Google Says Ad Blockers Will Save Online Ads 419
azoblue writes "Google — the world's largest online ad broker — sees no reason to worry about the addition of ad-blocking extensions to its Chrome browser. Online advertisers will ensure their ads aren't too annoying, the company says, and netizens will ultimately realize that online advertising is a good thing."
A good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
I think most people can understand how ads are good in keeping sites free, but I don't think we'll have the pleasure of non-intrusive ads ever. So we'll all be stuck using ad-blockers.
And allow them to collect demographic data... (Score:5, Insightful)
And, presumably, if there are ad-blocking extensions to Chrome, they will send their information back to Google, and give Google information about precisely which ads are being blocked.
So, when company X comes to Google and says, "Your prices are far too high, most of our ads aren't making impressions anyhow, they're being blocked by clever browser extensions!", Google can come back and say, "Well, we've actually got some data on that, and..."
If you're as good at it as Google (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can guarantee you (Score:1, Insightful)
wrong assumption (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course the core assumption here is that people block ads because the ad content is a problem.
What they don't realize (and what people in marketing can not realize, or they would have to admit that their whole professions is being a parasite and a PITA) is that it is the advertisement itself that is the problem.
I don't give a heck about what you're advertising for, nor what style, images, words, whatever you use. I don't want to see your crap. If I need "product information", I will find it - ironically - on Google. The difference is that I'll be looking for it, instead of getting it shoved down my throat, willingly or otherwise.
Why I block some ads (Score:2, Insightful)
While I don't use adblock per se, I do use a combination of Firefox's advanced option to disable animated gifs (actually, to have them animate only once) as well as flashblock so I don't have to see animated flash ads.
The reason I do this is because I'm used to reading books; books do not have anything that animates in them, and anything that animates or continuously moves is very distracting for me when I am reading something. I don't mind ads with bright, flashy colors; magazines have had those since the beginning of time [1], but I can't read a page when I see something animated; it's as annoying as having a fly.
As an aside, I remember in the early 2000s when Slashdot was very much against having animated flash ads. Now, they're very common here. I hope, now that the economy is picking up again, that Slashdot will go back to not having animated ads that I have to block. Also, it would be really nice if Adobe gave flash an option where a flash document would never animate until you clicked on it.
[1] The air conditioner was invented so color printing presses used by advertisers would not have the ink run.
Re:wrong assumption (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And to them I say (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't worry, you aren't the intended target.
The idea seems to be - if the ads aren't too annoying, they are less likely to be blocked, and ad makes will be encouraged to make those less annoying adds.
Or more simply: Google is hoping that ad blockers will get rid of the more annoying ads that encourage people to get ad blockers. The idea is that everyone has a different point of "too much". I suspect google thinks that ad execs will end up targeting a middle ground. Probably little/no animation, no sound, and no more nudity/blood/violence than would be appropriate ofr the normal customers of the target site.
The most easily annoyed 25% are probably not going to be considered - nothing will satisfy them anyway. Most people, however, don't mind non-intrusive ads.
Re:Firefox users with Adblock: 12% (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:wrong assumption (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ads? What ads? (Score:5, Insightful)
I already pay my ISP for my browsing experience - I have a bunch of websites that I can maintain advert free because I work for a living. If others have to rely on their advertising models to stay afloat, that's not my problem. The internet will still be here adverts or not.
Says the guy on ad funded slashdot.
Re:And allow them to collect demographic data... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's a bit more nefarious than that. Allow me to finish that thought for you:
Google can come back and say, "Well, we've actually got some data on that, and...it appears that without the add blocker, your ad will be seen by 275 billion more people a day. We can add your adds to our "safe list" to allow them to get through our add blocker, but it will raise your rates by 35% in order to cover the administrative costs of maintaining your position on that list".
At which point people will just start using 3rd party adblocking software again to block all ads, and the cycle continues. Either:
Either way, we've nothing to worry about.
Re:wrong assumption (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And allow them to collect demographic data... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Umm... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm going to go out on a limb and say they're talking about me. In 2004, I installed a bunch of ad blockers, and I saw next to no ads. That lasted for a few years until I got a new computer. With the new computer, the ads were far less intrusive, and generally not worth going through all the ad blocking hassle (which isn't much, so obviously a threshold was crossed). The stupid monkey was gone, all the blue/red flashing background was missing, etc. I'll still keep FlashBlock on until the day the machines rise up against their masters, though. A line was irrevocably crossed when an ad started making noise and wouldn't shut up. Flash is great for games, but for so much of what's done, a simple JPG would suffice at a fraction of the development and delivery cost.
