"I still believe that cable-modem speed, or perhaps the new ASDL technology I've been hearing noise about, will suffice to get the online movie advertising industry off the ground."
I don't beleive that the online movie advertising industry will EVER get off the ground.
I just don't see consumers putting up with it.
There are two possible models for this - the tiny banner ads that we have now, and full-screen (or full-browser-window) ads that are imposed on you at some point while you are browsing a site.
The animated banners are distracting, and I beleive that content providers will eventually notice that they have fewer viewers on pages that have these kinds of ads, as well as direct consumer complaints.
And who is going to put up with a 30-second interruption to their surfing? Sure, we accept it with TV - but in the case of TV you are watching a scheduled, linear show with the ads inserted at logical pauses. And, frankly, there are (still) few enough channels available that we have no choice but to accept this. On the Internet, the "channels" are essentially infinate, and consumers will vote with their feet and go to places that have no or less intrusive advertising. Further, "surfing" is self-directed - there is no linear sequence, no logical pause - surfers are often looking for specific information and do NOT want to be disturbed with a "30-second spot" in the middle of that task!
Note that the leader in this technology (ITVU) has deemphasized this, and has instead refocused on using their delivery network to deliver streaming content (not advertising).
In fact, if there is ANY potential for video advertising on the Internet, it is as insertions in streaming content. (That is, say, a commercial inserted in a Bloomberg or CNN feed.) Because streaming content is linear and so similar to TV, advertising spot may be more accepted.
But nobody has a leg up there - anybody can stick a 30-second spot in the middle of a Realplayer stream. |
