Screw that, man. Why should diseases get all the money? I want to donate my money to an organization that solves problems, in general, without actually focusing on any particular problem.
To really be fair, though, I'm going to insist that they not give my money to anyone who's trying to solve a specific problem, either. I want my dollars to go to people who are trying to solve every problem at once. That's the only way I can really be egalitarian.
Am I correct in understanding that among that 50.4% are sites like Yahoo's Geocities and AOL personal pages? Which is to say, the sites are hosted by Yahoo and AOL, but the actual content is put there by individuals.
If that's so, then I'm not overly concerned at the moment. It's like saying that there's no free press because 90% of the paper in the US is manufactured by three corporations.
Okay, it's not exactly the same, because paper companies don't require you to agree not to print porn on their paper and they don't sell ads on letters to your grandma. But I think there's a wide difference between 50.4% of the sites being hosted by a few corporations, and 50.4% of the content being generated by those corporations.
People will pay for content. Just not enough people to sustain a site. The problem is that a lot of site operators come to think of their readers, the whole lot of them, as devoted loyalists, enchanted with the content of the site, when actually most of them are just reading it because it's free and they're bored.
Let's put it this way. Go to a grocery store and hand out samples of Tux Puffs, the freely redistributable dessert. If it's a busy store, you're going to be mobbed by people grabbing the sample Tux Puffs as soon as they hit the wax paper. Your Tux Puffs will disappear as fast as you can hand them out.
Now put some boxes of Tux Puffs on the shelves. Yes, some will sell, but they won't be flying off the shelves. If you don't have a national advertising campaign for Tux Puffs (and maybe even if you do), you're not going to make a profit.
So why aren't the people who sampled them willing to pay for cookies? They are, but not yours. Are these people heartless freeloaders who want everything in life to be without cost? Radical socialists? No, they're people who, like most of us, are much pickier when they're shelling out gil than when they're given a chance to get something free.
What people forget is that the Web pages which are dying off like mayflies in a comet strike are in competition with things like cable (which I would assume more American Internet users are paying for already) and magazines. Yes, the Web is better in many ways, but worse in others. I read a PS2 Web page, but I also buy a magazine because it has demos, it's easier to flip through, and you can take it into the bathroom. If I had to pay for each I'd probably choose just one, and I love me some demo discs...
Making things even moreso is the fact that most Web content is still free, meaning that your choice is between something interesting on the Web that you pay for or something interesting on the Web that you don't. Sure, content sites aren't fungible, but when you start forcing the splitting of loyalty you're also going to be splitting the income. There are a few sites I'd be willing to shell out some ducats for if it would keep them going, but they're not the same ones that many other people would shell out for. And then of course there are the people who aren't going to pay for a wacky Flash animation site when they're already getting a monthly cable bill.
In summary, we're still falling into the great fallacy of the information age: that old problems have new causes now. You don't need to make up any explanations about how technology changes spending patterns as long as you know the following things:
1. People like stuff what is free.
2. When stuff what is free becomes not-free, people quickly decide they don't like it as much as all that.
As far as I know, right now you can't write games for the PS2 without the permission and strict supervision of Sony. Will the existence of PS2 Linux change this, or will any attempt to distribute games for it meet with a heavy kibosh from a swarm of Sony lawyers? I'm not too excited about an Open Source OS for the PS2 if I can't run Open Source software on it.
Yes, well, obviously enough I disagree with Jakob Nielsen. In a word where people put advertisements in airline dinners, ATM screens and, horrifically enough, other advertisements*, I hardly think Internet advertising is going to have zero value.
I'd be surprised if mass-market Web ads ever get back up to the $40-50 CPM wishful thinking of 1998, but I don't see any reason that they couldn't level out at about $2 CPM. I'm told that that's about the price range of a billboard ad, and that's about how much impact your average banner ad has.
*I'm referring to my current pet peeve, the little "preview" scanner for the video games at Wal-Mart. In essence, you're asking Wal-Mart to show you an ad for the video game, but first they have to show you a different ad for toothpaste or something. At this rate we're going to reach the point where they won't give you your change unless you sit still and listen to them yammer on about their specials for a couple minutes.
I think we're seeing a banner ad backlash, both financially and rhetorically. Not only are they selling for less, but the voices calling them a sure-fire path to online riches are being replaced by voices declaring them dead and a horrible idea to begin with.
Personally, I think typical ad banner prices will probably even out to about the cost of hosting. This is based on one part basic economics and nine parts bald speculation.
