http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/21/news/companies/google-no-ads-1/index.html?iid=SF_BN_River
According
to the article, Google is working on a new service called “contributor” that
can help users to see fewer ads on certain websites, in return users have to
pay around $1 to $3.
However,
the service won’t block other ads that the website might have. So far websites
that have signed up include: Mashable, the Onion, Imgur, ScienceDaily, wikiHow
and Urban Dictionary.
It’s
said that Google is billing it as a way to make the Internet less dependent on
advertising by giving users the chance to contribute a few dollars every month
to the websites they visit the most. Part of the money will go to the websites that
have signed up for the service, and part of it will go to Google.
Personally,
I think this is not a good strategy since there have been so many free extension applications for browsers that have the same function as “Contributor".
I think this sounds like a good idea. Initially, the internet and websites were free of advertisements but now it seems that every time I click on something I have to watch a short video before I can proceed. This seems like a great solution to what has become an annoyance for many internet users. Also, it seems that google will be working with particular websites so those who don't want to participate can continue advertising in their normal way. I would definitely look into buying this service.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like an interesting business concept but I wonder if it will be able to attract a lot of internet users to use the service. I agree with Hai that there are a lot of other extensions available on the internet which block the 'annoying' advertisements, and therefore serve as pretty much the same way as Google's Contributor. That being said, I am sure that a tech-giant like Google already knows about these freewares available on the internet, so they will most likely work on adding some new features that will make their service more unique to the users, and eventually help them make more money in the process.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting, but I'm not sure how well it's going to pan out. Although ads are annoying and there are an overabundance of them on certain sites, I'm not sure how many people will be willing to pay to get it removed, even if it is as little as $1. As you said, there are other extensions that are free and essentially do the same job as the Google Contributor, or people could just take the time and effort to exit out of the ads or ignore them. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
ReplyDeleteI think this sounds like a good idea in theory, as many internet users would prefer to see less advertisements. However, I'm not sure how many people think ads are annoying enough to actually pay for their removal. The fact that the quantity of advertisements on participating websites would only be decreased rather than completely removed also decreases the amount of people who would be willing to pay for ad removal.
ReplyDeleteI feel like this may be good in generating more revenue for Google, because they will still receive the payment from companies posting the ads as well as the people who do decide ads are annoying enough to pay to decrease the amount of ads. I agree with Haley that it would be better to completely remove the ads if someone is willing to pay. Just like several apps and games do for smartphones.
ReplyDeleteThis strategy depends on how much revenue they can make to remove ads versus the amount that they will lose on the depreciation in value of their ads. I am sure that a company as large and successful as Google has run countless scenarios for the success of this business decision
ReplyDeleteI'm sure a lot of people will be willing to pay a few dollars to stop ads from popping up on their favorite sites, especially sites that have lots of ads and pop-up websites. However, what will be interesting to see is if a lot of people start to pay to not have ads be present if fewer people will choose to advertise on these websites. A lot of websites make a good portion of their revenue from ads, so if the people putting up the ads aren't getting the results then they will take them down and the websites will lose revenue. Implementing this new idea might have a bad effect.
ReplyDeleteThe company itself may or may not benefit from this, but as long as products such as adblock remain available on the market, I do not foresee the "contributor" being all that successful. Then again, based on the current estimated costs one could also argue that people may not care and will buy it if it's made more easily available to them.
ReplyDeleteMany people would be interested in paying less money and be able avoid pop ups and irrelevant ads however it'll be interesting to see consumer behavior to an increase in the price to get rid of ads in the future.
ReplyDelete