Fighting Gravity

A Needle in a Haystack

2008-11-02T22:03:00.009-06:00

So, to my surprise, my dad actually came to visit me today (Daddio has a slight history in bailing out on me), and we went to dinner, grabbed some Cold Stone ice cream, and then enjoyed one of my favorite past times: a fall drive. I absolutely LOVE fall drives. They combine 2 of my favorite things, which are beautiful fall colors and viewing great architecture. My area in St. Louis has some very interesting older homes, and the vibrant colors of the trees make them look even more interesting and appealing.

However, while on our drive throughout University City and Clayton, I was overwhelmed at the amount of Obama/Biden support signs in several yards. Actually, being the avid McCain/Palin supporter that I am, I was quite grossed out by them.

When I look out my own front door, I see several Obama/Biden signs polluting the yards down the street... not to mention the obnoxious one found in my own front yard. I was obviously not the one to put that crap in the yard... that faux pas goes to the landlord. Of course, I ordered a campaign sign to put on the other half of the yard... and I unfortunately didn't read the fine print on my lease. Apparently, no yard signs are allowed by the tenant. Pshhh.

BUT my landlord, being the swell guy and friend that he is, allowed me to put a McCain/Palin sign in the yard... with one stipulation: it could only be 2X2... INCHES. Me, being the smart ass that I am, jumped on it. I immediately went to work making a 2 inch by 2 inch campaign sign. That sign can barely be seen by the naked eye, but it is proudly displayed in the front yard. For any McCain/Palin supporter living in U-City, my little sign might be like finding a needle in a haystack... it's small and ranges from difficult to impossible to find, but it's awesome when it's found! Thanks for the smidge of political freedom, Jeff. :)

So... it's almost one day from E-day, and the polls are continuing to tighten up. My friends, THE MAC IS BACK!

P.S. Apparently the landlord and I were on the same brainwave the other night. These signs have been in the front yard for a few weeks now, and we both coincidentally decided to write a blog about our political battle. His story is crap, but you can read it and have a laugh here at Pomranka.net.

Candlelight on Halloween Night

2008-10-31T22:47:00.011-05:00

Well, I'm sitting here on the couch (like the loser that I am) in my candlelit living room waiting for my favorite Halloween movie to download... Young Frankenstein. It's taking awhile to download, so it gave me a chance to think about how quickly October has completely flown by! Thanksgiving is LESS than a month away! Can you believe it?

October has been filled with its ups and downs... I think enough ups to carry me through the downs. Last week, some hooligan through a boulder through my front driver side car window and stole my iPod. Gotta love city life, huh? So, until I had a spare moment to contact my insurance, I covered the window with clear plastic. As my luck would have it, the next two days brought rain, and I had to meet my boss the next day for a Trivia Night meeting in Chesterfield. On my way to meet her, the wind took hold of my plastic and my shield from the rain was gone. Luckily, I was able to park in the parking garage at St. John's Hospital at our meeting place.

More trouble occurred on the next day, which was last Friday. I made a quick stop to the DSA office before I was on my way to my boss Julie's house for her kids Matthew and Natalie's birthday party. When I came back to my car to leave, it wouldn't start. Apparently, my anti-theft system had kicked in. Crap. So, I called the tower and my car was hauled away... no party for me.

After hanging around the office for a couple more hours, I decided to walk the 2 1/2 miles home. Again, as my luck would have it, it began to rain when I still had at least a mile to go. When I finally had gotten home, Michelle felt sorry for me and was awesome enough to let me borrow her car for the birthday party. (I had spent about 3 hours the night before carving "Happy Birthday Natalie" and "Happy Birthday Matthew" pumpkins, so I was super bummed). The Friday night traffic SUCKED getting to the party, but I'm glad I got to go.

From Friday until Wednesday, I was stranded without a car. Aside from Michelle letting me borrow her car again on Saturday for work at the salon, I had to miss one shift at the salon and walk that 2 1/2 miles to work at the DSA on Monday and Tuesday.

My series of unfortunate events was topped off with a black eye that knocked its way onto my face Tuesday morning. I had decided that my backpack would be more conducive for my long walk to work.. and of course it was on the tip-top shelf of my closet. Typical me was too lazy to get a chair to stand on to retrieve it, and the jump-and-reach caused my massive tote of purses to come tumbling down... and my reflexes were too slow to perform a successful duck and cover. Julie promptly gave me a "P" to pin on my shirt to turn me into a "Black Eyed P."

