But the promos--they were constant (five or ten an hour) and constantly changing. MTV created an entire gestalt (it even became the inspiration for a pop hit and a video compilation). It turns out that we liked the ads.
Try reading a copy of Vogue without the ads. Totally useless.
And at a trade show (which people invest huge amounts of time and money to attend), the only reason to go is to see the ads, the banners, the paid-for booths and self-promotional speakers.
Public radio is no longer a bastion of silence. Every station is filled with self-promos, often twenty an hour, along with interruptions from sponsors and of course, pledge week. And the bumpers and audio cues that the stations use become part of our experience. We miss them when they're gone.
And then he turns his attention to blogs ...
All as a way of introducing you to my dilemma about blogs.
In email, no one, at least no one I respect or believe, enjoys getting spam. Ads in email don't work because email is a tool, not a medium. If I subscribe to a permission-based email campaign (like those notes from Amazon or a gift certificate on my birthday from Yahoo) then I look forward to it and respond. But ads in the sense of unanticipated, impersonal and irrelevant... not on my agenda, or yours, when it comes to email, or RSS for that matter.
But the blog experience is different. Maybe.
He wonders about promoting .. things, services, events .. and promoting oneself, and makes the point (which I think is accurate) that
1. we have grown used to this surround-sense environment
2. we *ignore* most, of not all, advertising UNTIL it strikes a chord with us, for whatever reason.
Looking at and thinking about (and using) an advertisement is NOT the same as thinking about something and going on a deliberate search for it .. and most of our minds don't work in the same way after thirty or more years of the increasing presence of advertising.
The reasons we *use* advertising are very diverse, and not necessarily linear or causative. They form part of our constant background, and come to the foreground when we realize that we want or need something, or have a further interest in knowing more.
So .. Seth goes on to set up an argument in which he suggests that bloggers are learning to use this new medium (blogging) in different ways .. sometimes expressing points of view or publishing analyses to generate interest and conversation, and sometimes working diligently to promote products or services or events, and sometimes some of one and some of the other.
The post below this riff is about my new seminar, given next month. The writer part of me wants to believe that my alert, quickwitted readers only need to see it once, and that they're mature enough to make a decision about whether they want to come or not. Of course, I'm completely wrong. I mean you are in that esteemed category, but most people are not. Most people need to see that link three or four times a day, several times a week, and then they'll take action. And they'll be glad they did.
I regularly (as in every day) get email from people who bought this book or that book or even this book and are surprised that they didn't know about it and are glad they discovered it. Does that mean that it's my job to advertise them incessantly, regularly reminding people that they exist?
Imagining for just a moment that there's no self-interest, no profit motive, imagining that the blogger is doing what is in the best interest of the readership--what's the right balance? Is it one ad per page? 25? Is it no promotional links to new projects (from you or from those you respect) or is one the right number?
Underneath that point, I think he is suggesting that pointing readers to something once and thinking that is sufficient isn't really the way *attention* works these days ... that it is pertinent to work at understanding the dynamics of ongoing flows of information, and to consider readers' interests while at the same time offering them focal points *advertisements) that may interest them when THEIR attention may come into alignment with the subject matter of the advertisement.
This attention is often indirect but contextual .. which is why, I suspect, Google ads work well .. off on the sidebar, stacked in twos or threes or fours. Equally, ads pulled and placed using the combination of Qumana and Adgenta offer the publisher some choice and control over how he or she wishes to address readers' attention.
Set finishes off his thoughtful exploration by noting:
When Katrina hit, blogs broke all their rules about promotion. It was understood by readers and by bloggers that the cause was good enough that people really needed to be pushed. Do you need to be pushed?
Magazines run ads.
Books don't.
What are blogs?
My take on it ? Sometimes blog posts are like mini-chapters in a book, or if a blog is dedicated to serious analyses, like a string of mini-chapters - or maybe like a professional journal in a given domain (which, incidentally, carry domain-specific and domain-related advertising) .... and sometimes blogs are like magazines (on any and all subjects under the sun) wherein an individual pulls together what she or he is interested in and feels like sharing.
And while books don't carry ads (except on the back pages, sometimes), books are often heavily marketed and equally as often are an advertisement themselves, for the author's expertise, point of view or ego. And books support or enable an awful lot of related contextual advertising.
Contextual advertising online can only grow and get more refined with respect to enabling connections between readers' interests, attention and their behaviours regarding the *use* of that advertising.
AdGenta is the "pull-and-place" advertising service that allows bloggers to choose the advertisements that they want to use ... using keywords to pull an advertisement that may be pertinent. Don't like the one that you've pulled ? Delete it, and try again or use another similar keyword.
Tthe main issue today is the depth and breadth of advertising inventory, which will improve as we develop more complete relationships with advertising suppliers, AND as advertisers grow into recognizing the oportunities to provide useful and relevant advertising to the millions of niche *attention* markets in the blogosphere.
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