ONLINE-ADS>> When will the smart browsers arrive?

Jay Luker (jay_at_andover.net)
Fri, 01 May 1998 11:59:45 -0400

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Because I think it's an important topic that I hear so little about, I'm
going to plagarize myself (if our kind moderator allows it) and post
some questions that I've already asked in a separate discussion list
(i-advertising, http://www.internetadvertising.org/).

Here's what got me started:

> Dan Wasserman wrote:
> According to an article in the May 1998 edition of "The
> Computer Paper--Greater Toronto Edition" pages 114-118
> (www.tcp.ca), "these useful utilities...are called by
> various terms: Web, Net, Internet, or browser
> accelerators". Some of the products they reviewed were
> PeakJet v1.56, NetAccelerator, Speed Surfer v3.2, etc.
>
> They go on to describe how this can be a problem for ISPs,
> but more importantly they challenge Web site owners as to
> how they can give accurate estimates of page views and ad
> exposures since many of the pages pre-fetched, never get
> viewed!

It is issues like these that convince me of the need for smart
clients/browsers that can effectively track the viewing of ads and then
communicate back to the server what ads were displayed in the viewing
area, how many times, how long did they appear, and hopefully plenty of
other variables, such as mouse-hover, click location, etc. This
technology absolutely has to be the light at the end of the tunnel, and
I'm curious as to what work is being done in this area.

In the recent "Measuring Impressions" debate there
seemed to be general agreement that the most accurate measurement of an
ad impression would be the number of times it appeared in front of a
viewers eyeballs. Well, duh. Okay, now that we've got that out of the
way, the next step is to figure out a way really track this number.
Smart clients/browsers have to be the answer, but I don't hear much
about work being done in this area.

In his concluding summary (o-a debate, 04/30/98) Tom Shields wrote:

> ... client measured "ad views" aren't practical yet ...

Well, why not? I'm no hardcore techie, but it really doesn't seem like
there should be any big programming hurdle here. We already have
something similar in the form of cookies.

Is it another case of Microsoft and Netscape being unable to come to an
agreement on how to build it into their browsers? Who, if anyone, is
lobbying the browser makers to provide this feature? Heck, the source
code for the next version of Netscape Communicator is freely available
to download and modify; what's being done there? Is there an
organization I can join? It seems like this is something that the IAB
should have covered, but I find the information presented on their web
site to be lacking.

--
| Jay Luker
| Creative Project Manager
| Andover.Net
| http://www.andover.net
| http://www.andover.net/mediakit/
| jay_at_andover.net


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