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Technology Stocks : InfoSpace (INSP): Where GNET went! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BillCh who wrote (935)	1/20/1999 6:21:00 PM
From: EenieMeenie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28311

Bill, you can only do so much with advertising on a web page. Marketing firms pay money for _effective_ advertising. Effective advertising means two things to me: (1) The advertisement itself attracts interest. (2) The viewer has to focus his/her attention on the advertisement for a reasonable period of time. Today, I see the following conditions: (1) The advertisement itself attracts more interest: Banners (unless they have naked women) generate very little interest. They don't convey enough about what the company is about to differentiate itself (as a company, and as an advertisement) from the other companies and advertisements out there. As a result, banners rarely click with me and most others I talk to. With better bandwidth, we could deliver more involved banners where people jump out of the banner and start walking all over the screen. That would definitely get my attention, but after the first few times it would piss me off. Moreover, even if the banners were not THAT involved eventually the new neat tricks that these cooler more effective banners performed would eventually wear off, and we would ignore them just as we ignore the banners we see everyday we surf the web. Commercial TV is different in that its advertisements are pretty interesting. I like good commercials. For example, Outpost.com 's Marching Band and Guinea Pig gig. Other examples would be the NASDAQ commercials or the First Union commercial. American Express makes good commercials too. All the beer companies. People get emotionally involved, which leads me to my second point. (2) The viewer has to focus his/her attention on the advertisement for a reasonable period of time. In the current banner format, increased bandwidth only means we have more time to look at more advertisements for a shorter period of time. At this point, the advertising message is entirely lost, and you'll be lucky to remember your last five banners because you will see 100/hour. Maybe more. The inherent problems with banners mixed in with a greater volume of page views will ultimately lead to lower $/page view. What I do expect to see happen as a result of increased bandwidth is a change in the way advertisement is delivered. Like TV or RealNetworks's Real Player, you will have to sit through a brief full-motion advertisement. The advertisement will be fun and will change extremely often, however, marketing companies will be sure that you sat and watched their client talk or advertise their company before you enter their sight. It will be interactive TV (in a sense) but instead of shows, you will get to see internet stuff, read SI, WSJ, that kind of thing. If what I am saying occurs, then YHOO has a very justifiable price. Each day will get 10 times more exposure than the Superbowl on TV. We are talking some serious cash here. If this is what actually ends up happening, the way we value these companies will be very different than page views/day.