Alan Schaaf Quotes

When we launched The Deck, I hoped other networks would take inspiration from it and figure out how to increase engagement while minimizing clutter. I even tried to sell my studio's media clients on the notion of fewer, better-priced, better-targeted ads.

Online advertising may not be much more successful than an old double-barrel, but - like a good spray of buckshot - it makes up for its lack of accuracy with sheer volume. There are 10 unique ads listed with every Gmail message in your queue, each tied to the message content. And a paying sponsor.

The idea that somebody would go to my YouTube channel and want to watch movies and then be subjected to some terrible car commercial - I don't like that.

If advertisers want to decorate their ads to increase their conversions by showing what users think, that's a good thing.

WhatsApp only wanted to focus on how current users were engaging with the product. Like how they did not use advertising and kept the experience uncluttered.

We're trying to do something so that when the average person uses Pinterest, it has to make the service better.

The average user doesn't give a damn what happens, as long as (1) it works and (2) it's fast.

Microsoft could help Facebook with one of the biggest challenges, namely monetizing its traffic without reducing the user's experience. It's obvious that Microsoft needs traffic and Facebook needs search.

Targeted ads, I think, are useful because I don't want to see all the crap. I'm not interested in buying a Mercedes Benz, but I am interested in buying a new MacBook Air. So if organizations like Facebook can actually make the ads more relevant to me, if they know what I am interested in, I have no problem with that.

Personally, I'd love to see more social media firms develop business models that aren't reliant on advertising. If you're a social media firm selling ads, your goal is to get people to interrupt what they're doing all day long so they come and stare at your service as much as possible.

At any time of day, hundreds of different versions of Facebook are running on the Internet - with a changed color here, a moved button there - and the user response to each variation is measured. And the same is done with advertising.

In our case, we focus on quality, and we have a very simple model. If we show fewer ads that are more targeted, those ads are worth more. So we're in this strange situation where we show a smaller number of ads and we make more money because we show better ads. And that's the secret of Google.

Advertisers don't want to be ignored, and they are drunk on our data, which is what Google and other large networks are really selling. The ads are almost a by-product; what companies really want to know is what antiperspirant a woman of 25-34 is most likely to purchase after watching 'House of Cards.'

Facebook and Myspace are the U.S. audience, which is tried and true when it comes to being susceptible to ads.

Over at Barb Bowman, she's arguing that we should turn off Facebook's tracking of ads. I totally disagree; those trackers make newsfeed filtering work better and potentially could help bring me better ads, which improves my life.

Well, user feedback was excellent. Even when the software didn't work at all, there were few people who were avid users, and there were people who were just sending excellent feedback and excellent ideas.

We are a consumer company and our success is directly linked to our users trusting us. Therefore we have the same incentive as the user: they want to see relevant advertising so their experience of Google is positive and we want to deliver it.

Generally, our approach with products at Google is to first develop the right user base and then to figure out what's the right experience for the ads.

As long as the attitude is to only show the sheet metal, then automobile advertising will continue to be wretched.

We're not interested in bombarding our users with, 'Hey, play this game, play this game, play this game.' It gets annoying, it gets in the way of messaging, and it gets in the way of staying in touch with people who are important to you.

Realtime ads are the perfect way for an advertiser to connect with users in a social environment.

We want to make sure every user is happy.

Users are open to ads as long as they're relevant to their realtime experience.

Why can't I prove that advertising can manifest itself in a way that doesn't necessarily mean television ads but changing behaviour and creating a brand out of something that already exists?

On the advertising side, view count is not the most important thing. It's engagement.