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by ChrisNorstrom 4949 days ago
- People are fleeing TV and running towards netflix and bittorent, using DVRs to record their favorite shows and skip through commercials, and changing channels during commercials.

- Email is universally loathed and spam protection is standard, it's gotten so bad that the government had to make a law that forces all email solicitations to have an unsubscribe option and the name and address of the company sending the solicitation.
1 comments
billirvine 4949 days ago
Hi Chris...

"Fleeing TV" -- indeed, a shift is being observed. However, the medium exists because of advertising. Also, the audience segment that time-shifts is not yet at a critical mass, though rising. And, live event TV (sports) is still doing exceptionally well because of advertising.

Email is another matter. Being a former advertising executive would you believe I never did an email campaign? (Probably not) Email spam (simultaneously posted advertising message) has always been more considered a path to malicious exploit than legitimate advertising.

I'm not denying that an increasing segment of users are becoming frustrated with ads, only stating advertising is the best method we have _now_ for monetizing content that costs some degree of expense to obtain and disseminate.

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ChrisNorstrom 4948 days ago
Ok I think there's been a miscommunication. I said advertising ruins things because it knows no limits, it doesn't know when to stop and overdoes itself. You are correct in saying that advertising is necessary to sustain free services. We wouldn't have radio, tv, content, free apps, search engines, etc... without it.
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billirvine 4948 days ago
"Limits" in terms of advertising are relative and often moving targets. As a new product or service, it's hard to get noticed without testing where a certain limit may be. GoDaddy -- loathed by many, but not by most -- would not be the large firm it is now without having tested those limits. For better or worse, it worked, and some nice people have jobs (their campus is less than 2 miles from us).

I serve on the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) mobile committee. As a newish member, we don't have much influence... but I can confirm lots of "limit testing" is on the way. It's hard to monetize mobile, and ad delivery/targeting firms are in a panic.

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