[12240] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Why not commercialize?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Sean Donelan)
Wed May 11 01:02:23 1994
Date: Tue, 10 May 1994 15:01:56 -0500 (CDT)
From: Sean Donelan <SEAN@sdg.dra.com>
To: com-priv@psi.com
Lawrence Magid wrote a piece entitled "Why Not Commercialize? : Far
from corrupting the Internet, a business presence online may help the
network fulfull its potential." (Information Week, May 16, 1994, p. 102)
In the heat of the moment, I dashed off a quick e-mail message to him
(magid@latimes.com). To compound my mistake I thought I'd forward my
message on to com-priv, spelling errors and all.
Warning! Bad information superhighway analogy ahead.
==============
To use your analogy, there already a zoning system on the Internet. The
problem is a certain catagory of advertisers feel that zoning is akin
to forcing them into a advertisers ghetto. They claim right of free
speech means they can post anything anywhere.
Advertising has been on the Internet and USENET almost since the beginning.
It never really has been banned. Remember the saying, the net interprets
censorship as damage and routes around it. Instead the net has handled
all hard topics by defining a new area for people to go. Banning
things has never worked on the net, but diverting them to a different
area has often worked. Whether it is talk.abortion, or misc.forsale, no
topic is taboo in the appropriate area.
Some companies have even been very successful at advertising on the
Internet. While a couple of Attornies from Arizona claim to have made
$50,000 by annoying a lot of people, Digital claims to have been even
more successful ($5 million directly attributable to Internet awareness)
by not annoying people with their advertising on the Internet.
Yes, the Internet is big enough for all types of groups, including commercial
advertisers. But it would be nice if they minded the rules of the road.
You don't set up a lemonade stand in the middle lane of an interstate
highway. Yes, its a great way to get noticed. You might even sell
a little lemonade. But it is going to create the biggest mess you've
seen on the freeway.
C&S's crass commercialism would have hardly been noticed if they had
confined themeselves to the appropriate areas. But Rule #1 of advertising
is "GET NOTICED BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY". Rule #2 is "There are no rules
in advertising."
--
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
Domain: sean@dra.com, Voice: (Work) +1 314-432-1100
