Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
If you want to read The Washington Post’s coverage of the newly discovered human species Homo naledi this morning but you’re using ad blocking software, you’re out of luck: The paper is experimenting with blocking access to readers who give ads the stiff-arm. One message that greeted WashingtonPost.com visitors with ad blocking software engaged. “We’re…
Reports on the IAB’s (Interactive Ad Bureau) early responses (who can we sue?) to their adblocking crisis were quickly and easily critiqued (clean up your adtech?) by the companion industry association that represents the makers of content, DCN (Digital Content Next). We have reached a point of inflection, a tipping point, a watershed moment and…
What’s This? Associations Now Brand Connection provides opportunities for advertisers to connect with the Associations Now audience. All content is paid for by the advertiser. The Associations Now editorial staff is not involved in creating this content. As websites become increasingly complex and ad-laden, users are starting to rebel against overly “heavy” websites that…
Amid reports that ad-blocking software could cost the advertising industry billions, and that Apple is set to ratchet up the problem with built-in blocking for Safari in its new OS next week, the industry seems to have finally awakened to the problem. And what has it come up with? According to a report in Ad…
Let us be gentle as we deliver this message to the good companies that pay for you to enjoy (I hope) this page—as well as most content across all media—for free: Your advertising sucks. Then let us try to help them fix that, or else their generous subsidy could disappear and with it much…
Adblockers and the fracking of data An inconvenient truth about digital content I’ve decided to test a Safari Adblocker extension in private beta directly with the Princeton student who’s developing it. I’m doing it for science and sharing my findings to encourage more public discourse about why the trust between content consumers and producers is…
By Jean-Louis Gassée Ad blocking started as an initiative by independent developers who wanted to improve our browsing experience. Now that at least one company, Apple, has made Content Blocking “official”, ad-supported publishing business models are in trouble. Back in the days when we bought a newspaper or magazine at the newsstand, we thought we…
article start Traditional and online publishers are struggling to cash in on their surging mobile traffic, raising questions about their future growth as consumers increasingly turn to smartphones and tablets for media. News and information outlets ranging from the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal to Business Insider and About.com all can point…
More than fifteen years ago, in response to decreasing ad rates and banner blindness, web advertisers and publishers adopted pop-up ads. People hated pop-up ads. We tolerated in-page banners as an acceptable cost of browsing free websites, but pop-ups were over the line: they were too annoying and intrusive. Many website publishers claimed helplessness in…
There’s been a lot of talk lately — and more than a little hand-wringing — about the rise of online ad blocking. In part, that’s because of a recent study that shows what appears to be a dramatic increase in the use of ad-blocking software. It might also have something to do with the news…