I hate ads. They are annoying. Yet we cannot live without them. Who would want to read a magazine without ads? Case and point, no respectable fashion magazine would ever go to press without advertisement. They are part of the content, they are expected. We want them. Why? They *can* be informative of new products, new trends etc. and we dear not be the last one to know about the latest and greatest. We do not want to be left out.
The same cannot be said for the online ecosystem. The online alter-ego of those printed ads are horribly invasive. The way they are pushed onto us consumers is just plain horrible.
So I tried an experiment with one of my start up. We built a simple app called "Just Ads". As the name clearly suggests, this (iPhone) app does one thing and one thing only, it shows a list of location aware ads. That is it.
What is so innovative about that?
Well, there is no other content but ads. That is, the user is not in the midst of consuming some other content (like reading this blog ;-) so the ads are no longer competing for attention. They are the content. The mind switch is what is innovative. Users of Just Ads are willingly opening an application that shows them (somewhat) targeted ads of things they may want to have. They are in the state of mind of consuming advertisement. Better yet, as if by magic, we have transformed advertisement into content that people want to consume.
Do not rush to your AppStore to download this little magic box though, AdMob (our ad provider) had to pull the plug on us in just 24 hrs so we had to remove the app from the store. Why?
Too much traffic.
You would think that generating a lot of eyeballs and clicks would be a good thing but when you do it in an innovative fashion, the status quo is often unable to cope and it stares back at you like a deer in the headlight of a car. Obviously we hit on something good so we will try to get it back online soon. Wish me luck.
[update] negotiation with AdMob failed, they refuse to serve ads to this app claiming that it does not provide an enjoyable experience for users and advertisers. What do you think?
[update] we signed up with MobClix, JustAds is on its way back to a device near you. Given the difference in content (ad format) we had to make some modifications and rethink this product. We hope you will enjoy it once it is out.
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