Other sites
Poster: Aron Schatz
Posted on November 30, 2002 at 4:33:36 AM
There is a fight brewing between two/three of my favorite sites. Let me replicate what we have...
From Kyle at HardOCP.
Another Strog Whinefest:
We made some comments about *hris *om of *MDZone a few editions back because he has Intel advertisements on his site. See the way we would not spell out his name above? I do this because the editors at *MDZone will not spell out the name "Intel" even.
Still *MDZone gets paid to run the Intel ads through their ad network. *MDZone will beat down Intel every chance they get, the way I see it, but when Intel is ultimately putting money in their pockets, the ads stay. I find this to simply be funny. Also, I will treat the website and the owner the same way he treats the Intel brand name in hopes of showing just how childish and asinine it really is...and yes, it makes me smile inside.
Ed over at OCers.com has written a piece, that shows his ignorance once again, as he is defending *hris *om saying:
The websites essentially rent space (out). They don't deal with the advertisers nor get paid by them. They don't even know what ads will end up on their site.
I have personally played the network ad game, which I refuse to do anymore. If Ed thinks that *hris *om does not have the ability to control the ad content on his site, he is simply wrong. Many readers have told me that this is not the first time that *MDZone has run ads for Intel, and that being so, I would suggest that there is certainly ways from stopping it from happening again. If not, then the person managing the Zone either does not care, does not have the know-how (even after many years of advertising), or simply wants the money from Intel ads.
Ever notice that all Ed does anymore is bitch about what everyone else is doing and does little himself? Anyway, all this is my opinion, and I am sticking to it. I find is friggin funny that Intel is running ads at the *MDZone and I am sure there are more than a few of you that will share the laugh with me.
From Chris Tom of AMD Zone.
Well yeah, we have another Intel ad running. We had a tower for a while, and well that one probably cost more in bandwidth that it brought in. Anyway, so everyone knows I sell only a handful of ads myself, and the rest come in thru agencies. Now you can tell pretty easily since tom1.amdzone.com/ads is the url you see on the ones we get, like the Boxxtech and ECS ads. Now it seems like someone has finished staring, changing benchmarks, banning forum members, deleting posts, demanding ad money for continuing positive reviews, and has nothing better to do over the holidays. I have better things to do myself. The guys at Overclockers have a story on this news.
Ed of the Overclockers.
There are two kinds of ads run on computer websites, direct and indirect.
Direct ads are ads that manufacturer/resellers place directly with the website. The two negotiate terms, and the manufacturer/reseller directly pays the website.
A lot of people think that's the only kind of ad there is. Not so.
Many computer hardware websites (including this one) get at least some of their ads through an ad agency. Advertisers deal with and pay only the agency. The agency gets the ads and distributes the ads, keeps track of the ad exposure, collects the money, takes a part of it for their efforts, and then pays the websites.
The websites essentially rent space. They don't deal with the advertisers nor get paid by them. They don't even know what ads will end up on their site.
On occasion, this may look very strange. A website can tell you to kill yourself rather than buy Product X, and it's possible that an ad elsewhere on the website, or even in the article will claim that Product X is better than sex. We've had that happened a couple times in the past.
More recently, AMDZone had an agency ad that displayed an Intel ad for a while. This does not mean Intel is paying Chris Tom money. It does not mean Intel has any direct relationship or even contact with Chris Tom. It does not even mean Chris Tom approved or even knew about the Intel ad.
All that means is that his ad agency (which in this particular case was Doubleclick) took an ad from Intel and put it on all the sites that signed up for them, including his.
More often, you will see a positive review of the product, then see an ad. Many see that and automatically assume the website got the ad because of the positive review. That may or may not be the case when you have a direct ad, but if it's an ad from an agency, the website had no idea that particular ad was showing up.
It's very easy to see when that's the case. Right click on the ad and then click Properties. If you see that the ad is coming from a place like Doubleclick or Ad-Flow (or some other place that seems to have no connection to the site or advertiser), that's what it is. The website had no control over the placement of that ad.
If the source of the ad is the website itself or the manufacturer/reseller, then it is a direct advertising ad that the website got by itself, so if that ad comes from We'd Cheat Our Mothers If We Hadn't Already Killed Them For The $500 Insurance Policy Computer Company, that's something the website has control over.
Just to illustrate the difference:
You work in CompUSA. Somebody else in your store sells a member of al-Queda a computer, which he uses for some terrorist activity. If someone said to you afterwards, "You got paid by al-Queda!" would you shamefacedly nod your head, turn yourself in to the FBI and ask for the death penalty?
No, you'd probably call him stupid, malicious, or both. While a tiny part of your salary may have come from that al-Queda sale, you had no control over that transaction.
That's what an agency ad is like.
Let's say you were the person in CompUSA who actually sold the al-Queda guy the computer. The level of your culpability would rather depend on the transaction.
If the fellow came in wearing "I love Bin Laden" buttons and asked you for the best computer with which to detonate a nuclear bomb remotely, your level of culpability would be rather high. If the only possible reason the person gave you to suspect him was that his skin tone was a few shades darker than albino, it would be rather low.
That's what a direct ad is like.
