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Ad-blocking technology is finally taking off in the general population. In the US 15% of internet users have installed an ad-blocker, but among people born after 1980 the number is closer to 30%.
One American journalism startup thinks they have a business model that doesn't depend on advertising -- Low volume, high-quality, hyper-local investigative reporting intended to appeal to passionate citizens that are especially engaged in their community. Will it work? They claim to be close to achieving their budget targets after just a month of operation.
The startup is in Tulsa, about as far away as you can get from the stereotypical centers of innovation and journalism like Silicon Valley and New York City. Is the mainstream of internet development so addicted to advertising and Big Data profiling that they are unable to see opportunities that exist outside of their filter bubble?
Original Submission
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @12:48PM
Funding Goal: $4,500
Progress So Far: $4,500
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday May 31 2015, @01:47PM
Most of that is administration
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @05:24PM
Funding Goal: $4,500
Progress So Far: $4,500
RTFA.
He said he expects to bring in $250,000 annually in sponsorships, and Lorton said he’s already “close to that right now."
(Score: 5, Interesting) by mcgrew on Sunday May 31 2015, @02:40PM
If the morons wouldn't make the ads so damned intrusive and annoying people wouldn't block them. But they have popups, popunders, ads that cover the text and you have to click to make them go away...
If the advertising business is dying, it's from blood loss to a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the foot.
Here in Springfield we have the exact opposite of the newspaper described in the summary. The Illinois Times is a weekly newspaper supported completely by advertising; even the dead tree version is free. Yet they have no more ads than the SJ-R (local daily) that costs a buck an issue. IT's internet ads aren't annoying, the SJ-R has some of the most intrusive internet ads I've ever seen.
Mad at your neighbors? Join ICE, $50,000 signing bonus and a LICENSE TO MURDER!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @04:59PM
If the morons wouldn't make the ads so damned intrusive and annoying people wouldn't block them. But they have popups, popunders, ads that cover the text and you have to click to make them go away...
And even worse, malware.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday May 31 2015, @05:08PM
And of course, anyone who blocks ads or malware-infected ads is a "thief".
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday May 31 2015, @06:27PM
Every time I've seen "content creators" try to claim that shit I always counter with one simple fact.....you consider yourself a business, right? Well when TJ Maxx and other B&M stores put their customers at risk of identity theft? They were on the hook for hundreds of millions. Well your business puts YOUR CUSTOMERS AT RISK of everything from ransomware to identity theft....what makes YOU a special snowflake that doesn't deserve to be treated with the same rules as any B&M business?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday June 01 2015, @04:03PM
They learned that if you stuck with Google's unobtrusive non-glitzy ads, that people did not see them.
Really? I saw them when they were on Slashdot and actually clicked on a few of them. They're the only ads that I've ever intentionally clicked on. They were relevant to the content on the page and not annoying. Now Google tries to target ads to me, rather than to what I'm interested in right now (i.e. the content of the page) and generally does a poor job.
Now, I don't block ads, but I do block (known) trackers and I do block Flash. This ends up blocking a lot of the more obnoxious ads, but I still see the less-intrusive ones.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by ngarrang on Sunday May 31 2015, @07:17PM
I would not call them 'morons'. On the contrary, I think the advertisers are just trying to use intelligence based on studies. They learned that if you stuck with Google's unobtrusive non-glitzy ads, that people did not see them. And if people are not seeing them, they are not selling. That is when they went interstitial, pop-under and pop-over to make sure your attention would be grabbed? Moronic? No. Evil? Yes. But that is the what you get for not subscribing with real cash to each and every web site. They have to make money somehow.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday June 01 2015, @04:09PM
I'm not likely to buy something from someone who has just pissed me off.
Mad at your neighbors? Join ICE, $50,000 signing bonus and a LICENSE TO MURDER!
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday May 31 2015, @08:04PM
What I find interesting is that they are aware that their viewers are blocking ads. I'm seeming more and more of those "We see that you are blocking our ads ..."-messages followed by a plea to unblock just them so that they can provide you with some free quality content. Those are not yet as annoying as ads but I figure it's only a matter of time.
