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Is Madison Avenue the
Information Superhighway?

Here's what Walt, Jackie, and G.P. (best audience submission so far) said... Remember to tell us what you think. The best audience response wins a FREE Spike Webb t-shirt.

 

ack bioJackie Stone
SWP: At the beginning of this year, Web advertising really took off. Now it seems everybody’s Web site has an advertiser or two on board. Does it feel like a sellout to you, Jackie?

JS: I suppose I was hoping the Web wouldn’t become another advertising vehicle for corporate America. A lot of people complain about banners and their load time delays, but I don’t care so much about that. What concerns me is the drastic influence advertisers have on content. We’ve seen what this business model has done for television. That’s enough to make me worry.

SWP: You’re concerned that advertisers will have too much control over what Web sites publish?

JS: Not obvious control, but a sort of disguised influence. It’s rooted in the ratings game. Advertising becomes a strong influence toward mass audience marketing. The more exposures they get, the more they pay. Pretty simple. The problem is it forces publishers into a strategy of building their audience to the largest possible size. At some point they tend to lose the focus and specialization that brought them an audience in the first place. The sad part is that the Internet is so well suited to specialization and the specific common needs of small audiences. Advertising driven business strategies may cause us to lose sight of that. The result will be consolidation into large and very general Web sites.

SWP: Many experts are predicting that the majority of Web activity will quickly narrow to several primary "channels" or mega-sites. You’re saying the advertising model is what’s pushing us to that?

JS: I think it is the primary culprit and that scenario is exactly what scares me. But, I also think it’s worth pointing out that the experts have no experience with anything like the Internet. No one knows what will happen. I personally believe the audience will defy the consolidation prediction. I believe there will be several very popular sites published by media companies and others. But I think their combined audience share will only be a tiny piece of the total pie. Maybe something as low as two or three percent of all page impressions. Then what? Will everybody get used to a very widely distributed audience or will advertisers take their budgets back to the tightly channeled media formats? If I’m right, it will be very interesting to see how Madison Avenue reacts when it gets snubbed.

nack bioWalter Dodson
SWP: Well Walt, you know a thing or two about businesses that depend on advertising as their revenue source. How do you think the trend toward advertising supported Web sites will affect the Net?

WD: First of all, I want to state the obvious; the money has to come from somewhere. The mythical belief that the Web can be free is bull-hockey. Companies can give away products and services for just so long before a tangible, monetary benefit has to be recognized. I think advertising is a great source of revenue for the Internet while it’s in this early formative phase. And by the way, we’ve already got some subscription-based services on the Web. I think we’ll see a lot more of those in the future.

SWP: So you think people will pay to avoid advertising banners and slogans?

WD: If publishers provide content that people want, they will be able to charge for it. This has been true for thousands of years. It may not seem that way right now because everyone is providing free access in order to grab as much market share as possible. Other business models will emerge though. For example, charging per access or for length of usage. We don’t yet know what kinds of Internet services people want to pay for on a variable basis, but we will find out as soon as an accepted way of billing for it emerges. Methods of billing very small amounts of money to individual audience members are just getting off the ground.

SWP: In the meantime will advertising hurt the content we see on-line?

WD: Advertisers are an accidental target for this misplaced concern. People naively think advertising revenue is why media content gets dumbed down. It’s not. Editors and publishers are just trying to please as many people as they can while they’re meeting their deadlines. They have to avoid alienating significant sections of their audience. In my opinion that’s what happens whether the publication’s business is supported by advertising or not. Maybe the diversity of the Web will allow, or force, publications to maintain a more narrow editorial philosophy. But don’t make the mistake of thinking Madison Avenue controls information access, Bill Gates might get mad at you!
GCP says...
First of all, yes it is true that the Web is an advertising vehicle, and that every web-site has at least two or more advertisements. It is also true that there is a longer delay between pages because of the advertising banners. Yes, it is obvious that the advertisers have some influence in the web-pages they advertise to. But it is not THAT obvious, it sort of like a hidden influence that they possess. The Internet is just another advertising market of today, more and more advertisers will advertise on the Web as time passes. Today's advertising is beyond our control, I mean first there was radio,
then T.V., now it's Internet, it had to happen, let's just hope that it doens't become as uncontrolled as it is in Television.

I am really worried about the future of advertising on the Internet, it will grow to an unthinkable amount that we can't imagine. Internet is the future of our lives and there's going to be a lot of advertising in our lives, whether we want it or not. It's inevitable...

I think that none of us can predict the future of Internet, no matter if the topic is advertising or content or whatever, it's an amazing thing that still has to go through some serious changes at first so that it becomes as perfect as possible, and I think that the Internet is going to be more than what we can imagine today.

The Internet is an absolutely amazing thing, I just hope that we don't ruin it like other things we have.

Thanks for letting me say what I think.