Slashdot Mirror
Bringing Interruption-Based Ads To the Web
Andy Smith writes "British production company Celador is to launch an Internet version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? as reported in this BBC story. This may interest Slashdot readers because the online competition, which will be free to enter, will feature "e-mercials". It's commonly accepted nowadays that the Net's traditional forms of advertising (banners, pop-ups and spam) have a very low success rate, so it seems inevitable that the next step is interruption-based advertising, which has worked fine for TV and radio. The Millionaire web site will display 7 second ads between rounds, and the player must watch them before continuing. E-mercials couldn't arrive in a more high-profile way, so once the online version of Millionaire launches we can expect to see similar ad systems used all over the web." Actually, rollouts of this have already been attempted - the media agencies called them "interstitals" and they are supposed to be 5 seconds between pages or so. Some of the drive behind this is that selling interruption-based ads is easier, because the media buyers who bought TV/radio ads are well familar with them.
... is that as they get more advanced in trying to stick ads in our faces, we'll get more advanced in avoiding them. Banner ads are removed by junkbuster, TIVO makes tv advertisments a non-issue, and CDs and mp3s make radio pretty much obselite. Why do they think that people arne't going to get around this with a simple checkbox in their browser of choice that says "avoid interruption based ads [x]"
They'll come back with some way around this, browser writers will come back with a better version, etc etc etc. Why can't they just realize that advertising doesn't work (or web advertising doesn't work) and leave us the hell alone! If they found a better way of advertising that DIDN'T piss off consumers, people would be happier? Know why we don't object all that much anymore to banner ads? We've learned to ignore them, so we don't bitch, and they are basically just something to scroll off the top of the screen when you start reading a page. This is the symbiosis we've attained with the advertising agencies on the net, and it's comfortable. I guess now they are realizing "hey, banner ads don't work! lets find a way to be more annoying and obnoxious". What they should say is "hey web advertising doesn't work! lets find a way to be more effective and more helpful".
My $0.02
You're watching an idiom evolve right before your eyes! You can impress your grandkids (or bore them to death) when you can explain that you were *there* when they first set up us the bomb. :)
Who says TV ads have a better immediate response? You can measure web banner click-throughs, but that's meaningles in comparasins to other media where there's nothing similar to measure. For all they know, the TV ads may be just as ineffective as the web ads are. Most viewers have gotten quite skilled at totally ignoring the commercials on TV. But, since they can't measure anything with TV ads, they are willing to spend the money on them just because they *believe* they are working.
In practice, in the TV medium, the typical interruption advertisement format doesn't result in me wanting to buy the product. It results in me reaching for the remote control to 'surf' for a minute or two until the ad block is over. I think this is fairly typical for a lot of viewers.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
You can't even download a complete page these days in 5-7 seconds, much less an animated GIF. How is this supposed to work if you don't have broadband access?
This will also give the masses yet another (good) reason to turn off JavaScript.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I think you mean the SNR is too low (as in, not much signal for the amount of noise). I tend to agree. The couple times I have clicked on a banner, I get dropped into some noisy top-level page that has nothing to do with the content of the ad. Either that, or a page that says "Click here to add to your shopping cart", with little detail about the product or the company.
*sigh*
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
Actually, there are sites that are starting to do something like that, if in a less proactive way. Rather than host the sites themselves, they sponsor sites which meet those criteria. Of course, the lack of impartiality on company-sponsored sites can make them less attractive. That's why you end up sometimes with "astroturf" sites which appear to be impartial by not disclosing their sponsorship, but are not... :-P Ah well.
Here's one example I came across recently: The website www.feline-behavior.com seems to be sponsored by Friskies Cat Food. Makes perfect sense, I suppose.
--Joe--
Program Intellivision!
It all calls money. Companies that have no problem dropping millions for a 30 second superbowl spot somehow think that their IT department should be a profit center, and they make techies life hard when their websites cost more than they make.
