reimagining the books, making them into films, adapting the songs.

In the world of educational technology, the future actually is what it used to be

A New Year's tweet got me poking Audrey Watters blog and finding all sorts of good things (more on that coming soon). One post I'll definitely be putting away for reference is this list quotes on the potential of educational technology.

I've been arguing for a while that the broad outlines of our concept of the future were mostly established in the late 19th/early 20th Centuries and put in its current form in the Postwar Period. Here are a few more data points for the file. 

“Books will soon be obsolete in schools” — Thomas Edison (1913)

“If, by a miracle of mechanical ingenuity, a book could be so arranged that only to him who had done what was directed on page one would page two become visible, and so on, much that now requires personal instruction could be managed by print.” — Edward Thorndike (1912)

“The central and dominant aim of education by radio is to bring the world to the classroom, to make universally available the services of the finest teachers, the inspiration of the greatest leaders … and unfolding events which through the radio may come as a vibrant and challenging textbook of the air.” — Benjamin Darrow (1932)

“Will machines replace teachers? On the contrary, they are capital equipment to be used by teachers to save time and labor. In assigning certain mechanizable functions to machines, the teacher emerges in his proper role as an indispensable human being. He may teach more students than heretofore—this is probably inevitable if the world-wide demand for education is to be satisfied—but he will do so in fewer hours and with fewer burdensome chores. In return for his greater productivity he can ask society to improve his economic condition.” — B. F. Skinner (1958)

“I believe that the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and that in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks. …I should say that on the average we get about two percent efficiency out of schoolbooks as they are written today. The education of the future, as I see it, will be conducted through the medium of the motion picture… where it should be possible to obtain one hundred percent efficiency.” — Thomas Edison (1922)

“At our universities we will take the people who are the faculty leaders in research or in teaching. We are not going to ask them to give the same lectures over and over each year from their curriculum cards, finding themselves confronted with another roomful of people and asking themselves, ‘What was it I said last year?’ This is a routine which deadens the faculty member. We are going to select instead the people who are authorities on various subjects — the people who are most respected within their respective departments and fields. They will give their basic lecture course just once to a group of human beings, including both the experts of their own subject and bright children and adults without special training in their field. These lectures will be recorded as Southern Illinois University did my last lecture series of fifty-two hours in October 1960. They will make moving-picture footage of the lectures as well as hi-fi tape recording. Then the professors and and their faculty associates will listen to the recordings time and again” — R. Buckminster Fuller (1962)

“The machine itself, of course, does not teach. It simply brings the student into contact with the person who composed the material it presents. It is a laborsaving device because it can bring one programmer into contact with an indefinite number of students. This may suggest mass production, but the effect upon each student is surprisingly like that of a private tutor.” — B. F. Skinner (1958)

Happy New Year from Windsor McCay and Little Nemo

Make it a good one.

Some good news for the new year

From Mental Floss:

In September, a cryptic update to cartoonist Gary Larson’s The Far Side website hinted that something new might be in store for fans of the popular single-panel comic strip. This week, Larson and his syndicate, Andrews McMeel Universal, made it official. The irreverent cartoon, which originally ran from 1980 to 1995 and explored the perils of anthropomorphic cows and science run amok, will now be available online for the first time. But it won’t be strictly archival material: Larson plans to periodically revisit his bizarre world with new art.

Monday Tweets (because spending New Year's Eve on Twitter would just be wrong)

Welcome to the world of climate gentrification.

"Little Haiti’s elevation  is 7 feet above sea level with pockets in the neighborhood that go as high as 14 feet above sea level. By comparison, Miami Beach is about 4 feet above sea level."

In many parts of the US black communities were pushed to low-lying flood prone areas.

In Miami, the opposite is true. Black communities were built on high elevation away from the coast. Now because of sea level rise that high land is in demand. (THREAD)https://t.co/3nFgtjzR7v

— Nadege Green (@NadegeGreen) November 5, 2019

"One of these things is not like the other..."

