(keitai-l) Re: imode JP news in English 2006

From: Nick May <nick_at_kyushu.com>
Date: 12/29/05
Message-Id: <3138BA4E-D62B-484E-BCF8-F8B7C08F6794@kyushu.com>
> I see no data in any of this that relates to the website.
but suggestive data about the newspaper - my remarks regarding which  
were one of the things you were objecting to...

> (And maybe it's just me, but I personally don't think it's a
> particularly good thing to make unfounded statements about the
> financial health of another business on a public mailing list. For
> one thing, what the hell is the point of it?)

The Graun has publicly stated - on its own website - that it has made  
a loss for the past two years. You have been provided with links for  
this. Its circulation in August 2005 was at a 27 year low. This  
information is easily googlable and widely know.  So hardly "unfounded".

As I recollect, part of what is at issue is "what is a successful  
business model". So the fact that the Graun newspaper made a honking  
great loss for 2005 is relevant. Of course, the website figures are  
buried in that somewhere... It is widely assumed in the industry that  
they currently make a large loss on it.

You claim to put no stock in hearsay. But the Graun releases no  
numbers for its website. All we have to go on is the informed opinion  
of industry insiders. (No - not me...)

The problem with your "if I don't have hard data and a public source   
I don't believe it "policy is that it leaves you in a black and white  
world, with no shades of gray. A rather naive world, some (including  
me) would say. Much of what passes as "hard news" in newspapers has  
no publicly cite-able source. And is none the worse for that.

> So you're suggesting... What? That users find the ads so obtrusive
> that they have a negative effect on the users' impressions of what
> the ads are advertising? That the ads are too small? Something
> else?

I have been to a couple of websites that have filled the entire  
screen - (which would not be hard on a keitai) -  with an ad - and  
left them immediately, never to return. I suspect it is a fairly  
fundamental rule of advertising - on the net at least - never take  
over the full screen, the user resents it in a way they don't on a  
television. The desktop is "their" space.

  The problem with ads on keitai is that the screen size makes it  
difficult to create an ad which catches the eye sufficiently to  
provide revenue, but is not so dominant that it puts the user off  
completely from visiting the site.

Feel free to experiment with "real" (as you put it)  users.

Nick
Received on Thu Dec 29 20:42:54 2005