posted by
martyb
on Monday May 28 2018, @04:07PM
from the all-his-books-are-banned-in-my-country dept.
from the all-his-books-are-banned-in-my-country dept.
Jakob Nielsen and his group have long documented that advertising in online media carries a cost in terms of usability. A recent longitudinal study quantifies the effect.
Summary: Increased advertising caused a 2.8% drop in use of an Internet service. The full magnitude of the lost business was only clear after a full year.
We have long documented that advertising in online media carries a user-experience cost:
- Users find many online advertising techniques highly annoying — that attitude has remained constant since we first reported it in 2004.
- Because online ads are so irritating, users have evolved banner blindness as a defense mechanism to reduce this annoyance. (Also a finding that has remained true for decades, meaning that it's not likely to change anytime soon.)
- Even worse (from a web-design perspective), ads poison the well for honest designers seeking to boost the visual design of useful page elements: anything with an overly fancy look may be unjustly taken for an ad and also ignored by users.
[...] Reference
Jason Huang, David H. Reiley, and Nickolai M. Riabov (April 21, 2018): Measuring Consumer Sensitivity to Audio Advertising: A Field Experiment on Pandora Internet Radio. Available at https://davidreiley.com/papers/PandoraListenerDemandCurve.pdf (warning: PDF file).
From: Annoying Online Ads Do Cost Business.
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Annoying Online Ads Do Cost Business
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by realDonaldTrump on Monday May 28 2018, @04:29PM (6 children)
My campaign used what they call microtargeting & psychographics. Different ads for happy folks, horny folks, sad folks, worried folks & angry folks. Different ads for farm folks & office folks, for sports folks & cyber folks. Less money for more votes!!!
(Score: 4, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday May 28 2018, @04:43PM (5 children)
Maybe that must be why you beat Hillary. Maybe when Hillary runs again in 2020, she will know how to beat you. And she will, this time. It is her turn!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @04:55PM (2 children)
Quit being so stupid. If you can.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @05:18PM
Whoooooosh
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 28 2018, @05:24PM
You should eat your own dogfood. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Monday May 28 2018, @04:57PM
Crooked Hillary Clinton is the worst (and biggest) loser of all time. She just can’t stop, which is so good for the Republican Party. Hillary, get on with your life and give it another try in 2 years!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @10:21PM
Hillary Clinton is a modern day William Jennings Bryan.
In 1896, He Lost [wikipedia.org].
In 1900, He Lost [wikipedia.org] again.
Then, in 1908, He Lost [wikipedia.org], finally.
Presumably the D team Got Over It after the 3rd try.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Monday May 28 2018, @04:30PM (2 children)
Let's also not forget, sites that put up really obnoxious or intrusive advertising don't give a crap about their visitors and are just a small step from injecting malware. Such sites are potentially dangerous and SHOULD be avoided.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @10:16PM (1 child)
"Let's also not forget, sites that put up really obnoxious or intrusive advertising don't give a crap about their visitors and are
just a small step frominjecting malware."FTFY. There's no "small steps" if it regularly happens.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Tuesday May 29 2018, @06:47AM
Just go ahead and run your script blockers. Sure, you can't see some businesses... but do you really trust the businesses who are demanding you do stuff that you know is risky and comes out of your hide if they decide that once they have your pants down, they won't prank you?
As far as I am concerned, trust is paramount when deciding to spend a buck, because I know once the buck goes across the counter, it usually stays there, and if I will have to fight a bunch of attorneys to get it back, and most likely lose, if their business model is based on pulling fast ones.
Just like a kid can ruin his reputation fast by attempting shoplifting, a business can ruin their reputation with me by requiring me to do risky things, talking trickytalk, or long winded contracts that look more like a tax form full of little disclaimers in tiny print that legally override what the big print claims. Once they have shown their hand as relying on trickytalk and confusion, I have to think long and hard: Is there anyway I can avoid dealing with them? Some businesses, you can't - they weasel themselves in so their services are required for you to get a tickbox ticked on some governmentally required form, but others who don't have you caught up in some sort of obligation, its as easy as walking or clicking away.