That sort of silliness reminds me of Jostens. Jostens is a company that makes class rings. Anyway, some moron in that company looked around at their computer staff and figured out that they had a negative monetary balance for their department. How to solve that problem? Make the IT department a profit center! They could hire them out to build systems for other companies. Everyone would be profitable and happy. WRONG! After getting spanked hard, they stopped that nonsense. Somewhere along the line they forgot that the IT department is a *cost* associated with doing business, just like marketing. Companies need to realize that websites are the same thing. They will probably lose money, but if they are done right, they will help to drive business to other parts of the company.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Jeez man, your article reminds me of a commercial for dictionaries!
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Advertising is the most pernicious odiosity perpetrated on modern man. One side is propaganda , perfidy and blatant bull, the other is an incredibly low rate of return which is deemed acceptable because its not zero (but dollar for dollar, the results are about comparable with the lottery.)
Open a site, put on it where you are, when you're open, what your wares and prices are and we'll find you when we want you.
Until then: Shut up!
I boycott any advertiser that shoves itself in my face on the web.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The reason that people don't watch as much television (at least the people I know) is they're sick to death of ``interruption-based ads''. They're not as effective as they think. I rarely watch them on TV... I use the time they're on to go to the bathroom, raid the refrigerator, read a bit of my snail mail or the newspaper.
When will the ``media buyers'' figure out that the internet is not television? Sites that try to recreate the so-called television experience on my computer will not have me as a visitor. How many of those free internet connection portals that required that you click through an advertisement every so often are still around? Not many I'll bet and ``interruption-based ads'' are probably the reason.
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CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Actually, I think the plan is that they'll shorten the ads to the point that they're virtually subliminal but not short enough to be illegal (assuming, of course, that subliminal ads are still illegal). Before long, you won't even notice the ads.
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CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
You know, there's this thing called TiVo and...
It even runs Linux fer chrissakes!
You really don't get it, do you? Nor do you know much about TiVo, do you? You cannot build your own video library with TiVo, unless you first output the signal in analog format (read: you lose quality). Your viewing habits are public knowledge, or at least purchasable for the right price, etc. etc.
If you want to be a serf, forced to submit to the whims and limitations the Copyright Cartels choose to impose upon you, with your viewing habits recorded and made available to marketing enterprises with their own, not your, interests at heart, be my guest. If instead you wish to retain your rights to fair use, record and archive the programs and movies you wish, under your own terms (and with better quality), then may I suggest thinking outside of the box just a little?
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
(One hour dv video requires ~12 GB as avi's).
Details on the software I use can be found here
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The details on how I go about this are here, but to answer your question: I do use dvgrab for the actual capture. MainActor is used soley for the non-linear editing of the product, in order to cut out commercials and cruft preceeding (and following) the actual program (dv grab captures the video, but it does not filter commercials or do any kind of editing).
... editing the footage takes about twenty minutes, and the renders to MJPEG avi format take several hours, as does the final conversion to DivX. The latter isn't an issue, really, as I fire off the MJPEG renders in parallel before going to bed, then fire off the DivX conversion before leaving for work the next morning. That evening I burn the result to CD and watch it.
Yes, it is a little tedious
Obviously this is something you only do for a program you really enjoy and want to add to your personal video library, not something you are just casually watching.
Of course, PBS broadcasts are much easier, as there is almost no editing out of the commercials involved.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I don't know about the general viewer, but when I watch TV, I change the channel when the commercials come on.
I watch (and record) Babylon 5 religiously. However, I don't watch it at 6:00 PM CDT when it comes on the Sci-Fi channel. Instead, I capture the signal using a firewire converter box (Sony) and host adapter to my Linux box using dvgrab. Once the episode is recorded I fire up MainActor, snip out the commercials and splice the various parts together (moving the intro sequence to the beginning for good measure), then convert the resulting product to divx and burn to CD.
I end up watching each episode a day or so later (usually while the current episode is recording), but I do so without any commercial interruptions of any kind. Once I've watched the episode I put the freshly burned CD in a booklet with a hundred or so others. I already have most of season 4, all of season 5, and am currently getting season's 1 through 4. In the end I'll have every episode of my favorite show on CD, and have watched every episode without having seen a single commercial.