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Sunday May 31 2015, @05:07PM
In the US 15% of internet users have installed an ad-blocker, but among people born after 1980 the number is closer to 30%.
I remain highly skeptical of that claim, much less the claim that some 40% of German users have adblocking installed. Until I actually see "a large analytic firm ...release disturbing figures on the state of the ad blocking scene" I call BS on those numbers.
Nonetheless, I think that you need to offer content that is very specialized, original, and unavailable elsewhere if you hope to make paywalls or subscriber support work. Maybe The Tulsa Frontier can make it work, maybe they can't. Locally The Tyee [thetyee.ca] seems to keep going, and is doing exactly the same kind of work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @08:11PM
Why would you only trust people whose paychecks are dependent on their ability to make scary headlines with data that has not been reproduced?
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday May 31 2015, @05:15PM
I've heard from a couple friends with ties to Oklahoma that Tulsa is a shithole. What they're doing makes sense only because the people who care enough to know what's going on there will pay.
At least they, unlike the rag of another podunk shithole, [ivpressonline.com] can do without the ads. The IV Press is the official rag of my hometown and they will "allow" you to look at the ads (including very intrusive flash popups with audio) for free, but you will have to pay to read the content. It's an encrypted third-party thing, so there's no peeking with FireFox View Source and other Dev Tools.
That content is important to me since I'm no longer there. Before they had the paywall I was able to see that one of my childhood friends got busted at a meth party held at some flophouse, another was found dead in a canal under mysterious circumstances, the "Dear Abby" column about the politeness one of my friends' dogs shitting in all of his neighbors' yards, and the unfortunate death of my friend's sister before that friend had the chance to let me know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @07:58PM
LOL!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @11:10PM
Guess you will have to check out your old friends' Facebook pages and Twitter feeds now (ducking).
(Score: 2) by anubi on Monday June 01 2015, @10:33AM
Jiminy! I am running an older version of FireFox with NoScript.
I pulled the page down and it seemed to load OK and let me see a few stories. It did not seem to deny me anything.
But I did as you said and viewed page source.
Jiminy! Right at 9,000 lines of source code for one page of display! And that was just the JavaScript.
However, the healthcare pages I am supposed to use don't work at all, and it looks like if I cannot sign up personally somewhere and avoid the computer altogether, I simply won't be getting any. I will have to wait for Medicare to kick in, as I have about a year to go on that. Maybe I can play the "stupid computer-illiterate old geezer" and get someone else to do whatever it takes to communicate with the Federal systems. I felt I knew a lot about TCP/IP and the like, but trying to find the hangups during a connection to a federal website, even using Wireshark, is an exercise of finding the needle in the haystack futility.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by ngarrang on Sunday May 31 2015, @07:21PM
From the article, "The site will be ad-free, but Lorton said he’s working to attract corporate sponsors who will help underwrite it."
Corporate underwriting means avoiding writing anything that will shame your underwriters...as it tends to lead them no longer underwriting your venture. If want to make this work, they need to avoid any resemblance to corporate influence, or they are just another Fox or CNN.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @10:41PM
I don't have a paypal account. I will not give my credit card details to Google - not after learning that they give my private information to vendors. So, how do you transfer money and pay for goods in this wild west?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 31 2015, @11:12PM
Cash. Just the way Craigslist suggests, face2face.
(Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Monday June 15 2015, @11:15AM
I can buy a prepaid fixed amount credit card in my grocery store, maybe you can too. Those can be used just like any other card. Don't know how expensive it is since I haven't used it so I'm going to try one of those when my bank account has more than the equivalent of 50 USD in it :D Also my bank allows me to make similar disposable credit cards now, I might want to try that as well.
They'll still track you though, maybe even more, and for a delivery they'll need an address.
Where I live most local online shops will still allow you to ask for an end of the month paper bill in the post for a small fee of about 5 USD (if you pass a general credit check), sometimes I use that. I'll just type that into my online bank and then only the spies will know :3
Same way if I have an actual bank account number for whoever I'm paying anything to.
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