Consumer Ad Blocking Doubles 379
Dotnaught writes to tell us about an InformationWeek article reporting that, according to a Forrester Research report, consumers are fed up with ads. From the article: "In the past two years, the number of consumers using pop-up blockers and spam filters has more than doubled.. More than half of all American households now report using these ad blocking technologies to block unwanted pitches... Today, 15% of consumers acknowledge using their digital video recorders to skip ads, more than three times as many as in 2004." The study would have been more meaningful if it hadn't conflated spam blocking with ad blocking.
How is this a new thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
spam or not, it's all bad (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno. For me, and I suspect many people, there's very little difference between spam and non-spam advertising.
Re:spam or not, it's all bad (Score:4, Insightful)
However, non-spam advertising tends to cover (or help cover) the costs of whatever it is you're consuming (website, TV program, train ride), while spam is completely unsolicited (email spam, junk postal mail).
I guess you'd have to put billboards into the category, though I (unfortunately) don't see legislation against those popping up in a hurry.
Study on effectiveness over time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:spam or not, it's all bad (Score:3, Insightful)
I fail to see by which criteria TV ads are solicited.
Though I do welcome them every once in a while, when they enable me to take a leak without missing a bit of a lengthy movie.
Given a choice, I'd still get rid of them. Most of them are so annoying that they get on my "I won't buy this shit. Ever. Even if the competing product is cheaper." list.
If I want it, I'll look for it myself. See if I find any happy customers.
Re:spam or not, it's all bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, because my $140 monthly cable/internet bill just doesn't seem to be enough...
81% of broadband users... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Broadband households have become even harder to reach: some 81% of those with high-speed Internet access employ pop-up blockers and spam filters."
It's not surprising, either. At one point, it was commonly recognized that computers belonged to the people that owned them, and that it was the responsibility of people writing software to make sure that the software was well-behaved and did what the user told the software to do-- except for deliberately malicious software. While I do not claim that all forms of advertising are malicious, it's becoming the case that websites using lots of pop-up or pop-under ads, or software like games using Massive's technology or other in-game ad-delivery mechanisms operate under the assumption that they are free to do things with the user's computer and consume networking resources to fetch and display content that the user didn't ask for and does not want.
I can tolerate ad-bars appearing on the right-hand side of a page, so long as most of the screen real-estate shows the actual content I want, but some sites do obnoxious and deceptive things like displaying an interstital ad first. My response to that is to copy the ad link into an email, and send a complaint off to both the webmaster of the site I was on, and the site holding the advertising, indicating that their ad was so annoying that I won't be returning to the offending site for at least one week, and that obviously they will be losing my eyeballs and ad impression revenue for that period of time.
It seems to have an effect, too. At least two of the newspapers I visit (the Boston Globe & the LA Times) have toyed with interstitial ads and have dropped them soon afterwards....
Re:spam or not, it's all bad (Score:2, Insightful)
They don't, so why do you bring that up?
Re:How is this a new thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
What consumer cares at all about ads? We don't, it's the sellers that care about ads not the buyers.
I care about ads. There's a reason they used to say (and sometimes still do), "and now an ad from our sponsor". The ads are SPONSORING the program! Somebody has to pay the bills. I'm not saying I never skip ads, but I definitely don't feel intruded upon.
And I thought... (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh -- not enough millions of dollars that way. I have to pay AND watch ads. I'm SOO sad for the Comcast &c CEOs.
Why I was forced to use AdBlock+ (Score:5, Insightful)
Then fancier moving ads came out (maybe some with bugs) and I found some used up most of my CPU cycles in firefox.
Eventually I had to install AdBlock+ so I could be sure that I could have 40 tabs open without cripling the browser.
Sure a fancy ad may only add a little overhead, but when you multiply that by 40 it adds up.
Re:More than that (Score:4, Insightful)
I have ranted about this many times. I will deal with ads on TV, websites, etc. But, I can not stand sitting through 5 car commericals, 4 perfume commericals and 6 soft drink commericals
ok
Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Then why post this here?
Re:Study on effectiveness over time (Score:2, Insightful)
adblocking ~= spam blocking (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you're making the mistake of granting online ads some special significance because they were paid for by mainstream operations, but really, when it comes right down to it, Microsoft Dynamics are not that different from the guy selling penis enlargement pills. An stupid flash commercial for Blackberry has much in common with the spam touting FREE PRON.
I happily deny both of them space in my head.
Re:More than that (Score:5, Insightful)
I love paying $9 per ticket, $20 for a drink and popcorn, sit in a theater with some jackass laughing with his friends the entire time, some baby crying, the guy in front of me who takes his shoes off, getting my sit back kicked non-stop ...