Not everyone is interested in taking the time to edit out commercials of course, but for those programs one really enjoys, viewing the show without interruption enhances the experience immensly and is well worth waiting a day or so to watch (while the render and conversion take place overnight).
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Seriously, I haven't purchased anything I haven't actively sought out in years.
The fact is that the real way advertising works evades even the advertisers. It works by numbing your mind into not listening.
Market research is conducted to pinpoint empty pockets of market demand. Businessmen who know what they're doing enter only these market segments.
The fact is they know that consumers are already looking for this good or service, and they know where they looked for it already. All they have to do is create it and put it in the right place. Consumers will find it and they will sell their product.
All the ads do is numb your brain into deafness, so that people aren't able to tell you NOT to buy products. Think about it, when commercials come on, your brain turns off. You only really retain the info you willingly made yourself open to. When somebody tries to tell you something new that you weren't already open to...you don't listen.
This is why people listen to o-town, when the band next door keeping them up at night is the next beatles.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
There are plenty of examples of this type of site already on the web. One of my personal favorites (WARNING: shameless plug) is the home page for Weber (as in the manufacturer of outdoor grills). I found a fantastic salmon recipe there which I use whenever I have the chance.
The only problem here is that you're never going to see any information critical of Weber on that site. These sites can generate customers, but not unless they come there looking specifically for you. For example, I never bothered to even look at Weber's site until after I'd already selected my grill, a decision made with a little help from Consumer Reports. From an advertising perspective, other than creating a little bit more in the way of "brand awareness" for me, this had precisely zero value. And for information on non-Weber products, I'm going to look somewhere considerably less professional looking, but with a good deal of info.
More importantly, this creates a huge burden on would-be advertisers. It used to be that to sell a product, you got a few (possibly fake) testimonials, whipped up a contest, and generally tried to convince everyone that your product was the best thing since sliced bread. Using the mini-portal method, suddenly every manufacturer of every type of product has to become an information clearinghouse on their own website. Here's a news flash: I'm not looking for everybody who wants to sell to me to impress me with their knowledge of whatever. I'm looking for a good deal. And that's the kind of thing that good old ads - the kind that take a second or two to read - are good for.
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This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
IANAMT (I am not a marketing type) but from what I understand, part of the issue is the targeting of traditional ads.
For example, say you're a pasta company. You notice your sales are slumping. You put a 30 second ad on during Days of Our Lives, which the network assures you is number one program in its time slot among 20-40 year old women. Your marketing data has shown you that 20-40 year old women make a lot of decisions on who buys pasta.
Within weeks, your pasta sales are up. Not only that, but your grocery stores tell you (through their nice discount cards) that sales of your product are up 10% in the Female 20-40 demographic.
You can now say your ad campaign was a "success."
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
I believe I read somewhere that television (at least as presented in the US) is the perfect medium to cause people to grow up with and develop ADHD.
Slashdot being the second best.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Reminds me of those current M$ ads about how interoperable and compatible they are with other machines. So annoying that I now hate to buy M$ products.
;)
(Boy, I'm sure glad that M$ has helped out the Samba project so much...)
But seriously, I do not and will not shop at Old Navy for precisely this reason.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
As much as people here love MBA's, I'll post anyway:)
You are correct. The main goal of advertising is to help name/brand recognition. The point is that when the customer is ready to buy, your product is one that they will associate with that need.
There are of course many instances where this is not the case in the short term (coupons, vouchers, rebates, etc are the best examples) but the long term goal is still to keep your name in front of the consumer.
That's why Coke buys so much ad space/time. They are number one in the cola market (and a large player in the overall beverage market) but their market dominance is new since about the mid 1980's. (Actually with the introduction of 'Classic Coke'.) Their market share and the money spent on ads are directly proportional. Ditto Pepsi, who has not spent anywhere near the money Coke has.
(BTW, that MBA is with a specialization in IT, so I know how to manage you programmer drones. NOT!:)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
There is nothing wrong with your browser.
For the next 7 seconds, we will take control
of your computer.
We control the horizontal
We control the vertical
We control the Javascript.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Mozilla (Netscape 6) using the Gecko rendering engine doesn't render a page linearly as the older and other browsers do. Whatever info it has already downloaded is put on the screen right away, then the other, later arriving elements are slotted in when they finally do arrive.
