December 11, 2024 • 41 mins
Ed Zitron is joined in-studio by Ryan Barwick of Marketing Brew to talk about how the entire tech ecosystem is controlled by ads - and whether companies like OpenAI and Perplexity can hope to plug the gaps in their leaky revenue models.
Follow Ryan:
https://www.marketingbrew.com/contributor/ryan-barwick
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Also media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to Better Offline. I'm the single most
punished individual alive. My name is Ed Zitron. I'm your
host today. I'm joined by Ryan Barwick of Morning Brew
(00:25):
and Marketing Bruce specifically, of course, Ryan, thank you for
joining me.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Hey man, what's up? How's it going?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
We are in the beautiful New York studios of iHeartRadio,
Daniel Goodman of course producing Live with Us, live to tape,
of course, and Ryan's here to talk to me about advertising.
And we're going to start somewhere fairly obvious, which is,
what is the kind of status of the Google Ads
antitrust case? Where are we at?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah? I spent in September. I spent two weeks in Alexandria, Virginia,
sexy Alexander, sitting on a wooden bench, listening to hours
and hours of economists explaining auction bidding. I know you're
very that.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
This is no, but seriously actually explain on.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, no, no, I mean it was. I got a
noseblade halfway through it because it was at times very
dull but also very exciting. Essentially, the DOJ is arguing
that Google doesn't just have a monopoly on digital advertising,
but they own the entire supply chain, right, So Google
owns the software that publishers used to like the New
(01:29):
York Times of the Wall Street Journal, to run ads
on their website and to monetize their content. Google also
owns or monopoly has a monopoly on the software that
advertisers are using to to reach those audiences on the
New York Times in the Wall Street Journal. And in
between those two pieces of software, there's this auction software.
(01:50):
There's a bidding platform, and Google also owns that, right,
So they own every piece of The DOJ is alleging
that they own every piece of supply chain, and they really,
I mean, at one point the DOJ said Google sees
I think nine out of every ten digital transaction. So
that's that's pretty large, right, That's a lot of them.
(02:13):
That's pretty big. And it was fascinating over the course
of two weeks. I was only there for two weeks.
I believe it went on for a little bit more
than three. We kind of got a history of ad tech,
which is this incredibly complex, incredibly dense, incredibly dorky industry
to just kind of explain how the Internet makes money.
(02:33):
And Google has been on the receiving end of a
lot of those advertising dollars, of those ad budgets, and
it's fascinating. So we had the Monday before Thanksgiving, we
had closing arguments, which is where the DOJ and Google
get to make their final stand before the judge and
make their arguments. The DJ again just kind of pointed
(02:55):
to Google size.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
And that they own every single part of the stack.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Right, or certainly the most successful parts of the stack.
And then Google essentially countered by saying, look, we're really
good at what we do, and it's hard to argue
with them in the sense that they have so much
data that they can monetize these things really efficiently. Because
they see so much, they can get really good at it.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
It feels like the argument that would be, well, you
have all this data from the monopolies you're doing, so
I'm guessing that's kind of how the DJ came in it.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, yes, And and it was interesting on the first
day the DOJ said, you have all of these advertisers,
but we never really delve delved into why they have
so many advertisers. YouTube was almost never mentioned during the
case Gmail Chrome right. Obviously, there's a much sexier trial
that that is still ongoing. Well has already Amy has
(03:49):
already reached its conclusion. The real heads were at the
attack trial I like to see. The real dorks were
at the much more complex and boring trial. So that
wasn't really necessarily touched on, and again it will be
really interesting. One thing that I kind of took away
from the trial, and this is called like the it's
(04:09):
it's a rocket docket, so it happens really quickly. We
could find out before Christmas or even in early January,
what decision the judge has reached. But one thing that
I really took away from it is that the DOJ
was basically pointing out issues or decisions Google made to
maintain a monopoly, things that had happened ten years ago,
(04:33):
things that had happened twelve years ago in some instances.
So Google does something and the industry has to respond,
and then Google does another thing. Can you give an example, Well,
there are these, you know strategies. One was called like
last look, where Google would get the last look at
a bid between an advertiser and I Jason.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Jason brought that up on a previous like the idea
that like right then they go and we can just
bid under them.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Right exactly, so so then that Google would do that right,
and then the industry would try to work around that,
and ultimately things have reached kind of a I don't
know if copasatic is the correct term. Things have kind
of leveled out there, especially as advertisers are more drawn
to like streaming platforms. They're more drawn to a platform
(05:19):
like a TikTok or a Twitter social media platforms, you know,
Banner ads are kind of like I think among most buyers,
are kind of like the least sexy version of advertising,
can you Yeah, I think the common frame like, can
you name any banner ad you've ever seen?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Only that McDonald's one from like twenty years ago where
it said I'd hit that.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Okay, there we go.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
That was a great ad. I've never fucked a burger,
but I've thought about it for at least a second,
so but never letting me correct. And it's my question
is is that kind of advertising dying? Is ban a
traditional that kind of media dying? Is it being replaced
or is it just cheaper and shittya?
Speaker 1 (06:00):
You would hope it doesn't die because that is the
kind of advertar. Yeah, that a lot of publishers.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
I wasn't asking because I wanted it to happen.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Right, that a lot of publishers use, right, And obviously
publishers have shifted to try to get subscriptions. I don't
know if I'd go as far as saying it's dying,
but the budgets are definitely shifted, and in the same
way that linear television is losing viewers every year and
people are adopting like streaming platforms.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, it's just it's it's not as interesting, it's not
as sexy, and I do not know to kind of
tie the knot here. I don't know what kind of
remedy might solve that. Like, if Google's forced to sell
it's auction software, it's exchange, what does that do?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Like double click? Just they finally they after buying it,
they just sell it again. Couldn't they sell access to
the data, because that's kind of what they're suggesting with
the search remedies listeners if you didn't know part of
the suggested remedies, and the government been selling Chrome, which
I'm going there on, but they're saying that they would
allow other search engines to access Google's to them. Now,
could a similar thing happen with.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
This, but yeah, I don't really know, Like the bitstreams
here is so complex, there's so many players involved, I
don't entirely know what that would look like, and I
think that's part of the I'm sure Google's lawyers and
the DJ's lawyers are wrestling over this kind of stuff,
but you definitely got the sense, at least from the
(07:25):
However many reporters were there, that this stuff is so
weedy and so complex that I don't know how much
of it is. Ultimately, I don't know what kind of
remedies ultimately alleviate the concerns in the industry. Certainly many
people feel like Google is a monopoly, but I'm not
entirely sure where else they would take their dollar. But again,
(07:47):
part of that is because Google is.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Because there's never been another option.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Right.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
It kind of makes me think of Facebook as well,
because I know that there's I have they done an
anti trust case against them? I forget, but I know
the argument is that they have a monopoly of a
social media which is true. But breaking up these companies
seems I want them to do it, they need to
do it, but I just have no idea how they
could postbly like they're so deeply embedded in every corner
(08:11):
of every part of the Internet at this point, I
just don't know how practical that would be.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, it was interesting Google brought up on the last
day of the trial. They brought up Microsoft as its competitor. Look,
Microsoft has Xbox. That's inventory that Google doesn't have access to.
That's an advantage Microsoft has over Google. I don't think
I've ever met a media buyer that has ever said, well,
that Xbox inventory really.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, we've got to make sure we're on a right.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Right so like or the Microsoft has made a lot
of inrows with retailers, for example.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Haven't Microsoft been trying to do ads for years and
never really made it? Well, they make it like a
billion from being.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yeah, well, they have a very successful business around it,
but it's certainly not It's not Google a juggernaut like
a Google or an Amazon.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
And for context listeners, I think what a billion in
revenue compared to several hundred billion from its the.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Google makes forty billion a quarter.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
King is christ But there was one story I did
want to talk to you about that you wrote back
in September that we've talked about a few times. So
this Facebook ads story because I actually think that this
may be a story that gets bigger and bigger. But
he wrote this story about he talked to a few
ad buyers with Facebook and that Facebook's ads platform is
kind of broken. Can you go into that bit?
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yeah, this is something I noticed on Twitter or I
guess we call it X now.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
I don't he dead names trans people. I'm dead naming Twitter.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
There you go. They're essentially buyers were saying, hey, so
there are advertisers, but advertisers aren't pulling the levers. Usually
advertisers go to ad agencies and the ad agencies. I
don't know if your audience cares necessarily about that the alligation,
but I saw a bunch of buyers saying, hey, you know,
we we had ten thousand dollars disappear. We put it
(09:57):
into into meta and it poof, it disappeared. It's gone.
