The well-known Web Metrics Guru recently took a look at AdSoft, which not only feeds ads onto panels in Second Life, but according to the creator, has boosted in-world traffic of entrepreneurs using it by 500%. Similar to Google's context-driven AdSense/AdWords, "I think it's light years ahead of what anyone else has come up with yet," the Guru pronounces. He suggests that this may be one way for real world companies to increase visitor traffic to their marketing/brand promotion islands in Second Life, which are otherwise scarce with visitors, for the most part. Maybe so. His post's accompanying screenshot, featuring obtrusive ads on spinning 3D banners, however, is bound to evoke mixed reactions from many. In any case, read his full review here.
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Ya know, if I saw an ad like those for an outside of SL company, I'd find myself kinda repulsed by it. It would not compel me. It just looks so bland, yet so obtrusive, to me.
Posted by: Marianne McCann | Monday, December 10, 2007 at 01:56 PM
What a load of rubbish. Not only is he intimately involved with the project, he can't even spell "measured". The only argument for this land-spam is that metrics are available for these particular advertisements (which does not at all influence how _effective_ they are) and, as I have said before in other contexts, these metrics are frequently meaningless and rely on the shoehorning of outdated flat-web concepts into Second Life.
Posted by: Ordinal Malaprop | Monday, December 10, 2007 at 04:10 PM
I have to agree with Ordinal - while it might be ok to read a newspaper with 75% advertising (you simply ignore the ads and focus on the content), it is quite another thing to be forced to walk through advertising in a virtual world. I could never place such ads on my property, and worse, I would be embarrassed to have the name of my shop displayed on one of these eye-poking "banners". Oh yeah, wasn't this all about sending people from SL to the web page of RL companies who can't figure out what to do with SL?
Hmmm... this reminds me of the early "flat web" days when ad banners were first being tested, trying to send web users to brick-and-mortar shops. Then came those truly annoying pop-up ads... I'd hate to see those in SL. Please, please, nobody tell X10 about SL!
Posted by: ArminasX Saiman | Monday, December 10, 2007 at 05:16 PM
This is old technology, it has been largely agreed that these 2D web concepts just don't work in a 3D environment.
"I think it's light years ahead of what anyone else has come up with yet,"
Rubbish, your brain is clearly light years behind.
The concept of advertisement has to take lessons from another, similiar 3D environment, namely Real Life.
Posted by: Nexii Malthus | Tuesday, December 11, 2007 at 09:24 AM