I find that on most websites the text comes up first, then when the ads and other images are received, they are popped onto the screen and the text rearranges itself around them.
The rare times when I need to revert to using Netscape 4, I find myself feeling rather impatient as I sit for countless seconds staring at some stupid blinking ad on an otherwise blank screen. With Mozilla, I find myself more relaxed and my workflow less interupted.
Trickster Coyote
Reality is a consensual halluciation.
Ideology is for ideots.
The free download version of "You don't know jack" had ads between the rounds that were part of the reason that it was free.
Not to mention the "find the no-thanks button" style advertising on AOL and other cheap internet services (Juno?).
This seems like a case of spin and hype trying to draw advertsers maybe - advertisers that have become disenchanted with banners as nearly everyone has learned to tune them out. It seems that netaddress is having problems as well - they have more and more ads every time I go there, including pop-ups for online mugging^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hgambling sites.
Just another sign of the bottom falling out of things - correct me if I'm wrong here.
+++ ATH0 +++
You sound overly optimistic. In reality many "free" community sites are drying up now that the ad revenue is gone (shacknews.com, Snowball/IGN network, SomethingAwful.com, Stomped.com, GameCenter.com).
We'll have to see if micropayments/benefactor/street performer's protocol programs actually work. Ain't nothing for free...
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Television has the limitation that, while you can interrupt the viewing experience, you don't know that the viewer actually saw the advertisement. The internet does not have this limitation. For a high demand environment such as a gameshow, the next logical step is to quiz the participant about the content of the ad.
Blatent questions like 'What product was being sold' will not work. But imagine the more subtle ones. For instance, set a scene - Two girls are sitting down at a bar drinking a name brand beverage. Add some action - a handsome may walks by; from the front, he looks good but his shirt shows large iron burn on the back. Then ask the user for input - which response would be funniest: (A) I'd never date a guy who can't iron (B) I always dump <competing beverage brand> on my clothes when they start to burn or (C) at least <beverage brand> tastes good and looks good. The user may be forced to pay attention and possibly identify with the characters in the ad.
Laugh now while you still can.
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
An excellant point. Actually, there are very few ways to measure ROI on TV and radio commercials (return on investment). The only way to do this on the web is the click-thru (since we cant count the number of people who looked at a banner rather than avoided it with their eyes.) The beauty of all this is it helps make underground, grass-roots media more attractive .. the sites which do not succumb to this style of advertising will enjoy some run-off of P.O'd viewers. Contrast this to television, where everything has ads; its an accepted fact that you cant avoid them on television. The net is quite different in this respect.
"Old man yells at systemd"
I HATE intersitals. These are about the only form of advertising that annoys me enough to write webmasters. One of my favorite weather sites (www.intellicast.com) started using intersitals. I wrote them ranting about how much I hated them, how annoying your customers isn't a good way to sell things, and just for good measure ranted a bit on how I didn't like their new directory structure. Interestingly, about a month later I a boiler plate reply, "We're sorry we've annoyed you.. we just want to make money to supply you with great content, blah blah" but the cool thing was it got forwarded to about 7 different people! I don't think the webmasters like uglifying their sites like this. The decisions are almost surely coming from managers. When you find an intersital, send off an email to the webmaster, you might just help them get their site un-uglified.
Ian
It seems that internet ads are probably the only ads they can actually keep track of how many people have followed the link. In terms of other ads, how will said companies know if they work? Ie, if I buy a bar of Ivory soap, or a Dell computer, how the hell do they know whether I bought it based on the TV commercial during the Simpsons, a billboard on I-95, a magazine ad in Knitting Today? In fact, how do they know how many people even look at ads in magazines, radio, TV, billboards, etc.
People get numb to web ads after awhile, but so too with billboards on the highway. Yet billboards seem to be prospering. Radio and TV ads somewhat too.
