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I've recently been reading about a new form of advertising. It goes by the name of "pay per play". The idea is that every visitor to your site will be played a five second audio advertisement, and every time an ad is played, you earn some money from it.I think that most sites using this form of advertising will quickly end up with no visitors at all.
Comparisons to other ads.
I've read some comments where people compare the prospect of using "pay per play" on their blogs with television or radio advertising.This is a poor comparison. Most blogs are for reading, not watching or listening to. Do you have animated and audible ads in a newspaper?
A blog with an automatically playing advertisement is like a musical birthday card. It jumps out and surprises you, and you run a mile.
Some sites might benefit.
A predominantly media-based site, such as a video or music site, might be able to get away with audio advertisements. YouTube could probably do it.However, you'd expect YouTube to insert ads into the video clips they already have on the site - rather than playing them separately. After all, what's the point in playing an audio ad until someone tries to view a video, seeing as that's the main content on YouTube?
Also, don't forget that videos only autoplay on YouTube when you go to the video page. The YouTube home page doesn't have content that starts up automatically.
Automatically playing audio is bad.
Music is not totally unacceptable on the web - far from it. But it should not start automatically, and there should be a very visible OFF button.Remember that some people browse the web while listening to music, or late at night, or at work... basically, in situations where they don't want a loud advertisement to come blaring out unannounced. Even on a site dedicated to audio and video content, this is a surefire way to drive visitors away.
Remember popup windows?
They are much despised. Autoplaying music is equally annoying. If you decide to use Pay Per Play and you make some money from it, good for you. Just don't complain if the majority of your visitors leave your blog to go somewhere that doesn't force audio on them.Or to put it simply - don't kill your site for a quick buck.
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Tags: pay per play, audio, video, autoplay, usability, popup windows, web annoyances
Posted by Ben on February 04, 2008 21:57 / Edited: February 04, 2008 22:41
Comments
I have to agree. I think websites which launch with automatic sound are probably some of the most annoying to me. I won't even stay to read their content. As soon as I hear the audio, I close the window. Definitely think hard before adding this service!
I was blog hopping late the other night and had one pop on and just about jumped out of my skin! I won't be using them... I don't want to be liable for anyone's heart attack! :)
This is a dreadful idea. I like to listen to my music while surfing blogs and autoplaying music or ads are just horribly intrusive. Bad, bad idea, and nothing will make me click away from the site faster.
I tend to agree, but a point to consider is that they only last 5 seconds. 5 seconds of audio, even autoplay, is a lot less annoying than flash advertising that locks up the browser (WidgetBucks and others). And at 5 seconds, by the time you can find any "off button", it's already over.
Holly - agreed, I wonder how many people who advocate Pay Per Play would actually be happy if a lot of sites that they visit started using it?
Angie - I've had exactly the same thing happen to me and I know how it feels. It's not fun. Sorry you had to go through that!
Venessa and Ian - I click away from the site pretty quickly too.
Tom - On MySpace (which has autoplaying audio on a lot of profiles) I have used the Stop button to prevent the audio from even starting. At least a bit of it has to load before it'll play, so the Stop button may still be useful.
I see your point about the audio not lasting for very long, but it still doesn't make me like these ads any more. Also, I don't think that "less annoying than flash advertising that locks up the browser" is justification for using these ads. My browser has locked up on sites that have far too many ads on them, but not specifically on sites that use WidgetBucks - I find it's the volume of ads that causes the problem.
Thanks for all the comments!
Any site with autoplaying ads or music should be taken out behind the shed and beaten with a stick.
SB
Hi Scott, not a bad idea but I didn't know there were any sheds on the Internet - nor did I know that a site could be beaten with a stick! Care to elaborate on how this feat would be accomplished? ;)
Have to TOTALLY agree with you there!!! First time it happened to me it frightened the life out of me. Part of my problem is I'll have many tabs open and flick between them while waiting for page loads so it can take a while for me to find which page is making the noise. I have one blog I read which has the most horrible cheaping noise every time I open it. I dread going there to leave a comment. :( But don't know how to tell the person...might need to blog about it on my other blog and hope she reads it. ;)
Hi Lightening, I know exactly what you mean.
I like to drop a card on all Entrecard members who drop their card on my site, and this often means I open loads of sites at once. It's been a while since I last had a game of "hunt the noisy tab" but I remember the last one only too well. Maybe if Firefox made the tab light up in red?!
As Tom said above (comment #5) it's not a total disaster if the audio stops after 5 seconds, but it still makes me jump a mile.
Not only did I have my first (practice) blog play ad/sound automatically (it was the blog host doing it not me) but it was only to flog their wares, so I got zero from it. It was annoying me to no end, so I can imagine what my handful of visitors thought. At that point I moved to Blogger.
Thanks for the comment, Andrew. I think you were wise to get out of that, it sounds like a pretty underhanded technique for making money!
Enola Gay??
I mean virtual sheds and virtual sticks - of course...
SB
Hi Ben,
Michael once more here. Great thought. Thanks. Made me reflect and inspired me to an own blogpost at the topic.
Regards
Michael
Scott- of course!
Michael - thanks for the comment, I saw your post - I'm glad this has made some people question the idea. It wouldn't be good if lots of people went ahead with the idea only to lose loads of readers. As you say on your blog, some sites might be able to use it, but I'd certainly err on the side of caution.
I thought about putting them on my site, but then I decided not to. I find auto playing annoying myself and didn't want to put my readers though that.