Since the last few days had brought some hard knocks in the Ashley world, my mom knew just the thing to cheer me up: a trip to the pumpkin patch! She drove out of her way to pick me up to go to the Eckert's Fun Farm in Millstadt with herself, Peyton, and Alex for a fun-filled fall day and a delicious dinner at Cracker Barrel (mmm, Chicken n' Dumplings!) Peyton had and absolute BLAST and it was great to see Alex since I never, ever see her anymore. We went on a hayride (Peyton's favorite part) to pick some apples and some pumpkins.

We also bought Peyton's Halloween costume... and of course, I wouldn't let him leave without trying it on. We chose a black cat because he does a super adorable cat sound... what a studmuffin.

And of course, me being the Republican that I am, I decided to carve my pumpkins accordingly. Needless to say, I'm quite proud of them. (Pardon some visible wires on the Palin pumpkin... there were some tedious areas that ended up requiring some minor facial reconstructive surgery.)

Speaking of the election, I have come to the decision that I have become to emotionally invested in this whole thing. Anyone who knows me knows that I wholeheartedly love Sarah Palin, and all of the media crapping on her has really started to upset me for the past few weeks. I seem to be watching Fox News 24/7 these days, and I'm remaining hopeful that America will make the right decision for our country and vote McCain/Palin. Osama- er, Obama- just has waaaaay too many links to some really shady people... not to mention the lack of experience to run our country in a time of trouble. Why is everyone so blinded by his charisma? Oh well, hopefully my stress and emotional turmoil will end on Tuesday. The polls are tightening up... so hopefully things will go well.

The remainder of the weekend brings me working tomorrow evening (unfortunately), but hopefully plans will work out and Dad and Alex will pay me a visit. I haven't seen my dad in about 2 months... so hopefully I can enjoy a nice free dinner :) and visit with him.

Busy Beaver

2008-10-10T12:55:00.004-05:00

Well, I guess the last time I wrote was when my computer was on the fritz. Thankfully, the Apple rockstars were able to back my stuff up... and didn't charge me the $150 fee! What what!

Anywho, all of August and September has passed by, and a lot has happened. For one, I moved to St. Louis, and I am really enjoying myself so far. I'm only about 1-2 miles from the Down Syndrome Association, so it takes very little time and gas. I've been keeping busy there... since July, we've had the annual Walk in the Park (which was a big hit), I've successfully completed the design of the 2009 calendar, and we just had our Harvest Moon Wine & Cheese tasting event. I'll be really bummed when I have to leave there, but I guess I need to make those dollaz somehow.

Also, probably one of the main things that happened since I last posted is that I am now another year older... which means that my buddy Peytie Pie is also another year older. What a studmuffin. Just the other day, he took his first unassisted step! His therapist thinks that he'll probably be taking a couple steps by Halloween, so we'll see. Every time I see him, he always has a new "trick." The latest is that he can sneeze on command. It is one of the funniest things I have ever seen! We will fake a sneeze, he concentrates, and then actually sneezes! He's really become quite the pro at mimicking... anything from an action, to a sound, to an expression. He's a smart little guy, and he's starting to catch on to life. Now that I live closer I get to see him about once a week, and he continues to amaze me every time.

Well, anywho, I'm off to pack for Carbondale! I can't wait to see my loves and have a splendid time! I love Carbondale in the fall!

Oh, and Shannon, since you're probably the only person who ever reads my blog, I miss you most of all. I can't wait.

Help me, Genius Bar!

2008-07-26T17:12:00.002-05:00

You might not get a good post from me for a while... my computer is having an issue. The screen is black and won't do anything. SO, make sure and say a little prayer tonight that my friends at the Apple Genius Bar can help and bring my computer back to life. I have an appointment at the Galleria at 2:00 tomorrow... and losing my stuff would be a DISASTER. Eeep!

"Why do blessings wear disguises? If I were a blessing, I'd run around naked." -Sophia Petrillo

2008-07-23T02:50:00.014-05:00

I've watched and laughed at The Golden Girls since I was a little kid (weird, I know), and I was so bummed to hear about the death of Estelle Getty/Sophia Petrillo yesterday. She was so cute, and she was such a riot on the show. I know she had been sick for a long time, so I'm hoping she's in a better place now... and NOT at Shady Pines. So, R.I.P. Sophia, and thank you for being a friend.

