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New Online Advertising Model Riles Journalists
Wynken de Word writes "A new online advertising model linking commercial messages to individual words of editorial content aims 'to tap one of the last ad-free frontiers of the Internet -- the text of articles and message boards -- in what [company backers] bill as the ultimate contextual advertising play' according to this article at Ad Age, a leading advertising industry magazine. On the other hand, the article notes: 'If it looks like a pop-up, feels like a pop-up or interrupts like a pop-up, we might as well just assume consumers will outright hate and reject the format,' said Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing officer of Intelliseek, a Cincinnati research firm that tracks online consumer buzz."
A wiki is a collection of community written documents, with useful links to related articles. For example Wikipedia, an encyclopedia written in Wiki. See those blue links scattered on the page? They lead to articles.
Seems like they took the idea, but they sell the words! It will be annoying.
For example See the word Linux on a page. Joe user will think great, I'm going to learn about linux! But get in your face adverts for linux support services instead!
Wikis are good, Adwords are bad!
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Isn't this the same thing as microsoft smart text, a feature where internet explorer would be "helpful" and add hyperlinks to microsoft sites in whatever page you were browsing based on keywords?
I think widespread consumer criticism about hijacking webpages put the kibosh on that. But I use firefox, so I don't know what IE is doing these days
More music, fewer hits
'If it looks like a pop-up, feels like a pop-up or interrupts like a pop-up, we might as well just assume consumers will outright hate and reject the format,'
Didn't Einstien say that insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again expecting different results?
They keep trying with the boorish, intrusive ads as if an irritating ad wasn't necessarily an irritating ad. All web marketers must be insane. Or stupid. Wait wait... let's not be narrow-minded about this.... they could easily be both.
On a more serious note: whatever. I don't care. Go ahead and put ads right in the context of something I'm trying to read. It's really irritating trying to read a forum post or an article and having the text keep changing color because there are ads weaved into it. Put that on your site, and you can rest assured that I'll leave in a heartbeat and never come back, just like I've already done with some sites. Hell, even I can remember from the one marketing class I had to take that ads were supposed to heighten interest in or raise awareness of a product in a positive manner. Yet, these bumbling morons keep turning the advertising into the content, or pushing the content out of the way in favor of the advertising so that people get pissed off by a popup or whatever, THEN see what's being advertised.
What good does it do me to have to struggle with ads to read content? Why should I come back? If the ads destroy the value of the site.... how is it even an idea worth trying? What good does it do the advertiser to raise product awareness with a medium that's making them MAD. What, you want people to be angry when they think of your car? Idiots...
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Users are happy, status quo is maintained yet again. There really is no situation where i can see this not being a total annoying pain in the ass, and there is no way this will stand.
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I see some people comparing this to Microsoft's failed "Smart Text". However there's a HUGE difference. Here it is the web site owners that are receiving the revenues and deciding whether or not to put these text ads. With Smart Text it was Microsoft that decided universally what a user sees on ALL websites, while no ad revenues go to the respective site owners.
I for one don't see a problem with this model. Here are my reasons:
#1. The rightful people are receiving the rewards for their hard work. And why not? The more ad dollars you allow them, the better and more content we all get. Do you really want more subscription-based content sites, or is free more appealing to you?
#2. How annoying exactly is it? Ok I agree that the inline popups can be annoying, but then you're reading the article. Why in the world would you go mouse exploring all over the words if you're not interested in their ads? To me this type of advertising is NOT annoying at all. Much better than the popups or the skyscraper ads that pollute your screen.
#3. Whenever the issue of advertising arises, you see a boatload of people whining about how ads are not remotely interesting nor pertinent to their interests. Guys would be presented with tampon banners, etc. Well, here you have context-specific ads. If you happen to be reading an article about cars and you see a link for Mercedes (and you just so happen to be interested in that), you can now click on it and be happy!
eTrade SUCKS
The sad thing about all the advertising that inundates us is that it simply pushes up the cost of doing business. Company A must advertise more because company B does, and the consumer always pays for it in the end. There is only so much money the consumer has to spend.
Go here and click the demo link to see what it's all about. The popup is relatively small and un-intrusive, so stop exaggerating things and find out for yourself.
_ pr oduct_page/how.htm
https://www.vibrantmedia.com/content/intellitxt
eTrade SUCKS
Have a separate page, labeled simply "Advertisments". Put all advertising there. Keep it away from the news and editorial content.
Provide a visible link to the ad-page from your front page and in your navigational construct. (For example, Slashdot could put this link in the left-hand link list, under it's own heading or under, say, Services.)
Keep statistics for how much this pays off. Don't knock the idea until it's been thoroughly tried.
