widgets, and the reality of ads online

widgets are the next territorial battle. how many widgets will we have time for? well, not widgets, but what's behind them.
widgets will be bit like radio frequencies. but we can keep them on our laptops, or under a widgets icon.
widgets will be the front-pages of our lives in some ways, to the stuff we like to check on often. like our favorite magazines used to be. or favorite radio and tv shows and sports channels and what not.

difference is that back when the printed paper magazine came out once a week, or bi-weekly, (well, still does, although living in singapore there were never such a thing as a magazine other than 8days, which one can live without, here in the states we have thousands) and the tv show appeared 9pm on thursdays or whatever, we may become more fickle, because we know we can catch it all whenever we want to, and thereby we may not catch it all. I"m not talking tivo, i'm talking tv and radio content over the web.

Me? I buy the paper version of New York Post, 25 cents, a rag, for a quick and easy read on the train into Manhattan. Most interesting shit is the NY political and mafia gossip. It keeps me in a new york state of mind, if you like. and tells me how the Mets or the Yankees did the night before.

New York Times, is a quality paper i've stopped buying. i read it for free online.
Same with all ad press. All free online. same with wired, american photography, etc. etc.
and actually, I bloody never click on any advertising on those sites.

the fact is that the web might be the biggest enemy of advertising. It doesn't work on the web. people ignore it. it's too intrusive even in its most benign form. to succeed you have to entice people to engage with your brand. And catching them when they're not up to something else, such as reading what's on the site, or watching the movie on web tv. and here's the hook. you can't catch them when not up to something else. The "surfer" is not inactive.

only if it is something you really need is it worthwhile to stop by for it. or if it seems really, really fun.
but not if you have to interrupt something else.

Interruption is dead I'm afraid. To stay for a moment on a pretty or clever print ad didn't feel like interruption. It didn't feel like a side track. To click on a banner is side tracking.
so it's easier to ignore even if it seems interesting. And it's totally annoying f it also tries to get your attention by blinking or something.

the reality is that you may be interested in a new loan, or a new car, or flowers for you boyfriend.
Either you do in fact know where the bank is, where the car dealer and flower shop are, or you go and search for it online. you don't need ads for that. not nowadays. well, you might click on ads when searching. that's the yellow pages, or the small page ads as we know them.

You may buy and read a fashion mag or car mag because you like fashion and cars. thereby the ads are fun too.
Same of course with sites on topic. difference is that on tv it was linear. you go and pee. in mags you flip the page as quickly as it appeared. on the net you have to make the choice. You won't. Because it's not organic. it's a discourse. Not as easy as simply lingering on a print ad, or not going to the loo during a tv show.

I think b2b is where online ads can really work. people need to know about the products out there, therefore b2b advertising online will work done right.

other than that, it's e-commerce, which may not always be the place people shop, but at least a shop window, if you see what I mean. You check out what Kenneth Cole might have this week, then you go to the store.
If you like it you might buy in the store, or you might go back home and order online, to save perhaps a few bucks, or because they didn't have the color or the size in the store. Stores and their sites live in a symbiosis.
however, you wont get that feeling of a nice shopping bag. some people like "catalogue shopping, some don't. and to some extent, it depends on where you live.

and what about vodka or soft-drinks? well, games, drink tips, humor?, some stuff worth going back to. but how.
outdoor is going to drive this.
and free or cheap tv channels on the web where ads are sparsely populated. however, you're not going to stop watching your film in order to click to a site url on the spot that appears in the middle of it to make it free.
Toys? this is where they've figured it out. Webkinz is a big deal. And it's all got to do with the internet.
By the way, when did you see an ad for Webkinz? They don't advertise. It's all in-store and word of mouth, not even web advertising.

i think advertising has to get real about it's effects.
We're about to experience a rude awakening.
If the truth comes out.
Everybody is totally naive about it today.