If a business starts out the relationship with trickytalk, confusion, and lies - they've already tipped their hand - you know where this is going. Do you really want this mess in your life? Get the hell outta there! Let some other ignoramus fall into their web of deceptions.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 4, Flamebait) by goodie on Monday May 28 2018, @04:32PM (14 children)
Note that TFA is about audio ads, not web ads. But since we're there and TFS suggests it, I might as well fall for it...
Online ads suck up most of the bandwidth and computing power required to use the internet (and consequently, the natural resources required to create/sustain them). Ads providers design their systems to load ads before content is loaded, start auto-playing videos while scrolling etc. The entire user experience of the internet is basically fucked thanks to advertising. I'll take punch the monkey banners back thank you very much.
I already pay for my internet access, so I should not use my bandwidth for trivial shit I don't care about.
As for TFA, the abstract says it all: "we find that increased ad load causes a significant increase in the number of paid ad-free subscriptions to Pandora, particularly among older listeners". i.e., ads work, they get people to sign up, so we'll keep bugging you thank you very much! And hey, while we bugged you, we also got ad revenue, ain't that awesome?
(Score: 4, Informative) by requerdanos on Monday May 28 2018, @04:51PM (1 child)
(Emphasis added.)
I respectfully disagree. TFA is about data from a study on Pandora's audio ads bolstering and supporting Jakob Neilsen's existing data about web ads and degrading user experience in general. The quote in the summary is taken from the top of the article, not from its murky depths.
(Score: 2) by goodie on Monday May 28 2018, @05:43PM
True, it does confirm past findings on regular ads. But the article itself is only about audio ads for an online listening platform (nothing about the web in there, I did skim through the entire article). Interesting implication though: instead of doing web ads on each printed page, could we have ads only x times per hour?
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Monday May 28 2018, @04:51PM (8 children)
Use Firefox. Sound is off by default in each tab.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday May 28 2018, @06:25PM (6 children)
This piques my curiosity. If you are a Pandora user who keeps the "sound" turned off... Why? What function does it then serve for you?
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Monday May 28 2018, @06:50PM (4 children)
I am a paying Pandora user, so no ads.
But I have to use a different browser for Pandora. It doesn't work in Firefox, probably because of the add-ins I have, so I run it in Chrome.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday May 28 2018, @07:01PM
This makes your advice for Pandora users concerned about audio advertising,
...doubly confusing. Now, not only is the solution to disable sound (effectively disabling Pandora's raison d'etre), but you are recommending Pandora users operate Pandora in an environment where Pandora has trouble even running at all?
I repeat, why? What function would it then serve?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday May 28 2018, @08:13PM (1 child)
Oddly, then, you, YES YOU, are the subject of this whole article.
Annoyed by ads, you decide to PAY THEM MONEY, and so they learn that Ads work, and they shovel in more ads hoping to get more subscriptions.
Thank you for your service. You've been such a big help. There's a special place in hell for useful idiots.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday May 28 2018, @08:47PM
At a used CD store.
I do plan to hurl some tips to the actual artists but I'll be damned if I ever buy a brand-new CD.
I find all my new music through Radio Paradise [radioparadise.com]. At first with their web player and now with RP's iOS App, whenever I hear a song I particularly like I enter the artists and album into a Notes page.
For each paycheck I budget usually $50 for CDs of these favorite artists.
And yes I'm taking an awful risk to buy the whole album. But I am comforted by the fact that to get played on RP, artists have to have the scruples required to not record filller material.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday May 29 2018, @06:19AM
I too had a problem with Pandora/Seamonkey/NoScript. Tried Jango. It worked. Haven't been back to even try Pandora again.
I don't know what I am missing, but its not worth it to me to try to find out.
As far as the ads go, they are like mosquitos. Its a tradeoff before how many of the things I will tolerate before I start getting bug zappers, sprays, or go inside.
There are several really long-winded TV commercials out there now that almost guarantee I abandon the TV right there and then, or at least put it on mute while I go find something else to do.
Its enough now I will actually abandon Star Trek if that face sprayer ad comes on. That woman demonstrates that thing for at least five minutes; ten seconds of airtime would have been quite sufficient.