This is why I only ever see movies in gold class unless I'm taking the kids. In gold class you don't get any kids because everybody has to be old enough to legally drink alcohol, you don't get noisy chatter among a group of friends since it's priced out of range for the sort of people that do that, you won't get the feet in the back of your seat unless the person behind you is at about 12 feet tall since the seats are spaced far enough apart that this can't happen.
Re:And I thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
And here I thought I was actually PAYING for cable. What WAS I thinking.
You're not thinking, that's the problem. Your cable bill is paying for ACCESS, not for the production of all the content. Do you think your ISP bill pays for production of all web sites on the Internet? Now, some channels can survive on the puny amount of money they're paid, but it certainly is not going to pay for everything.
Re:How is this a new thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why friends episodes cost nearly $10 million each to make. 6 Actors each getting $1.5 million to produce 20 minutes of content. Without these sponsors paying for garbage ads, maybe we get some decent content that doesn't cost 8-digts for 20 minutes.
The program makes that much money because a LOT of people like the show. Who cares that you don't like it? The point is that money is there, so who should make it? The producers? Quite often it's the actors that people tune into see. Personally, I don't begrudge people making a lot of money. I've never quite understood the attitude of people like you.
If you don't like it, why are you worrying about how much money it makes? How does it affect your life at all?
Re:How is this a new thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as crap on the Internet... Firefox 2, Adblock Plus, the list found at http://pgl.yoyo.org/as/ [yoyo.org], and on my mail server, milter-greylist, SpamHaus RBL, and SpamAssassin with a sensitivity threshhold of 1.0. (and a daily cron task that has SA learn my "Spam-Bin" folder on IMAP as spam). Oh, and ClamAV, too, to block viruses.
Count loyalty in (Score:4, Insightful)
Most webbies of today are free of charge, whereas the visitor has the right to objectively decide whether he or she wants to read it for free or not. I feel that if I browse a site and return to it as well, I also need to give the author something in return. It's all about loyalty and morale. You get something for free and should therefore give something back.
Some can argue that there are too many ads on the sites they visit. If this is true, there is likely a good alternative to that site, too. What better way to show that you're displeased than stop visiting the site?
Re:How is this a new thing? (Score:2, Insightful)
Wrong. The program costs that much money to make so that a LOT of people WILL like the show. Advertising, hiring writers capable of keeping in line with heavily-researched viewer desires, and the competitive market for photogenic actors who can forge an illusory "connection" with the viewer make major television production an expensive business all around. Indeed, the costs are elevated by the need to recover money sunk into terrible flops. [wikipedia.org]
TBS is unwatchable because of the ads (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Firefox Adblock (Score:2, Insightful)
Ahem. They used to be. Nowadays in about 50% of my visits to the main page I get a big square ad in the top right corner that overlays part of the text in the center column, simply making it impossible to RTFI (I=Intro). Talk about (un)obtrusive...
Time is precious-a DVR gives it back to you ! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And I thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? Then why does it cost more to get more channels? If your assertion is true, then it should cost the same no matter how many channels your cable box is authorized to decrypt.
Also, who pays for ACCESS to broadcast stations? There's the same quantity of ads on cable as there is on broadcast TV.
Tear 'em out (Score:5, Insightful)
I realized after I posted, however, that I should have also noted that I am only *really* bothered by annoying or super-frequent ads. Popup blockers and ad blockers were developed AFTER the audience was over-inundated with advertisement. If they had just kept things at a reasonable level, we'd still be watching the ads instead of blocking them. But they get more and more greedy and have to fit "just one more" ad in.
Re:How is this a new thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. It's a death spiral. The more intrusive the advertising, the more consumers will rebel against it, which causes the advertisers to try to be more intrusive to get around the circumvention, and all it does is succeed in annoying everyone. Pretty much the same as viruses and spam. I'm already at the point that I view reading email as a burden. If you want to reach me, IM is faster. When that becomes an ad-fest, I'll move to another medium, staying continually one step ahead of the advertisers.
As for TV, I'm just waiting until the last two or three of my favorite shows are available on the iTunes Store so I can cancel my DirecTV subscription. The math comes out about the same in price for the number of shows I watch regularly compared with a year's DirecTV subscription for three boxes, but with iTunes downloads, there are no commercials, no interruptions, no bugs in the corner of the screen, no sped-up closing credits... basically none of the annoying things that TV networks do to ruin the content.
If and when iTunes content becomes an ad-fest, there's always bittorrent... and if the ads get annoying enough, that's precisely where I'll end up. The surest way for the networks to ensure that they get no revenue at all is to take desperate, panicked steps to increase their revenue.
Re:How is this a new thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also Jennifer Aniston was the only photogenic actor in Friends.
