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Ask Slashdot: Banner Ads in "Free" Software?

Posted by Cliff on from the smells-like-SPAM-looks-like-SPAM dept.

Yet ANOTHER Anonymous Coward writes in with this question, that I'm SURE will generate a lot of discussion: "Rumor has it that a major software development house is considering embedding banner ads within their software and then giving the software away for free. The idea is to apparently generate revenue on the ads. Could this be the way of the future for software companies (considering that software prices are falling and companies are looking for other ways to make money)? What do slashdot-goers think of this idea? Is this SPAM or will people be ok with this sort of advertising? Feedback is appreciated." What do you all think?

2 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. May not work; Good idea anyway. by jekk · · Score: 5
    I agree with some other posters: banner ads can only generate a limited amount of revenue; and are certainly not going to be able to support the programming industry. On the other hand, if you were to ask me 50 years ago [don't bother to write in and correct my dates, I'm bad at dates and you get the idea] whether advertisments would be sufficient to support the television industry, I'd have said, of course not -- there's only a limited amount of revenue to be obtained from advertising.

    I'd have been wrong. For many, many years the entire television industry was supported entirely from advertising revenues. And the advertising did not become steadily more intrusive, starting out as short segments of video played in breaks between the programs and slowly migrating to endorsement by announcers and then to blatant product placement within the shows and other content. Instead, it did the exact opposite: early television shows very often featured the sponsored products within the show, and only later did they begin to separate the advertising and segregate it to brief (all right, not-so-brief) advertisement breaks.

    Now, I'm not saying it's perfect -- there's still a certain amount of intermixing between the content and the advertising, and in recent years the entire system has broken down to be replaced by a consumer-funded arrangement where the fees are collected by cable companies [but I still make do with terrible fuzzy reception and limited selection because I am unwilling to pay for a service that I value so little].

    So what does this have to do with software?

    Basically, I think that banner-ad-funded software and computer services are a wonderful idea. I salute juno and others who pioneer this. I actually think that banner advertisements are a good idea -- rather like comercials on television, they set an expectation that the advertising will occur only within a narrow strip and should not leak out into the editorial content. Yes, they DO leak out, but when it happens, people get upset, and as long as that expectation is there it may hold things together for a while.

    As for the software, I think that "Free" software (as in Linux... free for anyone to use, extend, develop, etc) is a great idea. But not all software will be done that way -- not now, and probably not ever. I also think that "Inexpensive" software (as in Linux, but also as in Netscape and Explorer, and even a lot of shareware out there that charges reasonable prices) is a great idea. Some of the software that is not "Free" may be "Inexpensive", and that would be a good thing. If banner advertisements can help make this possible, by paying the salaries of those who develop and market inexpensive software, that's a great thing.

    Most of the time, I will ignore the ads -- it's really not difficult to do, they're certainly not as intrusive as, say, email ads. But sometimes -- particularly if the product being advertised intrigues me -- I will click on that ad, and go check it out. I will do this consciously and intentionally, for two reasons: first, because I'm interested in the product, and secondly because I know that when I do so, I'm also helping to support this nice, cheap, software that I obviously appreciate (else, why would I be using it). This is the same attitude I take with web sites (yes, this means that I check out the banner ads at /. from time to time), and if enough other people have the same attitude, then perhaps my initial instinct is wrong. Perhaps is is possible for (some) of the software industry to be (partially) funded through banner ads. It would be nice.

  2. Ads are ALREADY in software, but not the free kind by 1millionmhz · · Score: 3
    Two comments here:

    One: Apple introduced banner ads into its operating system with the launch of Mac OS 8. The Sherlock search function displays ad banners when conducting an Internet search. This was to placate the owners of the search engines that Sherlock uses so that Yahoo, Excite, etc. wouldn't lose out on revenue that would have been generated from the hordes of Mac users who could suddenly by-pass their gold mine. I'm not sure if the money from those ads is split between Apple and the search engine(s) or if it goes to the engines exclusively.

    Additionally, you can search various web sites through Sherlock plug-ins, so I guess those ads would also be shown for sites such as MacOSRumors.

    Two: I used to work for a major entertainment website who realied heavily on ads and sponsorships to be profitable. Over the past two years, the number of ads that ran continued to increase, while the cost per ad continued to decrease at the same rate. This meant sponsorships were needed to maintain the revenue stream. Increasingly content was created to match sponsorship opportunities and was plastered with the sponsor's logo wherever possible. Because this leads to less-than-enticing content, the number of visits is likely to drop, further damaging the ad revenue tally and making it more difficult to attract more sponsors.