Advertising on the Internet

The article “Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet,” by Eric Clemons takes a look into how Internet advertising techniques work and why. Clemons list three main reasons that Internet advertising fails, which are: “Consumers do not trust advertising; Consumers do not want to view advertising, and finally, consumers do not need advertising.” I completely agree with all these reasons. It is very aggravating to me when I want to look up a video and I can’t watch it until I watch the thirty-second advertising video in front of it.

Clemons argues that we do need advertising because we as consumers receive advertising everyday, from people we trust. For example, word of mouth from friends, especially status updates on Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter. I also think that Internet consumers get a lot of advertising just from using these services. On every one of these web 2.0 applications there are advertisements in vertical column stretching from the top of the screen to the bottom. Now, inside of certain Facebook game servers there are pop up advertisements.

Clemons later offers three alternatives to forced advertising on the Internet; they are, “selling content and information, Selling experience and participation in a virtual community, and finally Selling accessories for virtual communities.” Such as offering basic services for free and charging a fee to use the advanced features, like Flickr. Another way internet companies enjoy profit are be selling accessories for online games and sometimes charging to play the game. For example, World of Warcraft, they give all intent users the opportunity for a free two week trial, but after that two weeks they begin to charge you. They also want to sell you upgrades and different outfits for your character. All in all this was a grat article I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.


Clemmons, Eric. " Why Advertising Is Failing On The Internet ." TechCrunch . 15 Oct. 2009 .