skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
How does impressions effect a site's revenue model
Hello all,

I've been working on a business plan for a web site that relies on advertisements as a revenue model. During, I stumbled upon a shady area - the "impressions".

The "impressions" is the number of different advertisements a site can show it's visitors.

The problem was - how does the impressions effect the revenues of the site?

My thought was that it effects only the click rate (percent of clicks per total views). Average click rate of a site that does not target advertisements to users is around 0.5%.
Obviously this number must change according to the impressions, but how??

My formula was:

clickRate = 0.5 * Min((adsPerPage * pageViews), impressions) / (adsPerPage * pageViews)

adsPerPage: Amount of ads displayed on a single page.
pageViews: Average amount of pages viewed by a user per day.
clickRate: The chance of a single user to click on an ad in a day.

The formula means that if there are more ads to show then a user can see in a day, the clickRate stays 0.5, but if there are less ads to show - there is less chance a user will click, thus the clickRate decreases.

What do you think?
If you think a novelist's job is to present "arguments", I can see why Dostoevsky is not for you.
but note I didn't say she was prettier (she wasn't.)

now you did.

just sayin'
MySQL Engines, On the State of
And have 5000 regulations for safety, external prettiness, etc... Those may be good things, but they cost money, and poor people aren't given the option to choose which features they can live without.
I'm in Baltimore... is there anything neat I can do with WiMax? I don't see why I care about this, and certainly not why I should pay for it.
The display looks like a 21UX: http://www.wacom.com/cintiq/21UX.cfm

Maybe the software's available for academic/research use?
I agree that results are worse for those who have not upped their search ability. I use queries I used to never use, but I still get what I am looking for on Page One.

P.S. - I do refine my queries more often now, so maybe I am not as good as I just pretended to be.
People didn't "buy houses they couldn't afford". They bought houses who's value was 40-50% inflated

I don't understand the distinction. If you pay half a million bucks for a house, and you can't afford to pay half a million bucks for a house, you're buying something you can't afford.

As for "40-50% inflated", well, there's no "natural" value for a house, and they're worth whatever people are willing to pay for 'em.
Anyone here who hasn't read Krugman's paper on the economics of interstellar trade owes it to themselves to do so:

http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/interstellar.pdf

I've never laughed so hard that coffee went up my nose while reading an econ paper prior to coming across this one. (Okay, and maybe the first version of the Paulson bailout, but that was a very different sort of laughter.)
Someone has way too much sparetime. But that was cool :D
I find it hard to figure out some modern web startups, but this works well and it's easy to use. I'll be using it in future.
57 MPG Toyota iQ Goes on Sale in Europe, No U.S. Release Date Yet
Doubling of vitamin D for children is urged:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/health/policy/13vitamind.h...
Roundup of next-gen mobile devices
Krugman is much, much more than a liberal columnist. He got the column because, unlike most pundits, he has a long track record of interesting work in his field, and, unlike most eggheads, a knack for and interest in explaining those issues to the public. If you're reading him only via links from redstate.com or whatever, you're very much missing the point.

And when did Yasir Arafat win the Nobel prize in Economics? You do realize that the selection committees are entirely different organizations, right? Must everything be a political swipe at conservatives? Isn't it possible that every once in a while one of those lib'ruls might actually produce something useful and be rewarded for it?
The most amazing thing is that you can use real Python inside web pages instead of JavaScript (only for your Gecko/Mozilla apps not for all the web for obvious security reasons).
If you want to dismiss correlation altogether you should really just argue that all medical research and discussion is useless (which I wouldn't consider an absurd position). You can tear apart pretty much any correlation backed assertions with "what-ifs." One simply must be reasonable.

If sunscreen sales clearly negatively correlated to melanoma, that would be a point worthy of consideration in this discussion, no? It is reasonable to consider this lack of correlation as a piece of evidence in support of the discussed framework. Apply your own grain of salt: this is not a scientific publication and the audience is assumed to be a reasonable person.

