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BitTorrent Inc. Introduces Ad-Supported Downloads
BTJunkie writes "BitTorrent Inc. is experimenting with alternatives to paid downloads on their Entertainment Network, and is now experimenting with advertising supported downloads. This news comes nearly one month after the initial release of the Entertainment Network, a possible sign of failure.'The ad-supported model is currently being tested on episodes by the video gamers network G4, but is likely to be tested on episodes from other publishers in the future. The video ads are short video clips delivered by YuMe Networks, a company that is specialized in IP based video ads. YuMe CEO Jayant Kadambi said that the company expects to deliver more user targeted video ads as soon as BitTorrent Inc. signs more deals with publishers that want to experiment with ad-supported downloads.'"
Patch to bypass advertising to be released in about a week. Probably on Bittorrent.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The flaw in this logic is a failure to understand the success of the BitTorrent protocol. People use BitTorrent because they don't have the money to pay for the bandwidth to distribute what they are distributing because they don't have a revenue model.
However, if you have a half-decent revenue model, such as advertising, revenue easily offsets the bandwidth costs of distributing video from a central server over HTTP, so why put your users through the pain of having to install a piece of client software?
BitTorrent's problem is that anyone that can afford to pay them for their services can probably afford to distribute their content over HTTP from a centralized server, and why wouldn't they given the much lower barrier to entry for their users?
I agree. Unfortunately, there is not much one can do about it. Advertising is a way to make a product cheaper and the people want things to be cheep. We are slowly turning into an ad based economy where payment is now offered in the form of ad space. People are already selling their bodies as ad space. I admit it is getting rather ridiculous. But we will continue on this path until we can find a more profitable solution. Companies do follow the profits you know.
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So the users provide all the bandwidth, and BitTorrent Inc. keeps all the revenues? Great business model!
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
I've seen it twice already. First, in financial troubles, over the air TV broadcasters began to pack the transmission with endless and annoying advertisements. Here in Portugal the 3 major channels (RTP, SIC, TVI) use to roll out ads for 15, 20 minutes, for goodness sake! It is not that rare for people to forget completely what they were watching *, when zapping through the channels. That pushed a lot of people to cable, as initially they were mostly ad free and, thus, worth the price. But as budgets got short, spendings got high and greed kicked in, they began to pack paid channels (like AXN, History Channel and Discovery for instance) with publicity too, not in volume, but enough to annoy. At the same time, cable companies began to offer premium channels with less or no advertisement on them, but you have to pay extra to get them ...
Then, came the internet, and the most tech savvy people began to get access to what they want, ad free and faster than over the legal channels of distribution, going around the artificial international syndication delay, that used to be 12, even 18 months! Most people still don't have access to such goodies, but it is a matter of time until someone with guts and technology creates a high quality YouTube-like system for movies and series.
Trying to push advertisement to this internet target audience will not work, as getting rid of ads is one of the reasons people go to the internet to look for things. People would even pay for content, they do it every time by buying complete season DVDs (although 70/$60 is kinda bitter to shell out in a single season), as long as the price is not extortive. People will not pay $4 to rent an episode for 24 hours. They can buy the whole season for, let's say, $60, what in the average 22 episodes season + 8 extras mean that they can *own* the goddamn thing for $2/episode. People will not download it to watch ads, they can watch with ads TV already, without the hassle of having to download, or watch it without ads, jumping through a few hoops.
Bottom line is: sell an episode of a serie in an ITunes like system (preferentially without the DRM) for $ 0.99 (fixed price) and people will buy it. Better yet, along with the file transfer, let people watch what they bought in an YouTube style interface, so people don't need to bother with media players, codecs or moving the file around.
* By time I was writing this, I remembered I was watching my favorite soap opera ( gasp!) but the advertisement ran for so long that I completely forgot about it, and lost the whole second half. Damn.
advertising actually help bring down the price on many of the products
Not really - it merely shifts the costs, and costs more because of implementation expense. Advertising requires significant expenditure in the people who work in the field. That expense is borne out by the customer - as all expenses eventually are. Advertising is overhead. Overhead should always be minimized.
Without advertising, I doubt so many people would be buying things they don't need and overextending their credit to do so. While the world wouldn't grind to a financial halt, it would slow down significantly, probably causing a major recession/depression. The economy is unfortunately very dependent on the stupid people of the world who use their paycheck as a ticket to shop till they drop for useless crap.