I am quite sure that many TV broadcasters must have done a lot of study to see just how many ads people will tolerate before they abandon the TV habit. As a kid, I remember the TV being on ALL DAY. But now, many days go by where the TV is not turned on at all. Often if it is turned on, its turned back off before the show is even done, like a half-eaten burrito that was not tasty enough to eat, and the cat won't eat it either. With no attempt to replenish them on the next market run. Once abandoned, alternatives take over the abandoned time slot.
Note that I am not watching TV right now... I am posting rants on Soylent News. Some businessmen actually paid for the marketing skills to discourage my TV habit.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Tuesday May 29 2018, @01:58PM
I'm not a pandora user, but I'm a computer user who understands that (thanks to a planet-load of asshats) most everything must be default deny. My speakers do not receive power, and therefore cannot make any sound, until I explicitly enable them by physically operating the volume knob.
You offer something I agree to accept? Fine, I will allow sound. Otherwise, no thanks. Try ingraining this habit into all your online behavior. It cuts down on 95% of the crap.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @12:11AM
Don't use Firefox. It mandates the use of odious tabs.
Tabs suck.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 28 2018, @05:27PM (1 child)
If it were just the computing power, I wouldn't care much. Two Opterons, twelve cores total, I have computing power. It's the bandwidth! Imagine you've got a two meg connection, and the advertisers well and truly believe that they are entitled to ten meg out of that two. The math just doesn't work out well. You fight back, of you're screwed!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Monday May 28 2018, @08:16PM
Ublock Origin in full interdict mode.
It doesn't even fetch the ads.
The few sites that won't work unless you view their ads, and which also outwit the anti-adblock filters in Ublock are hardly worth the effort to view.
They've had their way for the last 20 years. Its my turn. Kill them all and let the market sort them out.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by goodie on Wednesday May 30 2018, @12:40AM
Love this. From +4 interesting or insightful to -3 Flamebait in 24 hours. :D
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @05:38PM (2 children)
I might click on an ad that is at the bottom of a page and isn't slowing my computer.
Until I get to the bottom of the page, I have something else I want to do. Interruptions piss me off, and will at best be ignored. I may close the page.
Once I reach the bottom, I am much more willing to be distracted by an ad. I'm looking for the next thing to do. I could click on an ad, or at least look at it.
I won't reach the bottom of the page if I can barely operate my computer. If my mouse barely moves, I'm going to close the page.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday May 29 2018, @06:11AM (1 child)
Ah, but if your mouse barely moves, how will you close the page? Muahahaha...
(Yes, I know, keyboard shortcuts.)
(Score: 1) by anubi on Tuesday May 29 2018, @07:11AM
If nothing else, I found browsing the web before NoScript to be highly illustrative of the need to remember ctrl-w.
( I would open up a link in a new tab, and get frozen... ctrl-w would usually put me back to right to where I was before I clicked on the link that got me in that snit.)
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday May 28 2018, @05:40PM (1 child)
Neither his donate link nor mine yielded the desired response
My Give Me A Link box doesn't work either
All of these are denoted as Calls To Action in the advertising biz.
If your ad doesn't come right out and shout Buy Now! Don't Delay! many who would otherwise be happy to purchase your wares won't know that they're expected to fork over their money
Stefan recommends http://davetaor.com [davetaor.com] 's blog. mr taylors call to action Stefan told me this morning is "Buy Me A Coffee"
For me to buy a grande pikes with a tip for the barista is three clams so that's just what I'll ask for
That is, it will shortly after I reinstall Mint. I don't have a clue what happened unless it was the JBOD Gnomes put the arm on one of my mass storage devices
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday May 28 2018, @05:43PM
It's not obvious to me and as always I can't. E bothered to google it
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday May 28 2018, @05:48PM
A twenty page article on a current, controversial topic with just TWO ad units
I tested this very carefully over a period of months
And for two solid years I really did Quit My Job Cor Adsense
After that revenue dwindled because the record industry stopped claiming that all downloads were unlawful
I removed both ad units so as not to discourage organic links
http://www.warplife.com/tips/law/copyright/music/legal-downloads.html [warplife.com]
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jmorris on Monday May 28 2018, @07:21PM (5 children)
I'll go ahead and say it again, know longtime viewers are tired of hearing it by now...