There would be practically nothing to say in the "non-sciences" (medicine, economics, etc.) if one were not allowed to admit "circumstantial evidence."
Right, 'cause Arrington definitely knows security theory better than Google engineers do.

In short: there are far more than 10000 possible patterns (the max for a 4-digit numeric unlock code) available with the Android login screen. I haven't looked deeply enough to insure that there isn't some minor error, but the analysis here looks fairly convincing:

http://beust.com/weblog/archives/000497.html

So, we get a 40-fold increase in the key space, plus an easy spatial mnemonic? Sounds like an improvement in both security and usability to me.

Sorry, Mikey, stick to business plans and rumors. Leave the security to the pros.
Very very nice. I would like it better if it used the native python environment already floating around in the system instead but that would probably make compatibility a nightmare. Still, kudos to the ones who wrote this.
Within the law obviously ;-)
There are a lot of reasons.

1. Asthetics: While people are comfortable all looking alike with an iPod, they don't want their homes to look alike. Such customization demands increase the price dramatically.

2. Land. People want to live in places already built-up. You aren't going to be creating new housing in a desirable Boston neighborhood without knocking something down first (assuming you could ever get permission to knock a building in Boston). For this reason, most property purchases are trades of currently erected buildings rather than construction of new buildings.

3. Labor. On one side, it's hard to find skilled construction workers today. The 20-somethings of today have been programmed that it's college or bust. That has left a short supply of electricians, plumbers, carpenters, etc. As such, wages are huge because property is valuable and people who want to build can't find enough workers. On the other side, we're a lot safer in our construction than we used to. Workplace injuries aren't as common and that's a good thing.

4. Regulations. There are a lot of them and they are meant to improve the quality of houses, but they cost money.

5. Improvements in Quality. Do you think you're going to build a house today without cable and Cat-5 jacks everywhere? Of course not! Old homes have similarly been retrofitted with such amenities. Double-paned windows are now the norm in colder climates, dishwashers and garbage disposals, garage door openers, etc. all add to the price of homes. Heck, even the number of electrical outlets in new homes is quite different from homes built in the 70s.

5. US tax laws. It makes sense to buy as much house as you possibly can scrimp for due to US tax laws which treat home ownership as this panacea of good citizenship. That drives prices sky high.

So, housing prices are a combination of factors.
You keep referring to the other co-founders as "my guys". I don't think having a 'manager' in a team of 4 is a great idea.
Aha moments: overrated?
I am the CEO of a newly formed web based startup and I just read the NY Times article "Intuition + Money = An Aha Moment." I find this sort of article frustrating for a number of reasons and was wondering what the Hacker News community thought.

There was an article on HN a while back about how aha moments are often created after the fact for the benefit of soundbytes and neat and tidy PR. (I tried to find the article on SearchYC, but had no luck, perhaps someone could point me to it? It talked about Cliff Bars.) The idea for our company was neither quick to form nor entirely intuitive. There was a lot of soul-searching, preliminary programming, market research, competitor analysis, and interpersonal luck that came together before we even decided to decide to start our venture. Reading stories about people standing back from a boiling test tube (or perhaps a computer monitor) and saying eureka! seems pretty trite from my experience. It also makes me wonder if me and my co-founders aren't missing something (maybe we all need to experience this great aha if we are to make it). The essence of starting this venture for me has been conquoring self doubt and boldly forging ahead. I guess I take issue with the idea that there are these transcendant moments that make the path ahead "clear." Reading "Founders at Work" was good because it painted some of the most highly successful startups in the way that I understand: several highly motivated dudes working hard in a garage with only an idea they think might have a chance at making some money.

Do any other readers of HN have this reaction or am I just too sensitive?
How common is noscript really? Do you run a site like Hacker News, or is your audience the 'other' 99.99999% of people that have never even heard of noscript?

Kudos if you've actually done some analytical research on your visitors and are stating facts about your actual traffic.

