[105219] in Cypherpunks
Re: Advertising Creepiness
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Declan McCullagh)
Sun Nov 8 20:29:28 1998
Date: Sun, 08 Nov 1998 20:11:07 -0500
To: Tim May <tcmay@got.net>, cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
In-Reply-To: <v03130303b26af796aaf9@[209.66.101.228]>
Reply-To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
At 11:50 PM 11-7-98 -0800, Tim May wrote:
>However, Declan's point about "what pays the rent" brings up an obvious
>point: does _anybody_ look at those damned banner ads?
I believe the answer is yes, based on our own focus groups. (I'm not
directly involved in this stuff, nor do I want to be, but this is my
understanding.)
>So, Declan may think the banner ads at Wired.com pay the rent, and the bean
>counters may think this is so, but I doubt any of us are looking at the
>ads. Except the dummies.
I don't *think* they pay rent; I *know* they do. It's not a perfect revenue
model, but it works OK so far.
Another option is if a substantial number of consumers want to pay for
subscriptions to sites like cloakroom.com. Works for me, but that's not
what the market has moved towards.
It doesn't matter much if crotchety cypherpunks -- a minority of our
readers -- refuse to look at the banner ads. I'm sure a lot of Americans
walk out of the room during TV commercials. All we need is a certain number
of readers to pay attention, and so far it seems as though they are.
-Declan
