Ads in Chat? Ugh.

[bluecuracao]

I'm in the advertising industry, and even I hate this idea.

http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_dis...ac07a9b09f9de8

NEW YORK Advertisers often clamor to become part of consumer conversations. Web messaging service Meebo is offering them that opportunity by injecting ad messages into online chat.

With the release of a new instant messaging product for Web sites, Meebo has rolled out a new ad format that places ad messages between user responses. The text message can be clicked to activate a pop-up window with a multimedia commercial. Once a user engages with the ad, his action is noted within the chat. The idea is to then spur conversation among users about the brand.

Unless the chatters have absolutely nothing else to talk about, I don't really see this happening. Not in a good way, anyway.

[classicman]

me too and I think it suxors. No thanks I get my fill of ads everywhere else.

[Sundae]

The conversation will be about how fucking annoying the ads are. With the occasional, "ARG I clicked that damn thing again!"

I can see it happening though.

[Perry Winkle]

There are a whole rash of web companies that are hoping to make their money by selling advertising targeted at people already oversaturated by advertisements. I wouldn't be surprised if there is another tech implosion coming because of this. Perhaps it won't be as dramatic, since the amount of profit expected per dollar invested is more reasonable, but there are a lot of companies that have gotten funding for a handful of millions that are going to disappear.

Advertising can't support all of the software that people want to use. Advertising is easier than finding the right price point. But if people want to use your software at a price point that more than covers your costs, you've got a business.

Growth-orientation is another failure point in the way companies are valued. Bigger is not always better.

[smoothmoniker]

@ Perry,

Advertising has supported the development of 300 channels of 24/7 crap on television. I think the dollars are there to sustain web-based development in the same way.

I guess I'm always suprised at people's sense of indignation at stuff like this. With the exception of FOSS, developers intend to make a profit. If they're giving the software away for free to you, the user, what exactly did you think their business plan was? Raise funding, release software, go bankrupt?

[SteveDallas]

Yeah, to a certain extent it's inevitable. Though the interesting thing, IMO, is that for this to happen, you need to be on the web. There are still tons of things out there, like IRC, that predate and/or work around the infrastructure of what we know as The World-Wide Web,

but still use The Internet. If enough people get tired enough of advertising, there are alternatives. But for many people, point & click convenience will be worth it. Besides, this seems like just a small step byond the ads you already see in instant messaging clients.

[Perry Winkle]

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

Advertising has supported the development of 300 channels of 24/7 crap on television. I think the dollars are there to sustain web-based development in the same way.

I just don't believe advertising will scale from a few hundred channels to a few billion web pages. The days where I can place Google AdWords advertisements on my personal website and make a living are already passing, except for those who are exceedingly popular.

That said, I don't think advertising will disappear. Not an insignificant amount of advertising is placed on worthless content or content that attracts worthless eyes. It's going to take a while for businesses to figure out how to stop spending on worthless advertising (and I don't just mean 'that ad sucks' worthlessness).

With the exception of FOSS, developers intend to make a profit.

Many developers are paid to work on FOSS, many get personal satisfaction from contributing to the FOSS community, and many others publish software they would need or want to write anyway as FOSS (e.g., consultants often contribute to FOSS, and make their living due to FOSS).

Nobody writes code without profit. But that profit is often non-remunerative.

If they're giving the software away for free to you, the user, what exactly did you think their business plan was? Raise funding, release software, go bankrupt?

The problem is the companies that build software and raise funding and believe advertising will make them profitable. This does not work if you have significant infrastructure overhead. Facebook isn't profitable and they have ridiculous CPM. Kottke was profitable the last time I checked but it's an operation of one.

Anyway, back to the conversation regarding Meebo.

How long is it going to be until someone writes a greasemonkey script or a browser plugin to strip these ads out?

[deadbeater]

It has been done already, see Proxomitron and Webwasher. I use prox extensively. I guarantee that there will be more sophisticated and better ad strippers. You know, Net Nanny and the other so-called anti-porn filters ought to learn from them. I can make a better anti-porn filter than Nanny, just by using my surfing history. Thank goodness all I need to do is tell my niece that my computer is geared towards adult use, and she is careful as a result.

All ads have to do is make great commercials, such as Where's the Beef, Help I've fallen, and the Energizer bunny, and people will watch and buy.

[Elspode]

I run Adblock Plus in Firefox. It works rather well.