What has led these companies to determine that all other ad sources are a success, but internet ads are a failure? .V / _` (_-<_-<
.\_/\_/\__,_/__/__/
__ __ ____ _ ______
\ V
make world, not war
As far as interstitials in particular are concerned, I already browse with at least 2 windows open, because most sites are so slow that I want something else to read while they're loading... and I'm going to interpret a 5-second interstitial as yet another delay, I can tell you right now.
Furthermore, it's a bit deceptive to say that interstitials "have worked just fine on TV." With an unprecedented amount of channel variety and choice, many people don't even SEE interstitial TV ads anymore... we just flip to the cooking channel. The direction TV is headed is product integration, like in "Survivor" when they got the Target(TM) gift pack or the Doritos(TM) and Pepsi(TM) picnic (which would have made me puke, incidentally, if I was starving in the middle of the desert). We've seen this in sports for a long time, but now it's to the point where they're working brands into the plot of TV shows.
Unfortunately, I'd say we're going to see more of this kind of thing in web content. Except the problem is, the web isn't as entertainment rich as TV; it's more about communication and news. How are we going to get brands integrated?
IE users will be at a loss. NS users can download Mozilla, find some function like Javascript::delay(uint ms) { :)
usleep(ms);
return(0);
} and just coment out the usleep() call
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
The birth of play back TV, with such products as real play and TiVo mark the end of the commercial. This products give power to a dumb TV set, let the end user have some say, and all have the ability to fast forward or jump 30secs ahead. Therefore interruption-based commercials will die. But, these products cant filter ads, thus any advertising In the show is seen.
The computer is one of the most (or the most) programmable and powerful tool for the average person. While banner ads have been unsuccessful, why would more annoying interruption based ads be better?
if giving power causes the death of interruption based ads for TV, how could it work on an amazingly more powerful machine? the logic behind all this is flawed. all a user would need to do is store the feed on their hard drive, and either filter out the ads somehow or just fastforward.
My guess is that these ads will grow very quickly, but once there is an easy to use tool for the general public, pop, the ads will be gone.
Only dead fish swim with the stream...
It started with Berkeley Systems games (or even earlier perhaps) in 1997 or so. ACROphobia and You Don't Know Jack Online had between-round interstitial advertising. And people chatted about the goofy ads they saw in the chat space, during the next round.
Today's iWON.com does this by requiring a gratiuitous banner ad click-through to 'collect' your tokens. Today's Uproar! site does interstitials between every round of that Family Feud style game. A few seconds of ads, and back to the game. It's accepted.
This is just another example of a press release suggesting that they're "reinventing the web" whether it's true or not, just to get more attention. And slashdot bit the bait.
[
Devil's Advocate: On
That takes time. That takes money. We aren't in the market to inform people, we are simply in the market to sell a product. All we want the customer to do is give us money, not learn a new skillset, or be happy, or improve the value of their home.
We want their money - brainwash them with commercials.
Devil's Advocate: Off
The Internet is not television, no matter how much advertisers are trying to make it that way.
Inklink does use commercials before the game while it is loading and also a commercial break halfway through about a 12 round game that advertises digital cameras from HP. It was a bit annoying at first, but Inklink is a great game and a bit addictive. It is basically online Pictionary.
"This message is composed of 100% recycled electrons."
Noooo..., you certainly don't. Well all those snobby Internet people with their "advertising sucks" attitudes can all just kiss my ass, because I'm HAPPY that the Web is becoming just like TV. Yesserree!
AS IF banner ads were REAL advertising..
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
--
Free Mac Mini
The online version of Jeopardy! does this, too. There's a commercial between the rounds. It doesn't get in the way much, it gives you time to refresh your drink, just like the ones on TV.
When you put it this way, I can't help but think of BlipVerts from Max Headroom - time-compressed advertisements that were so intense (more than just a visual experience to) that sometimes the couch potatoes the ads were directed at exploded!
Somehow, I don't think any of us are going to explode from them, but, the way that ads are getting these days, BlipVerts may become a reality ;-)
(Jesus - I'm wondering if anyone on here even REMEMBERS the Max Headroom series! Strange but good show :-)
Davis Ray Sickmon, Jr - looking for something to read? Check out my three free novels at MidnightRyder.org
I agree with about 80% with what you say.
