In Battle With Ad Blockers, Ad Industry Fesses Up To Alienating Users (iab.com) 398
itwbennett writes: In a post on the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) website Thursday, Scott Cunningham, senior vice president of technology of IAB and general manager of its Tech Lab, issued what amounts to an apology for "[losing] track of the user experience" and called on advertisers "to do better." But it may be a case of too little, too late as "a report (PDF) released in August forecasted that U.S. websites will lose US$21.8 billion in ad revenue this year due to ad blockers," writes Jeremy Kirk.
Thanks, Scott! (Score:5, Funny)
Thank goodness you speak for every advertising agency and website operator in the world. I guess we can expect a more balanced approach from here on out.
Re:Thanks, Scott! (Score:5, Interesting)
From what I can tell, most website operators are at the mercy of advertising agencies. Basically it's a case of let the advertising agency have their way with the site, or don't get any ad revenue. Or get another advertising agency, but there don't seem to be many of those that pay well.
Re:Thanks, Scott! (Score:5, Informative)
This is absolutely true, and it's why I don't run ads on my site. No ad agencies that I'm aware of allow you to screen ads in advance, and I'm not prepared to put something on my site if I don't know what it is, particularly since ads are frequently a vector for malware. Also, accepting donations in return for not running ads has been more profitable than running ads ever was.
Re:Thanks, Scott! (Score:5, Informative)
Try "Project Wonderful" you have the option to screen all ads and all ad modifications.
Also the other thing you can do is create a media kit (google it) you can deal directly with the advertised and host the ad yourself if you so chose.
My solution (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Thanks, Scott! (Score:5, Informative)
So if he's saying it, it's not because users are thinking it; he's saying it because advertisers are thinking it.
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Re:Thanks, Scott! (Score:5, Insightful)
So if he's saying it, it's not because users are thinking it; he's saying it because advertisers are thinking it.
No. He is saying it because they (advertisers) are seeing so much effective pushback that it is having a real affect on their numbers. The arguments against advertisers haven't changed in the last 5 years, the amount of ad-blocking has.
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By what? Which one were you thinking of? The Internet Architecture Board, the McConnell AFB in Wichita, Individual Address Block, the International Assn. of Book-keepers, the International Assn. of Bryologists, the UK's International Accounting Bulletin, the Israel Assn. of Baseball, IAB meteorites, or the Interactive Advertising Bureau (an online advertising trade group, different from the UK's Internet Advertising Bureau, which this guy is part of)?
I do agree, it's pretty stupid that there's two trade g
Re:All the good TLAs have been taken... multiple t (Score:4, Funny)
These asshats need to pick a new TLA... IAB is already taken.
Almost all the three letter acronyms, except the ones using very unusual combinations, have been taken. Multiple times.
Clearly we need to upgrade to the Extended-TLA format (ETLA), which allows for 1 more letter!
Or put another way... (Score:5, Insightful)
U.S. websites will lose US$21.8 billion in ad revenue this year due to ad blockers
Advertisers saved US$21.8 billion by not advertising to unreceptive customers
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Re:Or put another way... (Score:4, Informative)
They don't expect you to click on ads in every case. They expect you to remember WXY Corp when you're about to buy a widget or service they offer. Which is why they want their ads to be so obnoxious, so you will remember.
Re:Or put another way... (Score:5, Insightful)
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How are they misogynistic? I'm not disputing it, I just haven't seen a Carl's Jr ad in a long time.
Re:Or put another way... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the point is that it sexually objectifies the women. Aka it says the burgers are the objects to sate your hunger just like these attractive women are the objects to sate your horniness (ardor?)
Granted, the guys are being stereotyped as well. And then we're making assumptions about gender all over the place because who really knows?
I don't know that I'd call it misogyny. I get that the modern definition equates sexual objectification with hatred/dislike but that seems a little illogical to me. Certainly it's still negative because people are more than their sexual characteristics.
And why not call out all of western culture with regards to women then? Shoes, clothing, jewelry, makeup, etc are almost all aimed at enhancing women as sexual objects...
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Of course no one forced anyone to do this. We've been conditioned and then raised our kids in the same way.
Sweatshop workers aren't (always) forced to work there but if they want a job so that they can eat then they put up with it anyway. All of the other sweatshop workers do.
Obviously objectification isn't as bad as that hyperbole. I honestly don't think we as a society should do anything other than strive to be more self-aware and teach our kids to be better people than we are.
