Twitter finally in the money with Google link - <AUTHOR> http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article6953912.ece

<comment><USER2> Four score and seven eons ago, Yahoo! paid Google to power their search results and we know how that played out.

And now Google is paying Twitter to power their real-time search results? If I were Biz Stone, I'd be cheerful too.

</comment><comment><USER3> "deals worth... several million dollars a MONTH to Twitter"

Does that sound ridiculously high to anyone else? What is the likely ROI to google/ms on that? Maybe they don't really care :/

<comment><USER4> The Twitter deal is supposed to improve search results. Ignoring the competition, they could calculate if people search more because of the presence of real-time results, and how much ad revenue do these searches generate. Given their $2 billion/month revenues, a 0.1% increase on that is $2 million/month.

Taking competition into account, neither Google nor Bing can afford not to show real time search results given that their competition does. If real time turns out to be important for users, they can prefer one or another search engine based on its presence. Also it gives the search engines exposure to such data so that they can learn how to use it.

<comment><USER3> I seriously do not want anything like that in my search results. It'd be full of spam instantly.

I disagree. I use google because it's clean and quick. Feature creep is a sure fire way to die if you get it wrong. Sure, they should have a dedicated 'real time' search thing, like they have for blogs/news etc.

If Google do get dragged down by Bing into tit for tat features etc, it'd be a great time for a search engine startup to do what Google did at the start.

<comment><USER5> You're assuming the only value Google gets is the raw data.

Does Google seem like the sort of company that stops with raw data?

Or do they seem like a company that will squeeze every tiny little bit of information out of that raw data?

There's MUCH more value in Twitter's firehose than the literal tweets.

Google will extract it.

<comment><USER3> Can you give some examples. How does anyone know 'stephenfry' is the real Stephen Fry, and an 'authority', and not a spammer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> With as much VC they've raised, they certainly better figure out a better way of monetizing their traffic. $140M by 2014, which would be something like ten years in business, with $70M in VC?

This is hardly exceptional.

<comment><USER7> Until we know what their margins are, saying that $140m/year in revenue is unexceptional seems a hard statement to justify. With just 60 employees at, say, $100k/yr each, their staffing overheads are $6m. That leaves a lot of headroom for huge hardware and operational costs with a hefty profit margin -- GOOG's is 20%, so they could be spending $100m/year on hardware and still beat that.

I'm no financial expert, but it seems like that would be a pretty great business.

Of course, I've no idea where $140M/year is coming from. "A few million per month" x {Google,Bing} => $4M/month => $48m/year, which is probably still nice and profitable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If I was Twitter, I would keep deals like this on the down low. As soon as your company starts generating revenue, all investors and stakeholders will start looking at that first revenue stream.

This deal is just a little utility fee they're getting for providing priority access to their data pipe. At this point, Google and Microsoft will probably be the biggest 'data pipe' clients that Twitter can have. These deals have resulted in "several million dollars a month" which is absolutely nothing! These numbers, without factoring in anything else can never justify Twitter's current valuation.

That's why I think Twitter should make sure that people don't get distracted with this puny little revenue stream, but rather turn their heads to the real pot of gold: monetizing the activity ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER9> People say they'd rather Bing won - but Microsoft isn't innovating at the pace of Google, so I know where I'd rather my custom (including buying adverts) would go - Google.</comment>


Ask HN: Your Personal Finance Software? - <AUTHOR>

What hacker-friendly personal finance managing software is out there? Mainly what I'm interested in is:<p>* Being able to set budgets as percentages of my income * Being able to Play around with those budgets to see how a new expense would affect everything else * Having credit card purchases automatically tallied into the correct budgets, so I can see how much room I have remaining in each * Being able to access this data from mobile, so I can consult it before making a purchase<p>Do you know of anything that fulfills some or all of these goals? Or is there anything else that you particularly like? <comment><USER2> <http://neobudget.com> since my wife and I do envelope budgeting. Works GREAT. Highly recommended.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.cashbasehq.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm a bit late to the party, but I love <http://www.youneedabudget.com>. I've been using it religiously for over two years.

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://www.gnucash.org/> has scheme(guile) and python scripting, in addition to being open source

</comment><comment><USER6> I used to use <http://www.buxfer.com>

</comment><comment><USER7> I only use Mint. You're able to export all your data and do as you please. :)!

</comment><comment><USER8> have you tried <http://www.mint.com>

<comment><USER9> +1 I have been using mint for a long time. The mobile apps are really great too. I have accounts at several institutions so I just open the app and it connects to all the institutions and updates my various balances.</comment></comment>


How do you focus while depressed? - <AUTHOR>

As many times before, I'm currently in a depression period. While I can find reasons for my depression, as years go by I'm starting to think that it's just periodic and "that's life" for me. I'm in therapy, although not taking any medications.
Many times when I am in such a period I find myself either procrastinating or, when I finally gather the willpower to work on what's important (v.s. some other non-important mind diversion), I'm unable to stay fully focused.
My question is how do you stay focused on tough periods/while depressed? It seems sad when a long investment of time (i.e. starting a business, dating someone, studying) goes down the toilet because of a downturn that I don't seem to have full control on... <comment> north-is-up Take it for what it's worth, but here's my pitch: get angry. I find that most of the time when I'm in a funk, I feel completely apathetic. I can't get any work done or stay focused on any problem because I don't feel any emotion toward what I'm doing. It's easy to say 'I don't care.' When that feeling hits, I dig deep into my music library for songs that bring out strong feelings other than depression or sorrow. The happy songs I can't get into, but the ones that have a little more pasion/rage (speaking of which, Rage Against The Machine would be a good one..) really get me going. It's easier to focus when I'm emotionally charged, so turn it up and get mad until you finish. Then you can relax and feel good about dominating the issue. Probably doesn't work for everyone, but I wouldn't share if it didn't help me :)

<comment><AUTHOR> very interesting... I use metal to wake up when I'm tired, but for the apathetic periods it may also be interesting. will try.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> At times Life sucks. Beyond our control. Things slip away even when we clutch at it. We feel that we could have salvaged it if we had done anything different. We run those scenarios in our heads over and over. And we all go through it more than once in our lives. And no matter how much we all say that its normal, that its bound to happen, that we all went through it before, truth is, you are the one going through it now. And only you know the acute pain that it has brought on, this overwhelming cloud of despair. So, we are right here with you dude. We probably cannot ever begin to understand your pain, but we are right here. You were brave enough to ask this question, and we show our solidarity to your cause by being here for you. Dont think about the light at the end of the tunnel. Dont think about how long it will be before you can be back up on your feet again. Truth is, we dont know. But we are fucking staying right here so that you know you aint alone. Fuck no.

Stay strong.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks mate! Appreciated :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I suffer from depression too, I have found that communicating - be it in person, on the phone, or online (so many options there!) helps the most. Being around uplifting people helps as well. I would say also not to focus on why we are depressed, but focus on something that you are looking forward to in the future. I was depressed for about two years in college...just moved from FL to Bos and the weather, people, etc sucked. I complained for about 12 months straight and then one day compiled a list of what I was looking forward to and how I would get there....I still have that list and 3/10 of the goals have been accomplished and well before the dates I originally had planned.

<comment><AUTHOR> While I guess that's besides the point, how long into the future were those goals set?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 1) Keep working on your depression: therapy, consider meds (but only w/therapy), exercise (even if just walking a mile a day), hydrate, eat healthy, etc. Talk with people. Force yourself to get out of the house. This stuff matters.

2) On focus: start with a one hour block a day when you can do no facebook/hackernews/etc, and instead, you have one thing you have to get done. You will feel good about getting this one thing done. Make sure you get at least one non-trivial thing done each day. Work your way up to two hours a day, and then when you can, three etc. (Most non-depressed people are probably only productive 3-4 hours a day anyway:)

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, HN and FB are the two great procrastinators :)

And Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's difficult to focus when there are many, many, many challenges bearing down like sandbags on your shoulders. You know how your site (if you started one) has days of low traffic and days of high traffic? Well, look at the long term. Did your site increase month over month? If yes, then keep pushing forward. If not, then step back and think about why your not moving forward. This too shall pass ~ honestly, I always thought that was BS, but if I look back at all the times I was overwhelmed with work, and think about how quickly I dug my way out, it's true. It all passes.

<comment><AUTHOR> yea, it passes, but what worries me is that it keeps returning...

<comment><USER5> Have you seen a doc? No shame in that.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am seeing a psychologist. I considered taking meds but decided not to due to possible long term side effects (IMO... to each his own regarding long term risk I guess)

<comment><USER5> "possible"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can fully understand where you're coming from and while it can be rough, this can be a time of unique creativity for you. What I do when I'm down is I start planning the next phase. I'd recommend getting as detailed in your mind as possible. See the project coming together and not only will this be a great use of time you'd otherwise spend in bed, seeing this vision can snap you out of your funk. Works for me. I wish you the best. Take care. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! in the past I treated such down time as a time to regroup, but we live in a world with deadlines and sometimes rigid schedules where it's not always possible to step back.

