Slashdot Mirror
Will Mainstream Media Embrace Adblockers?
Blarkon writes "Slashdotters are aware of and often use Adblock Plus," and notes that
"if newspapers wanted to hit the online content industry hard right now, they would be running non-stop information about how to obtain and use Adblock Plus.' That a scorched-earth approach to blocking Internet advertising through AdBlock Plus might collapse free online competitors by starving them of revenue. If more people are aware of Adblock plus, it will be more tempting for other browser manufacturers to include similar ad blocking functionality. Might Rupert Murdoch's apparent 'traffic killing' move to paywall content be a desperate gamble to avoid the impact of a future crash in the ad-supported online business model caused by everyone's browser including something like Adblock Plus?"
This summary is so much worse than anything I've ever seen here before. Let's try to standardize the name of the plugin (it's "Adblock Plus", by the way, not "ad block plus" or "Ad Block plus"), and remove the sentence fragment in the middle. Thanks!
A sizable number of news stories these days are already just thinly-veiled press releases. Further starving news sites of revenue from labeled advertising will only accelerate this trend. Of course, given the generally accepted principle in our economy that anything other than constant growth in profits is failure, the move toward more and more advertising masquerading as news is probably inevitable anyway.
I think Adblock may do more harm than good. With all the major browsers moving towards HTML 5, advertisers will have many more opportunities to inject intrusive advertising into web content with simple CSS commands. We have already seen CSS-layer popups that require JavaScript to be enabled to make them go away -- which then allows the other ads to display.
At some point these industries have to make money, and they only make money from advertising. There has to be a decent middle ground here.
-- We live in a world where lemonade is artificial and soap has real lemon.
I don't agree. I run adblock most of the time, but when I don't and happen to see an ad, I occasionally see something interesting and click on them, yes even buy something.
You block my ads, I sneak them past your adblocker. You adjust your adblocker, I adjust my ads.
It's not going to "solve" the "problem" of free internet information by making it unprofitable. Instead, we'll see more sophisticated means to get past blockers. It's always been that way, from spam and spamblockers to P2P and P2Pblocking. You filter spam, the spammer changes his approach to make it past your filter. Your ISP filters P2P, you create/download ways to get past that filter.
My solution was simply to "educate" advertisers. Your ads are obnoxious and in-your-face popups/popuners/flashcrap? You get blocked. Your ads are unobtrusive and targeted? I go out of my way and click it to generate revenue for you and show you (and the one advertising with your page) that this is a "working" way to get ads clicked.
The key here is that ads have to be seen, but they must not be disturbing. If I have to close 20 popups when I surf to your place, I might just take my "business" elsewhere. If you offer information with a few good, topical ads, I might just as well click it, either because I'm actually really interested in what you're offering or just to show you that yes, I do honor your way to advertise and I think you deserve your money for playing fair.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The problem is intrusiveness, and we're in a nasty downward spiral of trying to outdo each other.
People didn't care about ads until they started getting really intrusive, taking up way too much real estate, blinking, shaking... so people started blocking them. So the advertisers, instead of toning them down, made them even more intrusive.... and now people go to greater lengths to block them, with uninformed users caught in the middle.
I don't know how to solve the impasse... if we weren't clicking on enough ads then, we certainly won't be in the future, but if I had any suggestions for the advertisers it would be to start making ads LESS intrusive.
Stupid, sexy Flanders.
AFAIK ads no longer expect users to click beacuse they are mostly there to burn the brand name into your brain. Billboards and TV ads don't require the viewer to look into more detailled information either.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
http://salescircular.com/
Different people, different models.
When I use advertising I want to see nothing but ads. That is what Sales Circular http://salescircular.com/ does. It is nothing but ads and competitor's prices are shown side-by-side.
Personally I think everyone buys things on sale, wants to buy things on sale. However, for someone like myself I consume ads using a different model.
My desired advertising consumption is analogous to the classified ads section of newspapers, or Craig's List.
Online marketing needs to cover their customer consumption bases when it comes to consumer advertising. People like myself who perhaps use AdBlock Plus still want things on sale, we just would prefer to browse ads all-at-once when we are looking for sales, as opposed to seeing ads intermixed with content.
At the end of the day, though, I'm still looking for things on sale and I still buy advertised product.
I don't see AdBlock Plus as a threat, just an expression how different types of consumers like myself use different tactics to find what is on sale. This is no different in the past where Catalogs, Classifieds, Yellow Pages, Magazines, etc all had different audiences they were reaching.
So if you're finding these ads useful (an assumption based on your subsequent purchase..) why do you have adblock in the first place?
>>>I'm just pointing out that once it dies we may notice a gap
I doubt it. I really have no desire to know that last night a 7-11 store was robbed, or a murderer sent to life imprisonment. This stuff happens all the time and I'm tired of hearing about it. Plus it doesn't affect me - I'm interested in news that matters, like hearing Congress wants to fine me 2000 dollars for not having health insurance, and I can get the information off the television. I don't need the paper.
As for advertising:
Most people think I'm weird but I like ads. They provide all kinds of free stuff like television, radio, and internet. Without advertising I'd have to pay an extra $5/month to NBC, $5/month to CW, $1 to FM97, $1 to MIX106.5, and so on. I don't feel shelling-out all that money when I can have ads provide this stuff for free.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall