Yaron Galai
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6 months ago
in Outbrain Recommendations are Advertisements in Disguise on r3fresh
Loren hi - I'm the CEO of Outbrain.
1st - you can easily control the behavior of our recommendtions through the outbrain control panel. You can choose to have recommendations stay strictly within your site and never send a link out. Please note that even when you choose this option, your posts will still show up elsewhere on our network when they are relevant.
2nd - We do not promote any sites in any way within the recommendations. The links we provide are purely a result of the algorithms we've developed. We constantly test improvements, but as with any algorithm - results can sometimes seem weird. The case above seems like a result for a recent algorithm enhancement we've been testing where we try to find contextually relevant links to compliment our recommendations (I assume this showed up on a post discussing the MacBook?).
In fact, all 3 sites in those recommendations (Engadget, Gizmodo and TUWA) are *not* carrying our widget and we have no relationship with them. We have no interest in showing them, other than the fact that our algorithm thought those are the best 'related' links from trusted sources to show on your post.
I hope this clarification helps. We constantly strive to give your readers the best possible recommendations. I appologize if this seemed like a glitch. Again - while I wouldn't encourage it, feel free to limit the recommendations to your site only.
1st - you can easily control the behavior of our recommendtions through the outbrain control panel. You can choose to have recommendations stay strictly within your site and never send a link out. Please note that even when you choose this option, your posts will still show up elsewhere on our network when they are relevant.
2nd - We do not promote any sites in any way within the recommendations. The links we provide are purely a result of the algorithms we've developed. We constantly test improvements, but as with any algorithm - results can sometimes seem weird. The case above seems like a result for a recent algorithm enhancement we've been testing where we try to find contextually relevant links to compliment our recommendations (I assume this showed up on a post discussing the MacBook?).
In fact, all 3 sites in those recommendations (Engadget, Gizmodo and TUWA) are *not* carrying our widget and we have no relationship with them. We have no interest in showing them, other than the fact that our algorithm thought those are the best 'related' links from trusted sources to show on your post.
I hope this clarification helps. We constantly strive to give your readers the best possible recommendations. I appologize if this seemed like a glitch. Again - while I wouldn't encourage it, feel free to limit the recommendations to your site only.
10 months ago
in Congrats to Outbrain! on r3fresh
Thanks LOR3N! - we couldn't have done this without great partners like you. More cool stuff coming out soon... ;-)
1 year ago
in Ratings, Comments, and a Little Video on r3fresh
Hi again -
We've released an updated version of the widget which fixes some of the layout issues we encountered on your blog. So things should be looking good now!
Thanks again for your feedback.
Yaron
We've released an updated version of the widget which fixes some of the layout issues we encountered on your blog. So things should be looking good now!
Thanks again for your feedback.
Yaron
1 year ago
in Ratings, Comments, and a Little Video on r3fresh
Hey -
1st - thanks for giving our widget a shot.
Regarding your comments:
1) We do save the ratings in the backend and do all spam filtering there. We didn't think it would be a good user experience to authenticate every person who rates before accepting the rating.
2) Regarding stats - we do offer more comprehensive stats for the blog owner, but have not released that yet. We'll shoot you an email with access to our testing version of this.
3) Regarding the space we take up - we made every effort to take as *little* space as possible (no "powered by outbrain" or crap like that). It seems like there's some line breaking issue specific to your blog template which is causing it to take more space than usual. We're working on a fix right now!
Again - thanks for giving this a shot. I'm sure you'll like it as we work with you through the points you noted.
Yaron
outbrain
1st - thanks for giving our widget a shot.
Regarding your comments:
1) We do save the ratings in the backend and do all spam filtering there. We didn't think it would be a good user experience to authenticate every person who rates before accepting the rating.
2) Regarding stats - we do offer more comprehensive stats for the blog owner, but have not released that yet. We'll shoot you an email with access to our testing version of this.
3) Regarding the space we take up - we made every effort to take as *little* space as possible (no "powered by outbrain" or crap like that). It seems like there's some line breaking issue specific to your blog template which is causing it to take more space than usual. We're working on a fix right now!
Again - thanks for giving this a shot. I'm sure you'll like it as we work with you through the points you noted.
Yaron
outbrain
2 years ago
in Beyond RSS on It looks Obvious
Rogel - thanks for the post!
Ingrid - As Rogel pointed out, we're trying to help readers find the most *personally* interesting items in the most non-obtrusive way. We try to do that in the environment you are already used to using. Whether it's your RSS reader, or just blogs you happen to read regularly.
Outbrain is definitely NOT a replacement for your favorite blogs. We all have a bunch of favorite blogs we continue reading as usual. This is more of a discovery/sorting/filtering technology for the 99.99% other blogs that you can't track manually but would still want to find the best nuggets in them.
If you have any other questions, shoot me an email at: galai (at) outbrain (dot) com
Ingrid - As Rogel pointed out, we're trying to help readers find the most *personally* interesting items in the most non-obtrusive way. We try to do that in the environment you are already used to using. Whether it's your RSS reader, or just blogs you happen to read regularly.
Outbrain is definitely NOT a replacement for your favorite blogs. We all have a bunch of favorite blogs we continue reading as usual. This is more of a discovery/sorting/filtering technology for the 99.99% other blogs that you can't track manually but would still want to find the best nuggets in them.
If you have any other questions, shoot me an email at: galai (at) outbrain (dot) com