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Archivist David Rosenthal asks on his blog, Has Web Advertising Jumped The Shark?.
He points out that there are four big problems with Web advertising as it currently exists: The bad guys love it, the readers hate it, the webmasters hate it too, and the advertisers find that it wastes money. He then goes into detail on each point and concludes that not only does everyone involved hate the system, but that it is causing actual harm to society.
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Discussion: Has Web Advertising Jumped The Shark?
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The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane holding his own hand.
-- Fred Allen
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 24 2017, @06:12AM (3 children)
Advertising, in general, has been abusive for about 40 years. When I was a child, I watched television a good bit. Mickey Mouse, Romper Room, Mr. Rogers. Back then, you actually watched about 55 minutes of content, for 5 minutes of advertising. Then it dropped to 50 minutes for ten minutes of advertising. Then, 45 minutes. As an older kid, I remember reading an article, questioning when things would reverse, ie, when we would have to watch MORE THAN 30 minutes of advertising, in exchange for less than a half hour of programming. The abuse only got worse.
With the internet, things are much worse. Go to a site, and try to read a story that requires a few kb of download. To get that story, you also download multiple MB of advertising bullshit. That's about like watching thousands of hours of advertising, to get a minute or two of content.
How, and why, do I owe it to anyone to watch all that trash?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 24 2017, @08:18AM
> As an older kid, I remember reading an article, questioning when things would reverse, ie, when we would have to watch MORE THAN 30 minutes of advertising, in exchange for less than a half hour of programming.
From the clips I've seen on the tube sites (no TV, yadda yadda, sue me), it's way over that now. Not directly - I think the shows are ~22 minutes or so, though sometimes sped-up to squeeze an additional adspot or two. However, a huge proportion of those supposedly-"content" minutes have ads *over* the content, or even ads *inside of* the content. Like banner ads and "sponsored posts" online, but worse.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday November 24 2017, @09:24AM
I must have already cited it, anyway Italians had taken it one step further. On evening prime time there was a 10 minutes show, Carosello (carousel), consisting entirely of ads.
The catch? the advertised product was forbidden to be the main theme of the short film, it could not be shown for more than 4 times or 30 seconds, and so on.
The result? Entertaining short films, 20 years of success, people still remembering some slogans now, 40 years after the last episode went on air, a generation of italian film makers and illustrators cutting their teeth on those.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUJ239u1a3U [youtube.com]
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday November 24 2017, @12:19PM
That's why they have been trying to figure out product placement and integrations for years, because interruptive advertisements are being evaded by adblocking and DVR. It's always lame, though, and hard for enad agencies to measure and price for the customers.
Washington DC delenda est.