My thought here is there are plenty of people who are willing to put up comic strips, video game reviews, and pages examining the minutiae of Christina Ricci's career as long as they don't have to actively shell out big bucks to do so. When income drops (as it has recently) many of these people will shut down their sites. This reduces the pool of available ad spaces, and makes ad space more valuable, driving prices up.
When ad income goes up beyond hosting costs, then more people are encouraged to put up their own sites, and the pool of ad spaces increases, driving prices down. So you see.
Obviously, there are exceptions to this, such as sites that are funded by companies with deep pockets, and sites that have operating expenses well beyond hosting (you can't run site about travel experiences unless you or your writers can afford to travel), but I think for your typical pro-am started-as-a-hobby site, this will hold true.
This reminds me of when Ty announced they were going to stop making Beanie Babies, then shortly thereafter decided they were going to put it to a "vote" of whomever was willing to shell out fifty cents (which, to be fair, went to charity) to have their voice heard. Needless to say, we're still up to our ears in cloyingly-named animal-shaped hacky sacks.
I think the chance of the E3 reaction scuttling the launch of the Gamecube is about equal to the chance that anyone would have gotten a free taco out of Taco Bell's Mir stunt.
"Since an 'opt-in' approach reduces the amount of information available to sellers regarding the consumer's preferences, spending habits and typical behavior patterns, it hampers sellers' efforts to detect 'unusual' purchases and alert the consumer to possible fraud."
I can't wait to get e-mail informing me that I must not be who I seem, because the REAL Lore Sjöberg would be sure to take advantage of these LOW LOW PRICES!
The problem with a combination phone and PDA is that half the time when I want to write something down, someone's telling it to me over the phone. I don't want to have to take someone's address and phone number down by pulling the phone away from my ear every few numbers...
I posted that joke and didn't even realize I was repeating the title. I apologize, with the sort of apology that implies deep regret and personal responsibility when translated into Chinese.
We, the upper management of eSourceTec Inc., have discovered that employees have been wasting valuable time dealing with unnecessary e-mail. Here are the steps we are taking to eliminate this waste of time and energy:
1. All employees will be required to attend a series of company meetings on the subject of "Eliminating Unnecessary E-mail."
2. Following these meetings, employees will be required to attend department specific "E-Mail Task Force" meetings to come up with specific strategies for eliminating unnecessary e-mail.
3. Each day, employees will be required to send e-mail to their managers summarizing the amount and type of e-mail they have sent that day, flagging any e-mail exchanges that they feel could have been shortened or eliminated.
4. On a weekly basis, managers will have a one-on-one session with each employee in which they discuss how well e-mail strategies have been implemented, and what new strategies might be employed in the elimination of unnecessary e-mail.
We feel confident that these steps will drastically reduce the amount of time spent each day on pointless and unnecessary tasks, and lead our company into new strata of efficiency.
Regards,
D. R. Baskerville
Vice-President, Attention Allocation Resources
I want to take a moment to talk to all the kids out there. Sure, villager-throwing may seem like a "cool" thing to do for "kicks," but as Calle Ballz shows us, once you start, it's hard to stop. Or rather, to get your creature to stop. Don't end up like Calle Ballz. Don't throw villagers.
As long as click-through is the measure of success, all online advertising will be a "failure." Full-page dancing and singing ads targeted based on location, sex and hair color aren't going to get people to visit Ford's site more than once out of a hundred times, if what the viewers are looking for is the sports scores, any more than a Coke ad is likely to make me immediately walk to the nearest soda machine.
It's long been my contention that the main reason Web banners are unpopular to potential advertisers is because they're one of the few media where you can tell immediately how poorly they work, at least in terms of immediate physical response. If magazines had this ability, think of how the conversations would go:
Exec for liquor company: Can you tell me what percentage of readers who saw our ad immediately got up and poured themselves a glass of Absolut?
Ad salesman for magazine: Um. One out of two thousand. Approximately.
Exec: What? That's ridiculous! Magazine advertising is worthless!
Salesman: Well, uh, at least you did better than Tanqueray!
I only use gestures in Black and White to the extent that I have to due to lack of keyboard equivalents. I use the keyboard to move, and I'm just happy I realized that you can press "R" to repeat the last miracle...
I am troubled by the argument that "x pays for y, therefore if you take advantage of y, you are legally obligated to do x." I am told, for instance, that snack sales are what actually make movie theaters profitable. Does that mean that I'm legally obligated to buy the popcorn that subsidizes the movie? Sony, I'm told, loses money on each PS2, but makes it up on license fees for games. If I buy a PS2 to watch DVDs, as many people in Japan have, does that mean I'm legally obligated to buy games?