I used to be married to someone like that.
The problem is that Madison avenue is focused on push advertising rather than pull.
Look at all the ads that are on YouTube as content and actively downloaded. Even on my PVR I rewind and watch again good commercials. The problem with advertising and IPTV is that they force stupid, annoying, and pointless ads in a shotgun fashion assuming a captive audience. Run creative ads and use search terms and the like to target them. I figure Google is going to clean up big time on this on YouTube very soon.
I'm a single guy who doesn't drive but loves anime. If they would kill all the car ads, and the tampon ads and run anime and asian film ads I'd be as happy as a clam, toss in a link to the online store or ticket purchase and I'd be even happier. My democracy player downloads these ads automatically.
In the same fashion NewType magazine runs a DVD in every issue which has about three single anime episodes and a pile of trailers. While it's effectively pure advertising, its one of the most popular features, and when they discontinued it, readers made them bring it back. I've ended up buying many entire series based on the previews on those disks. That's focused and effective advertising.
The most effective email advertising I've ever encountered is the favorites search option on eBay. I get emails on a regular basis for stuff I'm actively seeking. I read every email and end up purchasing a reasonable percentage of items.
You're wrong.
Advertising is designed by the worlds best psychologists to make you feel unhappy with your life as it is, so you will go buy something. They work even if you ignore them. What you are experiencing is the surrendering to their influence that happens when you just give up under the bombardment and the accompanying rationalization. If you cut yourself off from the constant bombardment of ads for a little while, you'll be shocked.
Advertisers, with knowledge and intent, systematically manipulate people to react according to their primitive responses instead of with reasoned responses, contrary to peoples larger self interest and for personal gain.
And they've carved an industry for themselves out of the fact that "Superior Performing Product A" will be ignored in the face of competition from "Inferior Performing Product B" assisted by the pervasive advertising machine.
Their tactics are so effective that to a certain extent they've made themselves the gatekeepers of the so called free market economy.
They're fucking evil.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I'm very uncomfortable with this current notion that advertising is the solution to every market imbalance or inefficiency. The traditional model for distributing movies and videos isn't working? "Use Advertising"? Broadcast TV losing viewership to the web? "Put advertising on the web". People not buying newspapers? "Advertising". Video Games? "Advertising".
As ortholattice says, one of the most intractable problems for the US economy today is the extension of expensive credit. The savings rate is MINUS ONE PERCENT. We are told that this is a great and booming economy, but everybody owes more this year than they did last year, and the cost of carrying that credit is more expensive than ever.
We have just started to see an unprecedented level of mortgage forfeiture. People will lose their homes like never before because they used the little bit of equity they had built up in their houses to pay off their credit cards, and they did so by snapping up all the insane adjustable rate mortgages and interest-only home equity loans. It all worked as long as prices went up. With just the merest contraction in the housing market, hundreds of thousands, probably millions of people are going to get hurt when their monthly mortgage payments quadruple.
Advertising. Making you want something you don't need, making you want something you don't want. Making you want something that's bad for you. It's the economic equivalent to religious fanaticism. The "free-market" radicals that have been driving this country and our economy since WWII have lied to us. The free market only serves to shrink the number of people who have power and wealth. The only way this game ends is by the vast majority of us living in near poverty, working 60 hours a week just to live.
I'm looking at a graph published in the Detroit Free Press that was made using US Census data. Since 2000, the average income of Americans has gone down by between 6 and 9 percent. That takes into account the nice raise that you think you got back in January. Yet, your president tells you that we've got the strongest economy in years. What he leaves out is that it's strongest for him and his pals. You and me? Not so much.
Sure, you've got a swell 42" HDTV screen, a nice car, and a couple of the latest game consoles. But only because your credit cards are working harder than ever before. What you really have is indenture to the credit industry. We're getting screwed and advertising is the pimp. As long as you can keep moving up, getting those raises, avoiding layoffs, moving those balances from card to card it'll seem like it's all working. Do you know what those in the credit industry call people who pay their credit card balances in full every month? "Deadbeats". Seriously. They hate people who pay their bills on time and are responsible.
Advertising is not your friend. Neither is "faith-based" finance.
You are welcome on my lawn.