Ads on local council websites?

Lincolnshire have started running banner adverts today on their website, in what they claim is "a nationwide first for any local authority."

They're not the first actually! I was surprised when researching this to see quite a few other councils are already doing them.

• Flyde is running Google text ads.
• Nottingham is selling banners (see their media pack- PDF).
• Hampshire are doing ad packages which includes web advertising. Their sponsorship policy.
• Weymouth and Portland will be doing sponsorships.

Others are considering it and there's probably some I don't know of.

One thing Andy Key of Hampshire noticed which also rang true with Lincolnshire was that the public never complained - only the council staff. In fact Lincolnshire has reported public applause for imaginative monetisation.

There are other possible revenue streams as well.

• Linkage from any .gov.uk address has value
• Income from amazon or other links - for example where you are already effectively choosing one business over another, e.g. Google over multimap etc.
• Rent out server space for small business/sole traders
• Recommending and linking to specific suppliers, insurance agencies for example, or in specific sections local attractions like swimming pools other than the council ones

But there are numerous issues. Andy Key posted at PSF about some of the problems they discovered that are involved with advertising on .gov.uk and they seem to be general, across others thinking about it.

• They found ads on council sites a hard sell, who uses the site? You need solid stats
  
• In general, the web ads market is still relatively small, don't expect riches
  
• The ads must be content specific - in which case the business section may be the most lucrative
• Adverts may be sought to give the appearance of a council endorsement, similarly you may end up with potential competitor advertising (e.g. in arts/leisure)
• Advertisers must be vetted by trading standards
• You must have a member agreed policy

Other issues and negatives include:

• Sponsorship will offer more control than auto-generated ads (Google AdWords) which may be inappropriate (similar to the COI experience on Facebook) i.e. 'get a loan' 'debt advice' etc.
• There may be some potential for a negative impact on web budgets, or web budgets increasingly forced to 'outsource'
• Like with staff, some members may be strongly opposed - so a resident survey would be extremely useful for any proposition
• There aren't any Whitehall guidelines on web ads for local government

It's also worth mentioning that I don't recall ever seeing an advert on a US government website - which says something I think.



MK web (Milton Keynes) doesn't carry ads in the 'council channel', but they do use skyscraper ads for council services in the style of the rest of site. This is probably a mistake because users have learned to tune out ads in general - they probably think this draws more attention to services they're cross-selling when in fact it's probably less.

I'd also have a similar issue for the method chosen in Lincolnshire. They're animated, rather than static, banner ads which I think does detract from the content. Thank god for AdBlock.

AdBlock shock: still no threat there

Back in September, Nicholas Carr posted a long, highly combustible diatribe invoking Geezuz against AdBlock Plus: the Firefox extension which will stop practically all those revolving, screaming ads (that's one way, my way, of looking at it). Much online advertising is still stuck in the throw-mud-at-wall stage and, sorry, but I can't read when I have intense visual or auditory distraction. So, like a few other useful extensions (list in right-hand column), AdBlock saves my time and energy.

I explained, at length, how Carr was plain wrong and more than a tad hysterical (although he was timid compared to some hysterics who think it's all about Marxism in disguise). This was simply because it remained and would remain largely a geeky thing. At that point, the only numbers which anyone could source on AdBlock's worldwide usage was 2.5 million, which is nothing.

Because I was reading him again I thought I'd try and find some numbers on AdBlock usage seven months later.

It's now 3 million 'active daily numbers' (where the 2.5 million came from) and probably X3 - 9 million, not-daily, say the geeks who are very excited it's that many. Here's the details.

When Firefox claims it is approaching 20% of worldwide browsers and in a month where China finally eclimpsed the USA as #1 for web users, even 9 million is a pittance.

I suppose getting-a-grip in a follow-up would be out of the question, Nicholas?

AdBlock: "not evil"

The always interesting blogger, author and commentator Nicholas Carr has a thing about AdBlock - that's a little plug-in or add-on which around 1-2% of users have installed - to the point that he just asked the question

• 'Adblock Plus: what would Jesus do?'

If that sounds OTT that's because it is .

As I explained before, there is no way that AdBlock, the effort of one geek in Germany, not the Russian mafia, is ever going to seriously challenge ecommerce.

AdBlock somehow representing armageddon for ecommerce, if not capitalism in general, is what Nicholas and most others on this subject have been carrying on about.

And here's why they all need a bex and a good lie down:



This is the faaaabulous Broadway World website trying to flog me Xanadu tickets, finding it's own way around my AdBlock, which is the red circle in the bottom right of the screengrab.

Haaretz and others get some ads round my default AdBlock set-up as well.


(Xanadu? Is this some sort of off-beam behavioural targetting? I Haaaate Xanadu, brings back bad memories .. :{ )

Several industry commentators have written that AdBlock is evil.

Some are arguing that Firefox users be actively blocked, (which just sparks another add-on arms race).