We don't know what happened to it. And you know,
one guy saying that it's like, okay, maybe that is
a bug. But then when you talk to eight media
buyers and they all say since roughly January that the
platform has become really wonky, that there are a lot
of hurdles to overcome wonky how bugs.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Essentially.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Like again, someone in add tech described these advertising platforms
like a Google like we were talking about, or a
meta describe them that like, I shouldn't think about them
as platforms, I should think about them as ATMs that like,
you put money in these machines and then maybe money
will come out, or at least you'll get a metric
that tells you you made.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
A metric, which only they have.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Right exactly that they have decided for you.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
And they are the ultimate auditor as well.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Right, yeah, they're essentially there are buyers would say that
these companies operate black boxes, right, that you can't really audit.
But the black boxes do sell do hickeys and widgets,
right like people do buy stuff on Instagram and and
on Google and even on TikTok amazingly. But anyway, I
ended up talking to several buyers that were saying that
(11:06):
you know again, they would they would create a budget
and then out of nowhere, I want to advertise on
Instagram and then in the middle of the night at
three in the morning. The campaign only targeted people on
Facebook and only targeted eighty year old people on Facebook. Huh,
and it didn't really work. And again, when you have
so many people saying that that's what they encountered, that
the platform wasn't really working the way they had expected
(11:28):
to or the way it intended, and Meta essentially was
saying kick rocks, like there's nothing we can do.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Would meant to not to have that money or anything.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
No, I believe at the time I was talking to people,
I don't think people had gotten credits yet. And as
they were saying this, Meta had its like best quarter ever. Right,
So MEDA doesn't necessarily need to help alleviate these small
kind of buyers, even though these people in many instances
are spending six figures on their advertising campaigns.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Breaking that down. So these media buyers then not just
of the listeners to break this down, so they're not
buying for like one company they represent, well like ten fifty.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
They can they can work with ten brands they right, fifteen.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So they're like an agency of Soort exactly. So I
mean my thought, and that would be is how is
Meta making all that money? And it's just it's very
there's no just very basic thing. There's no other way
to advertise on these platforms, right, there's no other inroad
with Instagram or Facebook. Right, it's just this, Yes, that
is insane, that is bonkers. Like, did you hear from
(12:28):
Meta atal Did they get back to you? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:30):
I mean I think they would say that advertisers love
meta right, great, and I think a lot of and
a lot of people, you know, a lot of buyers
will say, well it does work for them. Again sometimes
outside of like that's why TikTok has become so interesting
because TikTok kind of presents this third option where previously
you could really only spend on a meta. Snap obviously exists.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
That company is not a good business. It never has been.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
I loved in high school.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
No, but that's the thing. It's like an app that
has uses, but when they tried to add the business stuff,
it just immediately like they're like, oh, this just spurns money.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Snap's interesting because they take over every industry event and
they always have such a presence, and yet I feel
like the story at least every time I talk to
people about Snap as a platform, I was getting Reddit
has impressed a lot of people lately. But again, it
wasn't until TikTok that people actually kind of raised eyebrows
about another platform giving them that it gives advertisers kind
of a diversity outside of just Meta and Instagram.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Maybe you can actually answer this going back to Snapchat.
Why isn't it? Is this stuff just not effective? But
that ads not good?
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I don't know if I could necessarily speak to that. Okay,
I'm always looking for like a broader picture, and for.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Me in a qualitative one is just like what people
saying stuff? Or is it just not that effective?
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I say, it's just not that like interesting, Like I
don't think that. Every time I ask people about that,
I don't get that many interesting answers. It's Reddit is fascinating.
Reddit is like the wild West of the Internet, and
I use Reddit constantly.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
We've got the better Offline Reddit full of various criminals
and it's great.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Do you see a lot of ads there?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
I move past them with the speed of pegasi. You've
got the trained Yeah, I've just like old school hit
just like no, just my brain removes it.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Do you do that with newsletters too?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (14:25):
See, I feel like this is the thing. I'm curious
how this evolves as the dorkiest conversation.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
What this is better offline? We have the dorkiest.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
I'm curious in five to ten years, like and I
work at a newsletter company, but I'm curious if in
five to ten years people aren't even going to look
at newsletter ads because we've just trained the behavior to
so look away, to know exactly when to skip.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
I've done test ads of like mates products like I
don't no one will pay me for an ad other
than this podcast that will humiliate me by trying to
celluate I software, which everyone loves to tell me about.
But like with the news letters, people do click, people
do engage, and I found that across the board, and
my general view is right now is newsletter companies are
actually gonna do better. I don't. Do you remember back
(15:07):
in like twenty twenty one, when every publication was like,
we have to do newsletters now, and then they immediately
junked it three months later. It just feels insane because
that feels far more the future than any kind of
subscription product like subscribe, Like The Verge has a subscription
product now, and it sucks, like I get what they
have to do it because money. Things cost money, But
it just feels that that the whole media industry right now,
(15:31):
needs to work out a way to connect with the readers,
and it feels like their email address is good, it's
like a good place for it.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
That's where I want. A New York magazine launched an app,
and I want it to succeed. I love an app.
They launched an app. They created an app as if
it's you know, the iPad era of news whatever, but
like an app for the an app that didn't magazine
apparently not or they didn't put a lot of resources
behind it, And I think that's great. I hope it
(15:57):
makes money. But I just want a newsletter, and they do.
They've got amazing newsletters. Yeah, I'll take another newsletter. I'll
read something else from New York Max.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
So this is no completely different subject, but it's my
damn show. The thing that I've been really thinking about
right now with the media is the this objectivity problem
where everyone has to be objective, but it also feels
like every outlet is trying to suck the life out
of the reporters, not like literally but no personality, no voice.
Morning Brew actually does a pretty good job with that.
(16:26):
They've actually like allowed you to talk like human words.
But it feels like the Times, the Post both well,
New York Post has a voice, just not a nice one.
Washington Post even Business Insider has experimented with the discourse thing,
which I do right for sort of guess contraction.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
You're describing much more successful reporters than I am, by
the way, as I reached.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
But Morning Brew, I like Morning Brew, even though the
video stuff rankles me a little bit that I cream jeezy,
But it's just we're in this weird point now, and
I think ads comes into this as well, where I'm
not sure anyone in the media and those the fuck
to do business buddle wise, I think everyone's a bit scared.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
I just want to report the news exactly, want to
get like, yeah, I don't know, I have the timid,
cowardly reporters attitude towards this, you know. So my my
beat primarily is advertisers, right. There is a cottage industry
of ad tech companies that actively or inactively prevent advertisers
from appearing in news publishers. Really, there was a there's
(17:29):
a whole culture around.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Like a Jezebel article about this field.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah, it's these these brand safety companies. There's a whole
cottage industry around, and the example that everyone uses in
the industry is that if I'm United Airlines or Jet
Blue or whoever, I don't want to run my ad
next to a story about a plane crash.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
You can see why that's a competable. But I think
the industry several years ago this is not necessarily the
interest in this tech has weaned, but the industry internalized
that United Airlines example as I don't ever want to
be in your news at all because that is a negative.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Environment, right, and can't control it.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Right, Exactly, you can't control it, and they shouldn't be
able to control it.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Advertisers shouldn't have a say on what's on the front
page of a newspaper. And the report to that is
I have never thought differently about an advertiser based on
the content it's next to. I don't think that's how
humans think. It fails any critical thinking. And yet these
are billion dollar companies.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
I and this is a very better offline thought. But
a lot of that is the people making those decisions
don't read the news anyway, so they just like, well,
I this this thing I've made up is very scary,
I think.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Or they think consumers are kind of dumb, which I
don't think is fair. I don't think that's accurate, but
I think that's I think that's in the sense.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
And it also just suggests they haven't talked to consumers
like that. It feels like you could ask someone and
so thematically, though kind of want to explain to listeners
why I've had Brian on of in fact your marvelous
at This is the reason I talk about ads so
much is it's kind of something you said earlier. Google's
what nine out of ten of all digital transactions, though,
advertising is this annoying thing that everyone hates and complains about.
(19:17):
It is the reason everything goes like there's ads on
this show that adds on every website, every single publication
you read has a bunch of ads, banner ads, whatever,
video and everyone has been trying to work out how
not to do that for some time.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
And I think it's how the Internet exists. It's how
the Internet makes money. That's like the way I try
to and I think this is me stylizing it, but
it is how the Internet is monetized through ads.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Baby.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Google is an advertising business. Meta is an advertising business.
TikTok It's an advertising business.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Is TikTok effective. Do ID buyers actually like it?
