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Perspectives

We say we don’t hate our audiences. Our mobile strategies suggest otherwise.

Some people’s phones are filled with photos of their families, of their friends, of beautiful landscapes, of adorable pets. My phone is a museum of rage-inducing mobile experiences.

Almost everything I do on the internet, I do on my phone. Which means that every single day, I am provoked to John McEnroe-esque reactions by what Ye Average Media Organization forces audiences to endure.

Like the, “oh, you wanted to do that thing? First jump through several hoops to download our app”:

Apple: punishing you for having deleted their not-at-all-best-in-class Podcasts app.

 

Pinterest: judging you for daring to want to check out Disney Princess tattoos in your mobile browser.

Or the “sign up for our newsletter that might or might not have anything to do with the story you want to read but now can’t because of this full-screen call to action that our growth team insisted we force upon you”:

 

On the left, Fusion. On the right, Blavity. At least neither of them went for the guilt and shame strategy.

Or the “how many things that are not the thing you want can we put between you and the thing you want”, in which the distractions from the journalism include “and now some content from our sponsor” that takes up an entire screen:

What exactly do you want me to do here, HBR and Runners World?

Or the “please allow us to passive aggressively shame you as only the English can even as we take that sweet, sweet money from Outbrain and Taboola”:

And we haven’t even gotten to the proliferation of the “Read More” button, a way for publishers to make your user experience worse so they can prove to advertisers that someone saw the ad that immediately follows your dispirited tap. Or the inescapable ad that autoplays as you try scrolling past it:

Or the truly evil forced browser redirect to the app store, where you might be prompted to download an app you already own or one you would never even consider because wow, ad targeting is terrible:

And so I ask: what have our audiences done to deserve any of this? And why do we think we deserve to have any audience at all when this is how we treat them?

Stacy-Marie Ishmael is a journalist and editor from Trinidad. She has worked for the Financial Times and Buzzfeed and is currently researching mobile/news as a 2016–17 John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford.

Note: This article originally appeared on Medium.

 

Perspectives | Revenue | Video

Who’s winning (and losing) the online video boom?

As the NewFronts wrapped up, there was a growing feeling that online video wasn’t just a precursor to the Upfronts and broadcast that were coming next. The NewNew Fronts are becoming the main event.

Traditional TV networks are losing their audiences as competition from non-linear, streaming programming is rising — everything from Netflix and Hulu to Facebook and Snapchat. Digital ad spending overtook TV ad spending for the first time last year ($71.6 billion versus $71.2 billion, respectively), according to eMarketer. A new report commissioned by the IAB found that spending on ads around original digital video programming has doubled in the past two years.

These inescapable trends are creating a new frontier for publishers trying to reap the benefits of the video ad boom. Broadcasters and newspapers are trying to figure out how to allocate more resources for video, while digital-native publishers try to keep up with demand.

With that in mind, here’s a rundown of some of the winners and losers in the online video explosion.

Winners

Comcast

NBCUniversal, the digital offshoot of the traditional broadcast network, earns major points for having invested $500 million in Snap (think long-term, not just the first earnings report!), $400 million in BuzzFeed and $200 million in Vox, thereby creating partnerships that benefit both traditional and new media players. When Conde Nast joined the NBCUniversal and Vox Media advertising network, the digital conglomerate announced it’ll reach 200 million consumers online, including 99% of all millennials in the U.S. And these three entities are together developing two new ad products around mobile video and branded content.

Facebook

If there is a behemoth winner in the house, it’s surely Facebook. The world’s largest social network has pushed its news feed to prioritize video, and publishers have to post videos there if they want to reach Facebook’s nearly 1.3 billion daily users. Recode’s Kurt Wagner reported last month that Facebook is planning to pay publishers to create more produced video on the platform, to help push its new mid-roll ad products (the new deal will replace the one Facebook struck with publishers last year to use Facebook Live).

Facebook will offset the cost of paying publishers by earning the money back from the mid-roll ads, and then splitting whatever revenue remains with the publishers. While some publishers are hesitant to embark on such a deal with unproven benefits — no one knows how the ads will fare yet, and earning returns on Facebook video has long been a frustration for publishers — many others will give it a shot.