Carr is right on one thing though, that a paid commentator should see the Web the same way as the poor sods who don't use AdBlock. I won't spoil his post by telling you his answer to 'Jesus's' conundrum ...

• NB: Here's the real origins of A Bex and a Good Lie Down
• New York Times scare article
  

~~~~~~~~~~~


Postscript: here's Google getting around AdBlock on JackP's blog:



And a comment made me investigate my filters in AdBlock and - ahah! - there is indeed a 'Dr Evil' involved in this conspiracy against capitalism!

[Adblock Plus 0.7.1]

!       Filterliste von Dr. Evil & MonztA (mit Hilfe der Foren-Nutzer auf firefox-browser.de)
!       Zuletzt geändert: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 19:06:37 +0200 wird alle 4 Tage aktualisiert (expires after 4 days).
!       Kommentare (verbleibende Werbung, fälschlicherweise blockierte Inhalte, Danksagungen ;-), ...)


!       bitte per Mail an adblockfilters@mozdev.org oder auf http://www.firefox-browser.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28904 an uns richten

I come back to The Pickards after clicking 'add filter' a few times and - voila! - Jack's Ads disappear :{ Even when I disable AdBlock on Jack's site :@ It must be learning !? Only when AdBlock's entirely disabled do Jack's Ads reappear :~

Odd.

Nicholas Carr goes ballistic

Adblock Plus: the nuclear plug-in
from Nicholas Carr

Adblock Plus, the Firefox browser plug-in that erases advertisements from web pages, is a killer of a killer app - or at least it would be if it became widely popular. Right now, it sits like a coyote at the edge of the net, quietly eyeing all the businesses it would happily devour. The plug-in, writes Noam Cohen in today's New York Times, has the potential to be an "extreme menace to the online-advertising business...

Yes, potential ... but something in the 90s% of even Firefox users (it's not easy to plug into Internet Explorer) don't use add-ons. Plus, who's going to develop and promote a full-on ad blocker? Symantec?

Carr: If web users decide they don't want to see ads, Google would face an extremely unpleasant dilemma. Either its business or its credibility would end up in tatters.

Flee for the hills! Cash in your options now!

Says Cohen, about similar PVR 'concerns':

(As things turned out, TiVo and a rival, ReplayTV, opted not to include an automatic service to skip ads after vociferous objections by the television industry.)

He also points out that business whingers - for that is what they are - already have an answer, which is

“to serve ads from their own servers.”

Haa'retz do this and I still see internal promotions elsewhere. What I don't see is the full horror, revolving, irritating, smack-me-with-your-BRANDING ads ...

Marketeers have started to get the message about pop-ups, which is not because of AdBlock.

Yes, AdBlock is grrr-eat, but who else but geeks? Seriously? The odds are stacked against it. There's not a version for mobiles - the future mass market - and I'd imagine that's a even harder environment for something like AdBlock.

There have always been these type of developments because anyone can tweak how they receive the Web, that's why there are so many browsers. Things like AdBlock have been around for ages. I s'pose you could also say that things like MySpace have also been around for ages but ... calm down Nicholas! It's only an add-on!

Great Firefox add-ons

I'm a big fan of Firefox and have started using a new add-on which is just brilliant.

Using SEOpen, from one right-click, I can check a page's:

• Yahoo Backlinks
• Pages in Yahoo Index
• Google Backlinks
• Google Cache
• Pages in Google index
• Google Translate to English
• Google Related
• PageRank Check
• MSN Backlinks
• Pages in MSN Index
• Alexa Overview
• Alexa Traffic
• Alexa Related
• Alexa Backlinks
• "Mass Check" multiple sources at once
• Check DMOZ Inclusion
• Keyword Density
• Page Size Checker
• HTML Validator
• Server Header Viewer
• Wayback Machine
• Check robots.txt
• Whois Info

Fab.


This is a bit specialist (ahem) but some of the other add-ons I love can be useful for everyone:

TinyUrl Creator
Very easy copy'n'paste for a shorter URL

Tabbrowser Preferences
Useful things like retrieving closed tabs, copy tab URL

Snipshot
Edit images easily, simple crop, resize

Show Screen Captures
Displays thumbnail screenshots next to external links on a web page, this one I think I'll disable

ScrapBook
Extremely useful to clip pages or text but be even better if I was saving to my web repository, not my hard drive

Plain Text Links
Lets me open a URL from text

Menu Editor
Edit right-click menu

Image Zoom

IE Tab
Shows a page as it would appear in IE

Groowe Search Toolbar
Combines Google, Wikipedia (I use that a lot), Yahoo, de.li.cious etal

Greasemonkey
Great developer tool. More >

Advanced Dork

DOM Inspector

LinkChecker

ColorZilla
Copies any colour from a page.

DownThemAll!
Speeds up + manages downloading

deskCut
Puts a shortcut on your desktop

Adblock Plus
Blocks ads (except those served from the site, which some do)

What am I missing?

'Beyond belief'

Discovered in California and posted on John Naughton's blog. [More pix of the surrounding area for that sign!].

As was this, which comes from a banner ad which ran on the New York Times homepage amongst other places (I miss this delightful stuff, running AdBlock as I do ... ). Interesting that the blogger is associating the NYT with this banal ad.

Digital divide grows for older Britons as others connect to new media

Digital divide grows for older Britons as others connect to new media

Angela Balakrishnan
Friday March 16, 2007
The Guardian

Mobile phones, the internet and digital televisions are increasingly transforming the lives of many British people - but also leaving millions of others stranded on the other side of the digital divide, a report said yesterday [pdf].

