Paul Ryan asked me to write a story for the June/July issue of Anthill about digital media and entrepreneurship. I ended up writing something about how it seems to me that digital media entrepreneurs require a higher code of ethics, a higher vision, than your run-of-the-mill online entrepreneurs. Click on the image below to read the full article.
I think the problem right now with the Internet is that the “advertisers” have taken over and the original idea of what the Internet was intended for has been shoved into the back corner of someone’s closet. I’ve noticed a lot in the last year or so that the amount of advertising on every page I surf to has been increasing (almost exponentially) and the amount of content has been decreasing. Everyone wants a piece of the great Internet advertising pie and we’ve lost sight of our original goal for what the Internet SHOULD be.
I Twittered the other day that I’m becoming bored with the Internet–it’s becoming too much like television with tiny amounts of content sandwiched between obnoxious advertisements. Where does it end? And where do we go from here?
Herne, is the amount of advertising a concern if the content itself is worthy? I’m more concerned when bloggers start creating their content purely for the purpose of attracting advertising. I’ve talked with bloggers in the past who deliberately write up pop-junk stories about celebrities just to drive traffic to their site (and, therefore, drive up ad revenues).
If the amount of space the advertising is more than say 1/4 of the page or if the ads themselves are overly obnoxious (flashing banners, animated ads, “pop up” windows that demand you click them to make them go away, etc), then the content means nothing to me. They could be talking about the cure to cancer, and I would probably close the page if their advertising was in my face all the time.
It doesn’t surprise me that bloggers (this includes the “A Bloggers” or “Pro Bloggers”) write up trash pieces just to drive traffic to their sites for ad dollars. Newspapers have been doing this for years, it’s not a new concept. Throw a controversial headline or a “feel good” piece on the front page with a “continued on page X” to drive eyes to your advertisements… So-called Pro Bloggers have been using Twitter to do this for some time now.