This is not a whine... I'm with a fairly productive mindset "usually", so perhaps it doubly hurts when I can't be productive or take life by the mouthful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find that when I am depressed I do something that makes me belly laugh. Whether it's watch a comedy show or just go out with my friends. You need to be reminded of how it feels to be happy, even if just for a second.

On this "happy thought"you should pick up on your work where you left off. The more productive you are the better you will start to feel.

</comment><comment><USER8> its at such moments when your good habits are the most important. Exercise, sleep, eat well, take care of yourself

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess this is true, but even when I keep these habits (i.e. exercise, albeit too "mechanically") (and right now admittedly I fail to do so), the lack of focus I'm talking about is not only in the sense of "what direction should I take in my life", but in the sense of me trying to read and grok something or need to do some math exercise and am unable to focus.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps during the good times build a habit around grokking and/or math. Set an antecedent activity that is always followed by grokking. And a location in which grokking is done. Then when you're having trouble do that antecedent in that location with the paradoxical thought that you are not required to grok or calculate. But allow yourself to.</comment></comment></comment>


China passes sweeping Hong Kong national security law: report - <AUTHOR> https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/29/china/hong-kong-national-security-law-passed-intl-hnk/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> Still do not have a copy and hence still do not know the law that has been passed. Take care if you have any asset, friends etc. in Hong Kong. Good luck and see you on the side of this end.

</comment><comment><USER2> It's time for concerted international action on China.</comment>


Choosing Co-Investors: Friends Without Benefits - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/21557730

<comment><USER2> Surprised The Economist published this misguided puff piece. And even more surprised these researchers haven't seemed to grasp the idea of correlation not equaling causation.

"If one investor of a pair has a degree from a leading university, this adds 9% to the possibility of their selected firms reaching an IPO; if the second does too, that adds a further 11%." Really?

Generally, the article seems to imply that VCs are the sole drivers of success/failure of a company.

There is a great deal of opacity around VC and Pvt Equity performance so data- driven research and insights would be great, but unfortunately, the research fails to deliver any meaningful insight to push the conversation forward.

Shameless plug - our firm has been studying co-investment relationships between firms as part of some new tools we're developing and recently looked at Sequoia, Accel and Kleiner Perkins co-investment relationships. Might be of interest to those who read this article.

[http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/venture-capital/investment- sy...](http://www.cbinsights.com/blog/venture-capital/investment-syndicate- coinvestment-relationships)</comment>


An Android Spy App Left 1.7M Passwords and Nude Photos Exposed to Hackers - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2018/08/11/an-android-spy-app-left-17-million-passwords-and-nude-photos-exposed-to-hackers/#6cb199765fd9 <comment><USER2> How would you get involved in this sort of security research? It's been an interest of mine for awhile. I have experience in reverse engineering binary files and malware but not so much experience in the "live internet stuff".

Would you start with simple CTF tasks?

I assume they used some sort of application to view the http requests that the phone was making and where able to figure out the right endpoints from that?

Thanks in advance.

</comment><comment><USER3> A simple GET request? How can a single developer be so grossly negligent as to not protect their API's?</comment>


Soon you'll be able to order pizza directly from Xbox Live - <AUTHOR> http://www.polygon.com/2013/4/22/4252934/pizza-hut-for-xbox-360-app-kinect

<comment><USER2> Know Your Customer Base.</comment>


Scientific publishing: Changing Nature - <AUTHOR> http://economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/02/scientific-publishing

<comment><USER2> _Episciences would piggyback on ArXiv, a free online repository beloved of physicists and mathematicians who post most of their work there, whether or not they submit it to peer-reviewed journals. ArXiv is already hosted by Cornell University at a cost of around $830,000 a year._

That sounds like a lot of money, even considering the amount of publications. What would be the lion's share of the cost?

</comment><comment><USER3> Nature has always been one of the more innovative publishing houses when it comes to new technology and models. By that, I mean they don't have completely allergic reactions to words like altmetrics. Though other publishing groups are still lagging far behind Nature, I'm actually quite alright with that.

</comment><comment><USER4> Any thoughts on why this does not seem to be happening in the humanities as well?</comment>


Google and Facebook ad traffic is 90% useless - <AUTHOR> https://youexec.com/dev/2017/1/14/google-facebook-ads-traffic-is-useless <comment><USER3> I've got a long history here, stretching all the way back to 2007. At that time 80% of my traffic was organic, and most importantly, was spread equally between MSN, Yahoo, Google, AOL, etc.

I paid for ad's through HotScripts, and this was a solid source of leads. This mixture, along with a fast, secure, easy to use site and great word of mouth lead to an annual growth rate of around 30%, ending up in 2011 with a monthly income of just over $5000. Not bad for what started out as a side-project. I took none of this for granted, and worked by butt off every day.

It's key to note from 2007 to 2011 a great consolidation was taking place, with Google eating, for me at least, 90% of all search traffic.

Then the spammers hit. My site was targeted with millions of low quality links, which lead to a Google penalty in 2012. I lost 90% of my traffic and along with it, 90% of my revenue.

4 years on and I've never actually recovered from my penalty, with traffic being manually limited to under 30 clicks on any particular day.

I've done my best to advertise, with Google capturing the lions share. Unfortunately I too have very little luck with this channel, with only 1 $4 conversion after hundreds spent.

The real kicker here, and my reason for posting, is the difference between what was my organic traffic then, and my ad traffic now, is nowhere near the same in terms of quality and obviously, conversions.

I guess my point is the current situation, basically 2 companies controlling so much traffic, seems, well, bad for small business in this country. I value what they bring to the table and fully understand why they're so popular. But is things keep on this way where does that lead the guys like me? Is this just the way it has to be? Is the dream of the open Internet already dead?

<comment><USER4> The spammy links thing fascinates me. I don't know much about search algos or SEO but on our small, industrial business site we couldn't understand why, after many hours and thousands of dollars spent on the procedures that Google recommends, our organic ranking in SERPs for a very niche product (of which we are one of only three providers in our region) was appalling - often page three.

It wasn't till we realised we had 10,000+ spammy links pointed at our site that we wondered whether we had been the victim of some malicious attack. We couldn't recover the penalty to the site no matter how hard we worked and have had to rebuild at a new domain as a result.

For small businesses like us, is it really possible for a competitor to just destroy our online credibility like that or am I just paranoid?

<comment><USER5> Nah, if there's money on the line there's a lot of reason to target you for a penalty. Scammy sites can't get attention if there's a legitimate site in the search results.

SEO is a big industry and taking down competitors is a part of being the top N results.

<comment><USER4> So how do I combat against this? We're a small, honest company providing great products and services for the companies that need them but we're getting killed online because no one can find us.

I've forked out a lot (for us) on adwords and the return has been negligible to say the least.

Does this mean that the democratizing power of the internet has been swallowed up for small, lean companies like us who cant afford a mega adwords budget?

<comment><USER6> You have to disavow the bad links. [https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en)

<comment><USER7> Why is it that someone else gaming Google's algorithm becomes my problem and requires me to solve it rather than Google?

<comment><USER8> For the same reason when some fellow citizen acts against you, you may need to sue them yourself - Google provides a platform with some set of rules, but they can't proactively ensure nobody is doing something malicious to other parties (especially if the malicious act is allowed by the rules), nor they can codify and enforce "don't be an asshole" rule.

<comment><USER7> Your analogy doesn't really hold up. This isn't another person coming after you directly, it's the other person manipulating a third party to cause the third party to come after you, and the third party saying "not my problem that I'm easy to manipulate like that".

For a criminal-justice-system analogy, it's similar in concept (though not in extremity) to SWATting. And I don't think we want governments to wash their hands of that and say "not our fault our system is abusable that way, it's all on _you_ to do something about it after the fact".

<comment><USER9> Identity theft is a perfectly reasonable analogy. If someone steals my identity and ruins my credit rating, the onus is on me to inform the credit reference agency. It'd be nice if Equifax could telepathically divine whether a credit transaction was legitimate or not, but it simply isn't possible. Google are similarly unable to distinguish between a blackhat SEO scheme and this sort of weird SEO DDoS.

<comment><USER7> Except there are a lot of people (myself included) who see the handling of "identity theft" as banks and credit agencies trying to pass the buck for their own poor approaches to security and verification.

<comment><USER10> Exactly - In my opinion there is no "identity theft". There is criminal fraud, which the banks are a victim of. However, instead of dealing with that fraud they just pass the costs on to an unrelated individual and then shrug and say "you deal with it".

Google does something much like this - but without regulation or clear appeal process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I really thought I was crazy when I thought that a 99% bounce rate is unreal, even for my highly specialised product sites which cater to a very niche audience. But I ultimately came to a similar conclusion; no matter what ads I come up with, it's money down the drain, and I've never had a single conversion that came through the door that way. I've spent untold thousands on paid ads. I learned a great deal about which keywords to target, and mimicked the reputedly successful approaches of my competitors. Nada. Would have been better off shoveling cash into an open pit.

The only customers I've gained through web marketing have been organic, coming through bona fide referrals on other sites. The "hit rate" on that has been pretty good, suggesting that the blame can't lie entirely with my crappy sites...

<comment><USER12> We, as users, have been oversaturated and desensitized. There is so much crap shoved in our faces, that we've learned over the years to ignore all ads.

