Re: UKNM: Advertising might actually not be dead

[Ben Thompson]

-----Original Message-----

From: Paul Cook <

paulredeye [dot] com

>



>Its interesting to see the issue of banner removing browsers rear its head

>again but I don't think its time to change career just yet.


Actually, I only brought it up as I thought the vast majority of people on

this list might not have heard about it before. The original version was

only really publicised along with the cookie privacy debate and most people

did not pay much attention to it at the time (I always thought the cookie

privacy complaints were a mad American thing).


>Also I wonder how many people object to the ads enough to actually bother

>to remove them. File sizes are pretty small compared to a lot of web site

>images, so perhaps these users should just switch off images all together

>

>This debate always goes side by side with the cookie/privacy issue. I did a

>lot of research into this recently and was ammused to find more than a

>third of people have never heard of them (about 70% accept them!).

>

I'm surprised that it is only 1/3 of all people. The people currently coming

on line are by definition less technical then the people before hand. After

all when I first joined the Internet you had to be a programmer just to

install the software (oh and you could read usenet in its entirety in

lunchtime (any discussion on this comment stops here otherwise it will

become like the Monty Python "when I was a lad" sketch)).


Also, having seen surveys where more than 60% of people admit to not knowing

how to bookmark pages this figure seems low (but online surveys are highly

self-selecting).


>When someone says to you I use the Web but I hate all the adverts then its

>time to start worrying.... but commercial radio seems to survive


What is surprising is the limited number of advertising options that people

seem to accept. If you look at the nearest thing to the Web in the outside

world (i.e. Teletext (and don't laugh)) Teletext supports both banner ads

(along the bottom of pages) and full page ads interspersing the article you

are reading. Strangely, on the web only 468 by 60 pixels banners are

allowable.  Yet the obvious other option of sponsorship is not as popular as

I would expect.


yours,


Ben Thompson