Adverts (was: Funny Linux animation)

Travis Roy travis at scootz.net
Wed Jan 29 22:08:55 EST 2003


Having worked for an internet advertising company I can say that if a
site goes thru something like double-click, Burstmedia, or whatever is
out there now I can tell you the content provider is getting screwed.
Things like http://www.httpads.com/ or getting something like PHPAdsNew
and dealing with your own ads will bring in much more money.

That being said, text ads bring in HUGE money comp aired to banners..
Why, because more people click them. Why they click them could be a
number of things. Less annoying or more targeted.

Another thing with internet advertising that is odd is that advertisers
want to see click-thru numbers.. And internet advertising is really the
only advertising that you can do this with. Billboards, ads in papers,
TV ads all base their ads on branding and getting your name/product out
there.. But not on the net.. It's very odd.

I filter ads for a number of reasons. Mostly it's because I find them
annoying and I don't want to look at them. This is also one of the
reasons I own a TiVo. The other reason is 99% of the stuff that is on a
banner ad I'm never going to buy, so why waste not only my bandwidth but
also the bandwidth of the advertiser. The remaining 1% of stuff I might
buy I'll find out about any way thru other channels when I do research
looking for whatever I need.

I think the best way for a site to make money is to sell a real product.
One of my favorite sites (www.homestarrunner.com) sells t-shirts and
other stuff. I got some stickers and coasters from them because I was to
poor at the time to get a few t-shirts. Slashdot is under the same
umbrella company as thinkgeek and they sell cool (but usually
overpriced) stuff. The other nice thing about that is that if you get a
t-shirt/sticker/poster from a site you like people will probably see it
and check out the site and then buy more products.

When banner/skyscraper/box/button ads are paying 0.0000003 per
impression it's time to look for a better source of revenue.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: gnhlug-discuss-admin at mail.gnhlug.org 
> [mailto:gnhlug-discuss-admin at mail.gnhlug.org] On Behalf Of 
> bscott at ntisys.com
> Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 9:52 PM
> To: Greater NH Linux User Group
> Subject: OT: Adverts (was: Funny Linux animation)
> 
> 
> On Wed, 29 Jan 2003, at 12:55pm, pll at lanminds.com wrote:
> > Flash used as ads are bad because I don't have the option of not 
> > watching it!
> 
>   I think that's rather the point.
> 
>   I favor alternatives to advertising as a way of funding 
> content production and distribution.  But, I do wonder if 
> people are prepared to accept the consequences.  Even if 
> people are willing to give away their content, distribution 
> is not free, and the more popular something gets, the higher 
> the distribution costs.
> 
>   How many people here clicked the button on the page hosting 
> those animations to donate a dollar to cover the site's 
> bandwidth bill?
> 
>   I am not saying anyone here should feel obligated to make a 
> donation to that site.  I am not saying filtering adverts is 
> morally or legally wrong (the way ad execs would like it to 
> be).  Nor am I saying that new content will stop being 
> produced if the traditional distribution channels stop being 
> profitable.  I am not predicting the imminent death of the 
> Internet[1].
> 
>   What I *am* trying to do is make people stop and think 
> about these issues. Remember always the all-powerful rule of 
> TANSTAAFL[2].  And be careful what you wish for.
> 
> 
> Footnotes
> ---------
> [1] http://makeashorterlink.com/?J1E442643 (Jargon File)
> [2] http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/TANSTAAFL.html 
> 
> -- 
> Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
> | The opinions expressed in this message are those of the 
> author and do  
> | | not represent the views or policy of any other person or 
> organization. |
> | All information is provided without warranty of any kind.   
>            |
> 
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