Speaking for myself, I have an almost visceral negative reaction with ads. I would (and do) pay dumb amounts of money for a service if that means I'm not served ads.

<comment><USER13> What exactly is "dumb" amounts of money? If by dumb, you mean enough for authors to get by, then you are probably in the minority.

People love talking about how much they hate ads, and how, no, they're not cheap, they would totally pay for content.

Let's be honest - internet users are cheap. They want stuff for free. And if site A starts charging, they will jump ship to site B, until eventually it's a race to the bottom.

Ads seems to be the only model that works (thus far).

Many attempts have been made to monetise things (a la micropayments).

I believe Google did something before, where you paid cents, or fractions of a cent to authors for article views. This was back in 2012:

[http://www.bbc.com/news/business-20395407](http://www.bbc.com/news/business-20395407)

And recently Mozilla's Brendan Eich is doing Brave, with bitcoin micropayments. I'd love to see it gain traction, but I don't see it going mainstream.

Look, I know some ad networks go too far - but IMHO, Google/FB ads are hardly _that_ intrusive. (I personally hate pop-up/pop-under ads, and auto-playing videos)

(Disclaimer: I work for Google, but not in ads - above opinions are purely my own).

<comment><USER14> I guess I'm cheap then. I have no interest in paying any amount of money to read most of the things I read online. It seems to me that it's not so much that people are demanding this content for free as it is that people don't think it's worth paying for. It's not that I particularly wanted to see an article about the usefulness of advertising as it is that it's something to read on the bus. I would probably just look out the window instead if the alternative weren't free.

Most articles/videos on sites like HN fall into this category - I wouldn't have paid to read this article for example. To me, this comment thread is worth much more than the article itself and I don't see anybody here upset that they aren't getting paid to comment.

I guess that means that I would probably pay a subscription fee to a site like HN but that I wouldn't generally pay for the content itself, which does seem a little backwards. Still, that's what's valuable to me. Does anybody else feel this way or am I weird?

<comment><USER15> You're definitely not alone.

For some reason comments are often more interesting than the articles themselves, and people never think of monetizing their comments. Somehow karma is enough of a reward.

If I had to watch an ad for 30 seconds or pay $0.25, the proceeds of which would be distributed to commentators by proportion of karma they earned in the comment section ... I probably wouldn't bother.

It doesn't make much sense to me how I arrive at these utility valuations though.

<comment><USER16> Paying commentators would immediately destroy the quality of comments as people tried to exploit the system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I see these posts all the time of DIY Adwords/FB and then a claim it doesn't work. This would be like me, a non-carpenter, trying to build a house, seeing how bad it looks and then claiming building materials suck.

There is reason companies spend ~$70 billion on Adwords annually. So because Adwords/FB didn't work for you doesn't mean their traffic is 90% useless. And dont get me wrong, I completely acknowledge there is junk traffic on the networks, but filtering this to a minimum is part of getting advertising right. So to get 90% useless traffic, it means you set up campaigns without proper targeting or content, not Adwords/FB is 90% useless.

<comment><USER18> At my last company, we worked with Google's in-house team to build adword campaigns, eventually spending the better part of a million dollars over the course of 9 months or so, with free assistance from them in the development of campaigns and with their ongoing guidance and advice. From our meetings with them, they were quite confident that our strategy was appropriate, that there existed an audience that we could reach via our keyword choices, and that they could drive the kind of traffic we needed to our site.

It was an abject failure, and a chief contributor to the downfall of the company.

<comment><USER19> > ...we worked with Google's in-house team

I'm no expert but I don't think the incentives were aligned properly there. Here's a Reddit thread that says it better than I can:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/PPC/comments/1nwzdy/what_do_your_go...](https://www.reddit.com/r/PPC/comments/1nwzdy/what_do_your_google_account_reps_do_for_you/)

Maybe work with an agency next time?

<comment><USER18> Sage advice. I'm bookmarking that for the next time I need to talk about marketing strategies with people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I did Adwords for 1 person mom shops and bigger companies in industries ranging from tourism and general aviation to jewelry and software development.

It was all profitable. Ad agencies are borderline scammers - they measure traffic and clicks as performance, which makes you to spend more money to increase "performance" and pay more agency fees.

Sometimes I burned $15000 before first conversion, but ROI was always positive in the end.

People launching ads without any experience, redirecting people to homepage and loosing money are the same kind of people trying trade stock market and loosing money, creating their own amateur e-commerce shop and loosing money getting zero customers, hiring high-school nephew for company website etc etc. You need experience, and before that - knowledge.

First, manage your ads in-house. Agencies have no reason to work for your conversions, that's not their business model. Second, don't treat ads like "we'll slap users with our ad and see what happens". Prepare user flow, conversion funnel, dedicated landing pages, drip campaigns, remarketing etc.

Adwords and Facebook are fully-fledged promotion channels and they have to be treated as such. It's a craft which consultants make huge money from - <USER2> they know how to bring profits.

<comment><USER21> You are painting agencies with overly broad strokes. I used to help lead the paid search group at a top search agency. Rest assured we did not try to pass off clicks as anything but that. Occasionally we had clients with branding goals and we worked with them to make sure we were adding incremental value, but most were direct response (ie. "Show me the money or you're fired").

A percent of media model isn't perfect, but if a client isn't seeing results, the relationship won't last long, and word gets around.

Now, there are scammy agencies out there, but it is hardly the norm. I loved stealing business from them because it was shooting fish in a barrel with all the problems on those accounts.

Be careful about making such broad, and highly inaccurate statements... They really don't help paint you in the best light.

<comment><USER20> > Be careful about making such broad, and highly inaccurate statements... They > really don't help paint you in the best light.

What paints me in good light is my results and my results only. Also, I'm a cool, likable guy :)

I had my share of dealing with agencies and nothing beats knowledge of business goals, internal processes and clientbase and reports honesty while working in-house.

Many agencies exist because it's cheaper to outsource. Just like Indian coders - but quality of work is _often_ questionable.

I stand by my words and refuse all agency work - still, I have many recruiters regularly saying "hi" on LinkedIn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is due to the ad fraud bubble. We have covered it extensively on Software Engineering Daily: [https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/?s=ad+fraud](https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/?s=ad+fraud)

<comment><USER23> Thank you! This makes perfect sense: "A huge percentage of online advertisements are never seen by humans. They are viewed by bots–automated scripts that are opening web pages in a browser and pretending to be a human. Advertising scammers set up web pages, embed advertisements on those pages, and then pay for bot traffic to come and view those advertisements."

[https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2016/12/20/ad-fraud- res...](https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2016/12/20/ad-fraud-research- with-augustine-fou/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I recently started writing a book on programming and set-up a landing page for it, to do a pre-launch campaign and I set up some ads on Facebook.

Fortunately, I work in the Analytics industry, so I set-up scroll tracking on my website using Google Tag Manager and started noticing the same patterns as the author as well. Just so to add on to the author, I even excluded the top fraud-prone countries (Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, etc.)

In effect, the only pre-orders I've gotten are from Amazon's own internal organic advertising combined with my personal Social media posts. I tried increasing the budget, but that didn't work out either.

Mind you, I track almost every important action on my site (click a button, fill in a form, etc.). The behaviour of these "bots" are very strange and the only thing I've gained in this gamble is an ultra high bounce rate (~90%, < 2 seconds session duration) like the author. Again, I feel it's too early for me to conclude that these networks are useless as I keep reading posts from other people saying Facebook works extraordinarily well for them.

<comment><USER25> Wouldn't 90%+ of your target market ad block your ad?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> We've been doong FB for almost a year now and have learned alot in this space, (with still alot to go).

Here are some things that might help you.

1\. The type of ad you run and the copy you use has a big impact on the user's behaviour. Not all ads are created equal. Good copy that really taps i to why someone should be clicking through and what value they can expect to attain the other end makes a big difference. But this isnt an exact science. Its more of an art.

2\. If you're targeting is off, you will also get undesired behaviour. People might click through because they like the ad, but if they havent been targeted correctly, it will cause issues. You may need to get more laser focused in terms of targeting. Age range, custom audience (through email upload), lookalike audiences, interests etc.

3\. People via email, trust you to some extent and have a relationship with you. They're a warm audience. This is the real reason the organic approach is working for you. You have a relationship with those people. Its not the same with paid ads. You need to build that trust and warm them up. You might take a layered/re-targeting approach by offering them some value and then re- targeting the people that interact with your content with a second and third round of ads. You might also grab their email and then target them both via email and fb.

FB can work, but it take alot of iterations and time to get it right.

Alternatively you could just run an FB ad that does something to collect email addresses, then run an email nurturing campaign, warm up the audience and then target via email.

FB _can_ work, but it takes time.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is true. What would be amazing is if there was a way to audit their advertising algorithms to know it is fair. I tried their new Contact Form tool, but the cost per lead is about $17/lead.

At the end of the day, if someone is advertising a product that is incredibly good, they should be able to use CPM instead of CPC. The point I am trying to make is that I believe the CPM model is dependent on making CPC & other more costly services look like a better alternative.

