Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Death to Bad Ads

Internet (ad) giants Google and Facebook look ready to begin cracking down on bad ads and their presence on the web. $0.70 of ever $1 spent on online advertising goes to either of these two companies, which understandably means each move or change they make has a widespread impact. According to the article, Google is developing technology that will filter out ads based on standards of quality that are set by the Coalition for Better Advertising.  Sounds good, no? But this will have major consequences for the industry as a whole. Meanwhile, Facebook has modified its algorithm in an attempt to weed out clickbait, and will begin to punish advertisers who utilize these kind of ads.

What will be the implications of these changes across the industry?  Given the duopoly that currently exists and continues to grow, it's possible that it will cost many in the media business their jobs. The article states there have already been layoffs at Time and HuffPost, as their share of online ad revenue continues to become more marginal.  If these changes continue to push advertisers to Facebook and Google due to the reputation benefits their ad hosting provides, this attack on jobs will continue. Also, as we saw in "The Search" changes to an algorithm can have a drastic effect on business and businesses, especially on those who rely on Google and Facebook for their traffic.

For these companies and those in the ad tech space, what can be done? The only solution is to find a way to challenge the duopoly, but as time passes and these two companies continue to grow and increase market-share, the likelihood of challenging them lessens.

http://mashable.com/2017/06/18/facebook-google-duopoly-threat/#vtm.grhOBOqh

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