It is wise to not jump to conclusions on these things when two mouse clicks is often all it takes to find out for sure.
I'd love to hear your take on this.
From Kyle at HardOCP.
Another Strog Whinefest:
We made some comments about *hris *om of *MDZone a few editions back because he has Intel advertisements on his site. See the way we would not spell out his name above? I do this because the editors at *MDZone will not spell out the name "Intel" even.
Still *MDZone gets paid to run the Intel ads through their ad network. *MDZone will beat down Intel every chance they get, the way I see it, but when Intel is ultimately putting money in their pockets, the ads stay. I find this to simply be funny. Also, I will treat the website and the owner the same way he treats the Intel brand name in hopes of showing just how childish and asinine it really is...and yes, it makes me smile inside.
Ed over at OCers.com has written a piece, that shows his ignorance once again, as he is defending *hris *om saying:
The websites essentially rent space (out). They don't deal with the advertisers nor get paid by them. They don't even know what ads will end up on their site.
I have personally played the network ad game, which I refuse to do anymore. If Ed thinks that *hris *om does not have the ability to control the ad content on his site, he is simply wrong. Many readers have told me that this is not the first time that *MDZone has run ads for Intel, and that being so, I would suggest that there is certainly ways from stopping it from happening again. If not, then the person managing the Zone either does not care, does not have the know-how (even after many years of advertising), or simply wants the money from Intel ads.
Ever notice that all Ed does anymore is bitch about what everyone else is doing and does little himself? Anyway, all this is my opinion, and I am sticking to it. I find is friggin funny that Intel is running ads at the *MDZone and I am sure there are more than a few of you that will share the laugh with me.
From Chris Tom of AMD Zone.
Well yeah, we have another Intel ad running. We had a tower for a while, and well that one probably cost more in bandwidth that it brought in. Anyway, so everyone knows I sell only a handful of ads myself, and the rest come in thru agencies. Now you can tell pretty easily since tom1.amdzone.com/ads is the url you see on the ones we get, like the Boxxtech and ECS ads. Now it seems like someone has finished staring, changing benchmarks, banning forum members, deleting posts, demanding ad money for continuing positive reviews, and has nothing better to do over the holidays. I have better things to do myself. The guys at Overclockers have a story on this news.
Ed of the Overclockers.
There are two kinds of ads run on computer websites, direct and indirect.
Direct ads are ads that manufacturer/resellers place directly with the website. The two negotiate terms, and the manufacturer/reseller directly pays the website.
A lot of people think that's the only kind of ad there is. Not so.
Many computer hardware websites (including this one) get at least some of their ads through an ad agency. Advertisers deal with and pay only the agency. The agency gets the ads and distributes the ads, keeps track of the ad exposure, collects the money, takes a part of it for their efforts, and then pays the websites.
The websites essentially rent space. They don't deal with the advertisers nor get paid by them. They don't even know what ads will end up on their site.
On occasion, this may look very strange. A website can tell you to kill yourself rather than buy Product X, and it's possible that an ad elsewhere on the website, or even in the article will claim that Product X is better than sex. We've had that happened a couple times in the past.
More recently, AMDZone had an agency ad that displayed an Intel ad for a while. This does not mean Intel is paying Chris Tom money. It does not mean Intel has any direct relationship or even contact with Chris Tom. It does not even mean Chris Tom approved or even knew about the Intel ad.
All that means is that his ad agency (which in this particular case was Doubleclick) took an ad from Intel and put it on all the sites that signed up for them, including his.
More often, you will see a positive review of the product, then see an ad. Many see that and automatically assume the website got the ad because of the positive review. That may or may not be the case when you have a direct ad, but if it's an ad from an agency, the website had no idea that particular ad was showing up.
It's very easy to see when that's the case. Right click on the ad and then click Properties. If you see that the ad is coming from a place like Doubleclick or Ad-Flow (or some other place that seems to have no connection to the site or advertiser), that's what it is. The website had no control over the placement of that ad.
If the source of the ad is the website itself or the manufacturer/reseller, then it is a direct advertising ad that the website got by itself, so if that ad comes from We'd Cheat Our Mothers If We Hadn't Already Killed Them For The $500 Insurance Policy Computer Company, that's something the website has control over.
Just to illustrate the difference:
You work in CompUSA. Somebody else in your store sells a member of al-Queda a computer, which he uses for some terrorist activity. If someone said to you afterwards, "You got paid by al-Queda!" would you shamefacedly nod your head, turn yourself in to the FBI and ask for the death penalty?
No, you'd probably call him stupid, malicious, or both. While a tiny part of your salary may have come from that al-Queda sale, you had no control over that transaction.
That's what an agency ad is like.
Let's say you were the person in CompUSA who actually sold the al-Queda guy the computer. The level of your culpability would rather depend on the transaction.
If the fellow came in wearing "I love Bin Laden" buttons and asked you for the best computer with which to detonate a nuclear bomb remotely, your level of culpability would be rather high. If the only possible reason the person gave you to suspect him was that his skin tone was a few shades darker than albino, it would be rather low.
That's what a direct ad is like.
It is wise to not jump to conclusions on these things when two mouse clicks is often all it takes to find out for sure.
I'd love to hear your take on this.