January 20, 2004

You can continue reading this page right after these messages
posted by Gyan 20 years ago
  • "Mr. Nail predicts that Internet users will react well to the ads" Obligatory positive media spin, or just not too swift? These ads sound like one of the foulest attempts to sell more junk - intrusive, and bloated. There are newspapers I can't read now without switching browsers, because their animated ads foul up my preferred one. I can't imagine what downloading entire commercials would do to it, let alone the bandwidth cost. (But luckily, I never read any of the sites that will be initially affected)
  • Gotta pay for content somehow, and since THAT model (fee- for- content via "tip jars" at Ma and Pa sites OR incremental billing systems i.e. 99-cent downloads a la Apple) only works in specialized environments, it is completely reasonable for the TV Model of revenue from advertising be implemented. Which means we'll see a new niche-service: HBO Web, where you get premium quality sites, sans ads, again, FOR A FEE. Alternatives? UK model: steep "Net Tax" attached to every hard drive. Like THAT would fly... The Wild,Wild, West of the Web days are ovah, bro... Wave three of the Money is moving in, and they are targeting YOU, Joe Consumer. Spreads risk, makes sense.
  • Oh-- Gyan-- EXCELLENT POST, by the way. (What do I owe you...?)
  • Thanks, I accept ==== SALE ! SALE ! 50% off Double Prices at Gape, Only till your card runs out === credit card, Paypal, Money Order and your first-born.
  • I expect that someone (Google) will come up a clever built in browser plugin to block such ads. One of the reasons I eliminated CNN and ABC as my homepage at work (I'm running IE for Mac there, for which I haven't found a pop up blocker) is the annoying pop up/pop under ads. Sorry guys; I'm just too lazy to close another window.
  • I would happily pay a net tax, provided the net was run as a crown corportion like the BBC or the CBC (and not to the benefit of MSNBC). In fact, for the last couple of years I've though Canada really ought to introduce tv licenses. We clearly can't compete with the US on a purely market basis because they are so good at the lowest common denomenator (oh, yeah, and a market base 10 times our size) - why not just adequately fund our talent to make really good non-commercial tv? (And before anyone starts in on why the market is always best, I'll just let you know that yes, I am a commie, and profit is evil : ) I could write long historical explanations on how market regulation has never worked in the best interest of society, only in the best interest of the market, and how all the wonderful (though not yet shown to be sustainable) advances of the last 500 years have come on the blood and sweat of a prolitarianised European peasantry and the pillaging of colonial resources...but that would be dreary. But if you are interested, I could send lists of the appropriate research to support this :)
  • But isn't this the best question: "How do we ensure continued excellent content on the Web?" Thus framed, let us now answer it...
  • DIzzy, what do you mean by excellent content? Can you give some examples...
  • Yes; I'm thinking of all the non-corp places we presently go for fun! All the sites we send our friends and family to. All the places we don't have to worry about being identified on.
  • I'm not sure how websites should be funded. When advertising is infrequent it's interesting and useful, but there is so much pressure in advertisements I avoid them entirely: I don't watch television and I block popup windows. jb, I completely agree that Canada should introduce TV licenses, internet licenses, or some other way of producing content. Good TV is extremely rare these days. I agree, I don't believe the market will produce good quality television - because large corporations seem to follow trends rather than take risks.
  • Which means we'll see a new niche-service: HBO Web, where you get premium quality sites, sans ads, again, FOR A FEE. -This isn't really a new thing. (salon.com, etc...) Fullscreen tv style ads between pages don't seem much more annoying that most stuff around now, especially if you can click past them. CLICK HERE TO WIN $50!!! Boo, consumer culture.
  • Dizzy, if that's excellent content, I don't think commercials will have much impact.
  • CLICK HERE TO WIN $50!!! I want to meet the clever individual who created the "Punch the monkey!" ad. It wouldn't need to be a lengthy meeting-- I think I could make my point in just a couple of minutes. Oh, please, oh please. cracks knuckles
  • Oh god! They'll try to make us tolerate this crap until we don't care anymore. I hope some valiant hackers or a double-standard-wise corp (like google) can come up quickly with a free tool to block them. jb, you filthy commie, I'd like you to send me those long lists you talk about. I'm hungry for historical facts :)
  • That scared me, then I checked their website, it says; "UNICAST LAUNCHES FIRST FULL-SCREEN, BROADCAST VIDEO AD FORMAT FOR ONLINE ADVERTISERS. ...today launched its Video Commercial, a new online ad format that delivers full-screen, broadcast quality video to (sic) advertisers. The 2MB, 30-second spots exhibit television-like quality" "...The company says the technology evades pop-up blockers , but the person can skip the ad by clicking a box." I think they are talking about quality of video mostly. Mary Carey or Ron Jeremy anyone? Sounds like they may be sucking some of my bandwidth, which, well, sucks. But I think if you listen closely you can hear the defenders of unmolested browsing rising to the challenge.
