RE: Salon.com and taller ads

From: Michael Martinez <Michael_at_xenite.org>
Date: Wed 04 Apr 2001 12:52:42 -0600

MICHAEL MARTINEZ <Michael_at_xenite.org> WROTE:

>If the Web pages just look like so much advertising,
>there is no reason for the surfers to stay....Surfers
>know they have plenty of choices.

TO WHICH STEFANIE NELSON <stef_at_sumus.com> REPLIED:

>Perhaps we should agree to disagree here, but I'm too
>damn stubborn ;-) So, I ask: if sites can't get
>advertisers, how do you expect them to stay in business?
>And how do you expect advertisers to buy space on sites
>if the ads are too small for an effective message? I
>repeat: no advertisers equals no sites, and then there
>will be NO ALTERNATIVES for anti-advertising visitors
>to go.

There is no law, either of nature or enacted by any
Earthly government, which states that the Internet is a
revenue-generating medium.

The Internet was created for a specific purpose: to ensure
that critical data survived all but the most devastating
of nuclear wars. In time the Internet grew large enough
to support the free dissemination of data, which in turn
led to discussion groups and email. The World Wide Web
was developed for the purpose of enhancing data
distribution.

There was never any underlying business model to the
system. It wasn't designed to facilitate business
activity and today doesn't offer any guarantees of
business activity. The Internet is more than just a
communication medium, it's a data storage and retrieval
medium.

If someone can develop a business model which works
across a network, great. But there is more to business
than setting up a PC somewhere and running a few
applications on it.

The vast majority of people are using the Internet for
educational or personal interests, not to pay their bills,
not to support entrepreneurs who want to make millions of
dollars in advertising revenues, not to give the big
corporations another way to sell their products.

In another 10 to 20 years that may change. But right
now, business is not the primary focus of the Internet.
It never has been. And it's naive to be outraged at the
fact that people don't want the business community to
intrude on the public playground.

Business doesn't support the Internet except in one way:
Internet service providers charge fees for access to the
network. They are, given the current infrastructure, the
only industry with any guarantee of revenue, continued
revenue, or hope of profitability. Everyone else has
to figure out a new angle. And the surfers are NOT
obligated to accept advertising.

More than 75% of the Web's content is provided free. A
lot of that content comes with banner ads, that's true.
But the banner ads are right now underperforming. Why?
Because there is a glut of Web space. And that glut is
exploding at an exponential rate.

There is simply no statistical or mathematical reason to
argue that forcing people to look at large, ugly, intrusive
ads is going to save the Internet advertising industry.
The surfers don't have to look at those ads if they
don't want to. They can go elsewhere, and they will.

Until such time as the business community comes to grips
with the realities of the Internet, it's going to be real
tough for the business community to be innovative in the
right ways. And people who come up with the real cutting
edge ideas may be shut out by the traditional advertisers
who so desperately need them.

Right now, any traditionally established business with a
Web site needs to look at that Web site as one tool in the
shed. Keep them all sharpened, and be prepared to learn
new ways to use them. An Internet-based business is
really going to have to fight for money. And most likely
the Internet-based businesses which succeed will be the
ones actually selling products and services, and not
depending on advertising.

Heck. Yahoo! is online advertising's greatest success
story. And THEY are changing their revenue model. If the
one company which showed the rest of the world how it could
be done is no longer going to depend on advertising
revenues, then the online advertising community needs to
take stock of the changes in the world. The house of
cards is falling.

We still need online advertising. We just can't expect
it to pay the bills.

Not unless all the advertisers out there are willing to go
back to paying 5 to 10 times what they are paying today.
There must be a few thousand people on this list who buy
advertising. Are any of them willing to turn back the
clock?


Michael Martinez
 Science Fiction and Fantasy info_at_xenite.org
  Visualizing Middle-earth, a book for all Tolkien fans
   http://www.xenite.org/



Received on Wed Apr 04 2001 - 13:52:42 CDT