While recent years have seen a rapid rise in the use of technology, the Office for National Statistics said there was a growing gap between older people and lower income households who have little or no access to new technology and higher income households who are far more likely to have internet access.

The impact of websites such as eBay is reflected by figures which show that the percentage of adults in the UK who used the internet to sell goods doubled last year to 18% from the level recorded in 2003-04.

Apart from using the internet for buying and selling, more than 80% of individuals turn to it as a source of information or to send emails. Personal banking also rose to 43%. Music downloading is attempted by the more adventurous, with 40% of households accessing music online.

Overall, the ONS study found that Britain is fast becoming a nation that is better connected; the crossover year is seen as 2003, with more households having an internet connection than not having one. The number of broadband connections also overtook narrow band connections two years ago.

However, the study showed that 55% of over-50s had not used a computer in the past three months, compared with 13% of people aged 16 to 30. More than 90% of households in the highest income group have internet access, dropping to less than 20% for low earners.

"We live in an increasingly connected society, with the rapid advance of information and communication technology in business and in the home," the ONS said. "But by no means everyone has joined the digital age."

Although nearly a half of all households in the UK had internet access, digital TV service or one or more mobile phones last year, the report said that one in 12 households, or 8%, did not have access to any of these. Low income households were more likely to own a mobile phone or have digital television rather than internet access or a computer.

Income differences were reflected in the regional variations of household internet use. London, where households earn the highest average weekly income in the country - £766 - had the largest percentage of homes with internet access, while in the north-east, where the average weekly income is £455, only 44% of homes could access the internet, 14% less than the capital.

The biggest factor stopping the older generation from using the internet was a lack of interest or knowledge.

The research found that those of a working age saw the largest growth in use of the internet due to their jobs. The split between men and women of this age group of 16-65 was fairly equal. However, for the over-65s, women were found to be more technologically savvy, with 55% of females using the internet last year, compared to 43% of males.

OFCOM did a study last year — Media Literacy Audit: Report on media literacy amongst older people.

Amnogst other things it found:

Attitudes and preferences

• Over half of those aged 65 and over say they would miss television the most out of an array of media activities. One in five says they would miss the radio most, and one in 10 newspapers. The figures for both radio and newspapers are higher than for the UK adults as a whole.
• Nearly two in five (37%) of people aged 65 and over spend ‘all or nearly all’ of their leisure time at home, compared to 17% of all UK adults. Those with a disability, those aged 75+, and those living alone are more likely to do so.
• Some 40% of those aged 65 or over say that they try to keep up with new technology, and 43% say they are interested in it (compared to 66% and 68% for all UK adults). Nearly 70% of older people say that they like technology to be simple and straightforward, compared to 59% of all UK adults.
• One in eight (13%) older people says they would like to learn more about various elements of media, compared to 32% of all adults. Some 7% of older people say they are interested in learning about the internet, and 7% say they have already learned about it through classes or training. Those aged over 75, and those living alone, are significantly less likely to express interest in, or say that they have learned already, about aspects of the media.

Internet

• Just over two thirds (68%) of internet users aged 65 and over use it for communication on a weekly basis, only slightly less than all UK adult internet users (72%). Nearly one-third use the internet for transactions (for example banking, or shopping) on a weekly basis. Over one quarter use it to look at news. Overall breadth of use however is narrower than that of all UK adults.
• Some 34% of older people know how the BBC website is mainly funded, compared to 46% of all UK adults. One in ten older people knows the main way of funding for search engine websites, compared to 25% of all UK adults. This reflects the lower penetration of the internet amongst older people.
• Nearly half of older internet owners (44%) say they are confident about blocking viruses and spam, compared to 58% of all UK adults with the internet at home.
• The proportion of older people saying that ‘someone else tends to’ block computer viruses or e-mail spam or unwanted e-mail messages is no different than that for all UK adults (around one in five of both groups).

Older people 'missing out' online

Seniors Network started out in life as a vehicle to help get Older People interested in the Internet. It has worked in a very small way. We would like to increase the interest of older people in all manners of communication. So what can we do?

Let me have your feedback - your comments - your suggestions

Here is some food for thought

• OFCOM Report Summary of report on media literacy amongst older people

• BBC article re the above report

• Irish Devcom Article

• Executive Summary of Report in PDF

• Old people and the internet - net benefits PDF

• A DIGG forum Digg is a user driven social content website - all ages - they discussed the BBC article recently.