  • _I_ am excellent content. Now why is my page not getting any hits?
  • Er, is it because you're not advertising it on MoFi enough?
  • I'm amazed that an advertising company would even try it. With the advent of newer browsers, such as the Mozilla variants with advanced advert blocking facilities (+various plug-ins for IE that are almost as good), will anybody but the clueless see these adverts? Will even they watch them all the way through. Someone should email these people Jakob's article
  • i love that pepsi ad. heh. some ads are fun. *ducks*
  • Well: Turning off javascript will kill it. Uninstalling flash will kill it. And (the least intrusive) downloading the "Flash Click to View" extension in Firebird/Mozilla will kill it. Just tried it out at work on IE and Firebird, and on IE I got a full screen ad, and on Firebird: nothin'.
  • Having used Firebird now for over 6 months, I'm actually surprised when I hear people complain about pop-up adverts because I simply never see them any more. Also, with newspapers, the ability to block ad-servers allows you to read without distractions. However, I realise however that if everybody followed this example then the advertising revenue would dry up for the internet completely and force newspapers to charge to a subscription fee. Subscription doesn't work either - too many of your online readers are only surfing past your site for the content and charging a subscription will mean you get (far) less hits - a micro-payments system is appropriate here where you pay a tiny amount (0.001 pence) for the content. Subscription services can only work if all sites offering that particular service (e.g. all newspapers) start charging at the same time - if they don't then the one that remains free (e.g. The BBC) gets the majority market share. The alternative micro-payments system (payment of some very small amount for each page view) doesn't really work either - the internet would go from being a very open system to a very closed one, as search engines won't be able to pay the cost of all those page hits to other sites. Additionally the abuse of blogs becomes a huge reality, as newspaper articles are slashdotted to boost the author's bank balance. What other cost models are there for the internet except advertising to the clueless?
  • Internet advertisers are still growing into their role on the web. Remember when Replay TV came out and advertisers/networks tried to prevent it from working the way it should because it meant viewers could skip ads completely? How long, I wonder, until advertisers on the internet have the power and cajones that TV advertisers do, and try to ban Firebird or any browser that has a "No popups" option?
  • Another reason I'm happy I switched to Mac. Safari+PithHelmet=no popups and few ads. I actually subscribe to 20 years ago by birdherder
  • I use Firebird and like BigCalm, ads are less of an issue to me. I don't get pop-ups and if someone wants to put an ad on the screen, I tab to a differen't site and wait it out. That being said, this approach reminds me of the RIAA. Times have changed, and their solution is to cram old business models down everyone's throats instead of being innovative. Change scares people who have made a lot of money doing things one way. I don't have a suggestion of a good way to make money on the internet other than offering a service people will pay for (and I'm personally offended when I have to watch commercials on a tv subscription that I pay for, or commercials in a movie theater that I just paid $11 to see), but if they think cramming ads down our throats is going to work ("You wouldn't click on it, eh Ms. Snarky McNoAds? Well you're going to sit there and watch this and you're going to like it!") then they're professional crack smokers.
  • Wonder what the 401(k) looks like for the proffesional crack smoker? As for ads, it'll be how it always is, somebody'll find a way around. So much of life seems to consist of finding ways to job the System. Kind of depressing when I think about it.
  • From Jakob's article: Where TV is warm, the Web is cold. It is a user-driven experience, where the user is actively engaged in determining where to go next. The user is usually on the Web for a purpose and is not likely to be distracted from the goal by an advertisement (one of the main reasons click-through is so low). This active user engagement makes the Web more cognitive, since the user has to think about what hypertext links to click and how to navigate. This again makes the Web less suited for purely emotional advertising. The user is not on the Web to "get an experience" but to get something done. The Web is not simply a "customer-oriented" medium; it's a customer-dominated medium. The user owns the Back button. Get over it: there is no way of trapping users in an ad if they don't want it.
  • "Warm" and "cold" are completely reversed here from McLuhan's original application of these terms to media. For McLuhan, the web would have been the hot medium because it solicited the maximum amount of user participation. And yes, I know McLuhan characterised TV as a "hot" medium, but he was referring to the effort required of the viewer to synthesise an image out of all those snowy little dots. Forty years on, most people get a better picture than that.
  • The Web is not simply a "customer-oriented" medium; it's a customer-dominated medium. The user owns the Back button. Get over it: there is no way of trapping users in an ad if they don't want it. And yet, people try on so many sites to limit user control in ignoring an ad they aren't interested in anyway...and those people have probably never heard of Firefox.