The very next useful ad I see... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I can guarantee you (Score:3, Insightful)
If the content is fantastic, there will be large scale contributors.
http://mises.org/ [mises.org] has no advertising that I've noticed. They have some million-dollar contributors.
I have a newsletter site that is free, with no ads, and I have some contributors that offer me a few hundred a year. I don't even openly ask for it (there's a link to contributing that just says "Contribute."). If the content is good, the money will still come in.
Re:A good thing (Score:3, Insightful)
That's my opinion too. Google's text ads I don't care about one bit. Banner ads - I don't mind them as long as they are "safe for work". I DON'T want to be browsing MSNBC's news section and have some woman in a bikini advertising "Hydroxicut" or some other weight loss pill flashing on my screen.
The really annoying ones though are indeed the ones that the GP mentioned. Those ads that pop up when you scroll and cover the page until you find the (usually well hidden) close button for the ad. Or on online video sites that try to insert ads before the videos play. That was fine on TV when the ad to content ratio was measurable and consistent, but when browsing an online video site I can be flipping between tons of videos - many of which I might watch for 10-15 seconds before flipping to something different. If I have to deal with a 10-15 second ad before each one starts I just get frustrated and go somewhere else.
Re:And to them I say (Score:5, Insightful)
Hey - Any time you visit a site and block their ads, you're stealing the Internet! Personally, I click on all banners and buy at least one item from each advertising vendor to support wherever I visit. Otherwise, I'm afraid that this whole "Internet" thing just won't stick.
Seriously, though, some places have it right. Google's ads are fairly unobtrusive and typically (although not always) relevant. Amazon's "People who viewed this item also viewed" or "...untimately bought" links are terrifically useful. And Slashdot's ads (IIRC) are certainly nerd-oriented and can be disabled if you give them money or contribute regularly - Seems like an OK system.
All that said, most places have it absolutely wrong which is why AdblockPlus and NoScript are my first two stops when installing FireFox.
Re:Only geeks and nerds care about ad blockers (Score:3, Insightful)
So, who do you think helps when family / friends / whoever has computer problems?
Yea, it's those geeks. What do you think they will install first when they try to find a solution in the Internet to some technical problem? AdBlocking. Mandatory 10 seconds.
And people like it. They talk about it and others follow.
General demographic is catching up to ad-blocking very fast.
Re:wrong assumption (Score:4, Insightful)
Some ads can be informative and can remind you of an issue you needed to solve last week and still have not.
That is a minute fraction of all unsolicited ad's. The cost benefit is not even remotely there.
There is a very real cognitive cost associated with every single unsolicited, unneeded, unwanted ad. And that cost over time adds up to a huge loss.
The entire marketing industry is in denial about that. A real shame that so many trillions of hours of people's lives and attention are being wasted on such dross.
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An unobtrusive ad is a non-functional ad. It is a non-sustainable business model.
Re:Ads? What ads? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A good thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Most people are OK with Ad's on some level.
Yes, the ad's that don't work.
The entire point of an unsolicited ad is to grab a person's attention. If it doesn't do that then it's not working. And a person's attention is valuable to them.
If an ad "pays" for the attention in some way (e.g. entertaining or actual useful information and not spam) then it might be okay but almost no advertising does that.
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The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
Re:And to them I say (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno. I think there's something to be said for looking at the problem in economic terms. Some people tune into the Superbowl to see the advertisements, after all, so that's a kind of exchange: entertainment for eyeballs. I don't mind the advertisements in Google's search results because when I don't want them they don't intrude, but they're often useful enough that I click through before doing a new search. That's win-win for the advertisers and me.
The problem I think is with crude advertising methods from the era of old media. The extreme difficulty of getting many high value impressions by old medial techniques means that if you want to scale your business, you've got to do it with a huge pile of low value impressions. At some scale, the old media advertising game becomes about racking up sheer volume. Since there is no way of distinguishing good impressions from bad, and you *need* impressions, the guiding principle is that there is no such thing as a bad impression. Think of the difference between carpet bombing an entire city and having an agent stick a ricin tipped umbrella into your target as he strolls to work. The assassin is more effective period -- not to mention cost effective. If the only weapons you have are unguided bombs, then no death in that city would be a "bad" one.
