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from the that's-what-I-wanted-to-hear dept.
Ads have long been part of the trade-off for users of the free Web, but the rise of ad blockers is making it increasingly difficult for publishers to sustain that ad-supported model.
That's according to a report published Monday by Adobe Systems and PageFair, a startup focused on assessing the cost of ad blocking and proposing alternatives.
While PageFair clearly has a vested interest in illustrating the negative effects of ad blocking, the findings of its study with Adobe are difficult to ignore. Most notably, ad blocking will cost publishers nearly $22 billion this year, it reported.
Ad blocking has grown by 41% globally in the last 12 months, the report found, amounting now to about 198 million active ad-block users around the world.
There were some interesting geographical differences highlighted in the report, too. For instance, in the U.S., ad blocking grew by 48% over the preceding 12 months to reach 45 million active users by June. In the U.K., ad blocking grew by 82% to reach 12 million active users over that same time frame.
Meanwhile, those numbers will surely be on the rise on the mobile side, Adobe noted in a blog post, given that Apple's iOS 9 will likely include ad-blocking features in Safari by default while Adblock Plus is already available in limited beta for Android.
Ad blocking represents "a major, growing problem for both digital publishers and marketers," said Greg Sterling, vice president for strategy and insights with the Local Search Association.
In many ways, the ad-blocking phenomenon is a response to security and privacy fears that have arisen in the culture at large and a rejection of the state of advertising on the PC internet, Sterling said.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday August 13 2015, @03:01PM
I modded you "insightful" even though I disagree with GNU on this. "Creator" in no way implies a deity. If you build a radio, you have created a radio. Likewise "content"; open a box and what's inside? Its contents. Look at a web page and what do I see? Its contents. Both words are fine, and GNU is wrong about this. Don't they have a dictionary?
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday August 14 2015, @03:21AM
Don't they have a dictionary?
Just because a word is commonly accepted to mean X, that doesn't mean you have to agree that people should use it to mean X. The word "piracy" used to mean "copyright infringement" is just propaganda to make people emotional. Yes, it might be accepted by a lot of people, but that doesn't mean using it is good. If language evolves, then it can also evolve in good ways. Many words that were used in the past in certain ways are no longer used in those ways.
Artists are often almost worshiped whenever the issue of copyright is discussed. They are "creators" who deserve hundreds of years of copyright and anyone who says otherwise wants starving artists. I see no reason to call them such a thing. I prefer to be more specific when possible. Furthermore, I would say you assembled a radio.
The point about "content" is that it is often used for propaganda and in ways that don't have a clear purpose, causing confusion. I would say the person I replied to did so. In general, I try to avoid propaganda and buzzwords that the copyright thugs like to use so much.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday August 14 2015, @07:05PM
Well, I wrote in my latest book One might think I would be all for ever-increasing copyright lengths, having registered copyrights as early as 1984 and still registering them. One would be incorrect.
Art and literature, like science and technology, are built on what has come before. “If I see farther than ordinary men, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants.”
Art (especially music) and literature are both suffering very badly because of the ridiculously long copyrights, and we, as a society, stand to lose much if not most of it. Imagine how technology would suffer if patents lasted for ninety five years! That’s how art and literature are suffering.
The problem with literature and the arts is the greed of the industries (I give electronic copies of my books away for free on my web site. Pirate away!)
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org