The_Rev Posted July 28, 2012 Share Posted July 28, 2012 People said that about MySpace not so long ago. Facebook has had a terrible year in 2012, it's share issue was a disaster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted July 29, 2012 Author Share Posted July 29, 2012 Conor, is the Windows phone still going to sell massively? What about the Surface tablet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leviramsey Posted July 30, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted July 30, 2012 And things get worse for Facebook: starting to lose the trust of advertisers? Hey everyone, we're going to be deleting our Facebook page in the next couple of weeks, but we wanted to explain why before we do. A couple months ago, when we were preparing to launch the new Limited Run, we started to experiment with Facebook ads. Unfortunately, while testing their ad system, we noticed some very strange things. Facebook was charging us for clicks, yet we could only verify about 20% of them actually showing up on our site. At first, we thought it was our analytics service. We tried signing up for a handful of other big name companies, and still, we couldn't verify more than 15-20% of clicks. So we did what any good developers would do. We built our own analytic software. Here's what we found: on about 80% of the clicks Facebook was charging us for, JavaScript wasn't on. And if the person clicking the ad doesn't have JavaScript, it's very difficult for an analytics service to verify the click. What's important here is that in all of our years of experience, only about 1-2% of people coming to us have JavaScript disabled, not 80% like these clicks coming from Facebook. So we did what any good developers would do. We built a page logger. Any time a page was loaded, we'd keep track of it. You know what we found? The 80% of clicks we were paying for were from bots. That's correct. Bots were loading pages and driving up our advertising costs. So we tried contacting Facebook about this. Unfortunately, they wouldn't reply. Do we know who the bots belong too? No. Are we accusing Facebook of using bots to drive up advertising revenue. No. Is it strange? Yes. But let's move on, because who the bots belong to isn't provable. While we were testing Facebook ads, we were also trying to get Facebook to let us change our name, because we're not Limited Pressing anymore. We contacted them on many occasions about this. Finally, we got a call from someone at Facebook. They said they would allow us to change our name. NICE! But only if we agreed to spend $2000 or more in advertising a month. That's correct. Facebook was holding our name hostage. So we did what any good hardcore kids would do. We cursed that piece of shit out! Damn we were so pissed. We still are. This is why we need to delete this page and move away from Facebook. They're scumbags and we just don't have the patience for scumbags. Thanks to everyone who has supported this page and liked our posts. We really appreciate it. If you'd like to follow us on Twitter, where we don't get shaken down, you can do so here: http://twitter.com/limitedrun Now, the only plausible reason I can think of for an early-stage (and not high-profile) startup's ads to be attacked by click bots is if Facebook is running the bots to juice revenue. Maybe there's someone with a vendetta, but Facebook certainly has motive and opportunity. This is potentially huge. If other advertisers start looking at their FB billings and seeing abnormally large amounts of fraudulent clicks, they'll send less money to FB (either by pulling ads or by holding out for lower rates). This would certainly reduce the ROI from FB advertising, and it was a low ROI that General Motors cited when they pulled ads from Facebook a few months ago. Given how much cash Facebook burns through to keep their network running and that post-IPO they can't go back to venture capitalists, a substantial dent in advertising revenue puts the survival of Facebook into question. This might not be a Yahoo! death spiral... In related news, Twitter has blocked Instagram. A prelude to Twitter declaring war on Facebook? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted July 30, 2012 Administrator Share Posted July 30, 2012 I've deleted the facebook app and messenger from my mobile today. I don't think I'll miss them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mykeyb Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Why would anyone apart from Facebook itself run bots on Facebook ads........... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted July 31, 2012 Administrator Share Posted July 31, 2012 Well competitors of the advertiser might, but that should be easy for facebook to spot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted September 28, 2012 Share Posted September 28, 2012 Right Darren. Who should I follow for Android discussion? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted September 28, 2012 Author Share Posted September 28, 2012 Here you go, I've made an Android circle https://plus.google.com/u/0/106741222992400580002/posts/doHttFytzAC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leviramsey Posted September 29, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted September 29, 2012 I may well resubscribe to Fox Soccer Channel this weekend for the Villa game. I've been thinking about doing Villa game hangout during a game and this might be a decent weekend for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted September 29, 2012 Administrator Share Posted September 29, 2012 Conor, I also have and android circle, but you don't have me in any circles to share it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted September 29, 2012 Author Share Posted September 29, 2012 I may well resubscribe to Fox Soccer Channel this weekend for the Villa game. I've been thinking about doing Villa game hangout during a game and this might be a decent weekend for it. +1 Count me in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leviramsey Posted September 30, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted September 30, 2012 Hangout should start at sometime around 1030 eastern (having established by quick experimentation that hangouts work on my phone). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted September 30, 2012 Administrator Share Posted September 30, 2012 How did it go? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leviramsey Posted October 1, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted October 1, 2012 No one showed Will try it again at some point in the future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tegis Posted October 1, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted October 1, 2012 Wasn't at home, will try next time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
limpid Posted October 1, 2012 Administrator Share Posted October 1, 2012 I nearly tried joining from VP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leviramsey Posted October 1, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted October 1, 2012 Google+ and online sports streaming Now I wasn't planning to turn the camera on my TV screen, but if someone did, that would make a decent stream substitute. Hell, with 4G either deployed or coming soon in the UK, we can't be far from the point where someone at VP and with G+ on their phone broadcasts a game from the stands in a hangout... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qwpzxjor1 Posted October 11, 2012 Share Posted October 11, 2012 I don't like Facebook. I support the G+ Revolution if it is happening. However, much like everyone else, I'm a casual user and will ultimately choose the one where I can contact the people I want to contact. At the moment that's Facebook. I've been on G+ for months and have 15 friends.. 13 of which I have on Facebook as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leviramsey Posted October 12, 2012 VT Supporter Share Posted October 12, 2012 Qwpzxjor, search on things that you're interested in and circle people. If you view G+ as a better facebook than facebook, then I'm not sure it's ever going to live up to that (from a technical perspective, it destroys facebook, but from a social network perspective, the small userbase kills it). I view G+ now as a better Twitter than Twitter and a better Reddit than Reddit rolled into one, with the icing on the cake being a better social platform (especially on mobile... the new version of the Android app makes the UI even more beautfiul!) than facebook. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leviramsey Posted February 16, 2013 VT Supporter Share Posted February 16, 2013 Real Life intervened and meant that I spent a few months away from most of the social web that's not VT, but G+ now has more active users than Twitter. From browsing youtube, I've been seeing a lot more accounts integrating with G+. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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