Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

The frustrating thing is that this is a solution in search of a problem that creates a problem. Pop-ups and interstitials excepted, in-page display advertising cannot possibly be that big an irritant to people that they need to block it to greatly improve their experience. Unlike TV ads, pop-ups, and interstitials, banners are not interruptive. You see them and interact with them if you want to, and you don't if you don't.

This is one of the reasons that the best media companies are doing custom programs that occur inside the site and not in "outside" areas like banner boxes. It's certainly harder to manage from a buying perspective, and insanely hard if you're a dancing mortgage shadow in search of pure reach, but impression for impression much more effective. And unblockable.

There could be a lot that's positive in this development. With any risk comes opportunity.

If consumers are empowered to turn off ads at will, then the onus is on advertisers and sites to work together to offer either:
1. the kind of exceptional value consumers won't want to miss, or
2. killer entertainment that's engaging and worthwhile.

Hmmm, is it just me or do these two things often seem sorely lacking in today's blaring marketplace?

So yeah, there's risk, but this could also lead to a new level of commitment and investment on the part of advertisers & sites toward the creation of better, more sophisticated content.

And that is definitely something good for companies like Organic.

Just wanted to clarify a couple of things from the Mozilla perspective: 1) Adblock Plus is an independent offering from Firefox add-on developer Wladimir Palant -- it's not a joint development effort with Mozilla. 2) That said, there's strong end user demand for what Wladimir has built. Adblock Plus is a top 10 Firefox add-on. We believe in providing Firefox users a marketplace for add-ons and there is clearly demand for the solution offered by Adblock Plus.

I think your assertion about implications for marketers is spot on -- marketing content that pulls in viewers because it is compelling in its own right is the future.

Good post.
This is not the first time that such ad-blockers have shown up, but as they go this has a novel approach (IP blocking). In the past, such attempts tried to shut down object embeds, or eliminate flash content from the page. They never really got popular because they stopped a lot of non-ad content from displaying.
There were ways around the old ad-blocking methods, and most certainly there are ways around the IP-blocking method. However, forgetting the technical discussion, and even skipping past the debate on how much of the internet's revenue is driven by advertising......isn't it time to get beyond the traditional banner? Consumer buy-in is the key.
I agree with this statement;
"I think ad-blocking technologies will make the value of high quality branded entertainment content more important than ever"
The trend is already towards subscribed entertainment. The user knows to expect certain advertising when they subscribe, and the advertiser knows how to frame the advertising to be attractive to the demographic. The only difference right now is that the ad is often served up from a different place than the subscription service - if it came from the same place as the service the advertising and the content would be indestinquishable.
Be it a desktop widget, monthly subscription, subscription by service, the user 'buys in' to the advertising at the time of signing up.
It is a natural progression for advertising online, not to be worried over. Advertising is not going away.

What I can see happen is a shift in business models, where the advertising is served up in a different manner - decentralized away from large-scale services, and moved out to the content providers themselves. In other words, if you have a rich media ad to stream on a subscription-based site (say, a popular sports coverage site), rather than placing the ad on a streaming service and serving it from there....you would work with the site itself to temporarily 'gear them up' to serve the ad themselves. This has a lot of implications for everything from the way we handle scalable technology to how revenue is divided.

Lots to think about.

-tim

The other interesting thing is that there are several "automatic" filterset updaters for this technology. I got caught recently chasing a bug where a certain website (to remain nameless) was not showing up properly, just unadorned text. It's top level domain had been "flagged" as an ad serving site, and ta da, without any user intervention ... no images, flash or other things for you!

I personally dislike ads for a few reasons , they are very distracting. I don't need to see seizure inducing ad banners when i'm trying to read content. And half the time the flash banners take forever to load. And in some cases certain sites use so many flash ads that it slows or crashes my browser at times.

Now on the flip side, there are sites I enjoy very much on a daily basis in which I will allow ads to help support them. But unless Im a frequent visitor and feel the content is worthwhile I will put them on a safe list.

As far as lawsuits against adblock... I don't see that going anywhere. Its not like they are shoving the plug in down peoples throats. People want it and IF they manage to shut it down legally there will just be another one like it around the corner.

Pay per click system is quite profitable at https://valary.com
They have high bids, detailed statistics, pay at the right time, provide all the necessary information, NEVER shave!!!
I advertise pills- quite a good business I would like to say. Check their site- they have all the required information!