People have kids and then pi
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Where do you see those? On television? Who still watches that? I think the last time I saw a Carl's Jr. ad was probably at least 10 years ago, back when I still had a TV.
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(By the way, I talk about links because of that one time I saw an ad that pointed to ashleyrnadison.com in a portal that is quite popular in my country, and that offered no means to report malicious ads.)
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They expect you to remember WXY Corp when you're about to buy a widget or service they offer.
And it works! On the rare occasions that I see ads, I definitely remember the company the ad is for. And I avoid buying anything from that company as much as possible.
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Re:Or put another way... (Score:5, Interesting)
And by them being obnoxious we remember who NOT to buy from. I, like the guy above, have never clicked an ad but i have refused to do business or buy products from many obnoxious advertised products. And yes Ive seen plenty of storys about poor click through also. so ya they cry about everything. whatever happened to that camera/webcam obnoxious ad years ago? Poof gone no longer in business.
I've clicked on ads many times. Not because I wanted to, but because the ad resized during the page load and I was trying to click on something else, but it jumped under my mouse. IBM, take note.. I only clicked on Ken Jennings twice this week on the Slashdot as because it resized after loading. Consequently I harbour negative attitudes towards Ken Jennings, Watson and IBM.
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They don't expect you to click on ads in every case. They expect you to remember WXY Corp when you're about to buy a widget or service they offer. Which is why they want their ads to be so obnoxious, so you will remember.
Web ads are not the only ones that work that way. [wikipedia.org]
Yeah nobody clicks on TV ads, or NASCAR. Yet Coke (Score:3, Insightful)
Coke, Charmin, Tide and other major national brands spend billions on TV advertising, putting their logos on race cars, blimps, and all sorts of non-clickable ads.
Notice I listed major national BRANDS, not major national PRODUCTS. It's all about branding. When you're ready to buy a router, you look and probably see options in three categories:
Top brands, Cisco and Juniper.
Brands you've never heard of, like Raytel.
Brands you recognize but don't know much about.
Most people will prefer to avoid brands they'
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The fact that the radio stations were allowed to vet ads basically forced the advertisers to walk a line between annoying and something that the
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They get paid by both views and clicks. The ad industry believes that even if you subliminally suggest brands at someone, even by being obnoxious, you will later on remember that brand and choose it. And even if you don't choose it, if it's obnoxious enough, you might talk about it with other people about how obnoxious they are and then those people have been suggested that brand.
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I was going to say, they didn't lose a dime on me. I never click on ads (except by mistake) so they wouldn't get any real ad revenue from me whether I use an ad blocker or not.
The statistics on ad click through suggests that the vast majority of the time its accidental.
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Advertisements work on you. Unless you aren't human, or are a retard or something. If your brain functions, ads work on you.
Period.
Wanna argue? You personally never X or Y? Bullshit. Not only would you be very likely to lie to yourself about that, you don't have an objective observer to verify. And lets be real- they wouldn't spend billions advertising if the effects weren't both real and immediate. It's a massive industry for a reason.
May as well claim cars don't work because you didn't drive one th
Re:Or put another way... (Score:5, Insightful)
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair
People give churches billions of dollars a year, too. That doesn't mean prayer works.
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The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much - Jas. 5:16b
God's promises are conditional. If you haven't had your prayers answered, look to yourself first. If you're sure you are upstanding, then examine what you are asking for.
Jas 4:1-3 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and rec
Re:Or put another way... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, if I pray for something and don't get it, it's my fault, either because I'm not a sufficiently good human being, or because there's something wrong with what I prayed for? You do realize that that is precisely the sort of thing someone would say when they strongly believed in something that didn't work, don't you? And that this attitude can hurt people?
When religious people talk about religion in ways that can't be tested by objective observations, they might be telling the truth. When they say that religion provides certain objectively verifiable benefits, they're on scientific ground. When they then cover up their lack of success with blaming the unlucky for their bad luck, it sounds like said religious person is rationalizing like crazy.
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> People give churches billions of dollars a year, too. That doesn't mean prayer works.
Lets go over how wrong you are.
Level 1 - "The False Equivalence" - A church is an organization that may or may not be headed by people. We'll assume it is. The people in charge of the church would be the equivalent of the people in charge of a company that purchases ads. The people in charge of a church aren't buying anything, but the people in charge of Hoozle Brand Mooshledooshles sure are. This is a false equiva
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See my nickname
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There, fixed that for you. And the adblockers have the right to claim 10% on these savings, so according to my calculations advertisers owe 2.18 billion to Eyeo and the likes.