Which Democratic voters are potentially the most disloyal? Here's the percentage of each candidate's base who say they'll vote Dem in the 2020 general:

Warren: 97
Steyer: 96
Biden: 94
Klobuchar: 93
Buttigieg: 92
Sanders: 87
Bloomberg: 82
Booker: 80
Yang: 73
...
Gabbard: 15

— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) December 28, 2019

Welcome to LA

The San Gabriels. #dtla pic.twitter.com/ZBep7WUyV7

— Sean Meredith (@seanmeredith) December 27, 2019

Klein is making a tremendously important point here

The media thinks the power it has is covering things positively or negatively. If that was ever true, it's not now.

The media is an amplification machine. Our biggest impact is in choosing what to cover. If we amplify lies — even to fact check them — they often gain power. https://t.co/jHVKycMV3r

— Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) December 27, 2019

It's a complex issue, but my initial impression is that this would have more pros than cons, assuming the city could force it through.

It would be a first for any cityhttps://t.co/gXmyfuZB3i

— Financial Times (@FinancialTimes) December 27, 2019

Of course C-level executive compensation is rational.

For killing the company. And, arguably, a few hundred people.
Nice work if you can get it. https://t.co/VAlkMNoxtr

— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) December 25, 2019

NYT = Hal900 Admitting that they were wrong drives both insane.

Not just readers and Twitter users. Other journalists know it too. pic.twitter.com/0FXBlXLPM2

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) December 28, 2019

Must read

The Christmas Eve Confessions of Chuck Todd. https://t.co/64nLjKiXqr My new post. I hope you will read it.

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) December 26, 2019

It's the wrapping paper budget that kills you.

The Infinite Gift 🎁

This is an interesting object where the side of the nth box is 1/√n. As n→+∞, the gift has infinite surface area and length but finite volume!

Learn more about this interesting paradox here: https://t.co/jbWbg6iqFZ pic.twitter.com/kxO20PTGti

— Fermat's Library (@fermatslibrary) December 24, 2019

This is a big story.

"Journalist Napp Nazworth, who has worked for the Christian Post website since 2011, said he quit his job Monday because the website was planning to publish a pro-Trump editorial that would slam Christianity Today." https://t.co/N3TmhL7WHp

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) December 24, 2019

Kanefield has become the essential legal commentator for the Trump years. For those who lack the patience for really long threads, she also has blog versions.

(thread) How California Turned Blue

Alternate title: California shows the way

California used to be Republican. We gave the nation Nixon and Reagan.

Republican candidates won CA in every presidential election between 1952 and 1988 except one⤵️ pic.twitter.com/d6YvnCrMsr

— Teri Kanefield (@Teri_Kanefield) August 19, 2019

This remains one of the best indications of real expertise in all fields.

My year as an MIT fellow taught me that truly smart people, real experts, can make complicated concepts understandable to non-experts, in tight simple language. Poseurs have a problem with that. https://t.co/054pq6DSTu

— Russ Mitchell (@russ1mitchell) December 27, 2019

"East of Lincoln"-- updated

Now with soundtrack.

Monday, April 9, 2018

I've never been a beach person. There are (or at least used to be) some exceptions but most of these towns are for me nice places to visit but a little too bland and way too pricey to want to live there.

I know people, however, who have trouble imagining living anywhere else. One of them, a long time Venice resident, described it like this. He had lived in other parts of the city when he first came here but said he never felt he was truly in LA until he made it all the way west. He compared the feeling to that of a pioneer crossing the continent in a covered wagon only to die of thirst in the desert just short of California.

Venice Beach used to have a seedy, bohemian reputation, just the sort of place you'd expect Jim Morrison to hang out. These days, the feel is definitely upscale, the rough edges have largely been worn away, and the crime you encounter is less likely to involve gangs and drugs and more likely to involve Silicon Beach Ponzi schemes.

One of the last holdouts of old Venice was Abbott's Habit, a decidedly non-corporate coffeehouse that long held a corner of Abbott Kinney, the street now known for pop-up shops, trendy restaurants, and places where you can get bone marrow ice cream (no, really).

