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?"
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 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.
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.
The problem is that we already had a middle ground and then dumped it. The middle ground was that websites have non-invasive, relevant ads. I wouldn't go out of my way to block Google text ads, or even non-flashy image ads. But in the inevitable quest to maximize revenues, we got distracting ads, Flash ads, pop-ups, pop-unders, page-peels, random ads disguised as links that pop up when you mouse-over them, and other crazy stuff. We went from 2 ads on a page of content to 2 paragraphs on a page of ads.
People get AdBlock Plus because of the annoying ads, and then blocking the decent ads is no extra effort. The default block lists for ABP already block Google ads, just because it's an extra line on a page.
I don't mind an ad that's like "hey, you're on a computer hardware blog. Why don't you try this game?" in text, or even with a picture, over on the side. That's the middle ground. But I am gonna block a 1MB Flash ad that blocks all the content until I click it off and flashes boobies at me when I'm reading a news website (I'm looking at you, Evony).
>>>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