I'm also quite bummed tonight because my mom took my adorable and incredibly moody dog Lilly back home. I'd been keeping here here in Collinsville for the past couple weeks and she had been such great company. She's very easy to irritate, but boy can she cuddle! My bed is quiet tonight without her loud snoring next to me. Here are a couple pictures to highlight the time that Lil spent here with me:

I also decided to take Lilly to my personal beauty shop and gave her one massive haircut. She was NOT happy... but given the result, I can't say that I blame her. But in my defense, she wouldn't hold still! (notice her uneven mustache) Pretty bad, huh?

However, on a much happier note, I got to see my brother/favorite buddy Peyton today! I hadn't seen little Petey in about a month, and beli me, he's not so little anymore! I swear he grew an inch! It's crazy- he's dropping the baby fat and looking less like a baby and more like a little boy. He scoots all around the house, cruises around the furniture, and he even climbed a couple stairs last week. He says "Ash" (Ath), "Alex" (A-ekth), and a broken version of "I love you," and has an extensive portfolio of sign language knowledge. His newest sign is "swim." It's funny, mom's frustrated that he says mine and Alex's name, but still calls her "Nana" instead of "Mama." haha. Since I hadn't seen him in so long I wondered if he would fully remember me, but he smiled at me and right away said "Ath." Mom told him that they he was going to see me. Aww.

I joined Petey and mom at Petey's walking therapy appointment (he's made a lot of progress), and then we chose to eat lunch at P.F. Changs, a favorite of mine. I think mom likes it when I'm around because I assume all Peyton duty and it gives her a break. I enjoy it, and Peyton likes having his freedom to be a little monkey under my care... and mom is relieved to get a break from the kid's never ending energy.

But my day ending with unfortunately having to go to work, but when I came home, Joy had made a super chocolately and fabulously rich cake. Needless to say I overindulged and I had probably the least healthy supper that I have ever had in my entire life. Eh, you only live once, right? After that "dinner," my one time of living might have decreased a bit.

What Should Ferris Do?

2008-07-20T01:54:00.006-05:00

Well, if Ferris Bueller ever gets another day off, he should go to Six Flags. That's what Joy and I did today on our days off, and it was fabulous. Joy has a season pass and gave me one of her vouchers to get me in too, so we had a grand day on an extremely low budget. AND, even though we had a lot of fun, this day was most definitely not void of Joy and Ashley's innate ability to have unfortunate luck multiple times throughout the day.

We spent a good chunk of the day at the Hurricane Harbor water park, of course, 1) because it was 90+ degrees and sunny and 2) because there are few things that we love more than a good splash down a water slide. Well, when we got in, Joy got in line to get a locker to put our crap in ( I won't even tell you how much that cost because you would wet yourself with shock), and I got in line to get us each an $8 (!) tube. SO, we lugged these darn tubes into the crowded locker room (which I'm sure the other people did not appreciate), threw our junk in the locker, and walked in our bare feet on the hot concrete into the park. Come to find out, we could have worn our shoes in the park and put them in cubbies, but that's a disappointment in and of itself. So imagine us, lugging these huge tubes around this water park, and then imagine the looks on our faces when we realize that we didn't even need them in the first place! Neither of us had been to Hurricane Harbor in a long, long time, so we assumed that you needed to rent these tubes in order to ride on the slides. Come to find out, tubes are provided... who knew? Okay, I'm sure everyone but us knew. So, we took a spin on the lazy river, and then we found a really intense and hasty dad that we sold our tubes to for $5 each. We ended up losing a few bucks, but oh well.

So after our hunger was overtaking our ability to see straight, we went into the amusement park, ate a mammoth turkey leg, and rode some rides. Well, apparently Six Flags doesn't allow you to carry your bags onto rides now, so we rented a ride locker near the Excalibur for $1. After standing in some long and some short lines, we saved our favorite- The Batman- for last. There was absolutely no line, and we walked the 3 miles down and up the path to get to the ride only to find that the ride was temporarily closed for a problem. They didn't know how long it would take to fix, but we were stubborn and decided to wait. So after about 10 minutes of waiting we rode it, then returned to our locker to get our stuff.

Well, the locker "key" was a barcode printed on a piece of paper, and I was incredibly proud of myself for not losing it and even keeping it relatively dry after riding Thunder River and the Log Flume since I tend to lose things more often than not. So as I was scanning it to open the locker, Joy reads a small sign that noted that locker use was limited to 2 hours... we had been using it for a good 4! Needless to say, our locker wouldn't open, and we had to find some master key guy to come and open it. Even more needless to say, he wasn't happy.

