Rick543211

The Fundamental Problem of Newspapers on the Internet

Excellent article and one which brought another "paradox" I have spent a lot of time thiking about as well. This is an issue related to all advertising on the web and is something I refer to as "Audience Enabled/Time Constrained" versus "Audience Constrained/Time Enabled". Not an elegant name, but an important one. It goes to the probelm of advertisers and creators of advertising having to deal with a radically shifting paradigm for reaching comsumers. The traditional model has been "Audience Enabled", where high ad rates in both print and television can be justified by equally wide - and captive - reach. Thirty second spots on the Superbowl cost millions because there are tens of millions watching at the same time. The job of the advertising is to motivate buying behaviour in 30 seconds and that requires one kind of creative execution because time with the audience is so limited. The flip side is the web, where the audience at any time is much, much smaller - in the hundreds, perhaps. But time is not an issue and the creative challenge is to keep users looking and clicking. Each click raises the value of the user to the advertiser - and, agruably, the value of the click. I admit my ignorance here but I don't know if all clicks are currently regarded as equal in the same clicking environment. At any rate, the creative challenge in this advertising circumstance is very different, because the job now is to engage the user for a longer period of time and use that time to do an entirely different kind of "sell". The value is not clicks and impressions at $x each, but length and therefore quality on engagement. It seems to me that increased web ad value lies there, and with increased value comes an ability to replace "traditional" ad revenues at a profitable and business-sustaining level.