But part of the idea behind commercials is to bring people who were either a) not aware of your product, or b) using a competing product into your space. So if I just Dodge trucks, odds are I would never go to Ford's web site voluntarily. So Ford has to grab my attention some other way.
But you are right - if companies want to increase their web prescense, they need to have a good one. And as much as I dislike banner and pop-up ads, for a 5 second commercial, I could probably live with it, as long as it wasn't every other page. It would have to be between say, every 4 or 5 pages. Or each page would have to be sufficiently long enough to make it worth my while.
Of course, I could be wrong.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I've seen harsh reactions to, for example, C|Net's (and, thereby, ZDNet's) new large block ads. These remind me of print ads in magazines. I don't mind them (as long as they don't take over my browser with pop ups, home page changes, and other evil methods).
These new advertising methods are the price people will have to pay for "free" (new word:) Inter-tainment. The free ride is over. Fine.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Who needs lifelines if you have a fast connection to Google ?
How are they going to implement this ?
--
Should advertisers be forced to reimburse users for overhead costs of their adds? This is a crazy idea, but from a capitalistic standpoint, why should these users be forced to pay for information they never even wanted in the first place?
The logical solution, of course, is for users under a variable rate charge plan to avoid websites with lots of ads and/or interstitials. Or they could use programs such as WebWasher or JunkBuster.
Thoughts, comments, flames, ephiphanys . . .
-----------------
"
Advertising, if one applies the proper transformations, is actually product information dispersal online.
"
A good example of this is ,
Rane Audio : www.rane.com
They have a reasonable list of technical data sheets on their site including a helpful "how to wire up odd cables for dodgy pieces of kit" sheet. As someone who runs a small venue we link to their website as a technical resource and we have printouts of their pages in the cupboard to aid people in wiring.
We've now started buying their kit too because we know it's made by competent people.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
Ok, what happens here is a table cannot display until it is completely loaded. This means in order to have a banner ad display first, the banner must not be in the same table as the rest of the page.
Use your 'view >>> source' menus on some of these pages to see what I'm talking about. In fact, just view the source on Slashdot here, they do it too!
"If voting could really change things, it would be illegal. " - Revolution Books, NY
I don't know about the general viewer, but when I watch TV, I change the channel when the commercials come on. On the radio, I flip between 4 local stations looking for music. If I don't change the channel, I just ignore the radio/TV until the music/show is back on.
Now if I'm playing this game (dumb game, too easy compared to quality trivia games), there's little chance I'd be spending those few seconds seriously looking at the ads, I'd be thinking about the questions, etc. Besides, 7 seconds is an easy amount of time to just simply ignore. I guess we'll have to wait for the statistics, but I can't imagine the click-through rate will be good at all (after all, who wants to interrupt a game they enjoy playing?).
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
Great...
Now, instead of the relatively long (30-60sec) T.V. Commercials, we have 7 second commercials. The next generation is not going to be able to focus reliably on anything if we continue to shorten the collective attention span. Does anyone else think that perhaps shortening the length and increasing the intensity of advertisements is a bad thing?
I personaly find myself repulsed by these "Interruption based" advertisements. I don't watch T.V., Ever, and I hate to thing my antipathy may soon extend ever further, as advertisement based media sends it's corrupted tendrils further into the internet.
In the words of Bill Hicks, "They are Demons, set loose on the earth, to lower the standards."
It'll work exactly like Bezerk Network, which has had this for years. You Don't Know Jack, Acrophobia, Get the Picture, etc. has small 15-second commercials in between "rounds". The commercials are done in Flash, and pressing a key on the keyboard brings up the advertiser's web site after the game -- a lot smarter idea than today's banner ads.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
It's commonly accepted nowadays that the Net's traditional forms of advertising (banners, pop-ups and spam) have a very low success rate
As it turns out, the click-thru rate on my television and radio is exactly zero, which when compared to web click-thru results seems pretty abysmal. Yet people still buy tv and radio ads.
I thought the purposes of advertising was to raise the profile of your product; when I keep hearing "Drink Coke" all day, I'm more likely to think "Coke" when the question "What do you want to drink?" comes up.