Oh, and we also didn't bring sunscreen, so you can decide the conclusion on that one.

Amusement parks are great, but they really know how to get ya on all of the little extra costs... and they also really get my mind thinking about all of the nasty hands that have touched the handrails and sweaty bodies that have sat on the rides. And don't even get me started on the pools in the water park... you might as well have someone come and just pee directly on me. EW. All that's enough to make me gag on a bit of vomit.

But really, we had a blast... it was great to actually do something for a change. I have officially decided that when I make my millions, there will most definitely be an intense roller coaster and a mile-long water slide in my bag yard. All of my readers are invited over for a party. Joy and I have also decided that we would like to use the roller coaster as an alternative to a hair dryer, because it works and it's a heck of a lot more fun.

On a final note, check out this picture my mom e-mailed to me. My family went to Boston for the National Down Syndrome Conference last week, so apparently this is a picture of Peyton with a Boston crab hat on. I haven't asked yet, but I really hope they bought this for him. I think it will be a great conversation piece at home.

I'm BAAAAACCCCCCKKKKKKKKKK!

2008-07-18T16:23:00.003-05:00

I got a little frisky (and bored) today so I decided to pull up my old blog that I had to do for my Interactive Advertising class. (All of those old posts suck, not to mention they're boring, so pretend they're not even there.

I guess I don't particularly have anything to

actually blog about, but I figured it might be interesting to pull this up down the road and l

augh about how incredibly uneventful my life used to be... granted it's more eventful down the road.

By some miracle of God I have the evening off tonight and I didn't go into the office today, so it's been quite nice. I slept in, scruffled with my doggie for a bit, watched the E! True Hollywood Story documenting the life of Heath Ledger, sat

on the deck to give myself a bit of sun coloring, and took a shower. I just finished up with a nice bowl of cold watermelon and I'm relaxing on the couch while the doggie snores next to me. I'm really going to hate when Mom comes to get her next week- she's been great company.

Joysie and I are going to look at our (hopefully) new place tonight. I'm pretty stoked. I'm not really looking forward to the actual act moving again since I just did 2 months ago, but whatever, I'll be glad to move into the city. I g

uess I have apartment ADD... but hopefully I'll sta

y in one place for a little while. Frankly, I'm just tired of having to get my mail forwarded to new addresses. Post Office people are NOT jolly.

My final thought, I haven't seen a good sunset like this in a while. This is from when I was home last month:

2007-10-17T21:55:00.000-05:00

Yes, I watch a lot of TV, and yes, I have a busy life, so I can't always watch the scheduled airing of "The Office," "Grey's Anatomy," or "Desperate Housewives." I can definitely download any of these episodes for $1.99 from iTunes, but why would I do when I can go the network's website and watch the full episode for free? Advertisers are catching on to this trend, and they are most definitely using it to their advantage. This isn't even limited to popular TV shows; some form of advertisement is being placed on nearly any and every online video clip they can get their hands-er, mice- on. In an article from The Wall Street Journal, the research firm eMarketing, Inc. says that the spending for online advertising will reach $4.3 billion in 2011, compared to the measley $410 million that was spent in 2006. In fact, Google even says that they are going to stop charging fees on their videos and just rely on just their ad revenue.

If you're tired of the many commercial breaks that occur throughout a 30 minute program, don't think that you can entirely escape that online... you actually respond to it better! There have been a few things that we viewers respond well to, as far as online videos advertising goes. For one, tickers, bugs, and overlays, which are graphic slides on the video that contextually target the consumer have generated good results. The graphic/ad is relevant to the viewer, and all the viewer has to do is click on the graphic to get more information about the product. Companies such as American Eagle has found success by launching webisodes, and Heavy.com and collegehumor.com are entire websites devoted entirely to online videos. Skins, which are advertising graphcis that surround the video screen, have also found to produce success. Ogilvy & Mather Advertising seems to think that their success in click generation is because they are not intrusive to the viewer. Actually, skins in addition to a 30 second commercial clip is found to be the most successful, according to statistics.

Supposedly, brand recall and purchase intention is found to be higher in relation to online video advertising, and a drop in traditional media may be on the rise. Given that the world of online advertising changes on a daily basis, is it completely wise for an advertiser to put all of their eggs in one basket? It's risky, but in I think that an advertiser needs to do what they can to generate the best results. Any advertising, whether online or traditional, continually changes in some great or small aspect, and right now, online videos are hot.