If the marginal benefit of the next thousand impressions is greater than their marginal cost, the advertiser will go for it. What Google has done is increase the opportunity costs of going for unwanted impressions. Why do that when you can find consumers who *want* your information? If the process of giving *unwanted* impressions is harder, so much the better for me (and Google, whose business is built on a competing strategy).
Google's search result adverts are a good deal for me: information that is often useful at the price of a few square inches of monitor space for a few seconds. That's the same strategy behind the advertising supported "free phone" idea. Done in an old-media any-impression-is-a-good-one manner, it would be hideous. Done in a way that is useful to me, I might not mind it so much.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
In case of Google it's quite justified - their ads are the only widespread ones which consistently don't seem to be annoying to vast majority of people.
When was the last time you've heard somebody being fed up with them? (vs. eye-raping GIFs or similar Flash ones? The latter often slow, loud or covering the webpage proper)
I Am Always Very, Very Leery... (Score:5, Insightful)
...of anyone who uses the word "netizen."
Re:And to them I say (Score:5, Insightful)
This is absolutely backward, though. When advertisers realize fewer people are responding to their ads, there reaction is to make them MORE annoying, MORE obnoxious, and hence more attention-getting. HEAD-ON!!! APPLY DIRECTLY TO YOUR IDIOT-DOME!!!
The way I see it, the only end-game is for advertisers to work closely with site owners so that ads are integrated with the content in such a way that software cannot distinguish the ads from the content.
Re:Ads? What ads? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And allow them to collect demographic data... (Score:5, Insightful)
Either:
That's exactly right. The problem with people who try to come up with nightmare scenarios for how Google could screw you over is that 90% of them begin with the assumption that Google is populated by people who can't quite figure out that actions have consequences (and probably can't find their way out of their house in the morning).
Realistically, Google's single largest asset as an advertiser is their relationship with the millions of users that take advantage of their products. The moment they start abusing that relationship for short-term profits, they end their position as the premier ad vendor, and they know it.
Tragedy of the commons (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ads? What ads? (Score:3, Insightful)
That depends on the answer to the following question:
Will the general public be fine with subscription fees to their favourite free online services?
If the answer is no, then the internet won't be be here without adverts. At least not in any meaningful, useful form.
What is advertising? (Score:3, Insightful)
Generally, an advertiser wants to accomplish a couple of things: (A) make the target demographic aware of its product or service offering, or (B) raise that existing awareness... remind people about the product or service. In both cases, they are ultimately attempting to influence people who would otherwise not spend their money, to do so.
Personally, I find that motive A, if demographically appropriate, doesn't bother me that much, and in fact, has been useful to me at times. After I've seen the motive A advertisement once, subsequent viewings fall into motive B. I usually find motive B extremely annoying. Back when I watched television, I would see the same exact advertisement multiple times a day. Before I started using Mozilla and Adblock, I would add sites to my hosts file constantly. One of the few motive B advertising methods that never got on my nerves are coupons and discount offers.
Once you've gone a while without seeing virtually any advertising, your perspective changes a bit. The times when you are exposed to an annoying advertisement (on another person's computer, somewhere with a TV playing, rent a car and turn on the radio) it's even more distasteful than you recall. I think the annoying methods are crumbling fast. As Clear Channel destroyed the value and variety of radio, MP3 players rose to fill the gap; people obtain their news from website articles, sometimes using adblockers, while newspapers lose subscribers. Between independent video content, DVD collections of shows, Tivos, and piracy, people can get their episodic video fix without seeing a single commercial.
Advertisement exposure is no longer all that mandatory. The other side of this, however, is that people still want to know about products and services that interest them. As such, a person like me, who hates annoying old-school advertising, willfully signs up for deal mailing lists from my preferred hardware vendors, actively seeks out reviews and product previews on sites that cover my interests, and constantly monitors feeds of local news / reviews concerning the sorts of local businesses I like to visit. I am empowered by features like RSS, which make that kind of monitoring possible. The companies who do their best to get their products reviewed far and wide, who publish press releases, etc... will receive my attention. If they make a good product or offer a good service, that attention may have positive results for them. If advertisers wish to stay ahead of the curve (or just plain afloat), they need to start looking at this a lot more. Potential consumers are sending a pretty clear message: Be useful, or shut up.
Old behavioral experiment (Score:5, Insightful)
To train a horse to lift one of its front legs whenever a bell rings, you start out with a piece floor that can be partially electrified to deliver a mild shock. You ring the bell, you deliver the shock. After a while the horse learns that to avoid discomfort it needs to raise its leg. It lifts the leg - no pain.