Boooo if you are assuming that your browser addons are commonplace just because you and your buds use them.
The only way I can keep up with the news reliably is with a good newspaper (a real one). How in-tune I am with current events is directly related to whether I've had a chance to read the paper lately. I really hope that newspapers are sold for many, many years to come and redouble their efforts on selling the physical medium over the online copy where they will always lose to news blogs.
Ajaxians join Mozilla; Creating a Developer Tools Group
"This video is not available in your country."

Where is that globalization when you need it. And yes I did try to replace watch?v= with v/ in the URL - it says "the video is no longer available". I guess I can profit by reminding myself that watching Startrek isn't the best thing I could be doing now.. although people claim its good.
"This video is not available in your country."

At least they didn't add "Yet" to the end of it like Hulu and other video sites. That just winds me up, because you know they likely don't have any plans to roll out internationally.

If YouTube can make money out of me when I'm watching kids getting kicked in the balls, they should be able to do it on decent content. Until then — BitTorrent for me. :)
ABC WifeSwap Looking for Inventor Family
Read the story.

Edit: I agree that he isn't talking about the "dangers of science". It's more like "Nerd in the city"
This seems like blatant linkbaiting from 37signals, and frankly I think it's childish.

They know quite well (or at least they should) that the reason some companies get a huge cash injection from investors is to grow fast and grab marketshare. This costs a lot of money. It's a risky strategy but if it works it pays off bigtime. The get fast big strategy is obviously not for 37signals, but I'm sure they are aware that there are people in the world that have had success with it. Amazon comes to mind as a classic example.

What Sequoia is saying now is that the get big fast strategy will have to be postponed if you want to survive. And they're right.
Just get it here: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/1857261/Whiner-Jerkins-All-Hands...

It's flippin' hilarious
Assuming this woman doesn't own a chain of tanning salons as her side gig - it's a good read. An interesting alternative to the current opinions on vitamin D, Autism and low-fat diets.

As I read it, I quickly categorized it as an interesting persuasive essay citing supporting facts. I have no problem reading papers like this and gaining what I can from them. There is a place for persuasive essays and a place for research papers. As long as the author is not trying to misrepresent - no problems.

I read up on the author a bit and she seems to be closer to an expect on these issues than a vast majority of op-ed diet and autism write-ups that I've seen. Plus she's got an undergrad biophysics degree to boot.

http://people.csail.mit.edu/seneff/
I like that saying quite a bit too. It also reminds me of what I once read was Abraham Lincoln's favorite joke:

Q: How many legs does a dog have, if you call a tail a leg?
A: Four.
The 15 dumbest names for Web 2.0 startups
Do you mean Type I or Type II? Everything I've read indicates that the cause of type one isn't clearly understood, but is likely an autoimmune condition. However, conditions that lead to obesity later in life can lead to type II diabetes.
FWIW, I ran a consulting shop for 8 years-- early in its life, we had 3 employees. Then 4. Then 5. Then (ultimately) 15. Happens all the time.

Can you show me a real business (with revenue and profit) with any employees who would be concerned about $70/mo? Or more importantly, the difference between $70 and the price that you think would be more appropriate?

The rice/beans argument wasn't sophistic-- it was an acknowledgment that yes, there are certainly tiny/new companies with little revenue/profit for whom $70 would "move the needle". 37Signals fails to capture these customers every day.

The 3-person example was aiming at the lowest end-- trying to show that even the tiniest business with profit and revenue would be silly to care about $70/mo if it helped their business be more efficient. The larger the team, the more ridiculous it sounds to say that 37s pricing is "prohibitive".

The $70:1000 customer vs. $25/10,000 is the crux-- Are there 9000 (90%) businesses/teams out there who would change their decision based on $45/mo? As a guy who has sold products and services to businesses for 14 years, my gut says no. It's all about the demand curve.

Great read on software pricing here, if you care to read it: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckie...
This is an attack on a strawman.

What the Sequoia presentation says is: Economic conditions vary. In bad times you can't take as much risk. Bad times are here. Stop taking risks.

