One More Time - The Ad Model Is Broken - Jaffer Ali

I am interested in imperfections quirkiness insanity unpredictabilityThat39s what we really pay attention to anyway We don39t talk aboutplanes flying we talk about them crashing Tibor Kalman graphics designerI have not been writing as much as I used to An overview of much of my writing would reveal a highly critical POV of conventional digital thinking Tibor39s quote at the beginning of this piece sums up my worldviewThere is a contradiction between my writing and the way I live my life You see while I relish critique the glass is way more than halffull in my personal and professional life I tried for a time to write like that but stories like Digg39s demise and Groupon39s free fall pulls me back inThere is no FAA to examine the crash scenes of these once digital high flyers I am donning my FAA hat to investigate these crashes The answer is actually simple The online ad model is brokenWhat does this meanIt means that few people can remember the last ad they saw on the web It is worse than benign neglect Ads have become malignant due to many factors We will not go into the details of malignancy again right now but suffice it to say that the only people wanting more ads are those peddling them And increasingly we are equipped with the means to avoid just about any advertising thrown our wayThe industry39s answer to the ecosystem39s ad problem has beenamp8230now wait for thisamp8230are you readyamp8230 to double down and serve more ads I cannot make this up Take what does not work and double it The great media ecologist Marshall McLuhan said when a medium 39overheats39 and is taken to an extreme it quotreverses into an opposing formquotOnline advertising has pushed the limits so hard that it has become an antiadvertising ecosystem We no longer have an ad model we have an antiad model Hegel would be proud To make matters even worse links to advertisers39 websites must compete with on average 170 additional content links that publishers insert onto an average web pageSo we take a web page fill it with competing exit links for more contentamp8230which tries to monetize that content with too many adsamp8230which people either ignore or blockamp8230and publishers scratch their head why they cannot meet payroll without convincing an idiot VC to pony upShould we be surprised that Digg crashed I read some weak attempts to articulate why Digg dug its own grave Most of the people looking at the sordid remains of the crash surmised there was a technological problem Digg according to these investigators did not have the right technology to remain aloftThis is absurd Digg is out of business because it could not sell enough of what does not work advertising Its audience opted out of advertising from day one Enough savvy advertisers figured that out 46 million in VC investments kept enough wind under Digg39s wings to ignore the turbulence of a failed model And even now after the crash people are saying it was the technology or lack of it that did it inSo I suggest that if we are not going to talk about planes flying let39s at least be accurate as to why they crashJaffer Ali is the CEO of the content video network Vidsense and the ecommerce company PulseTVcom He can be reached at 7084784500 ext 105 or email at jdotaliatVidsensecomRead all Jafferamp8217s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at On the Other Handamp8230Check us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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One More Time - The Ad Model Is Broken - Jaffer Ali

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