It seems every time I turn around, I keep seeing another article about some company that depends on online ad revenue to "adjust" (thats corp-speak for lower) its outlook, or advertisers complaining that ads on the web just don't cut it and have little value for what they cost.
As a web consumer, I'm not a big fan of ads (as the big red ABP stop sign in Firefox so diligently reminds me). I've gotten used to ignoring them for the most part, just like most everyone else on the web. For me, I've mainly blocked them for one reason: When I go to a site, its for the site's content. When I'm sitting there waiting and glance down at the status bar and see "Waiting for ads.someslowadnetwork.com", and the page doesn't load because of it... I'll either move on or block the ad. I recall an old adage that the "fastest bits are the ones that never make it to the wire" and I enact that.
So, what do we do about this? Ads aren't going to go away, but its obvious with things in a decline on both sides, that something isn't working. Here is my thought:
As a web consumer, I'm not a big fan of ads (as the big red ABP stop sign in Firefox so diligently reminds me). I've gotten used to ignoring them for the most part, just like most everyone else on the web. For me, I've mainly blocked them for one reason: When I go to a site, its for the site's content. When I'm sitting there waiting and glance down at the status bar and see "Waiting for ads.someslowadnetwork.com", and the page doesn't load because of it... I'll either move on or block the ad. I recall an old adage that the "fastest bits are the ones that never make it to the wire" and I enact that.
So, what do we do about this? Ads aren't going to go away, but its obvious with things in a decline on both sides, that something isn't working. Here is my thought:
- A user visits "somecoolsite.com" and gets a page with no ads. They require you to login, but instead of you having to register, you submit your OpenID, and you are in. As a new user you get to browse the site, and it might have ads on it, or it might not. It might have some features disabled, or some other limiting factor, but you get in.
- The site talks about some "cooladnetwork.com" site, and how you can "subscribe" to their site and view their ads and in turn, earn "credits" to "somecoolsite.com" to unlock features, or get no ads.
- The "cooladnetwork.com" site also takes your OpenID, and lets you build a profile. You can tell them as much or as little about yourself as you want. Your age, sex, income bracket, likes, dislikes, all the nice shiny things that advertisers want to know about you to better target you with ads.
- Now here's the trick, the more you tell them, the more valuable you are, and the fewer ads you need to see to earn credits to "somecoolsite.com". The other thing is that since you can tell them what you want, you are more likely to get ads that you might be interested in, and that is a win-win for both consumers and advertisers.
- When you run out of credits, its a quick jump to "cooladnetwork.com" to view your account, do a nice transfer of funds to "somecoolsite.com" and your back in business.
- How many credits to charge and what "value" (money wise), is all up to the site and ad network.
The nice thing is, I get to view ads on my schedule, they don't interrupt my content (either by making it slow, or by bloating the layout), and both the site and advertisers get more value for the ads.
Now there is one big caveat to all this... Privacy. Now obviously advertisers already do tricks with cookies and other things to try and know as much about you as they can. At least this way, its up front, and YOU control how much info is known. When the advertiser wants to pony up an ad, they specify the demographic: males, 18 - 25, 25K+ who like cars. When you see this ad, they don't know that YOU saw it, just that someone in their demographic saw it. There could even be a weighted formula for just how good a fit that I am in based on how far outside the curve I am for their statistics if they want to have people that are "close" to the demographic, but just outside.
The site could even show the ad along side a captcha to make sure the ads are being seen. Imagine something like: Who is the advertiser in the above ad? or some other question that has to be answered, and could easily be done so by looking at the ad.
Maybe one day this will be a reality instead of only words on a web page. Or maybe someone will stumble across this entry and say... "Wow, thats a great idea, here's some mega-bucks, now go build it." Or maybe they'll say, "What a novel approach, maybe you should patent it."
Or maybe they already have.
EDIT: Bah, don't forget the title.
Now there is one big caveat to all this... Privacy. Now obviously advertisers already do tricks with cookies and other things to try and know as much about you as they can. At least this way, its up front, and YOU control how much info is known. When the advertiser wants to pony up an ad, they specify the demographic: males, 18 - 25, 25K+ who like cars. When you see this ad, they don't know that YOU saw it, just that someone in their demographic saw it. There could even be a weighted formula for just how good a fit that I am in based on how far outside the curve I am for their statistics if they want to have people that are "close" to the demographic, but just outside.
The site could even show the ad along side a captcha to make sure the ads are being seen. Imagine something like: Who is the advertiser in the above ad? or some other question that has to be answered, and could easily be done so by looking at the ad.
Maybe one day this will be a reality instead of only words on a web page. Or maybe someone will stumble across this entry and say... "Wow, thats a great idea, here's some mega-bucks, now go build it." Or maybe they'll say, "What a novel approach, maybe you should patent it."
Or maybe they already have.
EDIT: Bah, don't forget the title.
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