Though I don't endorse Sequoia's conclusions (I don't know how bad the economy will get, or how long it will stay that way), the chain of reasoning is just common sense. It doesn't make them hypocrites, or imply that what they had been telling startups before was wrong.
'Exercise Hack' #3: What type of Exercise should I do?
Gorging on pasta when pregnant will just produce a type I diabetic child.

I think you meant "Type II".
SaaS Business Profitability - Build for the long tail and get the rest for free (almost)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3002
Project Runway: Finale Part II
Three designers have made it to Bryant Park for Fashion Week, but only one can be named the winner.
Ugly Betty 3.04: Betty Suarez Land
Gio will return on the next week’s episode of “Ugly Betty” and a preview of his piece of story has been outed. The former flame of Betty who was ditched when Betty had to choose between him and Henry may not be so nice as before.
Did Obama just pledge to eliminate cap gains tax for VCs?
Wal-Mart Next to Carry iPhones
when i closed the doors on one of my business ventures i did the same for the employees that were honest with me. the other ones just left before hand anyways. today we still talk and one day my friend and former employee says he will repay me. i think our choices are for eternity even if we never get punished or rewareded. i just want to know i contributed good to the world.
It seems likely, at least, that sunscreens are ineffective against melanoma. Via a link on the Slip-Slop-Slap Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slip-Slop-Slap):

"While few epidemiologic studies have examined the relationship of sunscreen use and skin cancer, two studies suggest that sunscreens may not be effective in preventing skin cancer. A large case-control study showed higher risks of melanoma in men who used sunscreens, and a large prospective study showed a higher incidence of basal cell carcinoma in women who used sunscreens. The excess risks in the latter study persisted after multiple adjustment for differences in skin type and time spent outdoors."

-- "Could Sunscreens Increase Melanoma Risk?" http://www.ajph.org/cgi/reprint/82/4/614
Number of the Day: 168.03 Million Motor Vehicles in China
Unfortunately it didn't work:
Alex Badea has actually made a pyxpcom extension for Firefox3, but it is a somewhat different approach as it relies on a matching python being installed on the system and other extensions using pyxpcom may not get registered :(
http://vamposdecampos.googlepages.com/pyxpcom
It turns out that "Why can't we..." means "Why aren't we allowed to..."
This is GOLD.

"First Fundamental Theorem of Interstellar Trade: When trade takes place between two planets in a common inertial frame, the interest costs on goods in transit should be calculated using time measured by clocks in the common frame, and not by clocks in the frames of trading spacecraft."

and the final line for the kicker:

"Those of us working in this field are still a small band, but we know that the Force is with us."
10 forces guiding the evolution of dynamic languages
The Media of Computing Education
Malcolm Gladwell on Late Bloomers
Nimbys.
If you believe in it, the idea belongs to you too.
Cat-5 jacks are a silly idea for proprty, since they will become obsolete when the next network technology comes along.
Those people who are skilled enough to circumvent the censorship also know they could be summarily punished for doing so.

That is, the firewall/censorship is not designed to be unbreakable, but just to send a message: when you go around this, you are now breaking our rules, and we can get you at our option. This is effective enough to induce people to limit their curiousity. See for example James Fallows, who lives in China and is not just speculating on what's 'ludicrous to think':

"'The Connection Has Been Reset' - China’s Great Firewall is crude, slapdash, and surprisingly easy to breach. Here’s why it’s so effective anyway."

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/chinese-firewall

The punishment might include "re-education through labor" without any trial, or disappearing into detention, as with people who simply applied for protest permits during the recent olympics:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/sports/olympics/21protest....
To be fair, his support of the bailout was basically along the lines of "this isn't great, but we have to do something."
Alfred Pease, one of the guys behind Perceptron (PRCP), and the father of a classmate, had similar advice for some of us a decade ago: knowing when to get out is at least as important as knowing when to stay in. He got out of the operating system market with dignity when MSFT was coming on strong and was able to help build Perceptron.
A Woman's ComputerMan: CrossLoop Expert in Slow Computers
Paul Krugman's economic analysis of interstellar trade
I read so much about this during my Masters of Urban Planning and he's spot on. Getting land approved for development is costly, time consuming, and uncertain. This leads to lower supply, and since housing is fairly inelastic, it has consumed an increasing share of domestic income.

