[kictanet] To Block or to curse? Ad Blocks and the future of Online Marketing

[Mose Karanja]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/opinion/sunday/the-ad-blocking-wars.html <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/21/opinion/sunday/the-ad-blocking-wars.html>

YOU might have noticed that even when using a lightning-fast Internet connection, it takes a few beats, enough time to drum your fingers, for web pages to load. It’s likely because of online advertising, which bogs down your browser, drains your battery and jacks up mobile charges <http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/01/business/cost-of-mobile-ads.html?_r=1> — not to mention collects private data.

So it’s little wonder that the use of ad-blocking software grew 41 percent last year, with 198 million active users worldwide, according to a study <https://blog.pagefair.com/2015/ad-blocking-report/> conducted by Adobe and PageFair. This represents an existential threat to the $50 billion online advertising industry and has ignited a bitter feud between advertisers and developers of ad-blocking apps. On the sidelines, privacy advocates are pumping their fists for consumer choice while web publishers wring their hands over lost revenue.

There is a lot to be said on ad blocking, content production, privacy and the annoying clickbaitism culture. As this topic goes mainstream, it would be great to know what viable options the parties have: companies paying for online marketing, intermediaries, website owners, content producers and the most important - the owner of the eyeballs. Ad value is in the eyes of the end browser, it seems.

This sounds to me like a relevant research topic for the region. Anyone interested in this can reach out to me directly.

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Moses Karanja | @Mose_Karanja <https://twitter.com/Mose_Karanja> | PGP: 0x1529552F <https://pgp.mit.edu/pks/lookup?op=index&fingerprint=on&search=0x1529552F>




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