Are Plain-Text Ads Doomed?

friedegg writes "Usability expert Jakob Nielsen's latest alertbox examines the future of text advertising on the web. Text based advertising has become increasingly popular recently partly because of Google's success with it. Nielsen notes that advertising works well on search engines because users visit them with the specific intent of going elsewhere. He also thinks it's only a matter of time before the novelty of text advertising wears off, and users develop "box blindness" in addition to their current "banner blindness." It isn't totally negative, though, as he thinks the low-end media format forces advertises to express a focused and succinct message that users may take more seriously."

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[ergo98]

Now with aspartame goodness!

diamonds != forever. advertising == forever

[Hubert_Shrump]

As fonts get smaller, ASCII art in the adverts will pick up and pretty soon - we'll be back where we started.

Just a matter of time.

Based on speed of the responses here

[bwcarty]

I'd say that text *articles* are doomed as well. How many people actually click the link and read everything?

Google has ads?

[Aexia]

This article might be on to something...

Laws

[bananaape]

Advertisers just need to go and pay congress to make laws requiring us to view ads. Problem solved.

The new law could be called the DMAA.

Collage Students

[rherbert]

You mean students formed as a composition of various materials? ;)

Re:Next generation ads (IMHO)

[pdbogen]

Hm. It's kind of like they're taking a product, and putting it, sort of.. placing it, in the medium. Like, product.. I dunno. Call it product placement. It's revolutionary, I say. :(

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:My Experience

[fobbman]

Your clickthru rate increase was due to folks realizing that clicking the word "monkey" is a lot easier than hitting the graphical bastard that moves back and forth, back and forth, taunting me with his elusiveness. Back and forth, back and forth, back and...

Re:In a word: NO

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

.. rich media ads ..

That's a PC term if I ever heard one. No, that ad isn't ultra annoying, it's just rich media. Rich indeed.

Re:Where advertising should really go

[ozric99]

Principal Skinner reads his invitation at school and thinks to himself.
He walks down the hall and looks into Miss Hoover's classroom, where children sit in front of a TV screen, piled three high and crammed into desks.

Troy on TV: "Now turn to the next problem. If you have three Pepsis and drink one, how much more refreshed are you? You, the redhead in the Chicago school system?"
A window opens up on the screen to show the girl
Girl: "Pepsi?"
Troy: "Partial credit!"

Nielson shocks us again.

[Sir Rhosys]

I don't find this half as shocking a topic as this one:

Jakob Nielsen Declares the Letter "C" Unusable [unclesharky.com] ;)

but not in dreams!

[ozric99]

[Scene: Planet Express: Lounge. The crew are sat around a table.]

Fry: So you're telling me they broadcast commercials into people's dreams?

Leela: Of course.

Fry: But, how is that possible?

Farnsworth: It's very simple. The ad gets into your brain just like this liquid gets into this egg. [He holds up an egg and injects it with liquid. The egg explodes.] Although in reality it's not liquid, but gamma radiation.

Fry: That's awful. It's like brainwashing.

Leela: Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?

Fry: Well sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio. And in magazines. And movies. And at ball games and on buses and milk cartons and t-shirts and written on the sky. But not in dreams. No siree!

Bender: Quit squawking fleshwad nobody's forcing you to buy anything.

Amy: Yeah. I mean we all have commercials in our dreams but you don't see us running of to buy brand name merchandise at low low prices.

[After a long silence the crew gets up and runs out.]

Re:In a word: NO

[Zoop]

That's a PC term if I ever heard one. No, that ad isn't ultra annoying, it's just rich media. Rich indeed.

Actually, to be truly PC, it should be "rich media-American."

Evolution of marketing

[jafuser]

I remember reading one of the Dilbert books, Is your computer safe from hackers? [techdirt.com] where it said that marketing will continue to become more and more manipulative Make money with your website! [memepool.com] as it builds upon the shoulders of already tried marketing schemes.

I just wonder how long before Specials on Ink Jet refill kits! [laughlab.co.uk] they start putting ads Long Distance for just 1c per minute! [cellar.org] in the middle Spy on your neighbors! [scifitoday.com] of all web content?

Re:Text based ads vs banners

[SourceHammer]

Slashdot has ads? I didn't know. If they had had text ads I would have seen them.

All advertising sucks.

[An ominous Cow art]

All the time. Everywhere.

There are no exceptions.

I will never reward someone for annoying me.

Re:Collage Students

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot.

She's obviously talking about art students who specialize in this art form.

Re:Better have them plaintext

[jpetts]

Can't we just ban them? :-)

But then you would be a banner!