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Yeah. I absolutely hate when people say this stuff.
I mean, how can you "lose" something before you ever had it?
You are predicting the future and then saying its a loss when it doesn't come true...
I mean, if I went around saying that I lost a billion dollars that I never had in the first place, people would think I was insane.
Re:Or put another way... (Score:5, Insightful)
Targeted ads have mostly missed the mark by a mile.
I tell advertisers to be present when I search for your product and be competitive. Flooding me with ads for a product just after I have made my purchase is futile. How many cases of toner do they think I want to buy after I bought a year's supply?
Your best advertising is by having an easy to navigate website with real content. If I am troubleshooting a laptop and need to find the hidden latch holding the keyboard in, brands that bury the info are not brands I would buy for myself.
When selecting lighting equipment for my church, I only bought equipment with operator and programming info readily available so we could see how it would be useful.
When selecting an ocilioscope, searching for minimum requirements often reveals additional features that used to cost lots of dollars for the propritory value added software. I am done with batteries not included features. Only products with fully functioning features are ever considered. Been down that road before. Bought a scope with a communications module. The software to simply transfer the screen shot to the PC was bundled in a mathlab type application for 1/2 the price of the scope as an option. That is a super fast way to loose sales. If a scope has a communications module, it should work without additonal purchase for basic functions such as a screen capture.
Too little info is often the reason for lost sales. Cripple ware hardware is useless.
Be clear in your sepecs. My old inkjet died and needed a replacement. Carts were specified for about 700 pages at 10% page coverage.
The salesman wanted to upgrade me to the printer that would do 900 pages per cart. Checked online. Cart was almost double the cost and the 900 pages was at 5% page coverage. In short the ink was almost 4X the cost. Salesman didn't bother to tell me the apples and oranges in page coverage. He probably didn't know. I did inform him and got another brand.
Consumers have noticed the cost of operation of many items such as Ink Jet printers and have opted for lower TCO options such as Laser printers instead, or using the cell phone and not printing at all. If you go though an $80 set of cartridges a month, it is very much noitced and use is evaluated.
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Sssshhhhh! You'll wake the marketing people! The last thing that they want to hear is the truth: 99.9% of advertising is ignored - both on the Internet as well as on TV, billboards, movie placements, etc. It gives the marketing people a chance to say "Look! I did something! See! There is my brand name!". But seriously, does anyone pay attention to them?
On TV these days everyone uses a DVR or similar device and skips over the ads (hence not even seeing them at all).
On Web Browsers, the ads are either i
Little is lost "due to ad blockers" (Score:5, Insightful)
Talk about missing the root cause. Ad blockers are only used because publishers have gone so ridiculously over the top in creating annoying, high bandwidth, high cpu-usage ads.
Re:Little is lost "due to ad blockers" (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Little is lost "due to ad blockers" (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't forget that some ads are now a vehicle for malware; ad hosters never vet their content much anymore.
The possibility of ads being infectious malware is the primary reason I block them now.
Reducing page load times is the second reason I block them.
Being able to find the actual content buried in an ad-laden page is the third reason I block ads.
Make ads less weighty, less intrusive, and less likely to fuck up my PC and I'll think about allowing them again. Maybe.
Re:Little is lost "due to ad blockers" (Score:5, Funny)
.
How the ad industry got from the results of those surveys to disaster they are doing on web pages is a mystery to me.
Questionable Method (Score:2)
Any professional salesperson knows people inherently want to please others, so they are more willing to say 'yes,' than 'no.' It is well-known that among experimental subjects, there is a strong will to please the experimenter (see milgram, etc.) so it is unsurprising that the results show an absurdist tilt.
It's like walking up to a stranger and asking, "do you like my hair this way?" Of course, most people will say, "yes."
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I hate it when I use a web browser that doesn't have an ad blocker installed. I don't know how people put up with it. Browsing the web without ad blocking is a miserable experience.
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A few months ago, AdBlock Plus started getting into a state where there was no blocklist loaded on one machine I use. (Something about my configuration was preventing it from upating, and the old version was having issues with newer browser version I think...)
Did I notice the problem because I started seeing ads all over the place?
Nope. I noticed it because I was wondering why my machine was suddenly crawling to a halt.