The premise behind this iteration of the Internet is broken. Since most sites are run by commie fruitcups who don't understand business and think money is evil anyway they seem to all fall for this notion (seemingly tailor made for them) that you can run a publication on the Internet by just outsourcing all the revenue side to the online ad merchants and solely focus on the all important content, becoming pure and free of advertiser influence in the process of riding oneself of the tiresome WORK of running a business at the same time. Add a line or two of Javascript at the top, insert a few empty spaces in the layout and the money will just appear to keep the site up and pay everyone what they "deserve" for the valuable "content" they are reposting from twitter with a few lines of snark.
In reality there are only a few enduring business models for publication. The Internet did not change them in the slightest.
1. Readers pay. Almost nobody ever makes this model work at scale. Traditional book publishing comes closest but note how few books per year actually turn a profit. And as literacy declines along with attention spans this will only grow worse. Money from the reader is usually just "earnest money" to prove the reader is actually interested, that you can count the unit as a "read copy" and maybe even recover the per unit costs of creating it. Online the per view costs approach zero anyway.
2. A (or a few) rich sugar daddy pays most of the expenses. Everyone can think of a few of these. Always fairly small publications. He who writes the check calls the shots so these tend toward single issue vanity presses. Self publishers are basically a very small scale example of this model.
3. Advertiser supported. Inserting random ads for dick pills and malware is not a long term model, as witnessed by the fact almost nobody is actually making much money at it now and as the article notes the future is bleak. Netcraft is ready to call this one. However advertising has payed the bills for almost every periodical ever published in the past and can certainly do so on the Internet. So what are people doing wrong? One word: outsourcing.
Advertising works best as a three way relationship between advertiser, publisher and reader. When publishers put as much time and effort into attracting, curating and maintaining long term relationships with select advertisers as they put into the hiring of writers it makes a big difference. Contrast to "the ads are just holes filled with we know not what, please don't hold it against us when you see scams, porn or even when an ad hijacks your PC." The attraction of an equally select and curated readership is just as important because that is what attracts those high quality advertisers. Contrast to "we have bogus metrics on our readers but everybody knows half of them are bots and most of the rest are randos who click in from Fakebook or twatter anyway." When a publisher gets the relationships between advertisers and readers correct the third relationship can develop, between readers and advertisers. Contrast to most viewers now running ad blockers out a sheer sense of self preservation. Building the full threeway relationship is when the magic happens and the money can really roll in for the savvy publisher acting as middleman. But to get there you have to admit what business you are actually in and almost everybody online fails at that first step. When it becomes difficult to figure out whether the readers are there for the articles or the ads is when you roll in cash.
Doubt we will ever see a cash cow like Computer Shopper again, where the ads WERE the primary content, where classic columns like Pournelle's Chaos Manor series were in fact just filler, but anyone who approaches that perfection will certainly prosper. Think about that. All old timers remember a favorite writer from Computer Shopper because they could afford to pay for quality content with the page after page of top display rate ads stuffing the unimaginable (by modern standards) page counts.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 28 2018, @08:37PM (2 children)
Too long winded and whingy. You lost me at "commie fruitcups". Is your comment an advertisement for good ol' american capitalism or what?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by sonamchauhan on Tuesday May 29 2018, @01:43PM (1 child)
I loved it. "Commie fruitcups"?... that's just comical exaggeration. He's on the ball with this post. Customers who can't figure out if they're there for the ads or the content... Love it. Coz I remember that feeling. The feeling of possibilities, that the publication is working for you, not the advertiser. Google.com comes closest.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday May 30 2018, @05:11AM
Yup, it wasn't just Computer Shopper. They were just the best example. Every old 8bit computer had one or more magazines dedicated to it and whichever one you had you probably subscribed to one or more of them and maybe a general mag like Byte. And almost everyone spent as much time poring over the ads as reading the articles. Most hobbies were like that, whether it was model railroads or D&D there were magazines dedicated to it and the ads were an important part of the experience, not an annoyance. Remember when newspapers had ads everyone read? When the local supermarket depended almost entirely on the weekly circular in the paper, when the readers actually read that ad? When ordinary people clipped coupons, not just a few super couponers like now?
