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I've been slowly realizing why the rest of the world has already gone to streaming music. Being able to pick any songs you want -- and listen to them in order -- is a nice thing. I still usually like listening to Pandora for discovery and then grab a CD from Amazon or album via iTunes, but I'm slowly figuring out that some of these albums aren't worth the cash. It's rare, but maybe $10 a month isn't insane.
(Maybe. I'm still going crazy figuring this out. Would I rather have an additional 10-12 albums a year that I can listen to whenever, wherever, or all the music I want as long as I stay addicted? Argh.)
Anyhow, free isn't bad, so I've been a Spotify ad-supported user as a middle ground between discovery and purchase. It's amazing how quickly new albums go up on Spotify for you to try out.
But the ads... ARGH the ads. Some are sooooo freaking annoying, especially that idiot middle-aged guy voice who acts like he's a stuttering teenager lamenting his inability to get across whatever emotion he's feeling in words and wants you to pick a song instead -- you know, the one that says, "[At a] Loss for words? Share a song." Stop it!
The ad doesn't make me want to listen to music. It makes me want to run away from this strange, mentally deranged dude who acts like an offensive caricature of a teenage girl.
The first ten times I heard it, I considered shelling out for Spotify (or Apple Music) to shut him up. Now, I just hit mute. Or fire up Amazon Music for Prime streaming, even though its selection is quite a bit worse.
And guess what I do after hitting mute? I forget to unmute. So Spotify is paying for music I don't hear and, worse for them, I'm missing their follow-on ads. A little silence is a small price to pay for missing annoying ads, and I'll keep doing it.
Either keeps the ads unobtrusive or you'll lose their effectiveness. And I'll probably never engage your service enough to become a customer.
Additionally, mobile web traffic has grown substantially (especially at certain times: nights and weekends we see 60-70% of all traffic on mobile/tablet) and ad performance on mobile is much less effective, where mobile pages only make about 1/3 to 1/10th as much as a desktop page.
I understand the point Marco Arment's trying to make about MetaFilter, which is that Google really is the 800 lbs gorilla when it comes to ad supported web sites.
But for me, it's the decrease in ads revenue in the move to mobile that's the most interesting. Why did people stop clicking links? Are folks really clicking less? Were traditional browser viewers opening links in new tabs and never really paying them attention? Is it because mobile devices are so poor at dealing with more open windows?
If there's at all a correlation between mobile users and number of windows users would have open, let's go ahead and admit that most ad dollars are coming from very technical users.
If a user follows a bakery on Google Plus or gives an album four stars on the Google Play music service, for instance, that personโs name, photo and endorsement could show up in ads for that bakery or album.
Is it worse if they pay the people whose "endorsements" they data mined?
The NAI Opt-out Tool was developed in conjunction with our members for the express purpose of allowing consumers to 'opt out' of the behavioral advertising delivered by our member companies. ... The NAI has adopted a policy that all NAI member companies set a minimum lifespan of five years for their opt out cookies.
You can also find out more about what each company thinks you like by following the links in this WSJ story. Strangely, Google told me that the only interest it related to be via cookie was country music. All I can figure is I bagged that looking at Taylor Swift's fake rap, Thug Story. Predictable, but pretty funny, even if Chris Robinson doesn't care for her. At all. Pretty flimsy connection in any event. If you want me to spend money, you'd be better off pimping rare Crowes songs.
The Opt-Out tool is interesting. I wonder how well it works. I'd say I wonder if I didn't want targeted commercials, but if all Google knows about me after all of my surfing is that I viewed a Taylor Swift video, well, I'm not sure why anyone's making a big deal about this stuff. Seriously -- Apple, Redskins, Black Crowes, etc seem like obvious, behavior based interests any human watching me would have figured out pretty quickly.
How much to charge for content on the iPad and other devices remains a point of contention. While reports have suggested that Times executives cannot agree whether to charge $10 per month or closer to $30 per month, the Journal began charging users of its iPhone application late last year. Murdoch has previously said that News Corp. intends to charge for all of its online news sites, noting that 'quality journalism is not cheap.'
A coworker once told me (luckily in a story about a third coworker) that, "A mistake on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine." Same sort of reasoning seems to apply here. That good journalism is costly doesn't make it worth more to me.
Let me be blunt: I'm not paying $10 a month to access the NYT on a mobile device. I love the NYT, and consider it, on some level, to be the national register. I'd gladly pay $15 a month to receive the Sunday edition printed and delivered to my door if I was within an area with delivery. But on an iPad? Forget it.
I believe newspapers are going to have to learn to recut their information. I have no idea the best way to do it. I would have thought the current advertisement driven version would have to do (and I've enjoyed the interactive Apple dual-ad advertisements in particular; not all advertisement is bad).
To sum this ramble, I think it'd be smarter to figure out how to get the most money out of an ad-supported, open publication model, and then determine how much information that medium/genre/style of publication supports. I'm occasionally tempted to argue against the operation of the open market in specific situations -- there are things which the market has not yet been able to price accurately, and things for which I don't believe accurate prices can be found -- but this is a clear example of where I'm all for it. I believe the Times et al will find that Pay to Play is going to taunt them a second time.
How long before we have Google Adwords-like advertisements in the next Crichton novel? Try, "It's already happened".
I never knew how important in-content, relatively subdued advertising would become when I watched the World Cup back in '92 or so. Remember that? When Coke (or whoever) would have a constant image at the bottom of the telecast while the game was played? Certainly product placement has grown a bit, which Disney has masterfully taken to such heights that, for Disney, the product is the headliner of the show (Wiggles, Doodlebops, though they too learned from the capitalist's petri dish which is educational TV -- Sesame Street, Barney, etc). Still, these "unobstrusive" ads, unobtrusive only due to the over-conditioning society has received from TV (minus World Cup) and radio, are growing pretty quickly.
As an aside, I've got the first volume of the Seasame Street "nostalgia" release on DVD, which includes the very first episode of the show to air. I was struck both by the new intro, where a cartoon character warns me that the show might not be applicable to the needs of today's pre-schooler (they've got to have a reason to make more, right?) and with the speed with which industry inserted a commercial into children's TV via the government, in this case, government grants for the show. In the episode, there's a five minute or so commercial for drinking milk that boggles my mind. I'll likely comment more later, but there's your typical 1960s film strip, deep, masculine voice explaining why milk is good for everyone involved laid over a soundtrack of a 1960s style folk singer quietly extolling the benefits of milking to the happy cows, eating under shade trees, making the milk. This is something that deserves transcription, certainly.
To end the aside, The Electric Company's early episodes rock. I could only wish for a show this educational to be released now. Between the Lions doesn't come close to the unabashed, direct, almost unconscious approach to learning to read The Electric Company provides. That, or, more likely, it did one heck of a job enculturating me. In either event, thanks, Cos, for taking on the job of being the godfather of a generation.
I fear the demise of the printed book, though I'm intrigued by the possibility of ads to possibly provide books for free. I'm not sure you can ever kill the medium of the codex. It's simply too cheap to produce, too easy to transport, and inexpensive enough to replace that it can go anywhere with anyone. It is an extremely low-cost alternative to the Game Boy and Blackberry, and will on this point alone continue to exist for quite some time. But how will it become remediated by digital media, and for what effect? There, I'm extremely curious and suspicious.
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