Re:Little is lost "due to ad blockers" (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually I think he has hit the root cause. The best adverts are the ones that benefit the user. Take Amazon's reviews. They are often quite useful because they are largely uncensored and written by buyers. I often end up buying stuff from Amazon instead of eBay, even if it is a few quid more, because it has user reviews.
Advertisers are starting to realize this. Rather than the traditional paid reviews (be it money or freebies or after-event parties or whatever) they see that consumers value really independent reviewers who will call a product crap if it is.
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Returns on eBay (Score:3)
eBay's is non-existent if the seller is a lying scumbag.
I used to make my living selling on eBay. Doesn't matter if the seller is a liar or not, you can pretty much return anything if you just utter the magic words "Not As Described". Unless they have changed thing dramatically it doesn't really matter if the seller doesn't accept returns or not. You just tell eBay it was "Not As Described" and they'll almost certainly authorize a refund if you ship it back. My little company got screwed by a number of shady buyers despite us have a no-returns-ever policy.
I'
Bullshit ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not making the ridiculously over-inflated revenue you feel entitled to, and which is based on bullshit assumptions is not "losing revenue".
Acting like you deserved or earned that money in any way shape or form is your damned problem. Having reality bit you in the ass is also your damned problem.
Sorry, but pulling a number out of your ass and saying you feel entitled to $21 billion dollars has nothing at all to do with reality. Get a real business model and earn your money, don't just decree that you being a parasite embedded on a web page entitles you to a damned thing.
No, no it didn't. A bunch of sleazy assholes selling ads is nothing of the sort.
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Amen brother Stoddart! Regrettably no mod points to give.
I'd also like to add that this is also one of several reasons why I no longer watch television in favor of ad-free video models. I'm old enough to remember when there was only about 7-10 minutes of advertising per 1 hour of content, and commercials only happened at the top, bottom, and mid-point of the program. That's now about 18 minutes or more throughout the program.
Re:Bullshit ... (Score:5, Interesting)
The cherry on top of this shitcake is that nothing would be lost if they didn't first of all drive people into blocking their ads.
I mean, let's be honest here. Yes, there have always been the ones that block "on principle". But they were very few and far between. They didn't matter anyway, being the "oh I don't get influenced by ads" crowd anyway, they didn't click them. No loss there.
Where they are now losing is with the masses. The Joe Randomsurfers that have now begun to use ad blocking. And there is NOBODY to blame, NOBODY at all, but the advertisers themselves.
Anyone who has ever done any computer work for Mr. Joe R. knows one thing: They put up with a lot. And I mean a DAMN LOT. Usually, when you get called with a description like "Yeah, well, my computer's kinda getting slow and acting funny, could you take a look?" you can't even SEE the damn browser window underneath all those "helper" bars anymore, and starting the computer takes ages because you have to click away like a billion "please buy our software" windows. Yes, they put up with ALL of this.
Can you even remotely imagine just HOW much you, dear advertisers, had to piss them off to even consider thinking about finding out whether it is maybe possible to get rid of the ads? Do you have a faint idea just how obnoxious you must have been for them to, you know, DO something with their computer?
And that ship has sailed. You got them to do something, and just like they put up with a lot of crap before they went and installed blocker software, they will put up with a lot of inconvenience and "sorry, this page is not available if you block our ads" before removing it again.
Re:Bullshit ... (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. I remember when Google first came out with their ads and they seemed innovative because they were simple text ads. At the time, the "common knowledge" was that you needed blinking Flash ads that played sound, triggered full screen video if the mouse cursor went anywhere near the ad, and spawed a dozen pop-up ads. Anything less and users would ignore the ads. And, of course, as users tuned out your garish ads (even without using ad blockers), you needed to go even more garish to force them to pay attention.
The advertisers dug themselves into this hole with the types of ads they tried pushing on users and now they're acting surprised that users view ads in a negative manner and try to block them.
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Sorry if that didn't get across: Yes, that's basically what I meant. They will not remove their ad-blocker when facing a "no content for you, damn moocher". They will close the tab and check if it's available somewhere else.
And you may rest assured that they will try to abuse the law. They've done everything else, the only thing left that could prop up their failed business model and keep it from being subjected to the laws of capitalism is the laws you can buy.
Re:Bullshit ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, here's the other problem with that: we're the product.
See, Slashdot doesn't author any new content. Their value, whether they realize it or not, is in the people who comment.
