Banner ads? Thing of the past? note this article:
ClickZ Q&A
This week:
Marc Kanter
Vice President
Solid Oak Software
A few years ago, those of us in the internet
advertising industry cheered as Solid Oak Software
unveiled its new net-friendly product, CYBERsitter.
Finally...a way to block all that surfable smut that
our, uh, friends have told us about.
Well, listen up, ClickZ readers. It appears that
CYBERsitter has an evil twin sister -- and she's far
worse than the sitter who puts the kids to bed
before the parents have backed out of the driveway.
Sit down, if you are faint-hearted, please....this
sitter actually filters out banner ads!
Well, we may be being a tad harsh on Solid Oak.
After all, its Vice President, Marc Kanter, did
graciously agree to an interview with us, facing
head-on the potential hostility of the ClickZ
audience with nary a flinch.
In fact, says Marc, Solid Oak developed the newest
incarnation of CYBERsitter in response to
consumer demand. As he explains it, surfers want
a product that can filter out advertisements intended
for adult eyes only. They also want to be able to
free up modems crippled by the heavy graphics
(and subsequent L-O-N-G download times) of some
banner ads.
Is Solid Oak's CYBERsitter redux offering up a
message from our audience we should all heed? Or
is it, as some have suggested, a potentially serious
threat to the content we now view for "free" on the
internet today? (And, by the way, that includes this
very content before you now.)
We'll let you decide. Sit back and listen to what
Marc has to say about CYBERsitter, the original
version of which was released in mid-1995.
CLICKZ: Recently your company introduced a new
version of CYBERsitter which -- my God! -- filters
out banner ads! Why would you introduce a product
that does that?
KANTER: Firstly, we didn't introduce a new version
of the software, only added a plug-in filter that
blocks banner ads.
This is mainly due to customer requests over the
past 2 1/2 years. They wanted to see adult-oriented
ads filtered as well as ads in general, since parents
didn't have control over which ads were seen by
their children.
More recently, we were continually hearing
complaints of how long it takes to download many
of the available web pages. This was mainly from
users of slower modems, and filtering them will
certainly decrease the download times.
Also, schools have a long standing policy of not
allowing advertising on their premises.
CLICKZ: What kind of research did you conduct
into web surfer's attitudes toward web advertising
before you introduced this new feature?
KANTER: As I discussed in the last question, the
request for banner filtering was demand driven and
no intensive marketing studies were done. Judging
from the response to date, this ability was long
overdue.
CLICKZ: Could you tell me how this product works
to filter out banner ads? Does it look for typical
patterns or image sizes?
KANTER: It uses the same technology built into the
other filters in CYBERsitter. I cannot reveal this
technology without giving away any trade secrets.
CLICKZ: Well, we took CYBERsitter for a test drive.
We set it up to take advantage of ALL the
screening, including sports content and ad banners.
I couldn't get into any sites with adult content. Nor
could I call up anything on search engines.
Nevertheless, I was able to surf through Sportsline,
ESPN, USA Today Sports with impunity. And I
wasn't able to find a site where the ad blocking
actually worked. So...is this user error or are there
only certain types of ads or ad setups that
CYBERsitter blocks?
KANTER: With the limited information that I have, I
would guess that you were able to access the sport
sites and not block banners because you previously
visited the sites and they were in your cache.
Another possibility is that you made changes to the
settings in CYBERsitter without re-launching your
browser.
CLICKZ: Is there a possibility that it also could filter
out non-advertising related images or JavaScript's?
KANTER: No, the filter will only affect banners.
CLICKZ: Let's say you had a site dedicated to
snowboarding. You want to get advertiser support,
but you don't want to alienate the kinds of people
who buy CYBERsitter software in order to filter out
ads. How would you position advertising on Kanter's
Snowboarding Central?
KANTER: I would have to realize that the consumer
will ultimately have a choice as to whether or not
they want to receive the ads on my site. I might
want to consider other means of revenue such as
selling snowboards.
CLICKZ: If people wanted to avoid banner ads,
couldn't they just turn off graphics on their browser?
KANTER: Yes, though as I stated this would
remove all graphics on the site.
CLICKZ: So how much is CYBERsitter going to
cost me?
KANTER: CYBERsitter 97 is a one time charge of
$39.95 and the filter files, including the Web Banner
Filter, are updated automatically to you every seven
days. |
