M
Mike on Ads
mikeonads.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2007
Mike on Ads is a blog by an ad-technology insider on ad servers, real-time bidding, revenue, and online advertising scams.
What HN saysHN commenters call it good, though sporadically updated, and link it for explanations of the Punch the Monkey scam and how ad targeting uses cookies.
18HN people shared it
11linked it in comments
8stories submitted
78story points
7 years agolast shared
2007people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Using your browser URL history to estimate gender9 people · 73 points · first shared 2008 · 22 comments on HN
- 2Punch the monkey2 people · first shared 2016
- 3Homepage2 people · first shared 2007
- 4The Plight of the Ad-Technology Startup1 people · 1 points · first shared 2008 · discussion on HN
- 5If You Aren’t Generating Revenue, it’s Time to Re-evaluate Your Business.1 people · 1 points · first shared 2008 · 1 comments on HN
- 6Maximizing Network Revenue1 people · 1 points · first shared 2007 · discussion on HN
- 7Quality Matters1 people · 1 points · first shared 2008 · discussion on HN
- 8The Challenge of Scaling an Adserver1 people · 1 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 9Rtb part iii cookies user data1 people · first shared 2013
What HN people wrote when they linked it
gyardley · 2010-10-04
All friends and acquaintances:
http://reactionwheel.blogspot.com/
http://www.cogmap.com/blog/
http://mikeonads.com (sporadically updated but good)
http://ecpmblog.wordpress.com/
joshwa · 2008-03-31
CPMs vary widely -- from $0.001 (yes that's 1/10 of a cent) to $40-60 for highly targeted verticals.
Educators don't have so much money to spend. It depends on how motivated and targeted your audience is, and how good of a sales team you have to leverage that audience (if you were thinking AdSense, think again. Unless your audience is mesothelioma educators). The only way to get a $10 CPM these days is with direct/premium sales.
Some reading:
http://www.mikeonads.com/
http://andrewchen.typepad.com/
http://clickz.com/experts/
http://ecpm.typepad.com/
dredmorbius · 2019-08-23
For the curious: "punch the monkey" online scam explanation:
http://www.mikeonads.com/2007/03/01/punch-the-monkey/
Tempest1981 · 2016-02-14
How could anyone resist the allure of "Punch the Monkey"? Or Bonzi Buddy? :-)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy
http://www.mikeonads.com/2007/03/01/punch-the-monkey/
idunno246 · 2013-12-25
if you click on the x in the top right corner of the ad, theres an about this ad link that will give you details on who generated that advertisement.
http://www.mikeonads.com/2010/02/22/rtb-part-iii-cookies-user-data/ this describes roughly how they identify you.
fasouto · 2011-12-03
Old but related: Using your browser URL history to estimate gender
http://www.mikeonads.com/2008/07/13/using-your-browser-url-history-est…
Seems like i'm 50% male 50% female :D
ars · 2010-02-26
This is more certainly not the first in the wild use!
What about http://www.mikeonads.com/2008/07/13/using-your-browser-url-history-est… from July 13th, 2008?
whyenot · 2010-02-15
Here is an example using history sniffing to guess the gender of a website visitor.
http://www.mikeonads.com/2008/07/13/using-your-browser-url-history-est…
profquail · 2009-09-02
I heard about this last year, when I read this article:
http://www.mikeonads.com/2008/07/13/using-your-browser-url-history-est…
Basically, it uses the socialhistory.js and some statistics to estimate whether you are male or female (which is useful information to advertisers).
EDIT: Here's the HN story on that site: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=248558
ryanwaggoner · 2009-05-14
Perhaps they're using something like this method of guessing gender based on browsing history:
http://www.mikeonads.com/2008/07/13/using-your-browser-url-history-est…
fertqer13412 · 2009-04-26
This issue is nine years old at this point and has been published, republished, and blogged countless times. I yearn for the day it stops wasting space on the front page of news aggregators.
A partial bibliography:
2000:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=57351
2002:
http://seclists.org/bugtraq/2002/Feb/0271.html
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=147777
2006:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1135777.1135884
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1135777.1135854
http://jeremiahgrossman.blogspot.com/2006/08/i-know-where-youve-been.h…
2008:
http://azarask.in/blog/post/socialhistoryjs/
http://www.mikeonads.com/2008/07/13/using-your-browser-url-history-est…