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Uh? Yeah, absolutely, they love it. They wish it wasn't Chinese,
but they absolutely love it, and they're still there. They
still have a very large presence, even though obviously it's
been diluted a bit since the election. But even though
there is a threat that it could not there was
a threat that it could not exist.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah, it doesn't seem like that. Seems like Trump's gonna
keep it now, which is very funny. It's just like, Okay,
I'm sinophobic, but not that. I It's interesting as well
because I feel like the news media could have I'm
not talking necessarily about Morning Bro. It feels like it's
an undiscussed thing that only a few years ago we
(20:31):
had the first major online ad company pop up that
challenged any of the monopolies. Like the fact that TikTok
exists and just fucking popped up is insane to me
because it's relatively new, like what twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen,
I mean, various versions of it might existed before, and
it's interesting. It makes me wonder whether any other company
(20:52):
could spin up, just shove a bunch of money and
do the same thing.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Yeah, I mean it's I know this is something that
you've talked about a lot, but every time I go
on Facebook dot com, yeah, I think, man, there should
be cobwebs here. It doesn't look this isn't appealing to
me as a user. This is a couple of batshit
people I went to high school with kind of just
(21:16):
screaming in the grocery aisles. Yeah, and even Instagram, I
feel like has become that I'm speaking purely.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Oh no, no, I've said very similar things a lot
of times, and way more swear words. It's fine, It's
just really interesting and also kind of what pisses me
off about it. You don't have to agree. I can
runt all the one. But is the cobwebs thing. It's
just like the products like they're ad companies and they've
just stopped pretending they're not. Like they're not pretending like,
(21:43):
oh yeah, we're going to connect you with your friends
your family's just like ego pig eat your slop.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Well, i'd say Meta has gone as so far as
to say we're actually not as interested in connecting you
with your friends. What about this seventies funk band video?
Would you like to see this content shown constantly. That's
my algorithm. I just get bands out of it, but
I get Steely Dan clips, which is cool, but that's
(22:09):
that's That is far from why I intend initially signed
up for the app because I wanted to see everyone
I went to high school with.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
For a solid six month period, all I got was
these insane self defense things. It was just like three
second clips because they don't show you to click. They
want you to click on it, and it'd be like
how to stop a guy, and it would like you're
watching like this guy. If I did this, I would die,
like this is not useful information. And then a post
from three weeks ago, just from like a band that
(22:37):
I liked when I was twenty two years old, and
it's just it's such a strange product and TikTok is
extremely manipulative with their algorithm. Sure, but so it's meta,
but it also feels like more of a functional bit,
like a thing of use and enjoy. I find it horrible.
It upsets me. I'm too old, you find it horrible.
It's too much. I don't like him from scrolling, I
must be done, and like so I don't even like
(22:59):
scroll on my Instagram pictures anymore because there's so much crap.
You go like two scrolls and you've got an AD
for a mobile game that doesn't exist, and then an
AD for a direct to consumer like low car product.
I'm trying to be healthy, and it's just like discordant.
The whole thing just feels like very weird. And then
TikTok at least feels like, yeah, we're manipulating you, but
we've got fun thing. Look at this.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
I love it. I find TikTok so. I don't want
to sound like a shrill, but I think in terms
of just like the algorithm as an entertainment platform, I
find it fascinating. And again I'm very dull and boring.
So I'm looking at travel to Paris.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Videos and cooking videos. I just get a lot of
cooking that's small representative of regular people.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Though.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
You don't need to go like three levels deep of
irony to enjoy something. You don't need the brain rot
like and I need like extra brain. I need the
shit that is like a like the golden Siva looking
thing that says a type yes to affirm that you
have been affirmed. Like I'm like three levels deep. I'm
deeply unhappy, but you do normal stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Well, I want my friends to send me the brain rots.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Right, That's how I curated.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I get the group chat now now my Twitter is
all brain rot That's how.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I like perfect and blue Sky. Blue Sky's yes, and
we're a pro blue sky platform.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
You're you're on blue Sky.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
I got one hundred and three thousand followers. I'm cooking.
I'm cooking. It's the best. And actually blue Sky's interesting
because I don't know how much time you spent on it.
But I've really been enjoying it and enjoying the posts
that are like, yeah, wow, I shared a link on
here and everyone saw it, just the insane. We are
beaten dogs, just like oh yeah yeah. I can see
the people I follow and there's not just a groper
(24:37):
in my reply telling telling me he's gonna bomb my
house or three different people.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
You have a much larger presence than I do. I
have been going. I've been a b testing right it
works on Twitter, I don't know. I still feel like
I still get more among my very small pool there.
I feel like I still get more of a reaction,
and I've I feel like Twitter is more unhinged in
a way that I find pleasant. But to your point
(25:05):
about avoiding newsletter ads, I feel like I can now
just avoid.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
I mean I've been. I was on the internet using
like usenet and v bullet and shit like I grew
up on gaming forums like oh nazi h. That's just
one of the many, many freaks that pops up on IRC.
They should be stopped in numerous ways. But X X
Twitter wherever we call it now is just it feels
(25:31):
like it's falling apart. Actually it's getting not even like
the cobweb feeling. It feels like being in like a
big lots which no one has been in for a while.
It's just there's just shit falling down. There's some weird
guy in the corner and he's saying some things. You
really don't want it. You don't want any business with him.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah, it isn't quantified, but a lot of the ads
that I see now on x Twitter are now coming
from Google. They're coming from Yeah, they're coming from x
as a partnership with Google just for basic like open
programmatic advertising.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
So just act oh they're in the hole, then no
they must be. Is that having to move on too?
Like a Google partnership.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah, so so so like a lot of when I
was back home in Delaware where I'm from, right, Like
the ads I would see on Twitter were from like
the pizza parlor down the street, and I have to
assume the pizza parlor wasn't spending that is hundreds of
thousands of dollars advertising.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Do you think that's a bad sign for CKS?
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Well, what's funny is I wrote a story about this.
What's funny is when I went to the brands that
were advertising there, I said, hey, you know you're advertising
on X. They said what? Oh no, they said, what's X?
This platform? It's just you know, it used to be
called Twitter. And they're like, no, we're we're on Google.
And I was like, well you have to go like
(26:52):
did you go in and did you click on the
X thing or whatever? And they're like no, well we
don't know how in the window mat Essentially, you know,
the Google algorithm believe that they can find cheap impressions
on X and that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
That feels like a bad sign for I'm sorry if
they if they are like the equivalent platform of like
they're gonna you know, they're going to add out Brain.
They're gonna add out Brain and Taboola. And as a listener,
if you don't know what out brain is, going to
CNN dot com scroll down to paid content and take
a look at that dog ship. Also, and I say
this with respect to the many great reports at the Verge,
it's also on the Verge, which is disgusting. These things
(27:26):
are called chum boxes. They're cheap, usually affiliate marketing content.
You hear it on an upcoming episode. We're really gonna
get in the guts of them briefly and then punch them.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
I believe it's Tabula. One of them has a partnership.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
They do the definitely Outbrain on CNN.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Oh yeah, but one of them has a partner. I
believe it's Tabula. They have a partnership with Apple. They
do all the InApp advertising, or they were doing a
lot of the InApp advertising for AP.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Is it still content stuff?
Speaker 1 (27:54):
I believe it's like Apple News And in.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
A company, what does it say about a society that
company makes money? They should be in the Stockade's not
in the stock market. It's disgusting.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
But the look on my face is couldn't say no comment.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Now he has absolutely no opinions about this. Just to
be cleared, let's move on to another subject, which is
my favorite thing at the moment, which is so open
Ai and Perplexity, so perplexity generative AI powered search engine
(28:29):
too deeply unprofitable companies. Open Ai has been hinting Sarah
for Ila CFO, I believe, has been hinting that open
Ai would go into ads. And the response I've had
when I've said this is silly is yeah, they'll just
add ads. And it doesn't sound like you can just
add ads unless you just plug in Google, which I
don't think they're gonna do. It just doesn't feel possible.
(28:50):
Maybe it's possible, it doesn't feel like something they're going
to spin up overnight.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
So Perplexity, which is obviously the competitor to open ai
and chat GBT, they they have started rolling out in
ads model. At the time, they wanted to charge people
fifty bucks a CPM, and that's very expensive.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
And that's cost per mile. Thousand impressions. Thousand isn't uniques,
it's just thousand times this is shown.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
And that that is about fifty bucks a CPM. Is
is what Netflix wanted to charge. Netflix being like the
most premium inventory you could buy, and Netflix had a
lower you know, like roughly thirty five.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Oh yeah, perplex. These don't good.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
So so it's interesting that you do see these these
ai search companies dabbling with this. SEO advertising is like
light speed complex in terms of just like basic digital.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
When do you say CEO advertising? What you specifically?
Speaker 1 (29:46):
I mean advertising and search engines right there there it is.
It's almost like a totally different ballgame. It's a different category.
People that call themselves, you know, search engine advertisers. I
don't necessarily think they would consider themselves regular advertisers, right,
They're they're very uh, they've got a niche skill set
and they're really good at it, and and and forever
(30:06):
before Google did this overview answers. That's how Google would work.
You you could buy and bid on certain terms, right,
and then you'll link exactly. Uh And so long story short,
what does that look like for open AI's advertising business.