YouTube

Like Facebook, Google’s YouTube is riding the benefits of the online video boom. YouTube may have stumbled earlier this year when advertisers found their content showing on extremist videos, but it’s still the world’s most popular video destination. And now the world’s most popular video website is planning to produce six different ad-supported original series and develop more than 40 original shows and films over the next year. It’s also investing more resources into its ad-free subscription service YouTube Red (and the YouTube TV skinny bundle), pushing YouTube into a tier of competition that includes Hulu, Amazon Video and Netflix.

Google earned more than $24 billion in advertising sales in the first quarter — more than that of the entire TV industry – even in the face of boycotts over brand safety. The tech giant is betting on high-profile YouTube stars and celebrities to bring viewers to these advertisers, and has made changes to improve controls for advertisers. If it continues to cultivate a wide audience around its original programming, it can certainly demand higher rates from advertisers even in the face of setbacks.

New York Times

The Gray Lady may have been a late bloomer to the digital boom, but its adaptation strategies are certainly catching up. Its subscriber growth is the highest its been in its history, thanks in large part to the post-election bump — as well as wise investments on digital offerings. If you haven’t noticed, many articles online now feature video content alongside it. In February, the Times announced it’ll feature fresh daily content on Snapchat Discover. Alongside pushing VR video as an editorial decision, it’s also been publishing VR branded content.

And at this year’s NewFronts, the Times announced “Times Story[X],” which will launch this summer and serve as a powerhouse for creating strong visual, technologically forward narrative journalism that both the newsroom and its marketing unit T Brand Studios can use.

Losers

Traditional TV networks

The four major broadcast networks lost 8% of their audiences this TV season, adding to a four-year trend of declining TV ratings. TV networks have also increased their ad prices in these last four years in an effort to offset declining viewership — which doesn’t necessarily bode well for marketers. The ad-buying agency Magna has announced it’s shifting $250 million of its budget originally allocated for TV toward YouTube.

The Walt Disney Company, which owns the ESPN cable network, missed its revenue target this past quarter and announced in April it’s laying off 100 people to cut costs and better adapt itself for digital distribution. Time Warner and Viacom have also reported that second-quarter advertising revenues are likely to decrease. It’s no wonder: Viacom’s MTV, once the go-to network for younger audiences looking for information and entertainment catered to especially for them, is losing its viewers to Snapchat and YouTube.

Advertisers sticking to TV (and not diversifying)

Advertisers know that they can guarantee audience reach with the time they have with television advertising. Traditional TV has also benefited from the brand safety issues marketers have faced when their content has inadvertently popped up against extremist propaganda on YouTube. Networks touted their reach and reliability for serving up mass audiences, in a New York Times story, but they also face tough competition from targeted ads on social platforms and the explosion of choices on streaming services. But it’s still a question of when, not if, those ad dollars will move to digital video.

In the end, the winners of the video boom will be those publishers, platforms and brands who embrace the power of video, but make sure it fits with their mission – and serves their intended audience. Native video publishers like NowThis and Hulu might have an advantage, but legacy publishers and broadcasters still have a chance to shine if they can evolve quickly.

Perspectives Image
Perspectives

DCN’s must reads: week of May 18, 2017

Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week: 

Perspectives Image
Perspectives

DCN’s must reads: week of May 11, 2017

Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week:

Advertising | Perspectives

Advertising’s flight to trusted partners

Fun fact: 96% of TSA Precheck passengers wait less than five minutes in line. This innovation is no less than a modern marvel created to save valuable time during an unprecedented increase in security. Meanwhile travelers “unknown” to TSA are relegated to the slow lane removing their shoes, pulling out liquids and laptops, and assuming the position to be body-scanned.

Now imagine for a moment that precheck has been eliminated. Every. Single. Passenger has to be hand-frisked, one at a time in a Single. File. Line. It would rip out the remaining thread of joy in air travel. You would scream. I would scream. There would be a collective cry of despair from travelers across America.

That’s what we see happening in our digital advertising industry today.

