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My main problem with mobile ads is that they often completely break the user experience. Why not make ads analogous to print: just (arguably) beautiful photogr

by smoe 12y ago

My main problem with mobile ads is that they often completely break the user experience. Why not make ads analogous to print: just (arguably) beautiful photography with some text on it and place them within the article where it makes sense. I never felt bugged while reading a multi page article in a magazine, when it says "continue on page 43" and got interrupted by a full page ad. But no, mobile ads have to be huge in size, animated – or even better videos (because everybody has a unlimited data plans now, yeah), block scrolling and or slap you in the face after you already started reading. Just nobody seems to care about quality of advertising on the web and mobile. A lot of big companies still focus on their traditional channels and pay a few bucks extra for the web/mobile part of the campaign. The Advertising Agency assigns the implementation task to the intern who knows a thing or two in jquery. And in the end the IT department of the newspapers just copy & pastes the code in without testing.* A company would most likely never send a smelly alcoholic to sell their product on the streets. But they to that on the web. *This paragraph may sound harsh, but this is how i often felt, when I was working for a big online newspaper responsible for custom campaign implementations and development.

product50 12y ago
That is why native ads are becoming popular in mobile. Think about Facebook ads in your news feed or Promoted Tweets. They don't break the experience. This is early days yet but more and more app developers are catching on the trend. Tango and other text apps are other examples.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- smoe 12y ago
  As long as they don't overdo it and its clearly visibly where something is coming from, I have no problem with that. I know, ideally there should be no mix between editorial content and advertising but on the other hand I think it's better when users trust a news paper because of the regular content and not because some press organisation says they're the good guys. Nonetheless, in my opinion a native ad on a news site should still fulfill journalistic requirements like verifiable sources etc.
- SixSigma 12y ago
  Ads in my Fb feed.on mobile very much do break the experience because it takes me a moment to work out where it came from. I have intelligent interesting friends and I take time to engage with the things they post. Finding out that something I took time on is a sponsored post is invariably a negative experience and I go out of my way to post childish rude comments on every one I receive in order to devalue it for the advertiser.
SapphireSun 12y ago
For what it's worth, the early internet was like this too. The early Google made a killing when they realized they could provide a useful service with contextually relevant and well placed, but not annoying ads. I don't know what they do nowadays, but back then they were extremely strict about google ad placement on other websites and required that shitty ads were not placed alongside theirs. I have a feeling the companies that figure out how to do this will be successful. There's a difference this time though, Google acted as a portal while apps are destinations. I think this might be important, but I'm not sure.
- smoe 12y ago
  Yes it already improved a lot. I don't really have insides in the financial aspects of advertising and don't know what would be possible with mobile ads alone. Unlike other startups, the big disadvantage news companies have is, that they need a comparably huge staff and spend a lot on licensing just to get a basic product. But, what makes me angry is that newspapers are probably the industry with the longest experience in how to mix content and advertising into a single product people want. Yet, they ignored the internet for a decade until the money flow from print started to run dry and mobile users started – completely unexpected – to read the products, the news companies considered worthless themselves. Of course it's not all their own fault. But they could have been better prepared.
- dougabug 12y ago
  Early Google didn't sell search result placement, they focused on superior organic results. It was later that they copied the idea from Overture, a company with much smaller search volume, but which had figured out a successful monetization model for search. Google's organic search results weren't mauled by SEO in the early days. Likewise, in the early days conspicuously avoided ads ("Ads aren't cool" - "The Social Network"). Does anyone want ads on their phone? Or having their smartphone data stream continuously mined by advertising spyware networks? $100/mo, tiny data transfer caps, tiny screen, expensive hw, and an industry salivating at the opportunity to take a bigger chunk of the mobile users' experience. Joy. I kinda thought that phones were a personal communication device, and that for almost a grand for the phone (unsubsidized, thanks Verizon, Steve Jobs RIP), and $100 a month, my phone would serve myself, rather than act as a personal data conduit to data brokers.

by smoe 12y ago

product50 12y ago

That is why native ads are becoming popular in mobile. Think about Facebook ads in your news feed or Promoted Tweets. They don't break the experience. This is early days yet but more and more app developers are catching on the trend. Tango and other text apps are other examples.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
smoe 12y ago
As long as they don't overdo it and its clearly visibly where something is coming from, I have no problem with that. I know, ideally there should be no mix between editorial content and advertising but on the other hand I think it's better when users trust a news paper because of the regular content and not because some press organisation says they're the good guys. Nonetheless, in my opinion a native ad on a news site should still fulfill journalistic requirements like verifiable sources etc.
SixSigma 12y ago
Ads in my Fb feed.on mobile very much do break the experience because it takes me a moment to work out where it came from. I have intelligent interesting friends and I take time to engage with the things they post. Finding out that something I took time on is a sponsored post is invariably a negative experience and I go out of my way to post childish rude comments on every one I receive in order to devalue it for the advertiser.

SapphireSun 12y ago

For what it's worth, the early internet was like this too. The early Google made a killing when they realized they could provide a useful service with contextually relevant and well placed, but not annoying ads. I don't know what they do nowadays, but back then they were extremely strict about google ad placement on other websites and required that shitty ads were not placed alongside theirs. I have a feeling the companies that figure out how to do this will be successful. There's a difference this time though, Google acted as a portal while apps are destinations. I think this might be important, but I'm not sure.

smoe 12y ago
Yes it already improved a lot. I don't really have insides in the financial aspects of advertising and don't know what would be possible with mobile ads alone. Unlike other startups, the big disadvantage news companies have is, that they need a comparably huge staff and spend a lot on licensing just to get a basic product. But, what makes me angry is that newspapers are probably the industry with the longest experience in how to mix content and advertising into a single product people want. Yet, they ignored the internet for a decade until the money flow from print started to run dry and mobile users started – completely unexpected – to read the products, the news companies considered worthless themselves. Of course it's not all their own fault. But they could have been better prepared.
dougabug 12y ago
Early Google didn't sell search result placement, they focused on superior organic results. It was later that they copied the idea from Overture, a company with much smaller search volume, but which had figured out a successful monetization model for search. Google's organic search results weren't mauled by SEO in the early days. Likewise, in the early days conspicuously avoided ads ("Ads aren't cool" - "The Social Network"). Does anyone want ads on their phone? Or having their smartphone data stream continuously mined by advertising spyware networks? $100/mo, tiny data transfer caps, tiny screen, expensive hw, and an industry salivating at the opportunity to take a bigger chunk of the mobile users' experience. Joy. I kinda thought that phones were a personal communication device, and that for almost a grand for the phone (unsubsidized, thanks Verizon, Steve Jobs RIP), and $100 a month, my phone would serve myself, rather than act as a personal data conduit to data brokers.