Advertising works on a similar finger-crossing principle. Just as people who go to theaters generally buy popcorn, and people who buy PS2 consoles generally buy games, people who watch TV shows generally sit through many of the commercials. If the second half of each of these equations falls through, that doesn't mean that the law should be invoked to hold people to an unwritten contract. It just means that the companies in question need to re-think their business models.
Personally, I think this pales in comparison to the practice of "mind-shifting," or memorizing plots, funny bits, and catch phrases from television shows in order to experience them -- or worse yet, share them with others -- without having to watch the commercials or pay the copyright holders.
I'm petitioning congress to outlaw quoting television shows to your friends without also quoting at least one ad from that show. For instance, "EX-cellent, Smithers! The Joy of Cola!"
Perhaps the most disheartening thing about the modern legal climate is that even unequivocal prior decisions don't seem to stop corporate lawyers. The idea that it's illegal to allow users to change the look and feel of their computer devices should have died out with the Nintendo v. Game Genie decision, but corporations (and companies, and in some cases individuals) will continue to file these "just in case" suits. Maybe the defendant won't want the hassle of defending itself, and will settle.
Warning: Overstated Analogy Ahead
It's as if Radio Shack decided to have everyone who comes into the store just to browse arrested for shoplifting, on the off chance that one of them actually is a shoplifter, and to encourage people to purchase something so they don't have to empty their pockets in front of the security guards.
Well, I suppose it depends on your definitions of "entertainment" and "slump," but I can offer first-hand assurances that entertainment sites are in the same slump that the rest of the industry is in -- the cash just ain't there. Sure, there may be as many readers as ever, if not more, but it's not lack of interest that's causing the tech slump, unless you count the interest of venture capitalists.
This isn't intended as a whine (or, for that matter, a whinge), just an observation. Most of the best entertaiment on the Web comes from people who never planned on getting rich anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
Screw that, man. Why should diseases get all the money? I want to donate my money to an organization that solves problems, in general, without actually focusing on any particular problem.
To really be fair, though, I'm going to insist that they not give my money to anyone who's trying to solve a specific problem, either. I want my dollars to go to people who are trying to solve every problem at once. That's the only way I can really be egalitarian.
Am I correct in understanding that among that 50.4% are sites like Yahoo's Geocities and AOL personal pages? Which is to say, the sites are hosted by Yahoo and AOL, but the actual content is put there by individuals.
If that's so, then I'm not overly concerned at the moment. It's like saying that there's no free press because 90% of the paper in the US is manufactured by three corporations.
Okay, it's not exactly the same, because paper companies don't require you to agree not to print porn on their paper and they don't sell ads on letters to your grandma. But I think there's a wide difference between 50.4% of the sites being hosted by a few corporations, and 50.4% of the content being generated by those corporations.
People will pay for content. Just not enough people to sustain a site. The problem is that a lot of site operators come to think of their readers, the whole lot of them, as devoted loyalists, enchanted with the content of the site, when actually most of them are just reading it because it's free and they're bored.
Let's put it this way. Go to a grocery store and hand out samples of Tux Puffs, the freely redistributable dessert. If it's a busy store, you're going to be mobbed by people grabbing the sample Tux Puffs as soon as they hit the wax paper. Your Tux Puffs will disappear as fast as you can hand them out.
Now put some boxes of Tux Puffs on the shelves. Yes, some will sell, but they won't be flying off the shelves. If you don't have a national advertising campaign for Tux Puffs (and maybe even if you do), you're not going to make a profit.
So why aren't the people who sampled them willing to pay for cookies? They are, but not yours. Are these people heartless freeloaders who want everything in life to be without cost? Radical socialists? No, they're people who, like most of us, are much pickier when they're shelling out gil than when they're given a chance to get something free.
What people forget is that the Web pages which are dying off like mayflies in a comet strike are in competition with things like cable (which I would assume more American Internet users are paying for already) and magazines. Yes, the Web is better in many ways, but worse in others. I read a PS2 Web page, but I also buy a magazine because it has demos, it's easier to flip through, and you can take it into the bathroom. If I had to pay for each I'd probably choose just one, and I love me some demo discs...
Making things even moreso is the fact that most Web content is still free, meaning that your choice is between something interesting on the Web that you pay for or something interesting on the Web that you don't. Sure, content sites aren't fungible, but when you start forcing the splitting of loyalty you're also going to be splitting the income. There are a few sites I'd be willing to shell out some ducats for if it would keep them going, but they're not the same ones that many other people would shell out for. And then of course there are the people who aren't going to pay for a wacky Flash animation site when they're already getting a monthly cable bill.