“Brand safety” is the latest float in the parade of ad tech problems. I know we’ve seen it before but it’s back with a vengeance. Unfortunately, we’re also seeing a rerun of ad tech firms trotting out “brand safety” filters. Some have even suggested that their tech can work like an ad blocker to prevent the advertisement from loading in an “unsafe environment.” Oh dear. This baggage needs to be hand-searched for restricted materials. Please step out of the line and join the security officer for a reality check.

The security firm White Ops stated in its 2015 Bot Benchmark Study, which analyzed fraud, that the real answers to advertising problems lie in the economics rather than the technology. We thought this was a fairly astute perspective, particularly from technology people.

Advertisers don’t need another layer of technology. Instead, they need transparency so that they know where their ads and money are going. This same approach can apply to solving for nearly every issue in digital advertising. Spend your advertising investments with publishers you know, and you’ll eliminate most of your issues.

Just a few weeks ago, JP Morgan Chase shone a sparkle of sunlight across our beleaguered industry by doing something so simple that there is no way anyone in the Silicon Valley would propose it. They had humans (remember them?) evaluate publishers for their campaign. These people whittled down the targeted sites on which their ads appeared from 400,000 to less than 5,000. The campaign had the same results. I repeat: same results.

Rather than treat every single ad impression as if it’s a random collection of pixels on an unfamiliar page of an unknown website, marketers who seek out trusted publishers already have the advantage of knowing their ads are likely to be viewed by an engaged audience in clean, well-lit environments. By this so-called “whitelisting” of sites, they’re undertaking the equivalent of the “Known Traveler” program: I know your site because it has been carefully evaluated. We can accelerate the process and I won’t need to slow you down with a pat down. In fact, we can speed you right through with a smile on your face.

I sense a movement from marketers (and audiences) towards trusted publishers. In this brighter future, viewability vendors, IVT vendors, and brand safety vendors are all unnecessary when working with quality publishers like the members of DCN. Instead, advertisers can confidently say “I know them and I don’t need to waste my time and money with layers of security measures that will hinder the experience.”

Keep your laptop in the bag. No need to remove your belt, jacket, or shoes. Let’s make this trip fast and fabulous.

Advertising | Perspectives

Did angry advertisers really boycott YouTube? The answer may surprise you.

In March this year, a few big national brands were reported to have been found running adjacent to hate speech and even videos promoting terrorism on YouTube in the UK. This triggered a cascade of negative press with articles titled “YouTube is facing a full-scale advertising boycott over hate speech” (The Verge) or “YouTube boycott over extremist ads slams shares” (USA Today).

In the immediate aftermath on March 23 Google’s stock dropped 4% and some top advertisers stated that they would stop advertising on YouTube.

Specifically, there were eight brands frequently mentioned in the press as stopping YouTube advertising: Starbucks, Dish, Pepsi, GM, AT&T, Johnson & Johnson and Walmart. With all the fiery press commentary (which I read with more than a hint of schadenfreude), I was curious to see if the list of brands that said they were boycotting YouTube actually went through with it. Some did, while others did not.

Here’s what we found.
  • Starbucks, Dish, and Pepsi stopped buying abruptly in April.
  • GM, J&J, and Walmart continued to advertise on YouTube.
  • We found an increased number of national brands on You Tube Preferred channels, which aggregates YouTube’s top content, such as Michelle Phan and Good Mythical Morning. There was a definite flight to quality.
  • GM’s ads moved to the YouTube homepage, where there are absolutely no editorial adjacency concerns.
  • J&J said that they “paused” in late-March, but in April, they were back up-and-running with ads. They even announced a new partnership with YouTube during New Fronts.

YouTube quickly acted in order to retain business by shifting national advertisers into the safest inventory. GM and Walmart are clear examples of this. As a result, only a handful of brands that were considering defecting actually stopped buying. And in the six weeks since the original controversy, Google reported strong quarterly results, and the stock is up more than $100.

The experience does however speak to how significant brand safety is becoming. In fact, during this year’s New Fronts, many publishers and broadcasters emphasized that their strength is the sort of brand-safety you only get from platforms that proudly wear the name “media company” and, as such, have robust editorial oversight.