<comment><USER27> Publishers want to get paid for the opportunity (CPM) but Advertisers want to pay a portion of their revenue (PPA): PPL, PPV, PPC and PPM are all proxies for that customer acquisition, so if you want to buy effectively, you need to start by figuring out what _your_ costs per acquisition are. If you can't even hypothetically afford anything close to $17/lead, you might not be able to purchase customers yet, but if you can, then figuring out your lead-to-sales ratio is a lot easier than working out everything between the impression and the sales.

You might consider looking for an agency that specialises in PPL/PPA; basically doing revshare, and letting them build appropriate site lists, and user demographics, and copy testing and so on to help figure out what makes your product sell -- they will put skin in the game because they can leverage their expertise.

<comment><USER21> This. Not every business has the economics to make advertising work at certain scales.

For many, $17/lead is fantastic because they have an AOV or LTV that supports it. Not every business can do that, so other forms of marketing may make more sense at that stage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In the contract economy, imagine that all of us, with our small contracting companies and associated specialities, are day labourers standing at the dockside waiting to be hired.

The dock manager (Google) opens a gate to the strong looking fellows allowing them into the dock company's holding area. If they are not in this area (front page of appropriate SERPs) then they aren't considered by the task master who later comes to the holding area, scans the candidates that the dock manager has selected, and takes his pick to get the days work done - from which point it is finally up to the individual and their abilities to prove their ongoing worth.

Imagine if you needed to be an SEO, adwords and general internet marketing guru just to get the dock manager to look at you so you could get paid....

EDIT: Clarity

<comment><USER28> In the contract economy every one of the dock workers has an agent whose job it is to make sure they have the support they need to provide ongoing worth.

Right now most agents won't take someone who can't immediately bill invoices in the high thousands of dollars. In a contract economy the agent services market would have a low end. Tools will emerge to help agents take on large volumes of low dollar value clients.

Double digit percentages of the entire unrepresented labor market are up for grabs. The current setup is unstable.

Unions are different in that they represent a class not an individual and they don't take a percentage of earnings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> OP is simply doing it wrong. Advertising works, and the title's claim only shows how inexperienced op is. I work at a digital ad agency. Ads work if you do it correctly, but it's incredibly easy to waste money. People like op are why google and Facebook make buying ads overly complicated - if it were easy you wouldn't have to spend so much money.

If op is reading this, I'd be happy to hop on a phone call and help you out.

<comment><AUTHOR> @Soared, aside from the self-marketing of your firm how about you put your money where your mouth is. Let's use the same landing page - I'll make a campaign, you make a campaign, we each spend $500 and we track conversions in a specific period of time.

The one who converts more for less will owe the other $1000 - we can make the accounts public so that (1) the world can see your "expertise" and (2) how "confused" I am. Game?

<comment><USER30> I would love to see this.

Every article about rampant ad fraud inevitably contains a comment thread where ad consultants appear to make claims that other people "just can't do it right". Let's see it done right, then.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, @Soared - where you at?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> 90% useless is still better than most of the alternatives.

Seriously though, it's hard to track success.

If I'm showing an ad wanting people to rush out and buy sneakers... it's rare that it will hit the right person at the right spot in their sneaker purchase decision journey.

But what I want is to bombard them with information so that when they are ready to buy sneakers, they think positively of the sneakers I am selling.

I don't care if they don't follow a perfect path on my site... if they click around and click off... they most likely aren't going to click and buy on the spot. I'm OK with this.

How do I know if my advertising is working? Well... tracking users is one way, but just asking users is something a lot of stores don't bother with. A simple "how did you hear about us?" or hit them up with a customer satisfaction survey after the purchase with a few questions -- incentivized with a coupon. You'll get some great metrics that will help you understand if you marketing budget is being well-spent.

<comment><AUTHOR> The case I am making is I believe Google & Facebook mix "active" and "non- active" users to create an artificial stream of users such that paying by impression is always worst than CPC.

<comment><USER29> Sorry man, but you're not experienced enough to make these claims. Search, display, and social are entirely different channels and have completely different strategies. Display is for awareness, you shouldn't be trying to get clicks.

You get charged for misclicks so maybe that's what you are seeing. But cpm bidding generally isn't for driving traffic anyways. Cpc is usually more expensive because it is way more targeted and is intent based.

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct, this is not a statistical trial or anything official. In fact, my data is not significant. After years of using Google and Facebook ads that I have never seen CPM out beat CPC.

<comment><USER29> Because cpm doesn't get measured with conversions. Cpm is almost strictly awareness which is very difficult to measure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This article is 99% useless. Adwords and Facebook are very complex and take experience, time, and $ to get campaigns dialed in right. The targeting and audience choices have become increasingly complex but you can create cost efficient ad placements if you know what your doing and I think in this it's not the case. Plenty of businesses rely upon these platforms to drive traffic, leads, and sales, so your argument for leaving offers no compelling reason why to leave these platforms.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not suggesting we leave these platforms, but rather that we evaluate their true offering, and perhaps audit the algorithms to make sure its fair for everyone. So far, in this long thread it seems others have noticed the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I haven't use google ads in years but I did study my logs and watched them in real time and came to the conclusion they were either hitting me with bots or foreigners getting paid to click their ads. It was blatant theft in my opinion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed.

<comment><USER34> A fun evening for me is getting a 6six pack and creating a website like "Bob's BBQ", then running google ads for it. The access_log is hilarious. People from Pakistan, people not requesting css (wtf?), on and on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> You're so right. FB & Google doesn't work at all. Stop advertising on those sites, you're making my CPC go up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well said, except for the second sentence :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Agree with this post. Approximately 90% bots in our FB ad network acquisitions. It's a total scam.

</comment><comment><USER37> There are some niches that are overflowing with stupid advertisers that are bidding higher than the amount the referral is actually worth. In those cases, there really isn't anything you can do. You can wait it out, but there are rubes already lined up to replace the ones that go bankrupt and leave.

That's why you'll find people swearing both cases..."adsense is worthless" vs "adsense is a goldmine". It really depends on the niche.

</comment><comment><USER38> Was it a Search or a Display Campaign for Google? I could understand that adsense webmasters used clickfarms. However finding out that google is using clickfarms for Search campaigns would be uncovering the greatest scam of the Internet.

<comment><USER39> Interestingly the behavior is similar to what I have observed with Mouseflow recordings for organic Google+ and Facebook posts. The page is opened, the mouse never moves and the 'user' scrolls a couple of times. I wonder if these records could just be the regular reviews that Google and Facebook do; their visits do not show up on Google Analytics but Mouseflow is able to take recordings.

<comment><USER40> Isn't that how legitimate mobile or even laptop trackpad users look ? If I don't intend to click anywhere, the "mouse" cursor never moves - the page loads, I scroll, and go back by keyboard.

With a mouse, you get slight movement even while scrolling or pressing buttons, but with a trackpad or on a mobile device you don't, there's "mouse movement" even if you explicitly do some aiming before a click.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> A bit off-topic, but how did you create those videos? It seems like a useful tool to test/optimize design, find UI bugs, etc.

EDIT: They used FullStory ([https://fullstory.com](https://fullstory.com)). I missed that when I read it the first time.

<comment><USER42> There are quite a few of these screen-capture tools around (Inspectlet, Mouseflow, Hotjar), most of them for UX optimization.

If you're looking for a more developer-focused product, you can also check out LogRocket ([https://logrocket.com](https://logrocket.com)).

<comment><USER41> LogRocket looks interesting and may be very helpful for debugging problems in production or optimizing performance. But FullStory or something like it fits my current needs better. I just want a video of real users interacting with the site to see where they get confused. And I don't want to spend a lot of time integrating code to get it to work. That is what FullStory is promising but I haven't tried it yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> You just don't understand how to use the platforms. I'm generating millions of dollars in revenue for startups from both these channels each month.

These posts pop-up every now and then, what OP doesn't consider is they just aren't a good marketer.

</comment><comment><USER44> People being paid by large advertising companies like google an facebook should declare this in their responses.

</comment><comment><USER45> I'm making the assumption that the 90% is your bounce rate for traffic from Facebook and Google Advertising.

I'm also assuming that you probably have left all channels (mobile, tablet, desktop, various display channels, etc) on, and not using remarketing/retargeting.

If all that is true, then what you're seeing is normal. Heck it can even be higher than that in a lot of cases. Ideally, you need to be working on reducing that useless traffic over time.

But this easier said than done especially if you have a a small budget that will be completely gone within a few weeks.

PPC is such a hard thing to do because you need consistent funds for at least 1-4 months to truly test what works and what doesn't. If you don't have that, then there is no point in doing it.

My word of advice is either stop doing PPC and focus on less costly things, or if you're going to do it, then start by using only one ad network (doesn't matter; just pick one) and working within a single channel of that network.

Once you feel comfortable within that one channel, then start adding another channel and another channel over time within that ad network.

</comment><comment><USER46> Hey there, can you tell us a little more about how you were targeting your users and with what kind of content? There could be some bots in there but it also looks like folks land, do a quick check of the content on the site and bounce because it's not what they are looking for. I do this sometimes, especially if I accidentally click on top level ad content on accident. I know you said you did some super targeted ads - what does that mean? It kind of looks like the people converting on your ads are not the ones you're looking for. I'd look at the audience first and then ad content.

