UKNM: Streams of Conciousness

[Stefan Magdalinski]

As a new-media revolutionary, I find this a fairly entertaining piece of

old-media people totally failing to get it. 


"Linking to content is theft!"



http://www.wired.com/news/news/business/story/15486.html


These must be the same people who want to make cutting the adverts out

of stuff you record off the telly illegal. 


The point being of course, that in our bright shiny new universe,

providing a desired  stream, and then forcing the consumer to swallow

the hated advertising along with it, won't work.*


So what do you do?


1. Imagine new forms of advertising. Banners are popular with old-media

people because there's a simple analogy with a full page ad in a

magazine, or a 30 second commercial. The days of treating your audience

as chained victims you can force feed junk along with their content are

over. http://www1.lowedigital.co.uk/news/96-12/adavoid.htm (the report

itself used to be on the web, but they seem to have removed it). 


2. Give people things that they want to play with, tools that they want

use. If you have to splurge your beloved brand across it, sponsor the

whole site. Advertisers will have to work harder, be more imaginative,

draw people in. They might even have to pursuade the manufacturers to

work a little harder too. 


but above all stop whingeing. The solution to ad-avoidance and

irritation is providing intrinsically interesting advertising, not

complaining about 'those pesky consumers.' If you see it as a war 'with

them' rather than with your own competitors, you're dead already. 


or at least I hope so.


* The funny thing about this article is I can think of at least 5 or 6

different ways  in which the content could be protected so that

bookmarking/linking would be impossible. 


stefan.

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/**

Stefan Magdalinski                             m 0370 67 70 58

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