Todd Krizelman (@ToddKrizelman ) is Co-Founder and CEO of MediaRadar (@MediaRadar). Growing up near the epicenter of technological innovation in Palo Alto, California encouraged him to become an entrepreneur and co-found of one of the world’s first social media sites, theGlobe.com. Krizelman also held leadership positions at Bertelsmann’s Gruner + Jahr and Random House. With his expertise in ad sales and innovation, Krizelman joined veteran web architect, Jesse Keller, to found MediaRadar in 2007.

Perspectives

Politics is becoming pop culture news. So what does this mean for publishers?

It is important for publishers to understand what readers are consuming. However, it isn’t necessarily the case that publishers should only write what consumers want to read. While there’s great appeal in producing content with wide appeal, publishers must remain true to their voice while trying to reach audiences.

In the last year, the global political climate has changed, impacting both news production and consumption. It has by no means been a “regular” year for politics – filled with unexpected election results, political scandal, terrorism and major ideological friction points around the world. And this is reflected in consumer behaviors. Readers can’t help but stay tuned into the latest political news. As Bustle editor Kate Ward put it, “Politics is dominating the conversation in a way we haven’t seen for a long time. Pretty much everyone wants to talk about it on a daily basis.”

And we’ve seen this first hand. With everything going on, political coverage dominated Chartbeat’s Top Stories of the year in 2016 as the most engaged with topic of the year. However, what is potentially more surprising is that this trend has held strong. A recent Chartbeat study that measured article production and consumption across online publishers found that across a sample of thousands of publishers, there was a rise in both political coverage and readership.

The Political Effect

And in the U.S., following the election of Donald Trump, politics has been so dominant it is permeating all categories of news including lifestyle and entertainment. It has reached the point that it is even becoming pop culture news.

Let’s look at two major pop culture events that seemingly have nothing to do with politics: The Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards. During the event, Donald Trump has in-article mentions more times than some of the award winners. And while he didn’t quite outshine Adele or Beyonce, he definitely came close, which is hard to do.

“We have absolutely seen an unprecedented interest in political stories from our readers in the past six to 18 months,” said Kate Lewis, digital editorial director at Hearst.

Engagement and Opportunities

This spike in interest has been good for publishers seeking to grow their audience or reach new readers.

Recent Chartbeat research found that readers engage with political content on average six seconds longer than the median for other categories. And when people engage longer with content, they are more likely to return to your site, and even subscribe. In the chart below, you can see that as initial time spent engaging with content increases, so does the probability that a visitor will return to read more in the future.

As Lucia Moses’s wrote in Digiday, “In the Trump era, political news is everyone’s beat.” So the challenge — and opportunity — for publishers in this media climate is: How do you serve as that trusted resource for your visitors on issues like politics, while also being true to your brand voice? Keeping an eye on these changes in reader behavior is critical to optimizing your audience development strategy for the current state of the industry. If covered successfully, capitalizing on the new interest in politics should yield more engaged and loyal readers.

Terri Walter, the Chief Marketing Officer of Chartbeat, works every day to ensure that publishers and newsrooms have the tools and insights they need for quality content to thrive. A digital marketing veteran of 20 years, Terri has worked over the course of her career to position high potential brands and spearhead thought leadership in media and analytics at companies including DoubleClick, Razorfish and Microsoft Advertising.

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Perspectives

DCN’s must reads: week of May 4, 2017

Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week:

Advertising | Perspectives

Are the NewFronts still worth it? That depends

When Digitas started the NewFronts in 2008, it convinced the world that digital upstarts needed their own version of television’s glitzy Upfronts was a necessity. The agenda was also fairly straightforward: “Build a marketplace for showcasing high-quality creators and distributors of video at scale,” as co-creator John McCarus said in a recent interview with Tubefilter’s Sam Gutelle.

Five years after the IAB took over its stewardship, though, many are questioning the worth of the two week dog-and-pony show taking place these first two weeks of May. But if the evolution of the advertising industry — and the individual circumstances of different publishers — suggest anything, it’s that there really isn’t a blanket consensus on the NewFronts, except that it makes the most sense for those who need a boost or have the money to mount something eye-catching.

In and Out, and Changing Tactics

The dropouts and withdrawals at this year’s NewFronts ignited chatter that the NewFronts were losing relevance. Among those dropouts: BuzzFeed, Yahoo, Stylehaul, Studio71, National Geographic and Machinima (now owned by Warner Bros.).

