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Commercials Come To The Net (After This Word)
ctwxman writes "Say it isn't so. Full-motion commercials, when you go to click off a page, are coming to a website near you! The New York Times (standing in a bathtub with an electric iron required) reports: "Beginning tomorrow, more than a dozen Web sites, including MSN, ESPN, Lycos and iVillage, will run full-motion video commercials from Pepsi, AT&T, Honda, Vonage and Warner Brothers, in a six-week test that some analysts and online executives say could herald the start of a new era of Internet advertising." Unicast, the company responsible, says the ads will play regardless of pop-up blocking. "The only format that loads completely before it is allowed to play, the Full Screen Superstitial is guaranteed to play perfectly for every consumer, every time."
I work in TV where commercials pay the freight. Is this so wrong on the net? It's not what we're used to, but maybe we're asking for more than is reasonable. I just don't know." I think I hear the whip swinging back, but harder ...
The ads sure don't display for me on Mozilla 1.4 with this handy click-to-play Flash hack I saw on another Slashdot posting. <sarcasm>Oh, darn.</sarcasm>
Beginning tomorrow, more than a dozen Web sites, including MSN, ESPN, Lycos and iVillage, will not be visited by people who read Slashdot.
The rest of Internet users will call their ISPs and complain.
Why is it that so many media companies have to start "wars" with consumers? Is biting the hand that feeds you a perfectly acceptable practice now? Instead of investing all this money into fighting the consumer thieves, they should work on new business models that don't "port" the old ones onto new technology.
Some people, particluarly in smaller countries, pay for Internet by the MB. How much are these ads going to cost?!
Very true. Advertising on unlimited broadband is merely a nuisance. Full video, multi-MB sized advertising on a metered low-speed connection should be a crime. Why should people have to *pay* to receive corporate advertising?
That's like the high-school kids who pay Nike to be a walking billboard for the company. If I'm going to wear clothing that has large corporate logos, names, or slogans printed on it - they damn well better be paying *me* to do it.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
"the Full Screen Superstitial is guaranteed to play perfectly for every consumer, every time."
A couple of things bother me about this concept:
1. yet another attempt to hijack my cpu whether I like it or not. What I like about the web is that it is an interactive medium where I choose what I want to view. Anyone remember push technology? People still haven't figured out that you can't turn the web into another TV without destroying its value.
2. Commercial content appears to have decreasing value on the web. I've found more and more over the years that I spend less time at some of the "big" sites and find more value in the content from smaller organizations.
3. Um, somehow I doubt they've found a universal, cross-platform, vendor-neutral, browser agnostic, method of delivery. Unless it is plain old w3c html 3.2 I doubt it. We'll see how some of the more obscure browsers deal with it (Elinks, lynx, dillo, etc).
4. I find it offensive to refer to the general public as "consumers". Maybe it's just me, but it reeks of a corporate world view where the only thing that is relevant is the exchange of goods and services and lets not forget where your place is in this relationship.
5. Generally speaking, the first time I run into a "commercial" of this nature at a web site will be the last time I visit that site. My 56k home connection is strained enough as it is.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
i've opted out of operating systems that tell me what i can and can't do with my computer.
i've opted out of television unless i can get it without advertising (canceled my cable but the bastards just won't come and shut it off).
i will certainly opt out of any site that requires me to be face-fucked by advertisers before accessing their content.
the truth is, advertising-supported media will always cater to those kinds of people who are susceptible and receptive to advertising: in a word, imbeciles.
i say: kill all the advertisers. content will then come from two sources: individuals and communities who are truly passionate about their subject matter, and those with content that is actually worth paying for. i favor this for web, tv, radio - all of it. i want to just pay for my fucking content and get it free of all the time-wasting, soul-destroying, mind-manipulating, insulting, humiliating shit that drips from the lobotomy scars in advertisers' foreheads.
have i mentioned that i don't like advertising?
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
People misanalyze the "failure" the past ad formats gave.
If we held TV commercials like popup ads were to be rated, Pepsi would be wasting $2 mil on a Superbowl spot if people didn't get up-- before the end of the game-- and buy Pepsi.
If you expect that, then ANY advertisement technique short of "click here to remove the window" will fail. The ads are incidental to the desired info in the eyes of the consumer.