By this measure, I think that web advertising might be just as successful as traditional advertising. However, somebody set us up the meme that a web ad that doesn't result in click-thru is ineffective. I find this reasoning inconsistent. You're going to have to prove to me that they're less effective than traditional magazine and newspaper ads, but until then, I find the "low success rate" argument a falacy.
I sometimes wonder if there should be a generic slashdot user profile that could be used by mobs of people as a registration tool.
Would sort of put the whammy on the whole purpose of the user profile in the firstplace.
I can see it now: 50,000 copies of Windows XP registered in the name of John Katz
;-)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
"This File Download has been brought to you by Microsoft, ReInventing the Internet, Just for you!. Before your download begins, let us remind you to check out the latest Microsft product, Microsoft Spam ..."
And Then:
"Before we continue your download ..."
This would be enough to make me change my mind on gun control.
;-)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Lots of people have already pointed out how they'll just switch browser windows, etc., but what's to think that Junkbuster and its friends won't catch up?
First, I'll assume that this'll commonly be done with server-side processing to decide if you've waited the required amount of time. If it's done with JavaScript, Flash, or something else proprietary, we've already seen that that just won't fly.
I can envision a proxy that does a bit of read-ahead for you. If you go to a site that uses such an obnoxious kind of advertising, the proxy will follow the next few links and throw away those that are advertisements. By the time you're done reading the page you're on, the next page with real content has already been loaded, free of commercials. Truly obnoxious web sites that try to defeat such a scheme will break all the ISPs, companies, etc., that rely on Squid or other caching proxies.
Personally, I see many people getting increasingly turned off of advertising alltogether. People use VCRs and Tivo-like appliances to skip commercials. Everybody hates spam, telemarketing, billboards...you name it. I'm just waiting for the day when we all say, ``enough!''
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
If I see an interstitial ad, I click on the Close Box. Probably not the best way to get people to participate in your game show.
sulli
RTFJ.
All of it. MSNBC is the worst. That's why I always provide "printable" links on stories I refer to (or submit for immediate rejection).
sulli
RTFJ.
Most [useful/popular] websites are more like books than TV. Which means you are going to start paying for content if you want it annoyance-free.
Besides, when was the last time you opened a book and had to watch a stupid 5-second commercial before you could start reading it?
"And like that
If John Deere wants to advertise it's mowers and stuff, what they can do (and probably should!) is to host and design gardening, landscaping, and home-maintainance websites!
Or, they could advertise on these websites which already exist in their market.
Which is more work?
"And like that
Have you ever noticed that the banner ad at the top of a page will load and then, 20 or 30 seconds later, the page content will load around it?
This usually happens with less sophisticated web browsers that have to wait for the entire (table-enclosed) webpage to load before they can display anything. And the webmaster knows this, so he keeps the ad on the outside of the table so it loads right away...
"And like that
Are there enough newbies out there to be convinced that the web is just a slow, more static version of television? What about the equivilent of channel surfing? Switching browser windows? These ads better be *Damn* fascinating to get lonely people to sit there and watch them.. Part of the attraction of TV is that you don't have to *do* anything, the web is more about making decisions, choosing a path, and I don't know a lot of people who *choose* to watch a lot of advertising unless it is 1)unique, 2)funny, 3)not been seen a thousand times before.
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Vices - what I lack in originality, I make up for in volume.
Does it work?
Well, I browse and surf the web for content. Not ads. I want to know more about, for example, gardening, how to make fountains, home repair, etc. Things that I do.
So it's a symbiotic approach. Corporate interests want me to be successful in these endeavors because it means I buy more, do more, spend more. If the various companies provide the sites and the info, while remaining branded or acknowledged, I get the info I want, and they get the presence they want.
So I don't see how this creates a problem. Coke, J&J, and John Deere hits their target audiences. The 'other' companies don't lose out; they just failed to advertise, but this metric of creating compelling sites with compelling content.
The Banner Ads only work where sites draw in viewers for people to see the Banner Ads. You can't advertise on non-existent sites, right?