The thing I always go back to, and again this
is very broad strokes, but like my mom isn't using
(30:28):
a lot of the open ai products yet. And I
think advertisers, your your blue chip advertisers, your your your
bud lights, right, your your forwards. I I don't know
they're they're interested in scale, they're interested in eyeballs. They
want to reach as many.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
People don't like a niche tech product, even though three
hundred million weekly uses sounds big. Yeah, that's still kind
of niche in comparison to Google's billions.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Off And there could be an audience. There's certainly an
audience in Silicon Valiant in New York, and I'm pointing
at myself and the tech doorks.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
That use these tools.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
But it would be really interesting to see how they
build these tools out, what kind of questions they get,
and who are the advertisers that are that are interested
in this, like you could obviously Google has seen interest
from a lot of shopping e commerce advertisers. If you're
selling clothing, you might be interested in, Hey, what's a
good outfit.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
I could wear?
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Like that's obviously a stupid example. It'll be interesting to
see how they build this out to a great example.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
I'm assuming.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I'm assuming obviously we've seen open ai has hired executives
from from Twitter, from Instagram, from Google. I'm sure there
are a lets smart people that are building that. It'll
be curious to see how the market does respond to
it and how much interest there is.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
But just to be clear, you don't just like plug
the ads. That you have to do like an ad exchange.
You have to have a place where publishers can buy ads,
and then you have to have an exchange forbidding on
the ads. And then there's something else I'm missing like
at that, like.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
You'd have to build a platform that would allow ads
advertisers to go in set the parameters that they want.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
It's very technical and you can't buy off the shelfe though.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Like I mean, maybe you can white label it. You
can go to a company that does that and say hey,
give us the tech, and you still.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Have to find a way to represent those ads within
queries is the problem.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
And you'd have to have salespeople that go to the
market and say, hey, you should buy our product. Advertising
is outside of the monopolies in the space I think
you know, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Those are obviously where every
dollar goes. It's a really cut throat industry in terms
of there's a lot of competition. I think advertisers might
(32:39):
be willing to test and and try out a new platform,
but it takes a lot of work to really pull
the dollars from from a meta, from a Google, from
an Amazon soalk.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
A while is it took him years to actually build up.
And TikTok's business doesn't lose money every time anyone uses
it every single time. It's just I've also had a
lot of arguments online this week in general, but about
this specifically, because the response is we will just add ads,
the ads will be there. But it doesn't even sound
like the economics of that, because they need they're losing
(33:10):
five billion, ten that will probably lose ten billion next year.
An ADS business that does five billion dollars a year
does not seem something that you've just spin up overnight, right,
That's not an easy lift.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Yeah, I can't speak. I've never had to build an
ADS planning right, although I will say, and this is
totally different, it's a totally different industry. But you do
see companies like Walmart, companies like Costco say hey, wait
a minute, we can actually we've got a lot of
data here, let's sell this to advertisers, right, and that
(33:42):
those have very quickly become billion dollar businesses. That is
not the same thing as a search engine.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
People are typing queries into and then getting responses, and it.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Isn't even obvious if they want to advertise do on
search GPT or if they just want to do it
on the regular chat GPT, because those are two different products. Also,
I don't think people realize how difficult search engines are
to build. Also, there's like tens of thousands of salespeople
at Google, right, am I right in saying that rum
there's a lot of people. Yeah, like it just doesn't
It feels like an insanely big lift. And also the
(34:14):
act an act somewhat in my opinion, don't worry.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
I'm curious what is your You know, most people as
a default hate ads. If they can get Netflix, they
want to get it without I'm saying people that can
afford it are going to say, hey, I don't want
to watch aids. I don't want to engage with that
kind of stuff. What do you think about ads? Supported media?
Ads kind of infiltrating everything.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
I think if the ads don't ruin the experience, they're fine.
If the ads are part of the experience and you
see them. I like them in newsletters, even though I
may skip over them like that, just like immediately, I
don't mind if they're not horribly interrupting. The reason I
loathe Meta and loa like specifically like Instagram in particular,
is their ads are intrusive and offensive at times they're annoying,
(34:58):
and they're not annoying in a way it's like, oh,
there's a banner at I can click away from that.
It's like, no, you will see this across your entire phone, dickhead,
look at it. Look at the new kind of low
car bagels that don't even taste good. Yeah, they sold
some bagels to me, but it's just I don't mind that.
And I also like the option of paying not to
have ads like I will do it where I need
(35:19):
to like pay for Netflix that pay for Hulu because
I actually watch a lot of stuff on there, and
then Amazon did that, which is rude. But I don't know,
I think ad support it's fine. It's just one of
the reasons to what you want here is listeners need
to know it is not just like you go and
do like an adcompany dot com and then buy that
for open Ai and then it works. I also don't
(35:40):
think they have a lot of time, but that's a
completely different subject. So all right, to wrap us up,
what do you see for the next year within ads?
It feels like a very chaotic time, especially with Lena
Khan might be on the way out, probably on the
way What do you think is gonna happen? What are
you excited for or even just interested in?
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Yeah, that's a good question. One thing I'm particularly interested
in is this kind of to my point earlier about everything,
there's this cliche I think Eric Suffert coined it. He's
an analyst in advertising, that everything becomes an ad network. Like,
if you have an audience, which ed I believe you
did I do, You're going to start selling ads, whether
you like it or not, because it's found money. It's money.
(36:23):
You looked under your shoe and or you looked in
your pocket.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
And there was go people to sell to. You sell
to them exactly.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
And everyone from to what I was saying earlier, everyone
from Walmart to clearly open Ai has basically figured this
out figured it out the same thing that Google and
Meta did you know twenty years ago that hey, you
can actually monetize this technology by selling advertising. I'm curious
to see that now that everything is an AD network,
(36:49):
how do you compete within that? If Uber is selling
me ads while I am in their car.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
If I'm an.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Advertiser, well, is Uber a goodbye? Is that better than
a Google than I'm meta? There's going to be a
lot of competition in the space and all of these
kind of tertiary platforms. I'm really curious to see, like
does that mean there's going to be consolidation? Does that
mean that there's going to be these kind of like
partnerships that pop up, Like United Airlines they're going to
(37:16):
start targeting people with ads in the plane on the
back of the screens.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Some of them have done that.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
United Airlines. I believe it is the first.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Today, I swear to God, I saw what I'm.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Just so you might see an ad, so you might
see an ad that everyone's see.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
I'm thinking of the Wi Fi.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
They're going to customize the ads to to each flyer
on a United Airlines flight and that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
So that's interest leave me alone.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
And there's an elon Musk connection. Because the way they
can do it is because of Starlink, because they have
a partnership with Starlink, which gives them the Internet, the
power the advertisers.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
So they're able to actually and a closing questions, thought
how at some point to your point about ignoring newsletter ads,
at some point, I wonder if people are just going
to get so oversaturated that they just stop breezing past
this stuff that they just like, I don't care, I
don't believe in, Like, I don't want to be harassed
(38:13):
like this because talking to the few normal people I know,
the non dogs, the people aren't smashing cars windows to
steal people's wallets and such through listen to the show.
Of course, their general thought is like these fucking apps,
they're just like overwhelmed by it. Everyone's overwhelmed by everything,
but the ads part. I'm actually really glad you brought
up that everything becomes an ad network thing, because I
(38:33):
think everything already kind of has. It's in your kindles,
your phones, your planes. Now, I guess back of the car,
you've got some weird thing on the back of Uber drivers,
things that advertisers to you. Now it's so weird.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Yeah, I mean I think, yes, people's eyes glaze over.
But that's why they're willing to spend seven million dollars
to get in the Super Bowl, right right, you need
there are so few opportunities to get as many eyeballs
as possible and to get people to pay attention. That's
why as there's less and less surviving media out there,
(39:06):
it becomes more valuable.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Ryan, thank you so much for joining me. You are
one of the best to have reporters out there. I'm
so glad to have you. Where can people find you?
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Find me on? On Twitter? Ryan Barwick, Morning Brew. I'm
so sorry I had to describe ad tech to you.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
No I had. This is literally the most important industry
in tech, like other than like micro chips, like this
is actually genuinely unlink thing. You can of course find
me and I have actually changed my Blue Sky name
and no, no, Mattasowski, I have not re recorded the end. Again,
very sorry. You can find me on at exitron dot
com on Blue Sky. You can still find me on Twitter,
(39:41):
but I think I might be bloody done with that.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
That's what they are say.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
No, but I barely check it now. I feel like
I feel the same way as I do with Facebook.
I'm looking at Instagram more. It's disgusting. Anyway, you've been
listening to Better Offline. Thank you so much. Thank you
to Daniel GOODMANO producer as well. Thank you Ryan. Thanks
for the listening. Of course, thank you for listening to
(40:07):
Better Offline.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song
is Matasowski. You can check out more of his music
and audio projects at Matasowski dot com, M A T
T O S O W s ki dot com. You
can email me at easy at Better offline dot com
or visit Better Offline dot com to find more podcast
links and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend
(40:29):
you go to chat dot where's youreaed dot at to
visit the discord, and go to our slash.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Better Offline to check out our reddit. Thank you so
much for listening. Better Offline is a production of cool
Zone Media.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool
Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1 (40:47):
App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Also media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello, and welcome to Better Offline. I'm the single most
punished individual alive. My name is Ed Zitron. I'm your
host today. I'm joined by Ryan Barwick of Morning Brew
(00:25):
and Marketing Bruce specifically, of course, Ryan, thank you for
joining me.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Hey man, what's up? How's it going?