Slashdot without the comments is a rather pathetic news aggregator. It certainly wouldn't generate nearly as much money as a pay-walled site which just links to other sites. Because nobody would give a damn.
Sites whose primary selling feature is an abundance of crowd-sourced/user contributed data who suddenly think the value is intrinsically independent of those users can get a nasty shock when they start to demand money for the privilege of participating. Experts exchange, being a prime example.
So, Slashdot can sell ads. People may or may not block them. They can also sell subscriptions so we can see "articles in the future" and whatever else that gets you. But, really, the value in a site like Slashdot is its users -- even the crazy ones like the "you're all cows" guy.
But the front-page of Slashdot with no comments and discussions merely linking to other web sites and the odd puff piece from Bennet Haselton or the articles Nerval's Lobster shills for Dice? Yeah, good luck making a business model out of that.
Charging to get links to other people's content? Not so good as a business model if you ask me.
Re:Bullshit ... (Score:4, Interesting)
So, Slashdot can sell ads. People may or may not block them. They can also sell subscriptions so we can see "articles in the future" and whatever else that gets you. But, really, the value in a site like Slashdot is its users -- even the crazy ones like the "you're all cows" guy.
Seriously, it wouldn't be Slashdot without the trolls - it would be a bland, boring place. My early reaction to the comments to this story was actually "where's APK? I hope he's OK". There's a real sense of community here that keeps people coming back (no, not the "we're all friends" nonsense, no real community is like that either). Mess with it and the community dies.
But fortunately Dice seemed to get that - heck, I should probably change my sig now.
That's the problem with paywalls - people are only going to pay for original content, not news aggregation, and a lot of what news sites do is just aggregation of AP stories and stories from other sources. How sure can you be that yor produce enough original content to survive a paywall? Maybe the paywall easy to bypass hedges your bet.
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Ads are the easiest way to monetize.
Other ways are to target the users or groups that ARE willing to pay and serve them an "enhanced" product.
You could also ask for donations or use a service like Google contributor.
Other than that, it may just require a radical shift in the way things are done... maybe an "Internet tax" that is built into your (or your ISPs) bill for the pipe whose proceeds would go toward funding free public infrastructure where anyone can host anything and can monetize in any way they wa
Get what they deserved (Score:5, Insightful)
Advertisers: fuck you here is your ad
Now
advertisers: hey please don't block our ads thanks
Users: fuck you
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Exactly! Advertising on the internet has become self defeating.
Advertisers: Too many people are ignoring our ads...make them more visible and harder to ignore!
Users: These ads are a pain and are giving me a headache! Time to start blocking them!
Advertisers: They are blocking our ads! They can't do that!
Users: Its my computer, I pay for the bandwidth that your ads were wasting so GO TAKE A FLYING FUCK AT A ROLLING DOUGHNUT!
Biggest problem is malware (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see how that will fix any problem related to malware......the problem is that malicious people are allowed to buy ads. That is the problem they need to fix.
Re:Biggest problem is malware (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me like there needs to be some sort of significant penalty for any ad network found to have let something malicious slip through, otherwise they have very little incentive to clean their act up. They'll just go "oops, well, we won't sell ad space to CyberMafiaMan2000@gmail anymore", and turn right around and sell it to CyberMafiaMan2001@gmail instead.
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You'd have to employ someone to look at any of the content they intend to serve (and hope that don't just change it later) and manually inspect it for nefarious code, which isn't always possible to detect if it's obfuscated sufficiently well or exploits a previously unknown attack vector. That's already more work t
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How do you propose to solve that problem [of malware in ads]?
There are a couple ways:
1) Screen people who want to buy ads. Right now it's easy to do with no human interaction.
2) Text-only content (still have to worry about xss and validation mistakes, but that's a more tractable problem).
Re:Biggest problem is malware (Score:5, Insightful)
Hold sites and ad networks accountable for the shit they serve. If they're serving malware, penalize them.
Yes, exactly.
Then we have no choice but to conclude they're a bunch of greedy, self-serving bastards who don't give a damn about our security, privcy, or the perception they're part of the problem.
Which is what we've done, and why we run ad-blockers.
Are you suggesting we should be giving the benefit of the doubt or saying they didn't meant to do it and it isn't their fault if sleazy players delivered malware? Why the hell would we do that?
Sorry, I'm sticking with the conclusion I've already made: I simply refuse to trust the integrity or security of an ad network, and I owe them no obligation to do otherwise, and I don't give a crap about their business model or revenue stream.
