[inversionOf]

i.e. incompetence and not malice

The primary revenue source of many of these sites are ad clicks (impressions often don't matter). If the function paying the bills are ad clicks, and site stickiness really isn't a thing anymore (nowadays we're all directed by social news, Facebook, etc. Few of us visit specific sites), why not abuse the users that do come by.

A principal web design facet in the past was the notion that you pre-size all of the elements, such that the content layout is static. This basic facet has largely disappeared -- despite being monumentally simple -- and the only rational explanation is that moving content is profitable.

And for sure it is a terrible long term strategy. But the problem is that it's a tragedy of the commons -- your ad payout on most networks is based upon the group norms, not on your own site norms. So if everyone else is click tricking users, your own per click payment drops, so the only viable solution is to join the race to the bottom.

[wodenokoto]

It's interesting to think about whether it is engineered to be like this, or if it is just that poor webdesign did better in the metrics important to managers (clicks) than metrics important to UX.

[geocar]

Actually the Myspace video ads are being sold as video (6-8$CPM on exchanges; I've seen it as high as 18$CPM to advertisers), so there's no expectation that they click.

Of the traffic I observed, I was able to (in a few hours) classify 80% of the traffic as fraud. I don't think there were any legitimate users on these sites except ad network operators verifying whitelists and agency teams showing off how much myspace traffic they were buying.

[joshuab2893]

Hey I'm one of the authors of the article. Can I pick your brain a bit? jbrustein at bloomberg dot net.