Is this a joke? New Service, AdKeeper, Lets Consumers "Click to Save" Online Ads

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/10/10/2296478/new-service-adkeeper-lets-consumers.html

by j_b_f • 16 years ago

20 26 16 years ago

elbrodeur• 16 years ago

Longest. Press release. Ever. It would be nice to read a review of the service rather than a press release.

That being said, I think one of the main hurdles a service like this will be user banner blindness. Many people have banner blindness and interactive advertisements don't seem to perform better than passive advertisements.

IChrisI• 16 years ago

> AdKeeper was launched today in beta and is currently available by invitation. The service will be widely available in the first quarter of 2011.

I had a good laugh at this. An ad service so good customers will be begging to try it!

rgrieselhuber• 16 years ago

This is one of my oldest, favorite ideas. Damnit. :-)

mmorris• 16 years ago

It seems like an idea with some potential. They charge the ads' publishers based only on clicks or impressions of saved ads. Saving and storing ads is free on both the users end (obviously) and the publishers end, which means ad publishers should be able to get started on the system without much risk.

I'd think the value to publishers would be in acquiring additional metrics about user interest in a particular ad, but I'm sure the pricing will be a critical piece of the puzzle.

They certainly have a number of well-known advisors and large investors (not that that is enough to predict success!), it'll be interesting to see if it takes off.

Direct link to the site: http://www.adkeeper.com/

languagehacker2• 16 years ago

Behold, an application with a business model based solely on the naive, inflated sense of importance of people working in marketing.

rsobers• 16 years ago

I think you nailed it.

patio11• 16 years ago

I think you greatly underestimate the degree to which a segment of the population enjoys shopping, coupon clipping, etc etc.

languagehacker2• 16 years ago

I actually once worked for a discount/coupon code website whose main feature was the ability to save offers. It had a low adoption rate. People who are aware that you can save money using coupon codes or partner links on the Internet also generally know that they can type "X free shipping coupon code" into Google and find what they're looking for (or better) again.

There's almost no user loyalty in the space, so creating an application people can go back to just so they can review the coupons they like is set up for failure on two accounts. This means the people behind the business ma not have done much market research. Or it may mean that they don't feel the need to cater to the customer, since they're not selling to them, but rather to the advertisers. So assuming that they had a solid business model and did the appropriate kind of research to make sure they would have clients and revenue, they probably have letters of intent and partnerships with a few advertisers who didn't crunch those kind of numbers, or trusted the perceived market expertise of this business.

That's what I mean by naivete.

cypherpunks01• 16 years ago

It actually appears to be a real product, as opposed to an elaborate joke. Even after the initial feeling of nausea wore off, I'm still left wondering about what the market for this thing really is.

From what I've read (very little), ad clickers make up some fairly negligible portion of total internet users, and tend to be less educated or have impulse problems like compulsive shoppers, gamblers, etc. Making a complicated system to 'save' and re-visit your 'favorite' ads later on seems to not target this ad clicker market at all, as they'll most likely never look at an old ad again. And I really, really don't see this turning more people into ad clickers.

This might induce job creation for paid ad clickers in india, though.

joshu• 16 years ago

> AdKeeper is founded by Scott Kurnit

Founder of MiningCo -> About.com, which IPO'd. The allstar cast of investors is not surprising.

I like the idea of an inventory (like in the old text adventure games) for the internet, but I wonder if just having it be for a single object type is what users (versus what advertisers) want. Ideally you'd be able to keep anything in your inventory. This was part of the ultimate vision for Delicious a long time ago.

astrofinch• 16 years ago

Diigo comes closer to this than anything else I've seen.

http://www.diigo.com/

mkramlich• 16 years ago

Got the impression the PR was written by someone in the advertising industry. They were practically slobbering all over themselves with lust over the magical deliciousness that is Internet advertisements.

Meanwhile, back on Main Street, and in Hacker's Haven, I bet most folks find them usually annoying or irrelevant noise, at best.

teyc• 16 years ago

One of my pet peeves is that Ads don't respect the back button. Sometimes, I hit the back button on Stack Overflow because the ad was interesting, but it's been rotated away.

spicyj• 16 years ago

This is a big annoyance of mine too. Reddit actually seems to have solved this problem, but I'm not sure how.

jrockway• 16 years ago

I think they just generate code along with the page that uniquely selects an ad. Most sites just include some random javascript that asks the ad server to put an ad on the page.