Re:And I thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
Access, as in access to the content. You want SciFi's content, you have to pay SciFi to access their content. That's why it costs more if you have more channels.
Actually, I believe cable operators have to pay the stations in order to broadcast their content. They can't just stick up their own antenna and funnel that to their subscribers.
Also, arguably, you're paying for the convenience of accessing broadcast stations over cable with great reception. Remember one of the complaints about satellite was/is that you can't get your "local stations" so you still need an antenna.
By the way, the reason there are ads on basic cable stations is that they wouldn't sell enough subscriptions at a price that would make it worthwhile. How much does HBO charge? $9.95/mo? $12.95/mo? Would enough people pay $9.95/mo for, say, commercial-free Sci-Fi channel to make it worthwhile?
Re:What really baffles me is (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were an advertiser I'd be interested in how to get my ads to the consumer most effectively. Paying to know how often my ad is blocked seems reasonable.
It depends on what you plan on doing with the information as to whether or not the data is valuable. Sadly, most advertisers seem to focus way too much on how, and way to little on why, people block ads.
Spam=Ad (Score:4, Insightful)
Are they not both advertisements customers don't wish to receive? And it's hard to argue website flash ads aren't as intrusive as advertising in my Inbox. As are the ads on TV shows that come over the speakers at twice the volume as the actual program.
Spam originated on Usenet, so to say that spam has to be sent solely via email is absurd.
Re:Study on effectiveness over time (Score:3, Insightful)
They want you to believe that their product is trust worthy, and this is accomplished by giving it name recognition. People will consider buying an iPod because they can't spit without running into one. They are less likely to buy a Creative Zen despite the fact that it might be a much better product for them simply because they have never heard the name. True, good consumer research can trump advertising, but not every consumer decision is well informed. Even the most ardent consumer researchers (and most people are not) make arbitrary decisions on what to consume all the time.
It takes a real force of will to always research your decisions or, in the absence of research, to simply work off of price. Most consumer don't do this; hence why we have advertising.
Re:How is this a new thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you count how many items you listed there? I counted 7. You're willing to jump through SEVEN flaming hoops to avoid it. SEVEN.
That's a lot of hoops man. I personally really enjoy football (american, NFL) and even I am beginning to become unnerved by the ads. They squeeze them on-screen in-game. Commercials between PAT's and kickoffs. Then back to commercial before the first play of the drive. WTF?
It's very, VERY distracting. Pair that with the need to crank up the volume when it goes to commercial. Ugh. Drives me batty. I get to the point that I mute the TV when it goes to commercial.
When are these people going to buy themselves a clue and scale it back a little?
Re:How is this a new thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
The cost of those ads are being added to the products you consume. In the end you are still paying the bills.
Re:And I thought... (Score:5, Insightful)
DVD's with unskippable commercials, do you think those are really subsidizing the industry?
The fact is, while a certain part subsidizes the industry, the rest is just pure greed and power trips on the part of the corps. They can force-feed you ads, and most people will choose to accept them, so they do so. Again the reference to decreased ad content in movies, because if people show they're fed up enough to drop the service entirely, it might actually get cleaned up for awhile.
Ad arms race (Score:3, Insightful)
As for TV, I'm just waiting until the last two or three of my favorite shows are available on the iTunes Store so I can cancel my DirecTV subscription.
We do sort of the same thing with Netflix. We're ready to drop HBO from our cable lineup. You might have an even better idea there. Download your shows and watch what you want, put an antenna up for local stations. DirecTV always manages to find a reason to raise our rates every year, Dish is worse.
But I'm wondering if the download shows won't start including ads before long? The more people doing something...anything...the more advertisers will pay to be included. Pretty soon it will become a new revenue stream and everyone will be doing it. Instead of a death spiral I might say it's more like an arms race between advertisers and consumers. We're willing to pay more for an ad free medium and they're willing to pay more to get on that medium. Ads aren't really the problem. 20 minutes of ads in a 60 minute program...that's the problem.
Re:And I thought... (Score:2, Insightful)
The commercial channels (ie. 7, 9 and 10 are sponsored by commercials and would probably be a better comparison (though still not entirely accurate to the parent's post context.
The nature of TV is simply too different in Australia to compare to the US market (I would probably argue that NO market is comparable to the US market).
Re:Tear 'em out (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And I thought... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just to point out that you also get 30 mins of marketing crap before the movie starts too... rest assured that money doesn't go the theater, it's another way for movie companies to squeeze more revenues out of the movie.
We honestly have every right to try to avoid the marketing crap thrown at us. It's our choice what we see and what we don't see. If the marketing companies had their way, the advertisements would be on the inside of our eyelids.
Re:And I thought... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Baseball/Football are not the most-watched (Score:3, Insightful)