I happened to be in Venice the day that Abbott's Habit closed. It was packed with regulars as a long list of local musicians played short sets to say goodbye. One song in particular captured the mood of the event (I'm sure it's out there somewhere on the Internet but I haven't been able to find it). The chorus went something like this, "when I get east of Lincoln, my heart starts sinkin'."

The Lincoln in question is the stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway that runs north and south through that part of town and informally divides the "beach" community from the "non-beach" areas. To live west of Lincoln means to have cool ocean breezes throughout the summer, to be able to walk down to the boardwalk, and generally to feel yourself part of the vibe.

Every time the singer got the chorus, the crowd nodded in melancholy appreciation. This was a big part of how they had defined their community and, to a degree, themselves. Now, many were being priced out of the area and, more importantly, those who stayed or returned for a visit knew that their Venice was gone regardless.

While it certainly lacks the emotional resonance for the new residents, "west of Lincoln" has never had more economic importance and perhaps never more social value. Venice Beach has become one of those places where well-off people want to live and, more to the point, one of those places where well-off people want to brag about living. There's nothing especially objectionable about this (most non-native born Angelenos have at least occasionally taken a certain pleasure in telling friends back east stories of beautiful weather and celebrity encounters), but it can have important implications for our urban planning discussion.

Many of the arguments we hear about density and transportation are strongly dependent on some rather simplistic assumptions about linear relationships and fixed demand. Why people live where they live is almost always complicated and seldom monocausal. If the discussion doesn't start reflecting some of that complexity, we are in danger of making some very big mistakes.

(And, yes, the bone marrow ice cream wasn't that bad.)

American political journalism is better than has been in a quarter century.

No snark.

No qualifiers.

One of the good things to come out of the past few years was that events have forced journalists to finally start facing some ugly truths about the profession, that they had abdicated their responsibility to inform, that they had used self-serving definitions of fairness as an excuse for caving in to pressure, that they not only tended to reduce complex stories to simplistic narratives but often let those narratives be dictated to them.

While we still have a ways to go, things have improved greatly. The conversation used to be lead by hacks like Howard Kurtz and tribalists like Jack Shafer. Now, the leading voices are arguably Margaret Sullivan and Jay Rosen, both of whom spent years playing Cassandra, having their prescient warnings ignored as things kept getting worse.

I'm sure there are exceptions, but every mainstream press institution I can think of at the moment has improved from its low point. I routinely find myself impressed by a piece of reporting or analysis from CNN (something that never used to happen). Even the Chuck Todds are starting to stand up on their hind legs.

This process of acknowledging and correct flaws has proved most difficult for the New York Times and NPR. The first is held back by compulsive self-congratulation and the axiomatic belief that is it is the world's best newspaper. The second has almost convinced itself that its now instinctive submissive crouch is a sign of maturity rather than cowardice.

Nonetheless, both are showing progress. This NYT piece represents a big step forward in acknowledging the situation, if not the gray lady's role in it.

"Centrist bias, as I see it, confuses the idea of centrism (which is very much an ideology) with objectivity and fairness." https://t.co/8CTknh59UU

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) December 23, 2019

 
Better still is this interview by Steve Inskeep, where he calmly but forcefully deals with the disinformation.

"Gotta stop you there." Invite Pam Bondi on your program for some of that good both sides feeling, you're going to receive made-up facts. Listen to what happens starting at 3:10. She is corrected, but keeps going. Inskeep decides to turn down her mic. https://t.co/YAHFzCRkCJ

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) December 19, 2019

And yes, that Pam Bondi.

White Christmas in LA -- drive carefully

Probably later today...

One of the many things I didn't expect when I moved to LA early in the 2000s was that I would still have to adjust my travel plans for winter storms. 

A cold winter storm will bring widespread rain and mountain snow to Southern California late Wednesday into Thursday, the National Weather Service said.

Snow levels will dip as low as 2,500 feet, and up to 8 inches could accumulate in the Antelope Valley. The Cuyama Valley could receive 3 inches of snow. Higher elevations of the L.A. and Ventura county mountains could see up to 2 feet of snow, especially above 6,000 feet.

Merry Christmas from Little Nemo

It's the thought that counts