The comic geniuses at CollegeHumor.com have really hit the nail on the head with this musical romp through the (mostly ad-supported) web, a take-off on “Maria” from the musical West Side Story. Besides showcasing a number of great ad-supported services, the clip really hits the nail on the head by acknowledging that “There is No Free Lunch“: The quid pro quo of advertising supports the plethora of online content and services Internet users take for granted.
Pandora, I just found a website called Pandora…
Pandora! type it in and there’s music playing watch the ads and it’s almost like paying
The advocates of regulation pay lip service to the importance of advertising in funding online content and services but don’t seem to understand that this quid pro quo is a fragile one: Tipping the balance, even slightly, could have major consequences for continued online creativity and innovation.
Who is this handsome young man and why does he have “Mr. Yogato Stamped Me!!!” on his forehead? More importantly, why does he look so darn happy?
Flashback: Earlier this week, my partner Michael (pictured) and I visited Mr. Yogato, a frozen yogurt shop in Washington’s Dupont Circle neighborhood which describes itself as ”the FUNNEST yogurt experience you’ll ever have.”
Apart from serving exceptionally tasty frozen yogurt and letting customers play a vintage Nintendo, Mr. Yogato is famous for the eight “Rules of Yogato,” which offer discounts if users achieve certain feats, including:
Answering devilishly difficult trivia (10% off—or extra if you fail)
Reciting the Stirling battlefield speech from Braveheart in a great Scottish accent (20% off)
But the best discount, which Michael does every time (unless I’m there to help identify, say, countries that end in ‘L’), is offered for wearing the Yogato stamp on your forehead. Being stamped is, of course, almost as much fun as singing along to “Mr. Roboto” if you’re lucky enough to hear that played while you’re in the shop (10% off). But the real fun is in engaging passersby on the street about the icy-sweet joys of Yogato. It’s also, of course, probably the most effective advertising Mr. Yogato could ever want.
So, the next time you hear Adam Thierer and I talk about the benefits of advertising, especially online, just remember that while there is no free lunch (nor free frozen yogurt), there isdiscounted frozen yogurt. It’s a simple, obvious quid pro quo: 10% off in exchange for spreading the Gospel of Yogato. Continue reading →
Adam Thierer and I havebeentryingtodrive home a simple message in the ongoing debate about targeted online advertising and privacy: ”There is no Free Lunch!” We don’t have a lot of friends in this debate, since nearly everyone else seems to assume that online content and services will just continue to fall like manna from heaven if politicians strangle advertising online. So I was particularly heartened to read the following from Shelly Palmer:
This is the most serious question facing content producers today. Content costs money to produce. Third-party advertising/sponsor support is one model, promoting your own products is another, subscription is a third. At the end of the day, there are only three ways it works: I pay, you pay or someone else pays. Unfortunately, there is no business model called “no one pays.” In the case of MediaBytes, the model is “I pay.” It works for me as stated above. But, apparently, a fairly large number of people in my audience are uninterested in seeing even relevant product offerings. Is advertising over? If so, what’s next?
Amen! Shelly hosts a daily Internet talk show on technology and media called MediaBytes. He recently tried inserting a short ad at the beginning of the show to cover the significant costs of production:
The show is produced every business day and requires a research staff, a writer (me), an editor, an encoding/distribution manager and an affiliate relations staff. The reason for the production overview is that, this particular two-minutes may look like a talking head combined with some graphics and clips, but the work flow for any given show takes approximately 6 hour and all of the people involved in the production are on salary here at Advanced Media Ventures Group. And, for the record, MediaBytes, and the associated production materials, takes up approximately 25% of my day.
Unfortunately, Shelly’s audience seemed to feel entitled to receive the fruit of his hard work for free—without suffering the agony of watching… horror of horrors: advertising!. Continue reading →
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The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