Speaker 2 (00:30):
We are in the beautiful New York studios of iHeartRadio,
Daniel Goodman of course producing Live with Us, live to tape,
of course, and Ryan's here to talk to me about advertising.
And we're going to start somewhere fairly obvious, which is,
what is the kind of status of the Google Ads
antitrust case? Where are we at?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Yeah? I spent in September. I spent two weeks in Alexandria, Virginia,
sexy Alexander, sitting on a wooden bench, listening to hours
and hours of economists explaining auction bidding. I know you're
very that.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
This is no, but seriously actually explain on.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Yeah, no, no, I mean it was. I got a
noseblade halfway through it because it was at times very
dull but also very exciting. Essentially, the DOJ is arguing
that Google doesn't just have a monopoly on digital advertising,
but they own the entire supply chain, right, So Google
owns the software that publishers used to like the New
(01:29):
York Times of the Wall Street Journal, to run ads
on their website and to monetize their content. Google also
owns or monopoly has a monopoly on the software that
advertisers are using to to reach those audiences on the
New York Times in the Wall Street Journal. And in
between those two pieces of software, there's this auction software.
(01:50):
There's a bidding platform, and Google also owns that, right,
So they own every piece of The DOJ is alleging
that they own every piece of supply chain, and they really,
I mean, at one point the DOJ said Google sees
I think nine out of every ten digital transaction. So
that's that's pretty large, right, That's a lot of them.
(02:13):
That's pretty big. And it was fascinating over the course
of two weeks. I was only there for two weeks.
I believe it went on for a little bit more
than three. We kind of got a history of ad tech,
which is this incredibly complex, incredibly dense, incredibly dorky industry
to just kind of explain how the Internet makes money.
(02:33):
And Google has been on the receiving end of a
lot of those advertising dollars, of those ad budgets, and
it's fascinating. So we had the Monday before Thanksgiving, we
had closing arguments, which is where the DOJ and Google
get to make their final stand before the judge and
make their arguments. The DJ again just kind of pointed
(02:55):
to Google size.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
And that they own every single part of the stack.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Right, or certainly the most successful parts of the stack.
And then Google essentially countered by saying, look, we're really
good at what we do, and it's hard to argue
with them in the sense that they have so much
data that they can monetize these things really efficiently. Because
they see so much, they can get really good at it.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
It feels like the argument that would be, well, you
have all this data from the monopolies you're doing, so
I'm guessing that's kind of how the DJ came in it.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Yeah, yes, And and it was interesting on the first
day the DOJ said, you have all of these advertisers,
but we never really delve delved into why they have
so many advertisers. YouTube was almost never mentioned during the
case Gmail Chrome right. Obviously, there's a much sexier trial
that that is still ongoing. Well has already Amy has
(03:49):
already reached its conclusion. The real heads were at the
attack trial I like to see. The real dorks were
at the much more complex and boring trial. So that
wasn't really necessarily touched on, and again it will be
really interesting. One thing that I kind of took away
from the trial, and this is called like the it's
(04:09):
it's a rocket docket, so it happens really quickly. We
could find out before Christmas or even in early January,
what decision the judge has reached. But one thing that
I really took away from it is that the DOJ
was basically pointing out issues or decisions Google made to
maintain a monopoly, things that had happened ten years ago,
(04:33):
things that had happened twelve years ago in some instances.
So Google does something and the industry has to respond,
and then Google does another thing. Can you give an example, Well,
there are these, you know strategies. One was called like
last look, where Google would get the last look at
a bid between an advertiser and I Jason.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Jason brought that up on a previous like the idea
that like right then they go and we can just
bid under them.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Right exactly, so so then that Google would do that right,
and then the industry would try to work around that,
and ultimately things have reached kind of a I don't
know if copasatic is the correct term. Things have kind
of leveled out there, especially as advertisers are more drawn
to like streaming platforms. They're more drawn to a platform
(05:19):
like a TikTok or a Twitter social media platforms, you know,
Banner ads are kind of like I think among most buyers,
are kind of like the least sexy version of advertising,
can you Yeah, I think the common frame like, can
you name any banner ad you've ever seen?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Only that McDonald's one from like twenty years ago where
it said I'd hit that.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Okay, there we go.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
That was a great ad. I've never fucked a burger,
but I've thought about it for at least a second,
so but never letting me correct. And it's my question
is is that kind of advertising dying? Is ban a
traditional that kind of media dying? Is it being replaced
or is it just cheaper and shittya?
Speaker 1 (06:00):
You would hope it doesn't die because that is the
kind of advertar. Yeah, that a lot of publishers.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
I wasn't asking because I wanted it to happen.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Right, that a lot of publishers use, right, And obviously
publishers have shifted to try to get subscriptions. I don't
know if I'd go as far as saying it's dying,
but the budgets are definitely shifted, and in the same
way that linear television is losing viewers every year and
people are adopting like streaming platforms.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, it's just it's it's not as interesting, it's not
as sexy, and I do not know to kind of
tie the knot here. I don't know what kind of
remedy might solve that. Like, if Google's forced to sell
it's auction software, it's exchange, what does that do?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Like double click? Just they finally they after buying it,
they just sell it again. Couldn't they sell access to
the data, because that's kind of what they're suggesting with
the search remedies listeners if you didn't know part of
the suggested remedies, and the government been selling Chrome, which
I'm going there on, but they're saying that they would
allow other search engines to access Google's to them. Now,
could a similar thing happen with.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
This, but yeah, I don't really know, Like the bitstreams
here is so complex, there's so many players involved, I
don't entirely know what that would look like, and I
think that's part of the I'm sure Google's lawyers and
the DJ's lawyers are wrestling over this kind of stuff,
but you definitely got the sense, at least from the
(07:25):
However many reporters were there, that this stuff is so
weedy and so complex that I don't know how much
of it is. Ultimately, I don't know what kind of
remedies ultimately alleviate the concerns in the industry. Certainly many
people feel like Google is a monopoly, but I'm not
entirely sure where else they would take their dollar. But again,
(07:47):
part of that is because Google is.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Because there's never been another option.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Right.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
It kind of makes me think of Facebook as well,
because I know that there's I have they done an
anti trust case against them? I forget, but I know
the argument is that they have a monopoly of a
social media which is true. But breaking up these companies
seems I want them to do it, they need to
do it, but I just have no idea how they
could postbly like they're so deeply embedded in every corner
(08:11):
of every part of the Internet at this point, I
just don't know how practical that would be.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Yeah, it was interesting Google brought up on the last
day of the trial. They brought up Microsoft as its competitor. Look,
Microsoft has Xbox. That's inventory that Google doesn't have access to.
That's an advantage Microsoft has over Google. I don't think
I've ever met a media buyer that has ever said, well,
that Xbox inventory really.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, we've got to make sure we're on a right.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Right so like or the Microsoft has made a lot
of inrows with retailers, for example.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Haven't Microsoft been trying to do ads for years and
never really made it? Well, they make it like a
billion from being.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
Yeah, well, they have a very successful business around it,
but it's certainly not It's not Google a juggernaut like
a Google or an Amazon.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
And for context listeners, I think what a billion in
revenue compared to several hundred billion from its the.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Google makes forty billion a quarter.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
King is christ But there was one story I did
want to talk to you about that you wrote back
in September that we've talked about a few times. So
this Facebook ads story because I actually think that this
may be a story that gets bigger and bigger. But
he wrote this story about he talked to a few
ad buyers with Facebook and that Facebook's ads platform is
kind of broken. Can you go into that bit?
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Yeah, this is something I noticed on Twitter or I
guess we call it X now.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
I don't he dead names trans people. I'm dead naming Twitter.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
There you go. They're essentially buyers were saying, hey, so
there are advertisers, but advertisers aren't pulling the levers. Usually
advertisers go to ad agencies and the ad agencies. I
don't know if your audience cares necessarily about that the alligation,
but I saw a bunch of buyers saying, hey, you know,
we we had ten thousand dollars disappear. We put it
(09:57):
into into meta and it poof, it disappeared. It's gone.
We don't know what happened to it. And you know,
one guy saying that it's like, okay, maybe that is
a bug. But then when you talk to eight media
buyers and they all say since roughly January that the
platform has become really wonky, that there are a lot
of hurdles to overcome wonky how bugs.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Essentially.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Like again, someone in add tech described these advertising platforms
like a Google like we were talking about, or a
meta describe them that like, I shouldn't think about them
as platforms, I should think about them as ATMs that like,
you put money in these machines and then maybe money
will come out, or at least you'll get a metric
that tells you you made.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
A metric, which only they have.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Right exactly that they have decided for you.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
And they are the ultimate auditor as well.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Right, yeah, they're essentially there are buyers would say that
these companies operate black boxes, right, that you can't really audit.