The only exception is ads that tie in well to the content. I have bought from such ads. When I look at a review site, there's a reasonable chance I want the item reviewed, so show me a shop.
The good news: In all likelihood, the first few sites to try it will face a DDoS from users who click "refresh" every few seconds in the attempt to get the page to show... "Why is the next page downloading xxxxkb? Must be broken."
It's just like a fascist dictatorship, without the punctual rail service!
No, you're both wrong... of course no one forces them to provide content free of charge and no one is forcing you to visit a site that "tricks" you into downloading an interstitial.
It's capitalism--if you don't like the ads, stop visiting the sites, if you don't mind them, keep going there. If enough people don't like them, the company will change its ways or go out of business. It's that simple. The choice is yours 100%. Personally, I don't visit sites with pop-ups or interstitials, one offense is enough for me to know not to go back to that site, and even if I were paying for bandwidth, after it happened once, I've learned my lesson and can add that site to my hosts file as one to block.
The problem with this method is that your bandwidth is being consumed "behind your back" and you won't know it until the damage is done. Like the cel phone analogy, you don't know if it's a junk call until you answer and, bang, you just paid for a call you don't want, but you're still going to pay for it. If there's a disclaimer stating what's going to happen when(or before) you go to the site, then no problem. I'll stay away.
What?
... in what my machine will be sending back to them as part of this process. After all, it does have to send something to tell them my browser is open and waiting for their wonderful content. There's got to be some kind of ACK packet or piece of cookie or something, right?
Oh my golly, I certainly hope that these little ACK packets don't get all munged up and get some big ole MP3 or something accidently cat'ed to them. Why, that'd shove a whole bunch of useless junk up their widget while it's waiting patiently to feed me my commercials.
The difference between TV and the net is, we always wanted to tell the TV off, but couldn't. We've been waiting for years for this, and now we can.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
If the ads annoy you, just e-mail their customer service department or wherever with a polite request that they stop using the ads. See where that gets us.
On their opt-in mailing list I would imagine. Here's an idea, post the links to the ads in a +5 insightful and get every /.er to download the files five or six times each. When their server self destructs under the load and their bandwidth bill arrives, they'll probably can the idea entirely. ;-)
I have had ENOUGH of visiting sites with Gator pop-ups, etc and now this. While these sites do have the right to generate revenue to sustain themselves, grown and make a profit it is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE that these sites automatically push this type of content to you with your explicit permission. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is an infringement to the security of your PC. One could call this tampering with your PC...especially the adware crap that's out there now (Gator, etc). It is a CRIME or should be! I think what really needs to be done is a filtering intitiative needs to be started just like we have for SPAM. Sites should be filtered based on the content they push to viewers. Then viewers can use these filters with a custom plug-in to their browsers and be warned in advance to opening the page as to what it is pushing to viewers. "WARNING: this site will attempt to push Gator software to your PC" "Do you want to proceed?" "This features full motion commercials" "Do you want to proceed?" Something like mailwasher except for websites instead of email. I have one machine that I use specifically for web browsing (and use Mozilla Firebird) and gaming and one for my business related matters that I do not browse the web with at all. I don't need the headaches from potential problems like this.
"The only format that loads completely before it is allowed to play, the Full Screen Superstitial is guaranteed to play perfectly for every consumer, every time."
I've never heard of this format, but it must simply be awesome if it's universally supported by every browser on every operating system. Heck, I've even had MP3 audio files that wouldn't play, so it must simply be amazing if it's perfect.
I'm using FreeBSD with Konqueror. And no plugins. Will this work for me? Or will I have to do all of the horribly complicated things to get the Flash plugin to work under Linux emulation mode? Maybe it uses Java. Does it use Java? If so, how can it play perfectly if I have Java disabled?
Of course, I know the real answer. They're phrase "every consumer" means only those consumers running Windows, and possibly Mac. So what happens for the rest of us? Will these render these sites unusable, because there's no way to get past the requirement to view the advertisement? I'm thinking of all those sites that are completely and utterly inaccessible without flash.
p.s. No, I'm not going to switch to Windows, Mac or Linux just to see some ads. No site is worth that much. Ditto for switching to anything else.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!