Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : The New Economy and its Winners -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Libbyt who wrote (8039)	7/30/2001 3:23:55 PM
From: Libbyt	Respond to of 57684

Those annoying pop-under ads Web advertising continues to scale new heights of annoyances, and the latest round of "pop under" ads continues this trend. For those of you that are lucky enough to be unaware of these things, let me educate you. Go to the NYTimes.com site and just click on a random story. You'll soon see another window open in your task bar (if you are running Windows) that will be a small browser window, advertising for NextCard's credit card products. You can click on the OK button and get more information (which is what NextCard is hoping you will do), or you can be annoyed and try to remove this window and get on with your surfing of the news of the day. The pop-under ads are typically a smaller window that comes up underneath the current window you are using to surf the web, hence the name. Until recently, they were pretty much the province of the porn industry and other shady operators. With the Gray Lady (or whatever moniker you want to attach to the Times' web site), they have reached a new level of respectability and prominence. And they are annoying: because trying to close the pop-under window is distracting and while not very time consuming, these mouse clicks tend to add up over the course of the day if more sites adopt these ad practices. Lest you think pop-under web advertising is just a fad, the bad news is that ubiquity can deliver the goods: last month the X10 web site was the fourth most-visited site, largely on the number of their ads that popped over and under numerous web sites (including the Times'). Success breeds imitators, and more sites are making use of this technology, according to various news reports. As the number of dot-bombs increases, web site owners are increasingly concerned about where they will get the cash to keep all those 20-somethings around to develop new content. And one trend is to have less and less screen real estate devoted to actual content, and more and more space given over to advertising. This isn't a good thing. Granted, someone has to pay the freight, but a far better solution would be to charge for "enhanced" content or some kind of subscription basis. Too bad few people have had much luck with charging for subscription sites, outside of the Wall Street Journal and Consumer Reports. Here is a better solution: combine a free site with fee-based managed services model. You can view some or most of the content on the site for free, have at it and enjoy as you wish. But if you want to personalize the content, or buy one or more service offerings, then you will have to pay a small monthly fee. This is exactly what Catch The Web does. The company had a web offline capture tool that originally was a piece of standalone software. But they have migrated to a more interesting business model, charging a monthly fee to store your captured pages on their site for a small fee. Now this is something that others should emulate. Another model is sponsored content or advertorials. But this gets tricky, especially as it becomes harder to separate the ads from the editorial on sites like cNet and ZDnet. Take a look at one of the sites that I write for, Windows2000Advantage.com. You could consider it as an entire advertorial site, since it has Microsoft and Compaq as its sponsors. To their credit, they do state this in several places (and the site has its own annoying pop-over subscription windows, too.) Other sites have less clean a division between sponsored and independent content, and when you mix the two on the same web page you are asking for trouble. In the meantime, count me as a pop-under detractor. Let's find some other ways to pay for content than annoying the readers. Web Informant #256, 30 July 2001: Those annoying pop-under ads strom.com

To: Libbyt who wrote (8039)	7/30/2001 3:25:45 PM
From: techanalyst1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57684

I like ebay's biz model alot. I don't think they'll ever go away, auctions will be strong in both good times and bad and will only get stronger as time goes on. I think that corporations are going to continue to sell their clearance merchandise by way of auctions and maybe even increase current merchandise if they can get enough for the items since they don't have to display the merchandise on retail floors saving them rent, the chance of damaged goods and employee costs. But what's to prevent a company like JCP from operating an auction on their own site when people get more used to buying this way and surfing the net? I mean why wouldn't they try to do that to save the fees? Ebay: A company that was able to monetize the net, make use of a search engine for more than information, good targeted email for new auctions, almost immediate notification of outbidding, easy placement of auctions including pictures, has no inventory, the only company to significantly get traction in the overall auction arena, and collects rent and fees automatically from credit cards while making the seller and buyer work out their own differences. Still able to raise fees and keeps the sellers coming back with both buyers and sellers seemingly very happy. Great biz and they get my award for best use of the net but pricey stock. TA

To: Libbyt who wrote (8039)	7/31/2001 7:28:12 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 57684

Glenn, an interesting article in our weekend paper, FYI. Libbyt, Thank you for the article. It is quite interesting and seems to accurately reflect the situation. I am very pleased with our Ebay intitiate. I like the feedback system because it is like a review to a new potential customer. The "Buy it Now" cdoncept works better for us than actual auctions. We also have added a storefront on Ebay. Here is the URL: ebaystores.com We cureently have 900 listings on Ebay with an average daily sales of 60 units. The scale is extremly as our Feedback number increases. We have so many repeat customers that the sales show but not the unique customer number. We anticipate being at a rating of 2000 by the end of August. Our internal goal is 100,000 by the end of December. Ebay accounts for 15% of gross revenue for my store in Erie at the present time. We are pleased. Glenn