Here are some more points:

- building restrictions are overturned or overruled, but only after expensive lawsuits. These are impossible for small builders to do but routine for large builders. They are also better financed and more experienced than the municipalities they are suing, so they eventually win after several years and millions of dollars.

- With or without a lawsuit, it's easier to build get bigger houses on bigger lots approved. That's fine for the builder - all they need is an ROI - but it eliminates the low-end option.

- People move often so resale value is a very high priority, especially for first time buyers. I live in the suburbs and would love to have a condo, but I would never want to try to sell a condo in the suburbs so I bought a house instead. Condos and townhouses are cheaper and would serve many people's needs better, but these are marginal properties that will suffer most in a down market.

- External factors (proximity to transit, good public schools, proximity to workplaces, etc) reduce total cost of living and increase home prices by roughly the same amount. In Chicago suburbs, Naperville has excellent schools, Aurora not so much. Identical houses across the school district boundary are over $100K different. Being close enough to walk to transit saves (at least) $40/mo on parking but more like $100 when you include gas,etc, which corresponds to about $10-15K in house prices. But it saves time, which can be valued very highly, so a house 1/3 mile from a commuter rail station would cost $75-150K more than a house a mile from the station. (probably a bigger deal in Chicago/NYC/Boston more than anywhere else). Ditto if you don't need private schools.

- As supply goes down (or grows slowly), houses are competing for a smaller slice of the upper end of buyers. If only the top 50% of potential buyers can afford a house, the needs of the bottom 50% are ignored. If only the top 10% can afford it, the bottom 90% are ignored. So if most potential buyers are DINKs (dual income, no kids), then new construction will be 1-2BR condos/townhomes, with very few 3BR. The 3BR units will be much more expensive both because they are larger but also rarer. If most buyers are families, the sizes might start at 3BR and go up and there probably won't be any 1-2BR at any price.
The sub heading of the article more accurately describes their point about Sequoia as "Monday morning quaterbacks.

Armchair quarterbacks would mean that Sequoia is not directly involved in the industry and is chiming in on something they know nothing about (not speaking of something with the benefit of hindsight like the term "monday morning" confers).
i've followed the SvN blog for years, and i've never seen linkbaiting (contrary to TechCrunch or other TC-style blogs)
Thanks for the link. Very funny.
Then you haven't followed very closely.
Personally, I like what 37s has to say. It's the same thing people here (myself included) have said to all these "How to survive in hard times" articles (and that is "why do sound business principles only count in hard times?").

I'm glad someone with a bigger voice is saying this.

Yes, I understand "get big fast, grab market share" MO–but I guarantee they have portfolio companies that have burned a lot of money with nothing to show for it (revenue or market share).

Yes, Sequoia had to say this given their current situation. But, what's wrong with having an opposing voice to "raise vc/ramp up fast/ignore revenue for now" mentality? It's good to give entrepreneurs both sides of the coin.
Weebly is pretty good as you can at least assume someone will know how to spell it when they go home and Google the term.
Right.

Outlying results have to do with that whatever that specific benchmark concerns, e.g. thread startup cost.
> there are many other possible causes

Circumstantial evidence is court admissible.
Hooray, links to data!

This is from 1992 and earlier, though. One wonders if there has been any more progress in recent years.

And here is where I get to rant about my own pet peeve: Why should I be surprised that so few people know how to properly cite scientific literature? That literature is locked behind paywalls! I'm not going to even bother using PubMed on this, and it's only partly because I don't care. It's mostly because, even if I turn up a definitive set of review papers in Nature on this very topic, I won't be able to read them without paying $15 each, or whatever.
Past Youtube - 6 social video sharing sites supporting high definition