This will force advertisers to be truly interesting. Maybe sort the ads into categories, or prioritize ads that are related to recently visited pages.
The idea is to be maximally non-annoying.
As an aside, I find google-text-ad-style ads to be very intrusive since they are harder to block. There are periods in my life (for example when I'm flush for cash) that I am extremely disinterested in (commercial and other) solicitation, and exposing me to advertising then only causes me to feel hostility towards the advertiser.
Please, spread this idea.
We experimented with this in a paper magazine I worked for - putting all the commercials in a clearly designated spot in the back. Other magazines have tried the same approach. AFAIK, however, they haven't kept statistics and neither did we.
The effects on good-will this has will be interesting to observe.
(For television, this would be analogous to putting all of a networks commercial spots on a separate channel.)
Personally I like the idea of directed advertizing. I am sick and tired of having to sit through comercials for things I already have, or have no need or interest in buying; like cars (i just bought one), cleaning products (the ones I have work fine), and tampoons (I'm male). I would love to see ads for things like computers, electronics, and other gadets. And not the dumbed down versions they show to the masses that have cpu's flying over the screen or telling me I can have a telly conference from the colleseum.
Are you kidding? I mean, If I'm reading an article, and I see part of it highlighted as a link - I'm going to assume its going to be more content for the story I am reading, maybe adding a deeper explaination or background to whatever phrase is highlighted. If I am seriously studying a story, and follow a link to somehting like "air saferty", I want to see an article on air safety, not some page with 100 flashing banner ads trying to convince me that i need to buy a 'terrorist detector 2000' for only 29.95.
The only way that I could ever see this justified AT ALL, and i still think its not cool, would be that Every ad linkd from the story is labelled "AD" somehow - either by bracketed text, or maybe the link being a different colour from normal links.
I find it very hard to see any way that this isn't a bad thing. I think it could turn in to a very bad think.
Remember - Adverts were first picked up by old paper media as a way to support the actual journalism - It would cover the costs to create and deliver the content. Now it seems we're getting closer and closer to the content being made to deliver the adverts. How long until articles are being changed to fit in certain key words from advertisers? Scary.
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Some of these people still exist. My mother owns a small weeky newspaper The Brighton Independent and has been trying to Do The Right Thing for over 30 years. And shes not the only one. The problem is this: she is being crowded and suffocated by large chains all around her only trying to make a buck. Most independent media outlets feel the same thing. Cheap, pandering rags that care nothing for the community around them or even for the people who buy their papers.
Its very hard for the precious few people that believe in real news and issues for the sake of the news and issues themselves, but they still exist.... and from what I've seen in my personal life - they almost never give up.
In some places, e.g. UK, the authors of a work can assert "moral rights" and object to derogatory treatment and so on - in France the ability to do this is stronger (interesting, the US consistently resisted implementing moral rights to satisfy Berne). It's impossible to transfer these moral rights: they _always_ remain with the original authors, even if the publishers own the economic rights in the copyright. I wonder if this kind of manipulation to the text could be objected to by the authors, on the grounds that it is subjecting their work to derogatory treatment. One of the problems with moral rights is that there is little case law: they've been _very_ hard to pursue, the court have been very relucant to give authors leverage over publishers and those who own the economic rights.
Popups clearly do not affect the work per se, they just add junk around the edges. Same goes for all other sorts of advertising. Also, some reasonable allowance is made for commercial purposes (e.g. splitting a work up into separate parts to make it easier for people to read it, or whatever). However, this new type of advertising is really quite insidious: it manipulates the text, and possibly it can be considered derogatory because the authors of the text may mean one thing, but the "subtext" of the advertising message may suggest something else: I mean, authors often leave words and phrases to the interpretation of the reader, but when you overload those words with advertising, the advertising may "suggest" something that the author did not intend. I think there's a lot of scope of problems here.
For a period of maybe two years, I often watched the old Arsenio Hall show on TV. During that time, I noticed I spent less than $8 on things that I saw advertised.
I think the pool of poorly educated people who would buy something because they saw an ad is diminishing.
Froogle is great for people like me who buy things after doing research.
There will always be the agencies who play dirty. They are just trying to make a buck the quickest way possible, and it usually doesn't get them as far as you might think. The best ad agencies are the ones who shoot for quality.
I know people on here hate advertising, but I'm sure all of you have liked an ad at some point in time. How about the web ad done by BMW. The whole BMW Films campaign was a huge success, not intrusive, entertaining, and tasteful advertising. I wasn't the least bit surprised that it was Fallon who made it either.
The one truth which has remained in advertising is that good, quality ads will win out time and time again, regardless of how invasive the bottom-feeder agencies try to get. As in any industry there are your high quality agencies and your low quality agencies, which people on here often don't realize.
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