Now comes the tricky part: after a while you remove the shocking floor. Now the horse will still lift its leg whenever the bell sounds; and what's more, this behavior will even become stronger and stronger ingrained, since there is no more punishment and the "correct" behavior is re-inforced.
Now assume that instead of a horse there is a user, replace the electric shock with annoyance inflicted by ads and the act of lifting the front leg with using adblocking software. This means that in order to overcome the strong aversion of adblock users you have to offer a very, very high incentive and strong proof that reverting to the old browsing habits will not be punished by more annoying ads.
Re:And to them I say (Score:4, Insightful)
have always seemed intrusive [sic] and sometimes downright useful.
The whole point of an ad is to gain attention. Unless you take subliminal advertising seriously an unobtrusive ad is a non-functioning ad. It is a non-sustainable business model.
And useful? You have got to be kidding. Anybody who bases any purchasing decision at all based on unsolicited advertising is a fool.
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The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
Re:And to them I say (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, maybe it's just me, but I have been noticing less and less flash ads lately. Less annoying and intrusive ads as well...
I think it's just you. I turned off my ad-blocker one day to see what the wild was like and I nearly threw my computer out the window.
I would say that the worst form of advertising is putting a 10 paragraph story across ten pages to up ad exposure. Nothing annoys me more than that (and ad blocker can't do anything about those).
Re:And to them I say (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, if the character is going to put on shoes anyway, why not just let them be branded shoes? Would it have been better if the logo was blurred out? No. It has no affect at all on the story or how well it's told.
Re:Ads? What ads? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is such a weird, one-sided view of the Internet. I'm already paying for my connection. Why should I pay the costs of the sites I visit, too
This is such a stupid comment.
I already paid for my house, now I need pay for furniture?
I already paid for my car, now I need pay for parking?
I already paid for my phone, now I need pay for for every call I make?
Costs and Wages (Score:4, Insightful)
With prices up 200-400% and wages up 50%, I have to be selective.
What country are you living in? Unless you are talking about a time span of decades it certainly isn't the USA. In fact in 2009 the CPI fell [wikipedia.org] for the first time since 1955. Wages certainly aren't up 50% on a nominal or real basis unless you are talking about a decades long trend - and on a real basis they have arguably fallen [workinglife.org].
Re:And to them I say (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong. "Unobtrusiveness", used in this context, is not a binary trait like you're assuming it is; you're trying to make it a synonym for "invisible". In this context, we're using the term "obtrusive" (and "unobtrusive") to confer degree. So "unobtrusive" doesn't mean "invisible", it just means "not as obtrusive as really annoying and in-your-face".
Google ads are most certainly "unobtrusive", compared to any Flash ad, and even any banner ad.
And yes, basing a purchasing decision solely on advertising is stupid. But without advertising, you frequently will never learn about products and services that are available to you. For some things, you may already know of their existence, and a Google search will help you find places to buy that widget from. But for other things, unless you read some article or third-party testimonial or your friend tells you about it, you don't know that it exists unless you see an advertisement. Sure, word-of-mouth is a great way to learn about things without being unduly influenced, but unless your business is very mature and has all the customers it needs, relying on word-of-mouth for advertising is foolish.
Re:Good theory, but disproved by reality. (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? I always wonder about people who say this...you find ads annoying, and you don't actually engage them in the intended way (i.e., convert to an actual sale), but you feel some obligation to sit through a mini-pitch?
Have we forgotten that advertising is not an end unto itself? Advertisers are not trying to get appreciation for their beautiful work, and they don't really care about views that don't convert. So, if you're not interested in buying anything, don't beat yourself up.
I don't feel bad at all when I block ads. When I want to buy something, I go out and find it. I think that besides movie trailers, I've probably only bought like 3 things in my entire life that I wouldn't have otherwise bought if not for an ad. If all ads went away tomorrow, I would not miss them in the least, and I would definitely appreciate the lower cost of products that don't have to pay for huge marketing budgets. (Imagine it—soda companies could turn a handsome profit while cutting the cost of a can at the vending machine to, what, 7 cents? Maybe 10? Not that I drink soda, but it is the most apt example.)
Re:Ads? What ads? (Score:3, Insightful)
Easy solution: FlashBlock (now available for Chrome)
Blocks all the worst offenders, and leaves static images, plain text and the occasional GIF.