But the black boxes do sell do hickeys and widgets,
right like people do buy stuff on Instagram and and
on Google and even on TikTok amazingly. But anyway, I
ended up talking to several buyers that were saying that
(11:06):
you know again, they would they would create a budget
and then out of nowhere, I want to advertise on
Instagram and then in the middle of the night at
three in the morning. The campaign only targeted people on
Facebook and only targeted eighty year old people on Facebook. Huh,
and it didn't really work. And again, when you have
so many people saying that that's what they encountered, that
the platform wasn't really working the way they had expected
(11:28):
to or the way it intended, and Meta essentially was
saying kick rocks, like there's nothing we can do.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Would meant to not to have that money or anything.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
No, I believe at the time I was talking to people,
I don't think people had gotten credits yet. And as
they were saying this, Meta had its like best quarter ever. Right,
So MEDA doesn't necessarily need to help alleviate these small
kind of buyers, even though these people in many instances
are spending six figures on their advertising campaigns.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Breaking that down. So these media buyers then not just
of the listeners to break this down, so they're not
buying for like one company they represent, well like ten fifty.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
They can they can work with ten brands they right, fifteen.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
So they're like an agency of Soort exactly. So I
mean my thought, and that would be is how is
Meta making all that money? And it's just it's very
there's no just very basic thing. There's no other way
to advertise on these platforms, right, there's no other inroad
with Instagram or Facebook. Right, it's just this, Yes, that
is insane, that is bonkers. Like, did you hear from
(12:28):
Meta atal Did they get back to you? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (12:30):
I mean I think they would say that advertisers love
meta right, great, and I think a lot of and
a lot of people, you know, a lot of buyers
will say, well it does work for them. Again sometimes
outside of like that's why TikTok has become so interesting
because TikTok kind of presents this third option where previously
you could really only spend on a meta. Snap obviously exists.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
That company is not a good business. It never has been.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
I loved in high school.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
No, but that's the thing. It's like an app that
has uses, but when they tried to add the business stuff,
it just immediately like they're like, oh, this just spurns money.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Snap's interesting because they take over every industry event and
they always have such a presence, and yet I feel
like the story at least every time I talk to
people about Snap as a platform, I was getting Reddit
has impressed a lot of people lately. But again, it
wasn't until TikTok that people actually kind of raised eyebrows
about another platform giving them that it gives advertisers kind
of a diversity outside of just Meta and Instagram.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Maybe you can actually answer this going back to Snapchat.
Why isn't it? Is this stuff just not effective? But
that ads not good?
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I don't know if I could necessarily speak to that. Okay,
I'm always looking for like a broader picture, and for.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Me in a qualitative one is just like what people
saying stuff? Or is it just not that effective?
Speaker 1 (13:55):
I say, it's just not that like interesting, Like I
don't think that. Every time I ask people about that,
I don't get that many interesting answers. It's Reddit is fascinating.
Reddit is like the wild West of the Internet, and
I use Reddit constantly.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
We've got the better Offline Reddit full of various criminals
and it's great.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Do you see a lot of ads there?
Speaker 2 (14:14):
I move past them with the speed of pegasi. You've
got the trained Yeah, I've just like old school hit
just like no, just my brain removes it.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Do you do that with newsletters too?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (14:25):
See, I feel like this is the thing. I'm curious
how this evolves as the dorkiest conversation.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
What this is better offline? We have the dorkiest.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
I'm curious in five to ten years, like and I
work at a newsletter company, but I'm curious if in
five to ten years people aren't even going to look
at newsletter ads because we've just trained the behavior to
so look away, to know exactly when to skip.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
I've done test ads of like mates products like I
don't no one will pay me for an ad other
than this podcast that will humiliate me by trying to
celluate I software, which everyone loves to tell me about.
But like with the news letters, people do click, people
do engage, and I found that across the board, and
my general view is right now is newsletter companies are
actually gonna do better. I don't. Do you remember back
(15:07):
in like twenty twenty one, when every publication was like,
we have to do newsletters now, and then they immediately
junked it three months later. It just feels insane because
that feels far more the future than any kind of
subscription product like subscribe, Like The Verge has a subscription
product now, and it sucks, like I get what they
have to do it because money. Things cost money, But
it just feels that that the whole media industry right now,
(15:31):
needs to work out a way to connect with the readers,
and it feels like their email address is good, it's
like a good place for it.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
That's where I want. A New York magazine launched an app,
and I want it to succeed. I love an app.
They launched an app. They created an app as if
it's you know, the iPad era of news whatever, but
like an app for the an app that didn't magazine
apparently not or they didn't put a lot of resources
behind it, And I think that's great. I hope it
(15:57):
makes money. But I just want a newsletter, and they do.
They've got amazing newsletters. Yeah, I'll take another newsletter. I'll
read something else from New York Max.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
So this is no completely different subject, but it's my
damn show. The thing that I've been really thinking about
right now with the media is the this objectivity problem
where everyone has to be objective, but it also feels
like every outlet is trying to suck the life out
of the reporters, not like literally but no personality, no voice.
Morning Brew actually does a pretty good job with that.
(16:26):
They've actually like allowed you to talk like human words.
But it feels like the Times, the Post both well,
New York Post has a voice, just not a nice one.
Washington Post even Business Insider has experimented with the discourse thing,
which I do right for sort of guess contraction.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
You're describing much more successful reporters than I am, by
the way, as I reached.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
But Morning Brew, I like Morning Brew, even though the
video stuff rankles me a little bit that I cream jeezy,
But it's just we're in this weird point now, and
I think ads comes into this as well, where I'm
not sure anyone in the media and those the fuck
to do business buddle wise, I think everyone's a bit scared.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
I just want to report the news exactly, want to
get like, yeah, I don't know, I have the timid,
cowardly reporters attitude towards this, you know. So my my
beat primarily is advertisers, right. There is a cottage industry
of ad tech companies that actively or inactively prevent advertisers
from appearing in news publishers. Really, there was a there's
(17:29):
a whole culture around.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Like a Jezebel article about this field.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah, it's these these brand safety companies. There's a whole
cottage industry around, and the example that everyone uses in
the industry is that if I'm United Airlines or Jet
Blue or whoever, I don't want to run my ad
next to a story about a plane crash.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Right.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
You can see why that's a competable. But I think
the industry several years ago this is not necessarily the
interest in this tech has weaned, but the industry internalized
that United Airlines example as I don't ever want to
be in your news at all because that is a negative.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Environment, right, and can't control it.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Right, Exactly, you can't control it, and they shouldn't be
able to control it.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Advertisers shouldn't have a say on what's on the front
page of a newspaper. And the report to that is
I have never thought differently about an advertiser based on
the content it's next to. I don't think that's how
humans think. It fails any critical thinking. And yet these
are billion dollar companies.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
I and this is a very better offline thought. But
a lot of that is the people making those decisions
don't read the news anyway, so they just like, well,
I this this thing I've made up is very scary,
I think.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Or they think consumers are kind of dumb, which I
don't think is fair. I don't think that's accurate, but
I think that's I think that's in the sense.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
And it also just suggests they haven't talked to consumers
like that. It feels like you could ask someone and
so thematically, though kind of want to explain to listeners
why I've had Brian on of in fact your marvelous
at This is the reason I talk about ads so
much is it's kind of something you said earlier. Google's
what nine out of ten of all digital transactions, though,
advertising is this annoying thing that everyone hates and complains about.
(19:17):
It is the reason everything goes like there's ads on
this show that adds on every website, every single publication
you read has a bunch of ads, banner ads, whatever,
video and everyone has been trying to work out how
not to do that for some time.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
And I think it's how the Internet exists. It's how
the Internet makes money. That's like the way I try
to and I think this is me stylizing it, but
it is how the Internet is monetized through ads.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
Baby.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Google is an advertising business. Meta is an advertising business.
TikTok It's an advertising business.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Is TikTok effective. Do ID buyers actually like it?