Some, though, aren’t leaving the buyer presentation completely. However, they are changing their tactics and opting for lower-key events. The web video firm Fullscreen, for example, will host a series of small presentations with agencies instead of a large panel, as will Yahoo (which is currently being acquired by Verizon) and new corporate sibling AOL, which was once a headliner. BuzzFeed too, will host its own event for advertisers, and Studio71 backed out of its New York live event and is now going to stream a 15-minute presentation (and will donate money saved to a charity).

Still, NewFront newcomers like Twitter, BBC.com, Group Nine Media and Uproxx, a digital media company focused on millennial males, are jumping into the fray. And IAB senior vice president Anna Baker insists this year will attract record attendance, topping last year’s 16,000 attendees.

Goal Reached?

One way to view this opt-in, opt-out trend is from the perspective of worth. The NewFronts have become enormously expensive and cluttered. So it makes sense why some companies might prefer to do something smaller, where they can insist on undivided — rather than distracted — attention. Another viewpoint is that the demand to educate about the urgency of digital is, well, just not that urgent anymore. With eMarketer’s forecast that advertisers will spend $11.7 billion on online video this year, it’s obvious that marketers know where they should focus interest. The competition and conglomeration of YouTube, Facebook and Snapchat on online video advertising is also routinely drawing attention to this goal.

Indeed, another way to view the more personalized approach of some companies is that it’s a reflection of the maturation of the industry. This is particularly true as digital video becomes more fragmented and thus necessitates more one-on-one attention. With programmatic buying becoming more common, it also means that this big annual event is not as important because so much buying happens on a regular basis throughout the year.

The Brand Perspective

Obviously, different publishers have different levels of urgency in appealing to marketers. But much of the decision around this boils down to brand, and which one — and what aspect of their identity — stands to benefit from being featured at the NewFronts.

Take Twitter. The company has had a roller-coaster of a time growing its user base and showcasing its utility as an actual ad-supported business. But it also recently announced a partnership with Bloomberg to stream its own 24/7 news service — and a major push into streaming video since its NFL streaming deal last year ended. Needless to say, Twitter has a lot at stake going into this year’s NewFronts as it pivots more heavily into streaming video.

Yet as NewFronts co-founder John McCarus acknowledged in his TubeFilter interview, the focus on the show around interruptive video advertising misses the massive growth of an important upstart in video: branded content. That could be a big reason why both Fullscreen and BuzzFeed have lowered their commitment, for example. Their general manager and senior vice president of marketing, respectively, both essentially stated their companies had outgrown the current format of the NewFronts.

So What’s the Value?

Still, for all the debate on the NewFronts’ value, there’s still a very important overarching goal for publishers – especially given the 2016 U.S. election and scrutiny on fake news and objectionable content – and that’s to tout their brand safety. The New York Times, for instance, will take advantage of the thousands in attendance to host a live podcast and basically, promote Times’ quality and not edgy technology.

For some publishers, at least, the evolving advertising marketplace requires not just thinking about digital video, but the revolution taking place at multiple places in the industry. Let’s think of the NewFronts as less of a who’s who in popularity or recognition, and more as a “graduate school” for those looking to step in and reinforce their education in the business. No one in any industry would say that’s a bad thing.

Innovation | Perspectives

How to use push for mobile engagement—without being pushy

Consumer dependency on mobile apps for information and entertainment has shot into the stratosphere. In the U.S. alone, audience measurement and research firm comScore reports that mobile now represents almost two out of three digital media minutes. As a result, comScore declares that mobile apps “have completely shifted the digital media landscape in favor of mobile,” with mobile apps accounting for a whopping 60% of total digital time spent.

Clearly, apps have become the new addiction. Consumers spend more time “in-app” than ever before. To address this opportunity, smart media companies and app marketers are evolving comprehensive strategies to connect with consumers in ways that enhance, not interrupt, the user experience.

At one level, it’s about new uses of push. Push is the first direct-to-consumer communication channel designed specifically for the smartphone, to message and engage consumers on their devices home screen. At the other level, it’s about in-app messaging. Unlike push, in-app messaging allows marketers to deliver contextually relevant conversation, not just campaigns.