On the Internet it doesn't matter. Go to a political site, a model railroading blog, a programming site, all the same crap ads you need to block in self preservation because they are not just noxious, many are downright malware. The same noxious malware on every site, because the same ad networks are embedded on almost every site. The only variation is they are poorly targeted at you based on what other sites you have visited recently.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday May 28 2018, @09:02PM
and that's how I'm going to solicit my clients from now on. I Am Absolutely Serious.
From my very first day at Working Software it was plainly apparent that it was a direct mail company and not really a software company. They had a list of 40k _purchasers_: people who really do like opening junk mail, who really do like reading the offer letters, and who really do like sending money to an organization that claims to publish software.
When money occasionally got real tight I stopped coding and started stuffing envelopes by hand.
For just one particular offer - AFTER VERY CAREFUL TESTING VIA THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD - Working Software dropped a quarter million pieces of mail.
At its peak during my employment, I was the only full-time coder, the owner was maybe ten percent coding, eighty percent tracking the - very small - mail tests and refining the printing on the outside of the envelopes, the wording of the offer letters and the price of the product. His remaining ten was personnel management, which mostly consisted of him taking me out to coffee so I could discuss my concerns with my code.
During that peak my code and Dave's junk mail provided generous livelihoods to all twelve of us, with a gross revenue that year of three million dollars.
But the list I forgot about WSI's list. How could I forget about WSI's list?
Direct mail names are never sold, always rented. The price per name varies but in the early nineties was typically ten cents. If you tried to mail to the same list twice you'd be caught out by such "Trap Names" as WSI's James B. Stanken.
Recall how competitive the software industry has always been.
Given that many small direct mail software publishers are openly hostile to each other, why do you suppose it was that all us small direct mail software publishers were so happy to swap lists with each other?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday June 03 2018, @01:29PM
The #AmazonWashingtonPost [twitter.com], sometimes referred to as the guardian of a @amazon [twitter.com] not paying internet taxes, is a great example of #2. In every possible way!!!
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Monday May 28 2018, @07:21PM (7 children)
So yeah, I use an adblocker. Always. I don't turn it off except for a small list of trustworthy sites that I can count on one hand. I strongly advise you do the same.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 3, Funny) by FatPhil on Monday May 28 2018, @07:58PM (4 children)
you do realise that the low res. highly compressed jpeg, weighing in at something like 10KB perhaps, will be placed on the page by 500KB of javascript libraries.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 5, Touché) by Wootery on Monday May 28 2018, @09:41PM (3 children)
If only there were a set of mature, standardised, declarative technologies for describing and positioning the elements of a web-page. If only!
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday May 29 2018, @05:40PM (2 children)
What might that be, for art direction among different devices? The problem here isn't one of positioning the image as much as choosing which image to deliver in the first place to a particular combination of display size, pixel density, media cost (metered last mile or not), and browser image format support. The <picture> element [caniuse.com] is intended to accomplish this but won't work on IE, Opera Mini, and Android Browser in Android 4.x, which total one out of nine page views (global support: 88.78%).
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:15AM (1 child)
And this justifies hundreds of kilobytes of JavaScript? Super Mario Bros was 32KB!
The modern web is a bloated monstrosity, let's not pretend otherwise.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday May 30 2018, @12:04PM
Actually 40 KiB; you forgot the CHR ROM.
But Super Mario Bros. is not responsive to different screen sizes (fixed 256x240 plane) or input modalities (keys vs. touch screen), not internationalized (the ROM contains only a partial Basic Latin font and only English text), not persistent (no save support until All-Stars years later), and not accessible to users with disabilities. Modern websites are expected to be all five.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @08:04AM (1 child)
That's why I use a NoScript with whitelist. Additionally, if the webpage acts like a bum asking everyone for a money for cheap wine, I double-check NoScript, usually some domain "leaks" so I block it. I'm not against advertising, but instead of asking to turn off Adblock to make users only "view ads", they should be forced (like with Cookies in EU) to not lie, the true thing to write is: To execute untrusted, bug-ridden and unoptimized code on computer, stealing data and sending them to unknown servers. Maybe EU should take care of it?
And maybe, if publishers want to use ads as payment solution, we should ask: If I have not found what I wanted and seen ads, where is my refund?
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday May 30 2018, @09:18AM
Please no. Look what happened [silktide.com] when my government tried their hand at this stuff. [nocookielaw.com]