In summary, we're still falling into the great fallacy of the information age: that old problems have new causes now. You don't need to make up any explanations about how technology changes spending patterns as long as you know the following things:
1. People like stuff what is free.
2. When stuff what is free becomes not-free, people quickly decide they don't like it as much as all that.
As far as I know, right now you can't write games for the PS2 without the permission and strict supervision of Sony. Will the existence of PS2 Linux change this, or will any attempt to distribute games for it meet with a heavy kibosh from a swarm of Sony lawyers? I'm not too excited about an Open Source OS for the PS2 if I can't run Open Source software on it.
Yes, well, obviously enough I disagree with Jakob Nielsen. In a word where people put advertisements in airline dinners, ATM screens and, horrifically enough, other advertisements*, I hardly think Internet advertising is going to have zero value.
I'd be surprised if mass-market Web ads ever get back up to the $40-50 CPM wishful thinking of 1998, but I don't see any reason that they couldn't level out at about $2 CPM. I'm told that that's about the price range of a billboard ad, and that's about how much impact your average banner ad has.
*I'm referring to my current pet peeve, the little "preview" scanner for the video games at Wal-Mart. In essence, you're asking Wal-Mart to show you an ad for the video game, but first they have to show you a different ad for toothpaste or something. At this rate we're going to reach the point where they won't give you your change unless you sit still and listen to them yammer on about their specials for a couple minutes.
I think we're seeing a banner ad backlash, both financially and rhetorically. Not only are they selling for less, but the voices calling them a sure-fire path to online riches are being replaced by voices declaring them dead and a horrible idea to begin with.
Personally, I think typical ad banner prices will probably even out to about the cost of hosting. This is based on one part basic economics and nine parts bald speculation.
My thought here is there are plenty of people who are willing to put up comic strips, video game reviews, and pages examining the minutiae of Christina Ricci's career as long as they don't have to actively shell out big bucks to do so. When income drops (as it has recently) many of these people will shut down their sites. This reduces the pool of available ad spaces, and makes ad space more valuable, driving prices up.
When ad income goes up beyond hosting costs, then more people are encouraged to put up their own sites, and the pool of ad spaces increases, driving prices down. So you see.
Obviously, there are exceptions to this, such as sites that are funded by companies with deep pockets, and sites that have operating expenses well beyond hosting (you can't run site about travel experiences unless you or your writers can afford to travel), but I think for your typical pro-am started-as-a-hobby site, this will hold true.
This reminds me of when Ty announced they were going to stop making Beanie Babies, then shortly thereafter decided they were going to put it to a "vote" of whomever was willing to shell out fifty cents (which, to be fair, went to charity) to have their voice heard. Needless to say, we're still up to our ears in cloyingly-named animal-shaped hacky sacks.
I think the chance of the E3 reaction scuttling the launch of the Gamecube is about equal to the chance that anyone would have gotten a free taco out of Taco Bell's Mir stunt.
"Theme park and hospice," there's a phrase you don't find in many business plans.
Anyhow, if this is a Noah's Ark of Cryonics, will the storage areas be measured in Ice Cubits?
"Since an 'opt-in' approach reduces the amount of information available to sellers regarding the consumer's preferences, spending habits and typical behavior patterns, it hampers sellers' efforts to detect 'unusual' purchases and alert the consumer to possible fraud."
I can't wait to get e-mail informing me that I must not be who I seem, because the REAL Lore Sjöberg would be sure to take advantage of these LOW LOW PRICES!
[Insert AmIOpenSourceOrNot Joke Here]
The problem with a combination phone and PDA is that half the time when I want to write something down, someone's telling it to me over the phone. I don't want to have to take someone's address and phone number down by pulling the phone away from my ear every few numbers...
I posted that joke and didn't even realize I was repeating the title. I apologize, with the sort of apology that implies deep regret and personal responsibility when translated into Chinese.
What I want is paint made out of liquid crystals, so I can have the world's first Mood House.
We, the upper management of eSourceTec Inc., have discovered that employees have been wasting valuable time dealing with unnecessary e-mail. Here are the steps we are taking to eliminate this waste of time and energy:
1. All employees will be required to attend a series of company meetings on the subject of "Eliminating Unnecessary E-mail."
2. Following these meetings, employees will be required to attend department specific "E-Mail Task Force" meetings to come up with specific strategies for eliminating unnecessary e-mail.