It's great to budget your spend where it makes the most sense and your communities and earned ads/content should do great for you. Just watch your spend there and lways budget some for experimentation and try NEW things. Just because you have written off a gold mine doesn't mean there isn't gold there. Maybe you were mining it incorrectly. However, If you feel there is gold all over the ground I'd pick it up before I started digging for it.

</comment><comment><USER47> As someone who spends a lot of money on ads for aBigCo. globally, I can tell you GDN ads and Twitter prospecting ads are quite terrible.

Facebook has a tremendous amount of data about users, but for a B2B campaign, its quite terrible and worthless. Be sure you completely disable all mobile app "networks" placementd (esp facebook - audience network ) --unless you're doing managed placements -- I've seen tens of thousands burned with these networks, which show ads in worthless apps, designed to generate fraudulent clicks.

That said, retargeting across these networks (esp Facebook) can drive responses, although I can't say we've seen anything turn into a big opportunity later in the funnel (big/complex sales cycles)...retargeting requires traffic, so I'm constantly trying to pull in a variety of 3rd party/behavioural data to improve front end traffic, to get the right people to pages.

The ad model is unsustainable, I want BigCo to switch (they have the resources), but it's not easy for a global company.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know what you mean, my 9-5 is also at a BigCo, similar story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Well since the ad pricing is based on bids, it doesn't matter if 90% is useless as long as some flush-with-VC-cash competitor isn't artificially bidding up keywords on that 90% useless traffic.

</comment><comment><USER49> It's really easy to get ads wrong. The wrong placement, objective, bid amount, bid strategy, targeting, creative, incorrect tracking, poor landing page, etc can all waste your money.

But just from looking at the home page of the site you were advertising I'm not surprised your ads had poor performance. At a glance, I can't tell what exactly i'm 'Starting today' and I doubt your ad creative would be much better, so most people who click are probably curious and have low intent. If you want high CTRs its easy to 'optimize for clicks' and use a catchy ad copy or image, but then obviously you'll have low conversion. Not to mention 'optimizing for clicks' on display networks obviously runs into issues with bots.

</comment><comment><USER50> Readers that come from your newsletter are already converted to you. Readers that come from an advertisement do not know who you are and are evaluating your website to see if they want to convert to you. It is reasonable to expect that only 10% of these people want to convert to you. The other 90% after scrolling down your website are not interested in converting to you. Your website did not contain the hook to make them convert. You should improve your website.

TL;DR The adverts performed 100% in bringing visitors to your website. That is their job. Your website is not converting them to real users 90% of the time. Your website failed.

</comment><comment><USER51> So many people are saying "you're doing it wrong" but that doesn't explain what seems like artificial users.

<comment><USER52> exactly, Veritasium covers this in meticulous detail in his two videos on facebook fraud:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ZqXlHl65g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ZqXlHl65g)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Yup, pretty much. Probably 99% is closer to the truth. If you want to not give your ad budget to crooks you need to buy 100% cost-per-action where you _only_ pay if the click converts. The other end of that spectrum, impressions, is really like throwing bills out your 10th story window into the crowds below.

"Click fraud" is rampant and Yuuuuge. Because it is both easy and it doesn't get the international police on your back like stealing CC's or user accounts do. So it is a fun game for smart people who make anywhere from a few dollars to a few thousand dollars a day just for writing clever code.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to hear more. I'll email you tmrw. Interesting background.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Why are the two gifs so vastly different? The times are fairly close to each other just 10 seconds difference but the Facebook/Google looks to be altered to give the impression of them doing nothing.

The replay shows them both at 1x but they're not the same at all, the second gif is like 10x the speed of the first.

That behavior looks exactly correct for mobile traffic.

Flagged the story, looks like title click bait to probably hit front page; There seems to be manipulation on the gifs to drive their point.

<comment><USER55> See the bottom-right of the GIF "Skip inactivity", which explains the difference you're seeing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Could it be a third party click fraud? For example, if you buy ads in Adwords on thrid-party sites, their owners' income depends on how many clicks are made so they might be motivated to add bots to real user traffic.

And even if you buy ads on Google's own sites (like Youtube), the channel owners could hire bots to maximize their income.

Regarding Facebook, I don't know if there is any third party, maybe this is just people who clicked on ads accidentaly?

</comment><comment><USER57> Adwords used to work really well for me, over the years the return declined and the system got more complex until it wasn't worth the effort anymore.

There is a good post from Andy Brice on this: [https://successfulsoftware.net/2013/05/26/the-declining- prof...](https://successfulsoftware.net/2013/05/26/the-declining- profitability-of-google-adwords/)

</comment><comment><USER58> 90% seems accurate:

\- Most times I click in ads, I do it only to help the content creators, I have no interest at all in the ad I'm clicking.

\- The remaining clicks I often do it by mistake.

<comment><USER59> I used to click only on ads I didn't like, to charge the creators money, until I realized the networks were optimizing for showing me only ads I hated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> People coming from scroll-through-attend-nirvana kind of platforms like fb, twitter etc are expected to behave that way.

Shouldn't you build a rather very specific landing pages for these click- throughs and then compare their behavior? I personally feel that redirection to very good article on your site would rather have them more interested than sending them to a landing page.

</comment><comment><USER61> I wonder if it's a touch-screen vs mouse/keyboard difference.

</comment><comment><USER62> It depends on what you want the new users to do. Ads mostly bring visitors who don't know about your company. If you are in a business where branding or trust is important, it's more difficult. If you are in a commodity business where prices matter, I think it's easier.

That's normal they have a different behavior. Comparing Google Ads and Facebook Ads is hard as there is a user behavior difference between them.

\- Visitors from Google Ads often have a purchase intent \- Visitors from Facebook Ads are currently entertaining thanks to Facebook photos & videos. (you need to create a need, a urgency to sign up / purchase)

-> my startup has experienced that. Google ads bring qualified users to Moneytis.com (comparison of money transfer options), whereas Facebook ads bring curious people to sign up on neomy.io (fun alerts about currency exchange rates)

</comment><comment><USER55> Does the auction-style pricing already take this into account?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't believe it does. It seems from my data that CPM will always be more costly than CPM. I am suggesting this is artificial.

<comment><USER63> You set your bid though. What you mean is that the going rate for CPM is higher?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> In-house email will always outperform paid media, so the fact that you record a higher degree of site interaction from people who arrive via email should be of no surprise.

With regard to the advertising on Facebook and Google, what audience targeting was tested and applied? What ad formats were used? How many ad concepts were tested? What testing was done on the landing pages to improve performance? What was the "ROI" of the advertising investment, and what was the +/\- on these results relative to the goals ascribed to the investment at the outset?

If you have no answers to these questions, or cannot back up your response with data from the type of testing I refer to here (which is part and parcel to running online advertising), then your article is completely pointless.

</comment><comment><USER65> I recently ran a campaign to validate an idea. Ultimately I dropped the idea, but out of 300 impressions, i got 10 clicks.. and 6 of those clicks left their email address. Not bad.

I then clicked the "optimize my campaign" button. Suddenly my clicks went up, and my impressions went up... but no one left their email. I think the trick to advertising on Google is to target niches, and scale up "manually". I also think there's something to targeting the long tail keywords rather than the fat popular keywords. "Sofa" might get 50k clicks, but the people searching for "Black modern leather sofa" will probably be a better match.

</comment><comment><USER66> There are many traffic exchange sites that use automated software to click or view ads. Most of them run on server ips or they're using a proxy. [http://getIPIntel.net](http://getIPIntel.net) is a free and useful service to combat bad / low quality traffic. Though to save you money, your advertiser needs to not bill you for automated traffic. It's unlikely that'll happen because the more views and clicks, the more money they'll get. You can still use GetIPIntel's api to help you pick which advertising company gives you legitimate traffic.

</comment><comment><USER67> Isn't this just Sturgeon's law in action?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon's_law)

</comment><comment><USER68> Google worked better for me since people search with intent whereas on facebook you rely on serendipity. They are there for something else and you hope they will have interest in your service.

All in all are you sure you use the right keywords in google so you get the people with right intent?

Facebook's strength is audience targeting. Are you sure the audience you target is the right one on Facebook?

</comment><comment><USER69> Start by making a landing page dedicated to your google campaign traffic. Pay attention to the results and try to make changes to improve conversion rate.

Some of those will be changes to the LP, some of it will be narrowing the targeting of your ads to exclude unprofitable segments.

Is easy really, to get something from ads. You just need to stop half-assing it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> One of the visitors to this thread shared this link with me via email: [https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/?s=ad+fraud](https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/?s=ad+fraud) \- might help others researching the topic.

</comment><comment><USER70> "Facebook fraud" is a video anyone who considers paid ads MUST watch: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag)

</comment><comment><USER71> Is it common that people move the mouse cursor around while reading a page? What on earth for? Unless it's mindless fidgeting with the physical mouse, wouldn't it slow their reading down?

