Re: theory of advertising - ethics, banner ads, and my own dilemma

Anmar To <amt(at)nuteknet.com> writes:
>I think now is a good time to think about how the
>internet *should* work, and how announcements should be
>made, and how people should find out about new things.
>As for the revenue stream generated by current banner ads,
>will the web really become a vast wasteland without them?
>Or will things just take care of themselves?

This is a difficult question. I personally hate banner ads. But I
also hate TV ads too, and magazine ads, so maybe I am in a minoity
on this.

Banner ads are like the "spam" (unsolicited commercial email) of
the web, if you think about it. And spam is universally revilled
by email and newsgroup users.

I am also dubious about their actual value. I have never (as far
as I remember) clicked a banner and I have certainly never made a
purchase as the result of such an advertisment. I have seen
figures that suggest the returns on such advertisments are too
small to be effective. One colleague told me he would require many
thousand click-throughs on his banners to generate enough revenue
to pay for his web space, an unlikely proposition for a "personal"
site. On the other hand, I read recently that Netscape get 20% of
their revenue by selling advertising space on their site. And,
presumably, sites like Yahoo get 100% of their revenue from
advertising.

Internet sites are expensive to set up and maintain. Companies
like Microsoft and Sun generate their revenue in other ways and
their web sites are "sidelines" that their primary business pays
for. There are a lot of useful sites that do not fall into this
category, however. If your Internet site is your whole reason for
existence, how do you fund it?


Maybe Nelson was right and the web should have been commercialised
right from the start. With proper support for micropayments and
royalties, we might have a much more "professional" web with a
higher proportion of useful content. Of course, not everybody will
agree that this would be a good thing.

Sorry, I have no answers... just plenty of two cents...


--
David Meadows [ Technical Writer | Information Developer ]
DNRC Minister for Littorasy * david(at)goldenheroes.softnet.co.uk
"Mind, body, heart and soul: we've got rock and roll
 And there's nothing they can do" -- Ian Gillan, "Gypsy's Kiss"

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