3. Each day, employees will be required to send e-mail to their managers summarizing the amount and type of e-mail they have sent that day, flagging any e-mail exchanges that they feel could have been shortened or eliminated.
4. On a weekly basis, managers will have a one-on-one session with each employee in which they discuss how well e-mail strategies have been implemented, and what new strategies might be employed in the elimination of unnecessary e-mail.
We feel confident that these steps will drastically reduce the amount of time spent each day on pointless and unnecessary tasks, and lead our company into new strata of efficiency.
Regards,
D. R. Baskerville
Vice-President, Attention Allocation Resources
I want to take a moment to talk to all the kids out there. Sure, villager-throwing may seem like a "cool" thing to do for "kicks," but as Calle Ballz shows us, once you start, it's hard to stop. Or rather, to get your creature to stop. Don't end up like Calle Ballz. Don't throw villagers.
As long as click-through is the measure of success, all online advertising will be a "failure." Full-page dancing and singing ads targeted based on location, sex and hair color aren't going to get people to visit Ford's site more than once out of a hundred times, if what the viewers are looking for is the sports scores, any more than a Coke ad is likely to make me immediately walk to the nearest soda machine.
It's long been my contention that the main reason Web banners are unpopular to potential advertisers is because they're one of the few media where you can tell immediately how poorly they work, at least in terms of immediate physical response. If magazines had this ability, think of how the conversations would go:
Exec for liquor company: Can you tell me what percentage of readers who saw our ad immediately got up and poured themselves a glass of Absolut?
Ad salesman for magazine: Um. One out of two thousand. Approximately.
Exec: What? That's ridiculous! Magazine advertising is worthless!
Salesman: Well, uh, at least you did better than Tanqueray!
Show me a laptop that plays vinyl LPs, THEN I'll be impressed.
I can't speak for anyone else, but any power source dependent on me going outside and getting some sun isn't going to be much help.
I wonder how long it'll be before we see "MAKE BIG $$$$$ SUING SPAMMERS" spam...
I only use gestures in Black and White to the extent that I have to due to lack of keyboard equivalents. I use the keyboard to move, and I'm just happy I realized that you can press "R" to repeat the last miracle...
I am troubled by the argument that "x pays for y, therefore if you take advantage of y, you are legally obligated to do x." I am told, for instance, that snack sales are what actually make movie theaters profitable. Does that mean that I'm legally obligated to buy the popcorn that subsidizes the movie? Sony, I'm told, loses money on each PS2, but makes it up on license fees for games. If I buy a PS2 to watch DVDs, as many people in Japan have, does that mean I'm legally obligated to buy games?
Advertising works on a similar finger-crossing principle. Just as people who go to theaters generally buy popcorn, and people who buy PS2 consoles generally buy games, people who watch TV shows generally sit through many of the commercials. If the second half of each of these equations falls through, that doesn't mean that the law should be invoked to hold people to an unwritten contract. It just means that the companies in question need to re-think their business models.
Personally, I think this pales in comparison to the practice of "mind-shifting," or memorizing plots, funny bits, and catch phrases from television shows in order to experience them -- or worse yet, share them with others -- without having to watch the commercials or pay the copyright holders.
I'm petitioning congress to outlaw quoting television shows to your friends without also quoting at least one ad from that show. For instance, "EX-cellent, Smithers! The Joy of Cola!"
Oh, sure, you think it's interesting now. Wait until the wheeled light-seeking eels rule the planet with cruel inhuman efficiency.
Perhaps the most disheartening thing about the modern legal climate is that even unequivocal prior decisions don't seem to stop corporate lawyers. The idea that it's illegal to allow users to change the look and feel of their computer devices should have died out with the Nintendo v. Game Genie decision, but corporations (and companies, and in some cases individuals) will continue to file these "just in case" suits. Maybe the defendant won't want the hassle of defending itself, and will settle.
Warning: Overstated Analogy Ahead
It's as if Radio Shack decided to have everyone who comes into the store just to browse arrested for shoplifting, on the off chance that one of them actually is a shoplifter, and to encourage people to purchase something so they don't have to empty their pockets in front of the security guards.
Well, I suppose it depends on your definitions of "entertainment" and "slump," but I can offer first-hand assurances that entertainment sites are in the same slump that the rest of the industry is in -- the cash just ain't there. Sure, there may be as many readers as ever, if not more, but it's not lack of interest that's causing the tech slump, unless you count the interest of venture capitalists.
This isn't intended as a whine (or, for that matter, a whinge), just an observation. Most of the best entertaiment on the Web comes from people who never planned on getting rich anyway.