Push is widely used and offers marketers a broad range of benefits, which stems from the fact that it’s a perfect format to direct attention to a desired action. In practice, push prompts users who have opted in to engage with content or a mobile campaign. But without context (and therefore a clear purpose) push notifications can quickly get “pushy.” Done the right way, push can drive users into your app. Get it wrong, and you can drive users out of your app altogether.

Marketers Get the Message

This is where in-app messaging comes in. Messaging allows marketers to insert themselves into the flow at that all-important “mobile moment” when users are deep in their journey and dependent on their app. But marketers can’t just use in-app messaging to target audience context. Marketing content, which can only be displayed while the user is active within the app, must have the “look and feel” of native. (And that’s a huge plus if we consider the survey data that underlines the growing appeal of native advertising and the massive increase in the use of ad blocking tech on mobile devices.)

Granted, both app messaging formats have abundant use cases. But it’s time for companies to look beyond marketing and begin to view mobile apps as what they really are: the vehicle of a new kind of customer communications and engagement paradigm. Success is all about maximizing mobile messaging capabilities, including push and in-app messaging, to enable ‘conversations’ with consumers. This will encourage engagement and help build trust through ongoing interaction.

Two-Way is the Right Way

We can already see an exciting proliferation of in-app marketing elements and types. Insert, a company that offers an automated in-app marketing platform, which provides provides marketers a broad set of customizable features – “inserts” – which can be launched into any live app without coding, picked up on this trend in The Giant Book of In-App Campaigns.

Examples range from “push with an insert” to send users to a specific piece of content or video, to “combo” approaches that allow marketers to tailor a “flow” to keep pace with user responses. All and all, Insert has collected 30 in-app campaign types. They offer insights into a brave new world of app communication approaches. And it should inspire marketers to use mobile for two-way conversations, not one-way campaigns.

Conversations are the real benefit of mobile. Unfortunately, we have somehow lost sight of this in the race for app installs and eyeballs. Over a decade ago, in the early days of permission-based text messaging and marketing, I advised companies to consider using SMS to ask consumers for their ideas and feedback on products and services. My view that the real power of mobile lay in its ability to spark “conversations” with valuable customers had its roots in the work of Eric von Hippel, an American economist and a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management who wrote the milestone book, Democratizing Innovation.

Fueling Engagement with Feedback

Back then, von Hippel was focused on harnessing “lead users” — users who have a high incentive to solve a problem and the ability to innovate. He believed that their input could yield breakthrough and profitable products and services. His prediction that advances in computing and communications technologies could enable lead users to innovate and develop exactly what they want is now a reality thanks to smartphones and apps. Of course this is great for everyone since what lead users want is precisely what the rest of the market will demand.

Dustin Amrhein, Solutions Leader at Insert, tells me that campaigns that use in-app marketing to ask users for feedback is “one of the most popular user cases thus far, and where we see some amazing conversion rates.”  But the boost in customer engagement – because users feel their opinion counts and will have an impact – is just one of the benefits.

The quality and appeal of their apps contribute to the ongoing success of media companies (and other app makers). Focusing in-app marketing and messaging on requesting user feedback allows companies to move the needle on their app, while saving much of the cost and wait associated with “trial and error.”

Peggy Anne Salz is the Content Marketing Strategist and Chief Analyst of Mobile Groove, a top 50 influential technology site providing custom research to the global mobile industry and consulting to tech startups. She is a frequent contributor to Forbes on the topic of mobile marketing, engagement and apps. Her work also regularly appears in a range of publications from Venture Beat to Harvard Business Review. Peggy is a top 30 Mobile Marketing influencer and a nine-time author based in Europe. Follow her @peggyanne.

 

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Perspectives

DCN’s must reads: week of April 27, 2017

Here are some of the best media stories our team has read so far this week: 

 

Innovation | Perspectives

Less chat, more info: Facebook tries to revive messenger bots

At Facebook’s annual F8 developer conference last year, executives touted the rise of chatbots. These automated personalities within the Messenger app promised to answer your queries as seamlessly as a human — or so was the expectation. But in fact, mismatched expectations regarding the purpose of the service, the lack of strong AI to back it up, and lack of awareness by the public left many industry analysts doubtful of chatbots’ ability to fulfill the hype.