<comment><USER72> Most people do not take their hands away from the mouse, and will scroll with the mouse wheel. People are unable to do those things without moving the mouse in some way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> @OP: What's the product? I get that its a newsletter but I can't figure out the content from the copy. Why dont you test putting sample content on the landing page? :)

</comment><comment><USER74> 14 Year PPC guy here. I have built businesses using PPC traffic.

With Google - Turn off search partners and content network and try running the numbers again.

</comment><comment><USER75> > This visitor is very different - it feels like it has ADD, or its a paid > slave boy somewhere, or a bot that has clumsy intelligence.

I'm happy to see you associate someone with ADD with slaves or a non- intelligent bot.

"Each week receive hand-picked insights to help you develop your career & get promoted faster" by learning how to randomly insult people and equate them with slavery.

"BE GREAT AT WHAT YOU DO", like insulting people you've never met.

Do your testimonials come from people who learned how to insult people?

</comment><comment><USER76> does anyone know if the OP is talking about search ads, or display ads? I stay away from display ads because it's chock full of fraudulent activity, but even search ads I see about 90% lower conversions than organic search. so wondering if this is the same problem....

</comment><comment><USER77> i dont know if anyone's behavior matches mine, but when i click a fb add, i usually just vertically scroll to the bottom (quickly) looking for anything compelling me to stop.

</comment><comment><USER78> ...Google and Facebook ad traffic useless to 90%

</comment><comment><USER79> So a 10% conversion rate? Seems normal.

<comment><AUTHOR> 10% of the entering traffic, acts normal. The other 90% is garbage. So if your initial organic conversion rate is X%, this article suggests your Google Ad, or Facebook ad conversion rate will be 10% * X%. That said, its not an extensive study or anything scientific.

<comment><USER43> This is on you. Build a better audience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> "but yeah, that 10% though"

</comment><comment><USER81> I have definitely seen the same thing.

I would like to add that having done both, ads in foreign languages are clicked on by bots many times less than ads in English.

Google Adwords seems to be almost a scam. If you don't disable them, most of your clicks will come from Nigeria, Afghanistan, and other random countries, with Google doing nothing about it.

I've had success with Facebook in Polish and Italian, ads in English seemed to be mostly bots.

Pretty sad for people who spend thousands without knowing.

I guess content marketing is the way to go, most people know this. Write good stuff that is useful to your audience, and share it on Reddit. I've done it in the past, with great results.

</comment><comment><USER82> I wonder how snapchat ads are converting

Its pretty covert because so many people are dismissing it as something their daughters use to do frivolous things

But I bet they didn't even know about the election ads, or the short form stuff thats decent at getting the point across quickly, or the location filter ads

</comment><comment><USER83> @somid3 I would like to invite you to our analytics community: [http://www.innerjoins.org](http://www.innerjoins.org)

and to @vivekd's request for data on this topic: [https://my.caura.co/investigating-fraudulent-clicks-in- googl...](https://my.caura.co/investigating-fraudulent-clicks-in-google- adwords-f3c42da0ad62)

\- plenty of data here. Happy to provide a SQL interface for it if you can prove that you've got the chops

<comment><AUTHOR> love the analysis

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> I have found that all display ad clicks and all mobile ad clicks are worthless for our business with adwords. You have to blow a thousand bucks to learn that lesson. Once you eliminate that traffic, its not bad. Makes me wonder if google is one ftc lawsuit away from halving in value (tinfoil hat).

</comment><comment><USER85> So Adblock is 90% effective

<comment><AUTHOR> No, of the entering traffic, after they click on the ad, its as if 90% of them are not your typical organic visitor.</comment></comment>


ID editor: It is time for us to end this abusive relationship - <AUTHOR> https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/woodpeck/diary/391175 <comment><USER2> Can anyone with comprehension of the project explain what this is about? A very confusing post and the comments don't illuminate it much.

It sounds as if OSM is, at its core, just a database with APIs (I do seem to vaguely recall there wasn't even an official web interface) and thus the decentralized gatekeeping is a point of contention.

<comment><USER3> > Can anyone with comprehension of the project explain what this is about?

The OSM project has a default editor called iD. iD is developed by developers from Mapbox. As it is the default editor, iD via what it puts forward has a lot of leverage on the projects.

Recently, some people have complained about some of iD features. Notably iD pulls images from Facebook and some people feel it is an unnecessary loss of privacy.

Unfortunately, one of the iD maintainer seems slightly burnt out and as a result has questionable communication skills. This lead to poor handling of the Github issue and this blog post.

<comment><USER4> I mean, this blog post is poor communication, so...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I followed the hyperlinks to some of the discussion. In my opinion, the author's characterisation doesn't match the tone of the iD developer.

The author might be right about the lack of community involvement, but imho he takes an overly negative an accusatory stance

<comment><USER6> This is a classic osm way of handling something though. They make every smallest disagreement into a giant dramatic deal that needs to be fought to the death. It's a toxic community that drives out people unwilling to deal with the crap, and that's a large part of why splits like this happen. No one wants to be on the tagging mailing list because it's probably full of opinionated curmudgeons just like the rest of the osm mailing lists, and now those same curmudgeons are pissed about being left out of tagging decisions. They're pushing people away and then complaining when their opinions are no longer centered in the conversation.

Disclaimer: I used to be involved in the mapping space (including osm and Mapbox) and have moved on, despite my love of the work.

<comment><USER7> Sorry, I can't agree with your characterization. Obviously nitpickers exist, but the general community can be very helpful. Some people have strange ideas and expect everyone to go along, but everything is up for discussion.

Especially for people coming from cultures where confrontation or directness is frowned upon this leads to the impression that OSM is a fighting ground, but there can be no discussion without disagreement.

<comment><USER6> No need to apologize for disagreeing! I also think the OSM community has a ton of really fantastic people, who are excited to work together to make something really neat. Unfortunately, it's not true across the board, and the tone of this article does a great job of illustrating that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I edited the code of iD on private project and it's a well done tool

<comment><USER9> It's possible to have great execution on a bad idea. I've seen people become enamored with their own beautiful idea that made no sense for the reality of the situation. They get invested in it and you can't talk sense to them.

My favorite description of this is "coherent but wrong".

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> tl;dr: This appears to be about the OpenStreetMap project's online editor app, and disagreement over how to proceed with future development.

Apparently there is a more or less forked alternative editor that may be used instead of the default, although there is no hint how.

<comment><USER9> Sounds like an argument about creative control. If someone was facilitating my project and I felt like the were trying to commandeer it instead, there would be some hard feelings.

Makes me wonder how the Docker people feel. And how the LXC people feel.</comment></comment>


Chrome Displaying Advertisements On Dashboard Page - tea-flow http://timflores.com/post/43064341165/chrome-displaying-advertisements-on-dashboard-page I for one am not too happy about this. What do you think HN? <comment><AUTHOR> Was that linked to Google's Chromebook site, or a third party manufacturer?

A single link to a product being designed by Google, when the product in question (a Chromebook) uses the same product (Chrome) as it's primary interface is hardly 'ZOMG! Chrome is running the ads now!!!'.

It's directly related to Chrome and Google is simply saying 'here's another way you can experience the browser you're already using that we came up with'.

<comment><USER2> _A single link to a product being designed by Google, when the product in question (a Chromebook) uses the same product (Chrome) as it's primary interface is hardly 'ZOMG! Chrome is running the ads now!!!'._

[http://media.tumblr.com/6d048ed2fd812e7352e7b07a8c959e80/tum...](http://media.tumblr.com/6d048ed2fd812e7352e7b07a8c959e80/tumblr_inline_mi777tVLIP1qz4rgp.png) Look at it again and tell me how many "links" to Google services and products do you see?

<comment><USER3> Those are Chrome apps. The ad is above the icons.

<comment><USER2> _Those are Chrome apps. The ad is above the icons. I had the same ad on my Chrome 'new tab' screen._

Yeah, but they are GOOGLE Apps for Chrome. Others have Chrome apps too, no?

<comment><USER4> They are apps he has installed. You don't call the Internet Explorer icon on Windows an "advertisement" do you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> People use a free browser developed by a company driven by advertising revenue, and get shocked, shocked, at advertising being involved!

In other news, alternatives exist and work very well if it bothers you.

</comment><comment><USER6> They did this before. One article from 2011: [http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57331212-264/googles- new-a...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57331212-264/googles-new-ad-space- chrome/)

<comment><USER7> Yes, this is nothing new. Surprised people never saw it before in fact.

Also surprised people didn't expect this. Like any company, Google ties its products together and promotes one on the other. As another example, some google websites will recommend using chrome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Also annoying: the "you're missing out! -- sign in" appeal to associate your browser with .. what exactly? On Ubunutu, it's suggesting that I sign in to Chromium.

<comment><USER9> When you use a non-Chrome browser and use Google websites you get the "for a faster web" in all variations with a chrome download button.

Relatively annoying over time ;-)

<comment><USER10> It's the sort of thing that backfires and is actively off-putting. At least for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is part of the reason I made <https://starthq.com> \- a new tab replacement service.

