If you look at other mediums of information, advertising has been consistently effective. Advertising has made radio and network television free for years. I think the problem with web advertising has more to do with the approach taken by advertisers. When you watch TV or listen to the radio, there are periods of time when you are seeing and hearing nothing but advertisements. When you visit a web page this scenerio is not the case. Ad banners are simply too easy to ignore.
If you want web advertising to be more effective, you need to adopt an advertising model more like TV and radio. Perhaps you could force site viewers to watch a Flash ad before being directed to the main page. Such a means of advertising may need to wait until people have faster internet access, but I do think we need to search for alternative advertising techniques. The ad banners just aren't cutting it.
Slashdot Mirror
If you look at other mediums of information, advertising has been consistently effective. Advertising has made radio and network television free for years. I think the problem with web advertising has more to do with the approach taken by advertisers. When you watch TV or listen to the radio, there are periods of time when you are seeing and hearing nothing but advertisements. When you visit a web page this scenerio is not the case. Ad banners are simply too easy to ignore.
If you want web advertising to be more effective, you need to adopt an advertising model more like TV and radio. Perhaps you could force site viewers to watch a Flash ad before being directed to the main page. Such a means of advertising may need to wait until people have faster internet access, but I do think we need to search for alternative advertising techniques. The ad banners just aren't cutting it.