If the ad companies won't take responsibility, then they cannot be trusted even a little. And that becomes their own damned problem.
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Wow, I'll turn off all my blockers right now! (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, wait. No, I won't. Because it is indeed too late. I could, and did, put up with advertisements when they didn't take too much bandwidth and weren't too offensive. That time ended years ago. I now adblock on every device / every browser, and install those features for all my clients as a default. I'll never go back. You screwed yourselves and have nobody else to blame.
Wrong! (Score:5, Informative)
No, U.S. websites won't make an additional $21.8 billion in ad revenue due to ad blockers.
You can't lose what you don't already have. This sounds like entertainment industry economics.
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"U.S. websites won't be able to injure people to the tune of 22 billion dollars, due to the fact that people own their own machines that they paid for themselves, maintain themselves, and house in their own homes, with their own dollars."
Great news.
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It's the same logic that gives us headlines like "Some tech company [usually Apple] misses projections in earnings call". No, they didn't miss a damn thing. If a projection fails to match what actually ends up happening, that's the fault of the projection.
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That's just what it sounded like to me too. Years back, the music industry was posting record profits. Year after year, they were making more and more money. Then, one year, their profits slipped a bit. Suddenly, they were declaring that "piracy" cost them $X (where $X was the difference between what they made and some value larger than their previous year's record). The concept of the market naturally shrinking seemed foreign to them. It just HAD to be piracy!
Advertising is DEAD. Find another business model (Score:5, Insightful)
The unfortunate truth is that once someone experiences the speed and cleanliness of adblocking, they simply won't go back. Not ever.
And, as explained in a previous post, the second thing they do is show their friends. And their relatives. And their social contacts.
And so it expands, like neutrons in a nuclear warhead; the chain-reaction gain is greater than 1 and the constraint of business models
("we don't take your word for the claim that the ad was shown") will either have to break down, or the whole business is "game over".
My advice to webvertizers: update your resume and find another line of work.
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The unfortunate truth is that once someone experiences the speed and cleanliness of adblocking, they simply won't go back. Not ever.
Once you go block, you never go back.
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The advertising companies will figure out how to bypass ad-blockers, then the ad-blockers will figure out how to block the new ads, lather/rinse/repeat.
If the ad companies did a few things, people wouldn't feel the need to block ads:
1. Don't auto-play sounds or moving images.
2. Don't react when the mouse moves over or near your ad. Only react when your ad is clicked on.
3. Don't serve ads laden with javascript/flash/whatever. Some simple javascript should be fine but if the script can't be vetted in a few mo
We accept your apology (Score:3)
Yes, we really do. Thank you.
Huh? No, we're not going to deactivate our adblockers. What does one have to do with the other?
Seriously, the whole thing smacks of someone who tried to dick over his business partner, simply because he was used to getting away with it. Then, noticing that he cannot this time, tried to use more invasive, brutal action against him and finally, noticing that even that doesn't work this time, resorts to whining and begging.
I'm fully expecting getting sued next.
Re:We accept your apology (Score:5, Interesting)
They'll go after the ad block authors, first with incentives, then with threats. They'll try to get laws passed, they'll try to hook into existing property rights violations like DMCA. They'll fight and fight to shit up your life because they've been able to get paid for it up until this point.
We'd better have a plan for all of these points!
Re:We accept your apology (Score:5, Interesting)
Make it a malware filter instead of an adblocker. Freely configurable, of course, so "the cloud" can add malware as it is found.
Unfortunately some nefarious elements might add benign, wholesome advertising sites...
"... will lose US$21.8 billion in ad revenue..." (Score:3)
Nope, they haven't "lost" anything. This is just like the bullshit "loss" numbers claimed due to so-called digital piracy. It wasn't guaranteed revenue even without the existence of ad-blocking software. Our brains are perfectly capable of "blocking" ads without software augmentation. Ad-blocking software is just a convenience for what our brains were already doing with a bit more effort. Like math.
Doesn't bother me at all (Score:2)
"...U.S. websites will lose US$21.8 billion in ad revenue this year due to ad blockers..."
It's funny how there's no way I could care less about this.
Ad companies suck at their job (Score:5, Interesting)
The ad industry really sucks at their job (especially Internet ads). Their job is to make consumers LIKE them, to WANT to watch the ads and buy their products, but they end up having the opposite effect.
