Unicast Claims Success With Internet Commercials

LightForce3 writes "Remember that trial run of full-motion commercials on sites like ESPN.com and MSN? The BBC reports that Unicast, whose caching technology makes these ads work, is claiming a strong favorable response from Internet users who viewed the advertisements. It looks like they could now be making long-term deals with clients (the article mentions Forbes.com and weather.com). As a dialup user, I am less than thrilled about the idea of an extra 2 MB download each time I visit one of these sites."

Comments

Technical Background?

[Psychic Burrito]

Can anybody tell me how this "caching technology" works? It looks like they cache video while a user visits several pages on a given site, and when everything is loaded, the video is played back. How do they make sure the caching operation keeps storing stuff while a user jumps from page to page? As far I know, when you switch to a new page, any javascript/java/activeX code on the old page is stopped and its data is deleted.

Frames could be an option (have a invisible subframe keeping on storing stuff), but this would mess with the URLs, which I think is not the case here.

Any insights? Thanks! :-)

Suit speak

[Underholdning]

An online survey of more than 3,500 users who saw the ads found that just 28% said they were annoying
Ok, first of all, I'm pretty sure that number is way too low. But even if it's correct, would you place a technology on your website that's proven to annoy at least 1/3 of your potential customers?

Only 28% of respondents were annoyed

[TobascoKid]

An online survey of more than 3,500 users who saw the ads found that just 28% said they were annoying.

That's almost a third of those surveyed found the advertisments annoying. Who would want to piss off a third of thier users?

And how do they count the number of users so annoyed that they go off the site and don't bother filling in the survey?

Tk

Re:Strong Favorable Response

[awol]

Never ask the sales person how good their product is, all you'll get is whatever they can spout off the top of their head as the newest sales line.

So true. This is the problem with the advertising industry as a whole. The people telling you how effective the advertising is are the same people selling you the advertising. People, wake up! Believing them is not a good idea. It never ceases to amaze me how intelligent business people are hoodwinked by the advertising charletans. Even before the click through debacle. Now that we have seen how that littel beauty worked, surely this kind of crap cannot be taken seriously?

Re:Simple solution

[Ilgaz]

As a media worker, I am not against advertising...

I only wonder 1 thing... Couldn't these ActiveX, JVM 1.1 geniuses who "invents" a thing which will result in more users filtering ads, code a small (64kb) bandwidth test BEFORE sending them 2mb?

Rape my eyeballs, why not?

[humberthumbert]

With the proliferation of adverts on every spot you can imagine (I can't even enjoy the view on a public bus ride no more with the massive eye-searing ads bombed across the windows), there has to be a point at which the average consumer no longer conciously registers an ad. So then what's the point of advertising?

Re:Simple solution

[oliverk]

They do. Unicast and a couple of the others use a bandwidth checker to figure out if it's worth it to actually worth it to start downloading. It's how they're avoiding the problem of users lacking broadband. It's basically a "speed check" (I've used it in campaigns for Compaq...so you get the sense that this has been around since 2000/2001).

Question then: has anyone experienced any bandwidth problems that are associated with these types of ads?