Assuming of course that the banner ad is the only ad placement
on the page. (See http://newsspace.internet.com/)
> Think about it: how many competing beer or
> car manufacturers advertise during the same game? How many
> competing technologies advertise in Wired?
Certainly, but rarely on the same page. Magazines guarantee
(in most cases) that major competing accounts do not appear on
facing pages. When was the last time you saw a Ford ad on page
14 and a Chrysler ad on page 15? The reality (from my
experience) is that advertisers view the search-results page in
a similar way they do traditional magazine pages and thus want
exclusive access -- within their own market -- to the reader
per result page.
> I also agree with what I suspect is behind Raisch's view: that
> probably the whole idea of advertising-based Web services is
> broken backed in the long run. _Suck_ has covered a lot of
> this ground recently.
While they provide value to the consumer, they do not have a
business model (currently) that is supportable in the long run.
> > If you modify
> >the page, reaping the benefits of the search without paying
> >for it, you are working at odds with those who provide this
> >service.
>
> I disagree. First, the whole idea of reaping benefit from
> others' labor applies equally well to standard search engines:
> they make hay out of the poor HTML scribe's labor. But that's
> not the right way to think about it. I think it is better to
> think about it this way: search engines add value to those who
> publish on the Web by making their stuff accessible.
Ummm...You disagree and then agree. <smile> I never refered to
search-engines as 'para-sites.' They provide substantial value
to the consumer, aiding in navagation and providing (in some
cases) badly needed 'context' as well.
> Agents
> like WebCompass's add value to the search engine's results by
> providing more metadata about a document than the fact that it
> contains some boolean combination of keywords. As such, I
> disagree with Raisch and with the NYTimes' recent CyberTimes
> article labeling metasearch tools, like WebCompass, Savvy
> Search, Metacrawler etc, as 'para-sites'. The search engines'
> agents add value to the Web their way; there is room for other
> agents to add value to the Web in their own ways.
Hmmm... Ok, I will add value to Web Compass by running it on a
very fast machine and providing users access to the single
license I have without paying the manufacturer for my
unexpected application of their technology.
The difference here is that I am extracting value without
proper compensation from those who made Web Compass, just as
Web Compass extracts value from the search-engine without
proper compensation. ('Proper' in this context can only be
judged by the injured party.) Search-engines extract virtually
no value from those who provide content online and returns real
measurable value back to them by exposing their work to a
broader audience.
(I think it is interesting to note that there is *some* value
that Web indices extract from sites they collect: the context of
the overall experience. What I mean by this is that by serving
pages without the surrounding context, without having to proceed
from page one to page two to reach page three, there is some
lost value to the site. In most cases, this is not a concern to
the site, however.)
> >Technology applied indiscriminantly without a clear
> >understanding of the goals of those it affects is
> >revolutionary, not evolutionary. And revolutions can be very
> >expensive.
>
> I don't know what you are suggesting here. Can you explain?
Only that technologies like metasearch-agents are revolutionary,
not evolutionary.
Evolution provides value to the many at the expense of the few,
working within the existing system.
Revolution extracts value from the many, to the benefit of the
few, destroying the existing system.
-- </rr> Rob Raisch, The Internet Company Rob writes weekly on the topic of Internet-enabled advertising and marketing for Mecklermedia's IWORLD <http://netday.iworld.com/business/>Original portions copyright 1996 by Rob Raisch