Imagine if you are a software developer, and instead of writing new code, you find yourself regularly deleting code that others wrote on your team (and all available backups), forcing them to re-do their work. If you were this bad at your job, would you expect to make any money?
The ad industry is faced with several huge problems:
1. Ads take up too much bandwidth. They need to use more efficient content formats (yes, even if that means IE6 users can't see the ads), compress ads (yes, even very lossy compression) to reduce their size, and improve caching behavior, so they have absolutely minimal performance impact.
2. Companies that produce ads or aggregate ads from disparate sources do a very piss-poor job of vetting ads to make sure there is no malicious code in the ad. Hijacking links, CSRF, drive-by downloads, ad chaining from one site to another, opening more ads upon closing existing ones, and links to explicit content are very common. These are malware behaviors, people. Advertisements intended for paying customers should be much more respectful of the consumer's personal space and *not* make every possible attempt to invade their system and prevent them from closing the ads.
3. Most ads that we view are not relevant to us. We would never buy whatever is being sold, either because we know it's trash, or we're simply not in the market for that type of product (selling women's dresses to single guys, gaming mice to grannies, etc.)
4. User trust in the ad system as a whole is at an all-time low, mostly due to the past effects of attempted identity theft, personal information exfiltration and malware installation attempts of a large proportion of the ad networks.
These factors mean that users are left with two alternatives: either don't visit websites that display ads, or use an ad blocker.
If the ad industry can't come together as a cohesive whole and actively seek to eliminate these bad actors within their industry, their negative influence is going to continue to drive users to block ads, even if a significant portion of the ad industry completely cleans up their act.
At this point, the only ads I can tolerate are Youtube ads which can be skipped after 5 seconds. Not only are they sometimes relevant, but they're much more pleasant to watch than most of the annoying popups out there, and they come and go very fast if I'm not interested (5 seconds is a rounding error since the video might take that long to buffer anyway). Not only that, but they are also rendered using the same efficient codecs that Youtube uses. I've even stopped to watch one or two full ads.
Imagine if 95% of car mechanics at car dealerships deliberately tried to screw you by saying things are broken that aren't (deliberate lying, not accidental misdiagnosis). How many people would trust mechanics vs. trying to fix it themselves or asking for a trusted friend's help? Most people would not be willing to bring their car into the dealer in this case. In reality there's still a significant percentage of bad apples out there, but I think it's much lower than 95%. Unfortunately, in the ad industry, the percentage of bad apples is very, very high, and the percentage of people trying to do the right thing is very, very low.
Re:Ad companies suck at their job (Score:5, Funny)
What do you mean "imagine"?
Dumber than dumb... (Score:2)
There was no ad blocker for broadcast TV way back when. Ads were stupid and annoying and became universally hated, and the audience gradually learned to walk away from the TV during the commercials. A few brighter lights among the ad community realized that to cut through the wall of hatred, they would have to create entertaining ads. Those who succeeded actually got people to look forward to their ads.
The internet ad community has been too lazy to notice that they could do better. Their ads need to be
Boo hoo (Score:3)
I am a bit surprised that anyone in the online ad industry recognizes that they act like scumbags, but this is too little, too late. They've already burnt their bridges with me.
Also, I notice that not a single mention was made of doing something about the primary reason I block ads: the spying. Which makes me believe that regardless of their crocodile tears now, they fully intend on continuing with what I consider to be their most objectionable practice.
RTB (Real Time Bidding) is the real threat (Score:3, Informative)
That scummy platform is the bane of my browsing experience and the worst culprit when it comes to saturating pages in flash heavy bullshit. Enjoy this article from 2013 from suits singing the praises of how much they're going to eyefuck everyone: http://www.businessinsider.com/rtb-or-real-time-bidding-is-the-future-2013-9
Here's an overview of why RTB or real-time bidding could make the difference in mobile, digital advertising's new frontier:
It could help solve the CPM problem: The glut of ad inventory as global audiences rush into mobile has dragged on mobile display ad CPMs (CPMs refers to the cost per thousand impressions). That means publishers can't monetize their mobile audiences effectively via ads. Advocates of programmatic — or automated buying and selling — say it can deliver the scale and efficiency needed to effectively match buyers and sellers and boost CPMs.
- Leveraging location data via real-time bidding (RTB): RTB is a style of programmatic buying in which digital advertising opportunities are auctioned off in real-time. The auctions take place in milliseconds as advertisers bid on the right to show you an ad immediately after you open an app or click to a new web page.