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Uh? Yeah, absolutely, they love it. They wish it wasn't Chinese,
but they absolutely love it, and they're still there. They
still have a very large presence, even though obviously it's
been diluted a bit since the election. But even though
there is a threat that it could not there was
a threat that it could not exist.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Yeah, it doesn't seem like that. Seems like Trump's gonna
keep it now, which is very funny. It's just like, Okay,
I'm sinophobic, but not that. I It's interesting as well
because I feel like the news media could have I'm
not talking necessarily about Morning Bro. It feels like it's
an undiscussed thing that only a few years ago we
(20:31):
had the first major online ad company pop up that
challenged any of the monopolies. Like the fact that TikTok
exists and just fucking popped up is insane to me
because it's relatively new, like what twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen,
I mean, various versions of it might existed before, and
it's interesting. It makes me wonder whether any other company
(20:52):
could spin up, just shove a bunch of money and
do the same thing.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Yeah, I mean it's I know this is something that
you've talked about a lot, but every time I go
on Facebook dot com, yeah, I think, man, there should
be cobwebs here. It doesn't look this isn't appealing to
me as a user. This is a couple of batshit
people I went to high school with kind of just
(21:16):
screaming in the grocery aisles. Yeah, and even Instagram, I
feel like has become that I'm speaking purely.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Oh no, no, I've said very similar things a lot
of times, and way more swear words. It's fine, It's
just really interesting and also kind of what pisses me
off about it. You don't have to agree. I can
runt all the one. But is the cobwebs thing. It's
just like the products like they're ad companies and they've
just stopped pretending they're not. Like they're not pretending like,
(21:43):
oh yeah, we're going to connect you with your friends
your family's just like ego pig eat your slop.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Well, i'd say Meta has gone as so far as
to say we're actually not as interested in connecting you
with your friends. What about this seventies funk band video?
Would you like to see this content shown constantly. That's
my algorithm. I just get bands out of it, but
I get Steely Dan clips, which is cool, but that's
(22:09):
that's That is far from why I intend initially signed
up for the app because I wanted to see everyone
I went to high school with.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
For a solid six month period, all I got was
these insane self defense things. It was just like three
second clips because they don't show you to click. They
want you to click on it, and it'd be like
how to stop a guy, and it would like you're
watching like this guy. If I did this, I would die,
like this is not useful information. And then a post
from three weeks ago, just from like a band that
(22:37):
I liked when I was twenty two years old, and
it's just it's such a strange product and TikTok is
extremely manipulative with their algorithm. Sure, but so it's meta,
but it also feels like more of a functional bit,
like a thing of use and enjoy. I find it horrible.
It upsets me. I'm too old, you find it horrible.
It's too much. I don't like him from scrolling, I
must be done, and like so I don't even like
(22:59):
scroll on my Instagram pictures anymore because there's so much crap.
You go like two scrolls and you've got an AD
for a mobile game that doesn't exist, and then an
AD for a direct to consumer like low car product.
I'm trying to be healthy, and it's just like discordant.
The whole thing just feels like very weird. And then
TikTok at least feels like, yeah, we're manipulating you, but
we've got fun thing. Look at this.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
I love it. I find TikTok so. I don't want
to sound like a shrill, but I think in terms
of just like the algorithm as an entertainment platform, I
find it fascinating. And again I'm very dull and boring.
So I'm looking at travel to Paris.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Videos and cooking videos. I just get a lot of
cooking that's small representative of regular people.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Though.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
You don't need to go like three levels deep of
irony to enjoy something. You don't need the brain rot
like and I need like extra brain. I need the
shit that is like a like the golden Siva looking
thing that says a type yes to affirm that you
have been affirmed. Like I'm like three levels deep. I'm
deeply unhappy, but you do normal stuff.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Well, I want my friends to send me the brain rots.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Right, That's how I curated.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
I get the group chat now now my Twitter is
all brain rot That's how.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
I like perfect and blue Sky. Blue Sky's yes, and
we're a pro blue sky platform.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
You're you're on blue Sky.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
I got one hundred and three thousand followers. I'm cooking.
I'm cooking. It's the best. And actually blue Sky's interesting
because I don't know how much time you spent on it.
But I've really been enjoying it and enjoying the posts
that are like, yeah, wow, I shared a link on
here and everyone saw it, just the insane. We are
beaten dogs, just like oh yeah yeah. I can see
the people I follow and there's not just a groper
(24:37):
in my reply telling telling me he's gonna bomb my
house or three different people.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
You have a much larger presence than I do. I
have been going. I've been a b testing right it
works on Twitter, I don't know. I still feel like
I still get more among my very small pool there.
I feel like I still get more of a reaction,
and I've I feel like Twitter is more unhinged in
a way that I find pleasant. But to your point
(25:05):
about avoiding newsletter ads, I feel like I can now
just avoid.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
I mean I've been. I was on the internet using
like usenet and v bullet and shit like I grew
up on gaming forums like oh nazi h. That's just
one of the many, many freaks that pops up on IRC.
They should be stopped in numerous ways. But X X
Twitter wherever we call it now is just it feels
(25:31):
like it's falling apart. Actually it's getting not even like
the cobweb feeling. It feels like being in like a
big lots which no one has been in for a while.
It's just there's just shit falling down. There's some weird
guy in the corner and he's saying some things. You
really don't want it. You don't want any business with him.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah, it isn't quantified, but a lot of the ads
that I see now on x Twitter are now coming
from Google. They're coming from Yeah, they're coming from x
as a partnership with Google just for basic like open
programmatic advertising.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
So just act oh they're in the hole, then no
they must be. Is that having to move on too?
Like a Google partnership.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Yeah, so so so like a lot of when I
was back home in Delaware where I'm from, right, Like
the ads I would see on Twitter were from like
the pizza parlor down the street, and I have to
assume the pizza parlor wasn't spending that is hundreds of
thousands of dollars advertising.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Do you think that's a bad sign for CKS?
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Well, what's funny is I wrote a story about this.
What's funny is when I went to the brands that
were advertising there, I said, hey, you know you're advertising
on X. They said what? Oh no, they said, what's X?
This platform? It's just you know, it used to be
called Twitter. And they're like, no, we're we're on Google.
And I was like, well you have to go like
(26:52):
did you go in and did you click on the
X thing or whatever? And they're like no, well we
don't know how in the window mat Essentially, you know,
the Google algorithm believe that they can find cheap impressions
on X and that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
That feels like a bad sign for I'm sorry if
they if they are like the equivalent platform of like
they're gonna you know, they're going to add out Brain.
They're gonna add out Brain and Taboola. And as a listener,
if you don't know what out brain is, going to
CNN dot com scroll down to paid content and take
a look at that dog ship. Also, and I say
this with respect to the many great reports at the Verge,
it's also on the Verge, which is disgusting. These things
(27:26):
are called chum boxes. They're cheap, usually affiliate marketing content.
You hear it on an upcoming episode. We're really gonna
get in the guts of them briefly and then punch them.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
I believe it's Tabula. One of them has a partnership.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
They do the definitely Outbrain on CNN.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Oh yeah, but one of them has a partner. I
believe it's Tabula. They have a partnership with Apple. They
do all the InApp advertising, or they were doing a
lot of the InApp advertising for AP.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Is it still content stuff?
Speaker 1 (27:54):
I believe it's like Apple News And in.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
A company, what does it say about a society that
company makes money? They should be in the Stockade's not
in the stock market. It's disgusting.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
But the look on my face is couldn't say no comment.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Now he has absolutely no opinions about this. Just to
be cleared, let's move on to another subject, which is
my favorite thing at the moment, which is so open
Ai and Perplexity, so perplexity generative AI powered search engine
(28:29):
too deeply unprofitable companies. Open Ai has been hinting Sarah
for Ila CFO, I believe, has been hinting that open
Ai would go into ads. And the response I've had
when I've said this is silly is yeah, they'll just
add ads. And it doesn't sound like you can just
add ads unless you just plug in Google, which I
don't think they're gonna do. It just doesn't feel possible.
(28:50):
Maybe it's possible, it doesn't feel like something they're going
to spin up overnight.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
So Perplexity, which is obviously the competitor to open ai
and chat GBT, they they have started rolling out in
ads model. At the time, they wanted to charge people
fifty bucks a CPM, and that's very expensive.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
And that's cost per mile. Thousand impressions. Thousand isn't uniques,
it's just thousand times this is shown.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
And that that is about fifty bucks a CPM. Is
is what Netflix wanted to charge. Netflix being like the
most premium inventory you could buy, and Netflix had a
lower you know, like roughly thirty five.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Oh yeah, perplex. These don't good.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
So so it's interesting that you do see these these
ai search companies dabbling with this. SEO advertising is like
light speed complex in terms of just like basic digital.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
When do you say CEO advertising? What you specifically?
Speaker 1 (29:46):
I mean advertising and search engines right there there it is.
It's almost like a totally different ballgame. It's a different category.
People that call themselves, you know, search engine advertisers. I
don't necessarily think they would consider themselves regular advertisers, right,
They're they're very uh, they've got a niche skill set
and they're really good at it, and and and forever
(30:06):
before Google did this overview answers. That's how Google would work.
You you could buy and bid on certain terms, right,
and then you'll link exactly. Uh And so long story short,
what does that look like for open AI's advertising business.