Incidentally, while looking at the code Reddit sends, I noticed this gem:

    <script type="text/javascript">
    $(function() { 
        var ad = $("#ad-frame"); 
        if(ad.height() == 0 || ad.width() == 0) {
            $(".footer").append(
            "<img alt='' src='http://pixel.reddit.com/pixel/of_defenestration.png?hash=0e31bc319d5b5882b0cddf147f4ce1da5ac9c731&id=adblock&random=" + Math.random()*10000000000000000 + "'/>");
        } 
    });
    </script>

Of course, pixel.reddit.com is adblocked also, so this has no effect...

w1ntermute• 16 years ago

Shouldn't this be solved by the browser? The back button behavior should be no different from if I were to switch from a new tab back to its parent tab.

uxp• 16 years ago

No. He's talking about reading a page and having 'Ad Blindness' while he's focused on the content. Once he gets to a link, he'll click on it, and at that same moment, see an Ad that looks interesting (because he is no longer focused on the content). After the new page loads, clicking on the back button doesn't help because the original page will reload with all the ad spaces regenerated with new random ads.

Anyone need an idea for a side-project startup? This happens to me all the time and I absolutely hate it.

minalecs• 16 years ago

I don't see this working without some sort of incentive for consumers. I already know badges will be implemented, so that you can win virtual crap depending on the ads you see and collect. Coupons possibly will work, but then they need a way to redeem them.

btilly• 16 years ago

If they can connect with their audience, there are definitely people who will love this.

How do I know this? One summer I had the job of delivering ad mail. Most people are like me, didn't want it. But it was my job to deliver it, and I did. However there were some people who wanted it. You see they didn't know what they were doing with their weekend until they'd read the ads and learned where the sales were.

If they can connect with that audience, they could very well succeed. And sure, it may be a small portion of people. But it is a fraction that advertisers love to reach. You know, the people who like to cut out coupons. The ones who use groupon. The ones who are likely to actually buy if you offer them a deal.

ryanwaggoner2• 16 years ago

This seems like the same thing as a company co-founded by a friend of mine: http://www.dropcam.com. Just wondering if you're aware of them and whether I'm missing something?

ryanwaggoner2• 16 years ago

Sorry...posted this in the wrong story.

Andrenid• 16 years ago

It seems to me like it would work for very specific ad-types. Eg coupons, upcoming sales, promotional offers, etc. The thing is, 99% of internet ads are NOT this type of ad, but are instead a generic click-through to a site or service, in which case this idea is laughable at best.

There has been plenty of times i've seen an ad for a discount at Threadless (etc), or a promotional offer i'm interested in, where I refuse to click due to my geekish nature considering it taboo to do so, but at the same time wanting to remember that deal for later when i'm free to go check it out. I'd still rather just jot it down in notepad though.

addmein2• 16 years ago

Most ads are for branding, for sure, but that's because people don't want to waste time clicking on ads. If you take the time suck out of the equation, people might actually click and save the ads and offers they're interested in.

It's going to work great with deals and offers.

addmein2• 16 years ago

What I find most interesting is the potential for advertising to get better. Yeah, people have trained themselves not to look at the ads, but that's because the ads are usually pretty bad. If it really will be easy for people to click and save ads, the people who make the ads will want to make those ads ones you're gonna wanna keep.

Pretty ads : ) Useful ads, entertaining ads. Ads people might want to share with their friends. It could be pretty cool.

The_Sponge• 16 years ago

Part of it is the advertiser tunnel-vision thing I've seen where you get ad people saying things like "People will be eager to opt-in to our fantastic savings and they like to be aware of the newest prices and products. Hey... why is almost nobody opting in?"

Locke1689• 16 years ago

Do not editorialize in the title. The original title was fine.

Is this a joke? New Service, AdKeeper, Lets Consumers "Click to Save" Online Ads

Related Stories