- On mobile, RTB could be extremely powerful because consumers take their devices everywhere — to the mall, the car dealership, Starbucks, etc. "You have a source of media that's with someone constantly," says Jamie Singer, director of client services at Everyscreen Media, a platform for mobile RTB that was recently acquired by Media6Degrees. "You're working in real-time, and getting information based on location."
- Helping to reach the holy grail of mobile advertising — controls and efficiencies: Believers in RTB and programmatic for mobile say they are making giant strides in perfecting their technologies, so they'll have the ability to leverage consumer data on mobile and track users as they do on PCs (while still being sensitive to privacy concerns). That will include location, contextual, and demographic data layered on top of real-time ad requests.
- Some publishers already achieve higher CPMs with RTB than they do with traditional ad networks: As a result, RTB is seeing wider adoption across the mobile ad ecosystem, and positive momentum on both sides of the equation. The sell-side is providing more premium inventory, and larger publishers. And the buy-side is seeing more demand for RTB from advertisers and agencies. Of course, RTB and programmatic are contributing to hyper-efficient markets where ad prices tend to be low. The key is for RTB to bring scale to premium mobile ad marketplaces, bring in scale-focused brands, and lift all boats that way.
FUCK YOU RTB!!!!!!!!!! LET IS BROWSE IN PEACE!!!!
Users have always been alienated from advertising (Score:2)
Do what advertisers hate: click on ads (Score:3)
Back when I rand ads on my website, the click through rate was horribly low, and that's what the advertising agencies used to demand very low rates for displaying ads.
The strategy everyone who hates ads has adopted is to never click on ads, and as a result, a website displaying 10000 ads will probably only get a handful of clicks.
So the strategy I've adopted is to click on evry ad I can. Especially on websites I like. With such low click through rates, just one user can double or tripple a site's revenue, and by the same virtue double or tripple an ad agency's costs.
It only takes a few seconds to open every ad in a new background tab that I'll never see. And I get the benefit of helping a website I like, while costing the advertisers money.
I'd think it wouldn't take an incredible number of people adopting the same strategy before advertisers have to change their game.
Re: If he were really serious... (Score:3)
That doesn't make any ad sense.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
I disagree. I'd pay real money for a live video stream of that. I'm not alone.
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Agreed. Ad blockers are helping us move towards this, and no other thing.
Re: (Score:2)
The old saying for marketing is that I know I am wasting half my ad dollars, I just don't know which half.
Re: (Score:2)
Bill the vendors for the ads you attempted to insert and you're not losing money.
Great idea! Now, who's going to be the first to tell their clients they're going to be billed this way?
Re:Why would ad revenue suffer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Presumably because people want evidence what they're paying for works. They want to know so many people saw it, so many people clicked on it, and some percentage actually bought it.
Digital advertising pretends like it is their "right" to know these things, and to track all the places you go so they can better know what to sell you.
The rest of us have decided "no, really, fuck you, where I go and what I do isn't your damned business". Which means we'll block the hell out of these analytics companies as much as possible, because we don't agree with the premise that we've consented to be part of their business model.
So, if a website serves ads, which don't run scripts, and which are served up with their own bandwidth? I might not take extraordinary steps to block them. Start pulling in god knows what from a dozen other sites who all want to set cookies, run scripts, and track me everywhere I go? I'll block that crap all day long.
If your business model is predicated on my participation, you should not be surprised that my participation is neither mandatory, nor beneficial to me.
The problem is the ad companies feel entitled to this information. People are now starting to tell them that's not true.
There's at least 10 external sites on Slashdot. The business model of none of these companies concerns me. The children of the employees of Scorecard Research can starve alone in the streets for all I care; it's not my problem to supply Scorecard Research with any information or be the basis for their revenue stream.
To the people they advertise to, these companies are nothing but parasites on the internet. And that's their damned problem.
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Re: (Score:3)
I went to a website once that had a message where ads would normally be, asking me to turn off my adblocker to support that site. Fine. I did. It loaded an ad. I read the page and then went back to Word or whatever else I was doing.
1.5 hours later, my laptop shuts itself down due to low battery. I'd left the page open when I alt-tabbed away from it and the Flash ad that should have been an animated GIF thrashed my CPU until the battery ran dry a couple of hours sooner than it should've. I still needed to us