The thing I always go back to, and again this
is very broad strokes, but like my mom isn't using
(30:28):
a lot of the open ai products yet. And I
think advertisers, your your blue chip advertisers, your your your
bud lights, right, your your forwards. I I don't know
they're they're interested in scale, they're interested in eyeballs. They
want to reach as many.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
People don't like a niche tech product, even though three
hundred million weekly uses sounds big. Yeah, that's still kind
of niche in comparison to Google's billions.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Off And there could be an audience. There's certainly an
audience in Silicon Valiant in New York, and I'm pointing
at myself and the tech doorks.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
That use these tools.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
But it would be really interesting to see how they
build these tools out, what kind of questions they get,
and who are the advertisers that are that are interested
in this, like you could obviously Google has seen interest
from a lot of shopping e commerce advertisers. If you're
selling clothing, you might be interested in, Hey, what's a
good outfit.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
I could wear?
Speaker 1 (31:22):
Like that's obviously a stupid example. It'll be interesting to
see how they build this out to a great example.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
I'm assuming.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I'm assuming obviously we've seen open ai has hired executives
from from Twitter, from Instagram, from Google. I'm sure there
are a lets smart people that are building that. It'll
be curious to see how the market does respond to
it and how much interest there is.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
But just to be clear, you don't just like plug
the ads. That you have to do like an ad exchange.
You have to have a place where publishers can buy ads,
and then you have to have an exchange forbidding on
the ads. And then there's something else I'm missing like
at that, like.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
You'd have to build a platform that would allow ads
advertisers to go in set the parameters that they want.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
It's very technical and you can't buy off the shelfe though.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Like I mean, maybe you can white label it. You
can go to a company that does that and say hey,
give us the tech, and you still.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Have to find a way to represent those ads within
queries is the problem.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
And you'd have to have salespeople that go to the
market and say, hey, you should buy our product. Advertising
is outside of the monopolies in the space I think
you know, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Those are obviously where every
dollar goes. It's a really cut throat industry in terms
of there's a lot of competition. I think advertisers might
(32:39):
be willing to test and and try out a new platform,
but it takes a lot of work to really pull
the dollars from from a meta, from a Google, from
an Amazon soalk.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
A while is it took him years to actually build up.
And TikTok's business doesn't lose money every time anyone uses
it every single time. It's just I've also had a
lot of arguments online this week in general, but about
this specifically, because the response is we will just add ads,
the ads will be there. But it doesn't even sound
like the economics of that, because they need they're losing
(33:10):
five billion, ten that will probably lose ten billion next year.
An ADS business that does five billion dollars a year
does not seem something that you've just spin up overnight, right,
That's not an easy lift.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Yeah, I can't speak. I've never had to build an
ADS planning right, although I will say, and this is
totally different, it's a totally different industry. But you do
see companies like Walmart, companies like Costco say hey, wait
a minute, we can actually we've got a lot of
data here, let's sell this to advertisers, right, and that
(33:42):
those have very quickly become billion dollar businesses. That is
not the same thing as a search engine.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
People are typing queries into and then getting responses, and it.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Isn't even obvious if they want to advertise do on
search GPT or if they just want to do it
on the regular chat GPT, because those are two different products. Also,
I don't think people realize how difficult search engines are
to build. Also, there's like tens of thousands of salespeople
at Google, right, am I right in saying that rum
there's a lot of people. Yeah, like it just doesn't
It feels like an insanely big lift. And also the
(34:14):
act an act somewhat in my opinion, don't worry.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
I'm curious what is your You know, most people as
a default hate ads. If they can get Netflix, they
want to get it without I'm saying people that can
afford it are going to say, hey, I don't want
to watch aids. I don't want to engage with that
kind of stuff. What do you think about ads? Supported media?
Ads kind of infiltrating everything.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
I think if the ads don't ruin the experience, they're fine.
If the ads are part of the experience and you
see them. I like them in newsletters, even though I
may skip over them like that, just like immediately, I
don't mind if they're not horribly interrupting. The reason I
loathe Meta and loa like specifically like Instagram in particular,
is their ads are intrusive and offensive at times they're annoying,
(34:58):
and they're not annoying in a way it's like, oh,
there's a banner at I can click away from that.
It's like, no, you will see this across your entire phone, dickhead,
look at it. Look at the new kind of low
car bagels that don't even taste good. Yeah, they sold
some bagels to me, but it's just I don't mind that.
And I also like the option of paying not to
have ads like I will do it where I need
(35:19):
to like pay for Netflix that pay for Hulu because
I actually watch a lot of stuff on there, and
then Amazon did that, which is rude. But I don't know,
I think ad support it's fine. It's just one of
the reasons to what you want here is listeners need
to know it is not just like you go and
do like an adcompany dot com and then buy that
for open Ai and then it works. I also don't
(35:40):
think they have a lot of time, but that's a
completely different subject. So all right, to wrap us up,
what do you see for the next year within ads?
It feels like a very chaotic time, especially with Lena
Khan might be on the way out, probably on the
way What do you think is gonna happen? What are
you excited for or even just interested in?
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Yeah, that's a good question. One thing I'm particularly interested
in is this kind of to my point earlier about everything,
there's this cliche I think Eric Suffert coined it. He's
an analyst in advertising, that everything becomes an ad network. Like,
if you have an audience, which ed I believe you
did I do, You're going to start selling ads, whether
you like it or not, because it's found money. It's money.
(36:23):
You looked under your shoe and or you looked in
your pocket.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
And there was go people to sell to. You sell
to them exactly.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
And everyone from to what I was saying earlier, everyone
from Walmart to clearly open Ai has basically figured this
out figured it out the same thing that Google and
Meta did you know twenty years ago that hey, you
can actually monetize this technology by selling advertising. I'm curious
to see that now that everything is an AD network,
(36:49):
how do you compete within that? If Uber is selling
me ads while I am in their car.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
If I'm an.
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Advertiser, well, is Uber a goodbye? Is that better than
a Google than I'm meta? There's going to be a
lot of competition in the space and all of these
kind of tertiary platforms. I'm really curious to see, like
does that mean there's going to be consolidation? Does that
mean that there's going to be these kind of like
partnerships that pop up, Like United Airlines they're going to
(37:16):
start targeting people with ads in the plane on the
back of the screens.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
Some of them have done that.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
United Airlines. I believe it is the first.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Today, I swear to God, I saw what I'm.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Just so you might see an ad, so you might
see an ad that everyone's see.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
I'm thinking of the Wi Fi.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
They're going to customize the ads to to each flyer
on a United Airlines flight and that's interesting.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
So that's interest leave me alone.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
And there's an elon Musk connection. Because the way they
can do it is because of Starlink, because they have
a partnership with Starlink, which gives them the Internet, the
power the advertisers.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
So they're able to actually and a closing questions, thought
how at some point to your point about ignoring newsletter ads,
at some point, I wonder if people are just going
to get so oversaturated that they just stop breezing past
this stuff that they just like, I don't care, I
don't believe in, Like, I don't want to be harassed
(38:13):
like this because talking to the few normal people I know,
the non dogs, the people aren't smashing cars windows to
steal people's wallets and such through listen to the show.
Of course, their general thought is like these fucking apps,
they're just like overwhelmed by it. Everyone's overwhelmed by everything,
but the ads part. I'm actually really glad you brought
up that everything becomes an ad network thing, because I
(38:33):
think everything already kind of has. It's in your kindles,
your phones, your planes. Now, I guess back of the car,
you've got some weird thing on the back of Uber drivers,
things that advertisers to you. Now it's so weird.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Yeah, I mean I think, yes, people's eyes glaze over.
But that's why they're willing to spend seven million dollars
to get in the Super Bowl, right right, you need
there are so few opportunities to get as many eyeballs
as possible and to get people to pay attention. That's
why as there's less and less surviving media out there,
(39:06):
it becomes more valuable.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Ryan, thank you so much for joining me. You are
one of the best to have reporters out there. I'm
so glad to have you. Where can people find you?
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Find me on? On Twitter? Ryan Barwick, Morning Brew. I'm
so sorry I had to describe ad tech to you.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
No I had. This is literally the most important industry
in tech, like other than like micro chips, like this
is actually genuinely unlink thing. You can of course find
me and I have actually changed my Blue Sky name
and no, no, Mattasowski, I have not re recorded the end. Again,
very sorry. You can find me on at exitron dot
com on Blue Sky. You can still find me on Twitter,
(39:41):
but I think I might be bloody done with that.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
That's what they are say.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
No, but I barely check it now. I feel like
I feel the same way as I do with Facebook.
I'm looking at Instagram more. It's disgusting. Anyway, you've been
listening to Better Offline. Thank you so much. Thank you
to Daniel GOODMANO producer as well. Thank you Ryan. Thanks
for the listening. Of course, thank you for listening to
(40:07):
Better Offline.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song
is Matasowski. You can check out more of his music
and audio projects at Matasowski dot com, M A T
T O S O W s ki dot com. You
can email me at easy at Better offline dot com
or visit Better Offline dot com to find more podcast
links and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend
(40:29):
you go to chat dot where's youreaed dot at to
visit the discord, and go to our slash.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
Better Offline to check out our reddit. Thank you so
much for listening. Better Offline is a production of cool
Zone Media.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool
Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1 (40:47):
App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Ed Zitron
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