The analogy to this is how tv ads sponsor and subsidize the tv shows that encapsulate and surround the ads. By making popular and successful tv shows, tv broadcasting can sell ads at high prices. By buying ads to link with popular tv shows, companies can create positive mindshare.
As per your thought that generic portals will win... it's all a matter of semantics between "portals" and generic portals. There is nothing that stops a Coke-web site from being a generic portal.
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
You can change it now, with the advent of OS X!
You now have both a GUI and a command prompt =)
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
Has no one realized yet how the web works?
Advertising, if one applies the proper transformations, is actually product information dispersal online.
If John Deere wants to advertise it's mowers and stuff, what they can do (and probably should!) is to host and design gardening, landscaping, and home-maintainance websites!
*Grow* the market, and makes sure your name is attached to it! So create http://www.jdweb.com/Garden or http://www.jdweb.com/DIY, etc.
I think this can be expanded to *any* product. If you're Johnson and Johnson, create the home healthcare, health, and self improvement pages. Don't bother too heavily with product placement, I don't think, but when people start associating 'health' and 'wellness' with J&J, they've done good advertsing.
Let's try more esoteric examples: Coke, which sells a drink.
Actually, they sell a lifestyle, in which the drink is part of the image and the taste. Create something hip and free for people to visit; web boards, movie reviews, hiking, bike, and rollerblade info sites, etc. Sites where people can go do things, and while they are at it, drink Coke.
Safeway Foodstores could host cooking sites, with recipes. Activity sites, like Coke. BBQ sites, with hints, anecdotes, stories, and recipes. Whatever!
It's similar to how a portal works, but much more targeted.
Geek dating!
GPL Deconstructed
You know, I always thought that when you have a slow loading web site (not like /. ) you would wnat to replace the stupid ...Please Wait... (i say stupid because they are already waiting) with ...sponsored by SomeBigCORP... in a span tag that disappears when the page displays. Hell, the user is staring at the screen, waiting, and there's nothing but white (or off gray) space on the screen, and the sponsor's name...
:)
And then, when the page does display, no ads
"Piter, too, is dead."
Have you ever noticed that the banner ad at the top of a page will load and then, 20 or 30 seconds later, the page content will load around it?
How much of that do you suppose is deliberate?
--Blair
Banner ads *could* work.
If I knew that when I clicked on a banner ad that it would lead me to a decently-designed web page that would:
a) Give me information about the product
b)Give me information to contact the company about/purchase the item
c) Not waste my time
Then I would be a banner ad clicking fool. The s/n on banner ads is too high. I click the banner ads here on slashdot because they tend to be of higher quality (ThinkGeek tops the list, in my mind)
If there were an industry created regulating body (eAdsSeal?) that put a stamp of approval on ads (in the right hand corner or something, think BetterBusinessBeaurau (I can never spell that word)) I would be more likely to click them, if that seal meant that the ad would satisfy my criteria stated above.
Brant
Brant
Argle. Bargle.
When you choose a web page link while using WebTV, you are sometimes presented with a banner-like ad while the new page is fetched. If you choose the ad, you're redirected to the ad's page, if not you continue to the new page as you originally intended.
I think this is a rather nice and unintrusive way to advertise, since I wouldn't otherwise be doing anything else while waiting for a page to load. Of course, this is taking advantage of a latency that I'd prefer to avoid in the first place...
Yes, they don't realize people don't want advertising. At the beginning of advertising, people complained, but the ads were not intrusive so it was ok. People just ignored them, and the click rate was very low.
Then the ads got bigger and went right in the middle of article. People complained again, and there wasn't much more clicking.
Now, they are going to force us into seeing the ads. I guess the result will be: more complains, no more clicking, and fewer hits.
Well will they understand?
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My real-life Karma is higher than my
I have seen several sights trying to just what 2nd Post! suggests. Most notably is the Jack Daniels web site which I am currently unable to access because I'm behind my company's stupid proxy server, I think http://www.jackdaniels.com. Cool contests, promotions, recipes, etc. Very effective in raising brand awareness.
...'Who Wants to Be A Millionaire' deserve to watch commercials. Lots of commercials.
[Insert the usual disclaimer here]