Did anybody solve my Google atom bomb/treasure hunt riddle?

By Tom Foremski - March 30, 2006

By Tom Foremski for SiliconValleyWatcher

Atom-Bomb-Redux.jpgMore than a year ago, on February 3 I wrote the this post and it caused a stir in the nascent BlogoSphere. I stated a hypothetical scenario and something which could be one of several flaws in the pay-per-click advertising model--the dominant form of online marketing.

There were quite a few people that didn't understand it, but that was fine because I didn't want to seem as if I were yelling "fire" in a crowded place. The people that did understand it understood the significance of the scenario.

Today there are larger numbers of people that will understand the riddle. And although I use Google as an example, it is not specific to Google, it is something that would affect many other advertising networks.

Here is the original post and I'd be interested in an original solution (I think I have one :-)

Here is the scenario:

A billionaire has arranged to give $100m to the first person that clicks on a special link that looks like a Google text ad.


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By Tom Foremski - March 30, 2006 | Permalink | Category: Google [GOOG]
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Comments (5)

Ying:

Yeah that would generate lots of invalid clicks for adsense and give it a black eye. However, what does it gain for the billionaire? Once the lottery is over, it's business back to usual again, unless you have unlimited amount of money to give out. I don't think the flaw is real.


Tom Foremski - Silicon Valley Watcher [TypeKey Profile Page]:

Thank you Britt.

Ying, if there were a billionaire that wanted to launch an online treasure hunt, no advertising network would allow such a thing because it would drive down conversions, therefore it could only be done semi-secretly, by sneaking in a treasure-link onto web sites through the automated advertising delivery networks.

Or advertising networks could use this technique to tempt people to click on text ads and have to wait 30 seconds before a treasure win-or-not pops up--which would be a horrible waste of people's time.

Also, the is no requirement that a billionaire actually exist for something like this scenario to take place. It could start as an urban legend.

So does the publication of this post negate the formation of the urban legend--or announce the treasure hunt?


If the announcement were to come from Bill's desk
maybe he could get some more traffic on MSN.
I think a formal announcement via the internet "news wires" would complete the launch.


Tom Foremski - Silicon Valley Watcher [TypeKey Profile Page]:

Nope!


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