<comment><USER12> Damnit. Nice, I was working on something similar. ;)

<comment><USER11> Want to help out? :)

<comment><USER12> Sure! Email's in the profile as I don't do the twitter. ;)

<comment><USER11> Couldn't find the email in your profile. Drop me a line at oleg at starthq com.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> 26.0.1410.3 dev-m -- no ads. 26.0.1411.0 canary -- no ads.

What version of Chrome is this?

<comment><USER14> I have them in this version 25.0.1364.45 beta

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> You're free to use a different homepage or override the dashboard (new tab) page.

<http://developer.chrome.com/extensions/override.html>

<comment><USER16> Awesome New Tab Page is a sweet one, with a programmable widget system anyone can add to. (I guess Google will do something similar and official at some point.)

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/awesome-new-tab- pa...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/awesome-new-tab- page/mgmiemnjjchgkmgbeljfocdjjnpjnmcg?hl=en)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> chrome is a free browser last time i checked it's fair if they advertise some products of them.

<comment><USER18> Because the billions they make from search aren't enough. Of course they are free to do whatever they want, and you are even allowed to hide those ads (or use open source version), but I think there's a limit where it will get too much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I use speed dial 2. works like a charm.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/speed- dial-2/jpfpe...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/speed- dial-2/jpfpebmajhhopeonhlcgidhclcccjcik?hl=en)

<comment><USER11> I'm working on a similar extension that stores your settings on a server (see my other comment to this post) and was wondering: what are the main Spped Dial 2 features that you use?

<comment><USER19> The homepage. With the links. Mostly that, in plain, no groups or nothing. Sometimes I like to fiddle with the background and some settings but 99% of my usage consists of that. I watched the statistics page once when I found it. I even disabled the sidebar because it was annoying. I really liked Opera and it remembers it a lot. If you can come up with something similar give me a shot I will gladly try it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If they are using it to advertise to you, then it isn't "free" in my book.

<comment><USER21> Open source shouldn't be considered free either. People put in countless man hours working on open source projects, and giving something back in return should be common etiquette.

My point is, you always pay for something. In the case of Chrome, surely you don't believe that Google has no self-interest in building Chrome?

<comment><USER20> > Open source shouldn't be considered free either. People put in countless man > hours working on open source projects, and giving something back in return > should be common etiquette.

I have an open source project. I don't advertise on it. I give it away freely and happily, knowing I gain no revenue from it.

> My point is, you always pay for something. In the case of Chrome, surely you > don't believe that Google has no self-interest in building Chrome?

It's clear that they have a self interest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is why I use Chromium and not Chrome.

</comment><comment><USER2> Google is desperate for revenue, their PE is 25+, Apple and MSFT have it 10 or so. Their stock will drop in half if growth isn't there. Every search page with commercial interest is already pay-to-play, some openly, others obvious enough for anyone.

What's next for that 30% growth Larry wants? What other service is he going to ruin for short term profits? At their valuation it becomes harder and harder to beat the previous year's earnings.

 _Google has done a lot of sleazy and illegal things for revenue so spare me the outrage_

<comment><USER23> Illegal things?

<comment><USER2> Yeah, it was all over WSJ a while back. Something to do with adwords and advertising for illegal drugs, hormones or something. Top execs knew but _Google_ paid a fine and they escaped.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Google's default new-tab page has always seemed "salesy" to me.

I use Speed Dial 2 as my new-tab page, so I didn't even see this.</comment>


Certificate Transparency: Hacking web applications before they are installed - <AUTHOR> https://www.golem.de/news/certificate-transparency-hacking-web-applications-before-they-are-installed-1707-129172.html <comment><USER2> Unauthenticated installers have been a dumb idea from day 1. This finally looks like the right opportunity to get rid of them.

I'm sure that having an additional step to verify your read/write access to the installation directory (eg. by means of a token file) isn't too big a hurdle for users, and it will properly close off this attack surface.

<comment><USER3> Many of them could remain mostly as-is in the case where the database is local, as they already ask for the database name and password, and don't move forward until it's right.

So just adding the extra step when a remote database is specified might suffice, and preserve the easy install for most users.

<comment><USER4> That was my initial idea I proposed as a fix. However I am not really comfortable with it and came to the conclusion I don't think it's a good fix.

Ultimately that makes a pretty bold assumption: That if you have database credentials on a host this allows you to control other people's webapps in some situations. That's not reasonable. I could just be another customer at a webhoster and I don't think it's reasonable to assume that customers are allowed to hack each other.

I think a real additional authentication step for all installations is the right solution.

<comment><USER3> Sure. Shared hosting usually uses remote databases, though I suppose you could install a DB locally and fire it up. That assumes you land on the same physical host as your victim, which isn't likely at all but the smallest hosts. And, shared hosting is pretty risky anyway :). But I do get your reasoning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> That is pretty clever. I hadn't thought about the certificate transparency feed as a real-time notification of vulnerable installers.

Combined with the popularity of wordpress, the author is right. It's fairly trivial to use the installer as an arbitrary RCE engine, and then put it back into it's original state when you're done installing a back door. Also fairly easy to automate and start building a collection of compromised servers.

I'm interested to see if this results in changes to installers for popular web software or not.

</comment><comment><USER5> CT is not only valuable to PKI's integrity, but also valuable for any site owners, as certificate logs can raise early warnings against phishing or malware sites that go the extra mile to look secure, before they even go online.

We should all be using CT logs, and if you own a website, you should be monitoring your domains. Facebook has a nice little tool to notify you when new certificates are logged: [https://developers.facebook.com/tools/ct/](https://developers.facebook.com/tools/ct/)

<comment><USER6> I agree with the value of monitoring the CT's since it provides a lot of useful information, but since I do not use any FB account (needed for the link above), I prefer [https://sslmate.com/](https://sslmate.com/) which will warn (email or api) you when new certificates (for "your" domain) have been logged to CT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. I recently had to install something that has Mono as a dependency, and imagine my surprise and consternation when said Mono installation, from the 16.0 repositories, sucked down 160+ certificates into its own store, including the now long-disredited WoSign root certificates.

One reason I stay away from installing very many apps on my phone, is that I have little confidence in how security is, or isn't, being handled on a case- by-case basis. And the size of the organization behind the app gives little indication of what to expect. Whether pointy-haired-boss management or outsourcing, their apps are often equally or worse crap WRT security.

I guess now I'll have to read this article more thoroughly, and ponder how whether/how my turning to the browser instead of apps is a problem of itself.

</comment><comment><USER8> The linked github repo doesn't have any code. [https://github.com/hannob/ctgrab](https://github.com/hannob/ctgrab)

<comment><USER6> You where to early, there is now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Easy solution is to run with IP restrictions until website fully configured and secured</comment>


Ask HN: What is growth hacking like as a career? - <AUTHOR>

I find this very interesting.
How steep is the learning curve for this particular profession? How hard is it to break into the industry? Anything else I should know?
I was thinking my path could be: 1) take General Assembly's digital marketing class to learn the basics and get some credentials:
https://generalassemb.ly/education/digital-marketing
2) Work on my own projects and get them to grow so they can serve as portfolio pieces. Also to build skills.
3) Maybe work for just shares at a small 1-2 person startup on the side.
4) go FT when I feel confident in my abilities <comment><USER2> I don't particularly love the branding of growth hacker but let's take it as given that it usefully describes a set of skills.

Practical experience outweighs "credentials" by literally infinity. Portfolio pieces are extremely helpful. People who are incapable of doing any useful work _abound_ in this and related fields, and employers suck at hiring, so case studies and testimonials are virtually the only sorting mechanisms with any value.

A bright engineer can learn to be dangerous with marketing in between 2 weeks and 6 months depending on the engineer and circumstances. (Some of the overlap of those two fields is commonly called growth hacking, but that isn't coextensive with the field. I am, personally, skeptical of the value-add of growth hackers who cannot, in fact, ship software when required to. My skepticism is not shared by at least some influential people who write about growth hacking frequently.)

If you can reproducibly print money on command with your skills, be they marketing/engineering or growth hacking, you should probably never work for free (working for "just shares" is working for free) and will probably find your specialty in absolutely stratospheric demand at the moment. Chargeout rates in the 5 figures per week are totally reasonable in the current environment.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not an engineer/programmer. Is that okay?

<comment><USER2> That's not an impediment if you can actually generate results. Candidly, it has not been my experience that many non-programmer growth hackers actually produce meaningful results.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This would be a great question to ask on growthhackers.com (started by Sean Ellis - the guy that coined the phrase "growth hacker") . There's a lot of misconceptions and preconceived notions about what growth hacking and/or a growth hacker actually is - and is something that continues to be a subject of a lot of (healthy) debate.

The growthhackers.com community has some genuine growth hackers on it and I think will be best positioned to give you a really well informed response on what it is to a growth hacker and have it as a career.

Hope that helps.

</comment><comment><USER4> My guess is it's like being a chief advertising manager with less pay.

Your plan sounds fine; Name Recognition matters in our industry, so try to focus on building successes for recognizable clients.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've got a friend who does what he calls growth hacking which in his case is mostly running Google Adwords. He does pretty well with it.</comment>


Rx v0.3 Released, a modern and minimalist pixel editor in Rust - <AUTHOR> https://rx.cloudhead.io <comment><USER2> Just installed it. Love the project's features and goals. Looking forward to playing with rx more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Does it support an isometric grid? What about drawing shapes like circles, rectangles? Also curious on what toolkit/library was used for building the UI using rust.

