The Newspaper Shop -- Monday edition

[mozart]

Originally posted by TankGirl
The freedom from advertising was one of the core elements of what became known as 'Napster experience'. There we had a wonderfully interesting zone of virtual interaction with huge amount of content and virtually no commercial 'noise' spoiling the quality of experience. With later p2p services (and web services in general) it has become increasingly clear that this is exactly what the 'consumers' want. Aggressive advertising that intercepts our surfing and other online activities is simply a nuisance that nobody but the advertising companies and their customers seem to want. Faced with this challenge the advertisers have resorted to spyware/adware technology that they are symbolically trying to push down our throats and the consumer reaction is even more negative.

I could put it even more simply: as a consumer, you want the best delivery you can get for what you're after: that pretty much means content on demand, with all it implies for speed and quality.

After that, there should also be a minimum of negative experience - some of these things are purely technical, such as systems failing, but many are commercial: how much bandwidth to buy, choice of 'paying' by adverts or in cash.

Probably just about everyones ideal is going to be 100% quality content, with no bills whatsoever

being forced on them. There is a lesson here to be learned for the advertisers but it may take some time and struggling until they get it. Just like in real world, there is a need and justification for commercial services and places in cyberspace. It's great to have sites like Amazon from where you can order books to anywhere in the world when you need to. I don't need any aggressive popups to find my way there as my occasional need for new books is a real one.

...

I often wonder why such intrusive advertising actually works - if it manages to get itself noticed, its on the basis of nuts to them - but bizarrely enough, it does seem to be effective