Interesting Results

[andrewducker]

2/3 of us block ads, 2/3 of us think that the future of news sites is advertising based, and nearly 2/3 of us would miss news sites if they vanished.

This seems to indicate that, at minimum, 1/3 of is are acting counter to our own interests...

Comments

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

Ah, but do the 2/3 that think the future of news is advertising based mean that they think news sites will successfully generate their revenue from adverts for the 1/3 of people that don't block ads? In which case as long as the percentage that block ads doesn't become critical, some can block while news sites can run ads and won't go under so we miss them.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

There's a good chance that the answer is "newspapers are just buggered". However, as various people are pointing out, that doesn't mean that *reporting* is buggered, because the need is still there - people still like to know what's going on. It may just mean we're in for a larger change than expected.

The intervening period might be a bit rough, of course, and there's no guarantee that, say, high-quality investigative journalism backed by cash will survive well if there's no business model for it.

[feorag.livejournal.com]

If I find advertising annoying and intrusive, I will avoid the product as it is obviously crap if they have resorted to such desperate means to bring it to my attention. It is therefore better for advertisers that I do not see their ads!

I don't even try to block simple text ads as they are rarely annoying. Animations, flashy stuff and that is guaranteed to have me running to your competitor should I have a need for the type of product.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

Andy, have you considered running a poll to see if your flist actually get any benefit from web-advertising? Presumably even those that block ads now, used to see them before FF and ABP came along.

Something like:
Buying products as a result of an advert on an unrelated web-page:
-never
-once or twice
-a few
-often
Buying as a result of an unsolicited email/text
...
Buying as a result of adverts within the same site (e.g. "You may also like..." on Amazon)

Re-word as you see fit, but you get the idea.

I'd be intrigued to see if web-ads actually have any effect cos I know I've never used one and don't trust a random redirect. Even if I did see an ad for something I wanted, I'd be more likely to pick a URL where I knew I could find it than trust where the ad-click might take me. Advertise a new film out on DVD and I'll type www.play.com rather than click the ad.

[sneakingyoda.livejournal.com]

Then there is the mysterious part of the population that actually buy sky dancers...



I've always wondered...

[ipslore.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily! It could be that 1/3 block ads and think newspapers need to be ad-based but wouldn't miss them, 1/3 think newspapers needs ads and would miss them but don't block, and 1/3 block ads and would miss newspapers but don't think they need ads.