<comment><AUTHOR> It doesn't, but that would be an interesting feature to develop. Is this something you've used in another editor (iso grid)?

Rust doesn't really have anything super mature in terms of UI, though druid[0] is the one I'm keeping an eye on. Since there's very little "UI" per se in rx, it's currently built directly on top of the graphics layer[1].

[0]: [https://github.com/xi-editor/druid](https://github.com/xi-editor/druid)

[1]: [https://github.com/cloudhead/rgx](https://github.com/cloudhead/rgx)

<comment><USER3> I think marmoset hexels[0] has an isometric grid, haven't used it myself. I have used the iso(axonometric) grid in Inkscape.

[0]:[https://marmoset.co/hexels/](https://marmoset.co/hexels/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Discussed 3 months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21113796](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21113796)

<comment><AUTHOR> Are new major releases with new content not okay to be posted?

<comment><USER5> It's totally okay. I don't think the link to previous discussions was meant to imply that it's bad to discuss a new release.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is such a recent graphics API really necessary? Why isn't a 2D canvas good enough in for this sort of thing?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not strictly necessary, I chose wgpu for a few reasons:

* Its backend (gfx-rs) is one of the most mature rust libraries for doing graphics

* The popular "classic" 2d libraries like cairo and skia are very big and complicated to build / depend on

* wgpu will eventually also work on the web, so it's a great option for broad platform compatibility

* In terms of efficiency (memory, battery, cpu etc.), the modern graphic APIs have more headroom than the GL-based ones

* Today, 4K screens are pretty common, and in the future, 144hz monitors will be more and more popular. If I want to render 2d graphics with no latency in those setups, access to the GPU makes things feasible

<comment><USER7> > * Today, 4K screens are pretty common, and in the future, 144hz monitors > will be more and more popular. If I want to render 2d graphics with no > latency in those setups, access to the GPU makes things feasible

are those not feasible today ? due to vsync & al I still have less latency on apps that do software rendering than hardware, even on a 4K 120hz screen

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. Yeah, vsync is a latency killer and it's disabled by default in `rx`. What software renderers are not so good at is drawing _lots_ of pixels every frame, so for example panning a view with lots of images open, or zooming in and out of an image that covers the screen.

I'd expect these kinds of operations to be slow at high resolution without the help of the GPU. You could probably speed things up with SIMD and multi- threading, at the expense of implementation complexity.

<comment><USER8> > vsync is a latency killer

VSync, if done properly, only adds less than a single frame of latency.

That is 17ms tops for 60Hz, which nobody notices unless you are a pro-gamer on an FPS game. Certainly it does not matter for a pixel editor.

<comment><USER9> Text editors on 144 FPS gsync monitor are noticeably better than vsync 60 FPS in a way in which a BMW door is noticeably better at closing than entry level cars. Technically both work the same and yet you can tell they're very different.

<comment><USER8> No. VRR (GSync) does not do anything if your computer can achieve 144Hz (which for a text editor any computer should).

<comment><USER9> maybe i'd agree with you if i hadn't had exactly such monitors attached to my box.

<comment><USER8> You are seeing the benefits of 144 Hz, not of VRR.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _> On macOS, Metal support is required._

Is it using MoltenVK?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope, uses Metal directly through the gfx-rs backend.

<comment><USER10> I see, thanks! What's the preferable approach in Rust, to use Vulkano or gfx- rs (in case you don't need to care about Metal)?

<comment><AUTHOR> For working directly with Vulkan, 'ash' is preferred. If you want to abstract over platforms, then gfx-rs is solid, or wgpu for a higher level api. Vulkano hasn't really delivered on its promise unfortunately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What does "modern" mean in this context? I see that word tossed around a lot.

<comment><USER12> Could mean any number of things in context. In this case it seems to be DPI aware, have some guarantees on memory safety, uses Vulkan/Metal, and targets the current versions of the supported systems natively.

This would be opposed to a legacy codebase that might rely on an old version of OpenGL (which is deprecated completely on MacOS), the OS to scale the window (usually blurring the pixel art), require 32 bit architecture support, and not have any guarantees about memory safety.

As time goes on what features are considered modern will of course continue to change. Most code was modern at one point.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly this - "built for the modern world" is another way of saying it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anyone know how it compares to Aseprite?

<comment><AUTHOR> The interaction model is very different, and it's a lot less featureful. I'd say aseprite is a more classic pixel editor, whereas rx is trying something new.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anyone else concerned by the decidedly negative cast of the comments? Someone shares something interesting and OP gets a barrage of nit-picky commentary; it's quite discouraging.

<comment><USER15> >Someone shares something interesting and OP gets a barrage of nit-picky commentary

everyone on hn is of the belief about themselves that they're dispassionate (objective) intellectuals and so of course their criticisms aren't in bad faith.

and moderators never address these kinds of comments but do often address comments like yours because they incite "flame wars" (since dispassionate intellectuals can be quite defensive).

<comment><USER16> I actually saw a comment yesterday from someone meta commenting on someone's project saying that the problem with coders is that they/we are "too nice" and thus we encourage too much bad practice.

So ridiculous that I didn't even feel it deserved a response.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This looks beautiful. I honestly believe more projects should reduce support for older hardware in order to use newer more efficient tech.

I'm not super into pixel art, but will definitely be trying this out nonetheless.

</comment><comment><USER18> Gah, please type the names of your projects into the search engine of your choice before polluting everyone's search results with a new project. There are already a few programming projects which go by "rx". I'll boost the one I care about by linking it: [http://reactivex.io/](http://reactivex.io/)

<comment><USER19> I disagree with the direction of this criticism. Building and shipping is the real victory for anyone with a passion project. To cut them down because of the project name is a cheap critique in my view.

Besides, given the extreme signal:noise ratio of codebases that gain notoriety most projects that share a name or acronym will only have a handful of users even aware of both's existence.

<comment><USER20> Well, it's a mistake. Due diligence, for any new project, requires searching for existing uses of the intended names and deciding whether they are confusing.

It's difficult because it's easy to miss obscure social niches and name variants, and that's why most people make the task easier with an effort to find unique names.

For example, a sloppy google search for "Rx" yields, in search result order:

\- two medical abbreviation, for "recipe" (i.e. "take") in medical prescriptions and for radiography: benign but common and used in proper names of pharmacies, labs etc.;

\- Radeon RX-something video cards, unlikely to be confused but likely to yield search result noise for something related to videogames;

\- some Lexus cars, popular but more harmless;

\- iZotope RX 7, a major software entry: professional "audio repair" DAW plugins from a popular company;

\- several unimportant random product and company names, including e.g. some Sony headphones, that collectively prove how "Rx" is an inappropriately short name.

A longer and more unique name would clearly be a better choice. But a further web search for "rx pixel" yields an awful lot of medical video card and car results and a frontal collision on Twitter, where dr. Jennifer Hazel goes by "@Rx_Pixel".

Searching for "rx editor" is also interesting:

\- a deluge of iZotope RX results (no hope to become more popular, low- resolution image editors are a smaller niche than audio production)

\- the highly popular RxJS JavaScript library. It doesn't take a JavaScript expert to figure out that it's highly popular: the home page mentions a _conference_ about it.

This last conflict should be enough to veto the name "Rx", even without more targeted searches (e.g. social media) and less online-visible usages (e.g. in telecommunications as an abbreviation of receiver or reception, paired with "Tx" for transmitter or transmission).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, except I like this name, and find it fitting, and no one can stop me. We have different priorities :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Email the New Front in Facebook/Gmail Wars? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.xobni.com/2010/11/17/email-the-new-front-in-facebookgmail-wars/ <comment><USER2> It looks like Facebook's messages has opened up new opportunities to disrupt for everyone, not just themselves.

I've just posted here at [http://www.minklinks.com/weblog/2010/11/18/what- facebook-mes...](http://www.minklinks.com/weblog/2010/11/18/what-facebook- messages-means-minklinks/) about what it means for my HN November Launch app.</comment>


Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella to Women: Don't Ask for a Raise, Trust Karma - <AUTHOR> http://readwrite.com/2014/10/09/nadella-women-dont-ask-for-raise <comment><USER2> > "It's not really about asking for a raise, but knowing and having faith that > the system will give you the right raise,"

OK, I don't have any general solutions for the problems of women in tech, but even I know that the statement above is inane bullshit. Ms. Nadella may have many fine qualifications that make her suitable to run a major corporation, but that statement ...

Actually, thats probably part of what makes her qualified to run a major corporation: the ability to believe that the above idea will work and the gall to try and sell it.

The System is built to pay you the least amount that you will accept. The System might grant you a raise once in a while as a reward, but the System is not going to pay you what you're worth if it can prevent that from happening.

<comment><USER3> Satya Nadella is male

<comment><USER2> As <deity> is my witness, I read that article and _still_ managed to come away thinking he was female.

I should probably re-check all my code from yesterday.</comment></comment></comment>