With this year’s F8 conference upon us,Facebook is trying to shift the gears on this with the announcement of “group bots” within Messenger, a new Discovery tab for bots and more commands related to bots in Facebook’s virtual assistant M. But it looks like the social giant must also do some inward scrutiny — and involve marketers — to get users on board in much bigger numbers.

The Promise of M

When Facebook released M to a select group of some 10,000 California power users in late 2015, the promise of the virtual assistant was usurped by insight into how it could maintain such intelligent operations. “M is so smart because it cheats,” as MIT Technology Review’s Tom Simonite put it succinctly. Unlike other virtual assistants, which admit defeat when a question stumps them, a human being “invisibly” stepped into the role of the bot to cure the disease of not knowing — without ever letting the user know otherwise.

Of course, this is an expensive design to scale for Messenger’s 1.2 billion users. But M — along with competition from Siri and Amazon’s Alexa — inevitably laid a foundation for misrepresenting how users might realistically benefit from such a chatbot.

Siri and Alexa are trained to be generalists. However, Facebook has largely pushed developers to create more specialist bots. Of the more than 30,000 bots on Messenger, most of them serve a single purpose. That, in itself, makes creating a habit of use difficult. After all, unless you truly have an affinity for pizza, how many times will you use Domino’s Messenger bot in a single week? But Facebook also let the promise of chatbots spiral downward by not doing enough to inform and educate users on how to best use them.

Discoverability and Bugginess

That brings us to the twin disorders plaguing chatbots: discoverability and bugginess.

There was no native way on Messenger to find a chatbot, so unless a user already knew the name of a bot to type into Messenger’s search box, there was no way to actually use one. While third-party bot browsing options like Botlist exist, they are little-known and thus, little-used.

In part, that’s what Facebook hoped to address when it announced a new class of group bots to work inside Messenger at this year’s F8 conference. Once one person introduces the bot into a group conversation, everyone will know about its existence (although how to get that first user to know of the bot remains a looming question). And whereas users might have previously been misguided into thinking chatbots could be true, humanlike discussion partners, these group bots are meant to be more “information bots” (think scores and or stock prices) rather than “chat bots.” Feeding chatbots enough data to maintain conversation flow, and ensuring the AI was up to task, were hopeless hurdles that have made “bugginess” a default bot personality type.

That people have spoken little about chatbots since their initial hype may actually work in Facebook’s favor if it wants to reset people’s expectations. With little regard and much ignorance about the service (in fact, a November 2016 online survey by Publicis Groupe’s Digitas LBi found 78% of U.S. adults hadn’t even heard of chatbots), Facebook could help bring the popularity of chatbots outside the music fandom crowd into the mainstream population.

Can Payments, Marketing Pave the Way?

Kik CEO Ted Livingston, for one, argues the real benefits of chatbots come from their enabling the offline world around us, rather than functioning solely as app replacements. Paying for items is one way to do that And, if U.S. chatbots can make that territory theirs, they’d follow in the footsteps of China, where it’s common for QR codes to trigger interactions, and where more than 600 million WeChat users use its peer-to-peer payment service. While Kik is in talks with its Chinese counterparts to introduce payments, Facebook has already launched this option. Still, addressing Facebook’s buggy bot issues is necessary for users to trust making financial transactions.

Yet aside from all the hype and wonder, there is huge potential for publishers and marketers to seize control of the potential for bots — if they can seize control of the AI and have a common goal for users. Just like voice assistants, bots can get smarter over time with the right technology enabled. Another issue is that a simple question to a bot can yield multiple responses. However, if the aim is to get the user to do something specific — whether it is go to a website, make a purchase, or look up a news item — the answers need to actually be both human and robotic enough to do just that.

It’s not only Facebook that has to do some inward reflection on bots — marketers and publishers must too. They must also demand that Messenger (or any other messaging platform) be the right kind of environment for their goals to thrive. This involves much more nuanced AI programming to make brand interaction a clear-cut goal. It also requires much more education by both Facebook and marketers to let their audiences know bots exist, without setting them up for disappointment.

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