AdSense of what?

2007-10-03T20:24:00.000-05:00

Well, first on my to-do list this week was to create an account on Google AdSense. AdSense will tack on some content-relevant ads to my blog, my readers will hopefully click on them, and then I get to make some money. Sweet. Since Google hasn't approved me yet, I don't get to scratch it off of my check list.

I guess I'm like every other poor college student, and I would definitely like to make some money off of this blog. My fellow classmates can click on my blog due to the blog roll that Nanu has posted on our Blackboard page, but 20-30 people aren't going to make me too much money. If I am going to make any money through this AdSense business, I need to expand beyond our JRNL 307 classroom.

That's what search engine optimization is for. Basically, search engine optimization is getting more traffic to your website through "natural" results on a search engine. The way to get those natural results is to create meta tags for your website, which are keywords or phrases within your HTML coding. I know that I can't read HTML, but spider bots can. When you perform a search in Google, Yahoo!, or whatever search engine you like, these little spider bots crawl in all of the HTML content on the Web, looking through the keywords in the meta tags, and ultimately and produce results that contain the keywords that you typed in, with the most popular and relevant sites listed first. Amazing, huh?

Like I said before, I can't read HTML worth a darn, but I knew that in order to get more traffic coming to my blog I needed to add some meta tags. Thank goodness for meta tag generators, which helped me to easily create meta tags for my blog without having to try to understand all of the HTML mumbo jumbo. Also, in order to help increase my traffic flow, I registered with both Digg and Stumbleupon. And finally, hoping that my classmates will help me out as well, I'm going to add some links on here to some of their blogs. It's going to take quite a few hits (more like millions) for my blog to show up high in the search engine, but every little bit helps!

http://nbjrnl307.blogspot.com/

http://penniesonlineadvertisingideas.blogspot.com/

http://www.advertisiu.blogspot.com/

http://ideasinablog.blogspot.com/

http://bigjsaluki.blogspot.com/

My mouse is a FRAUD!!!

2007-09-26T20:19:00.000-05:00

My mouse looks so innocent sitting next to my keyboard... it's been a great "pet" to have. It goes where I want it to go, and clicks on what I want it to click, and I have never had to clean up any of its messes. If I told that goofy analogy to a business, they would straight up laugh in my face... because that particular business may be a victim of click fraud. Click fraud is basically a bunch of scammy clicks on an ad that run up businesses' advertising bills for advertising agencies. That means that these businesses, no matter how large or small, are getting screwed. Martin Flesichman, who was the victim at hand in the Business Week article, was one of the many business who have suffered. Mysterious clicks from Mongolia and Syria sent up the red flag, and the mystery was investgated. And who might you think was the main criminal? That would be Google and Yahoo!, who hold the titles as the number one and number two search engines in the online world. Google and Yahoo! may have been using Clickbot software to automatically and anonymously click on ads on their sites, which then charges the business for the click on their ad, which in turn gives Google and Yahoo! a share of the profit for the crime they have committed. Click fraud is supposedly the biggest threat to online advertising, with about $300 to $500 million a year flowing into this deceptive industry... so if powerful sites like Google and Yahoo! are benefitting from this crime, how will there be any incentive to stop it? Well they might want to think about their future, because due to extensive click fraud, some businesses are having to cut their advertising budget to compensate for the charges of click fraud.

How can click fraud criminals get caught? Easy (well, kind of). The answer is web analytics. Wikipedia defines web analytics as a study of the behavior of website users. For a business, web analytics is a useful tool to help the company keep track of which parts of their website work towards their objectives and which landing pages encourage a purchase of their product or service. For a suspicion of click fraud, web analytics can mean that the business can access their web traffic report to see where geographically their clicks are coming from. On a web traffic report, the site manager can see the number of visitors to the site, how long the visitor was actually on the site, how many new visitors come to the site, which web application the visitor is using, and the bounce rate of the visits. That's a heck of a lot of information, not to mention valuable information.

To the left is a picture of my web traffic report, with a small sample of my data from the click fraud that I committed (innocently). I asked some friends and family to help me out, and with their help, my blog has generated 20 visits, 18 absolutely unique visitors, and 34 pageviews... and all of this happened in just a couple of days! If I kept generating about the same number of views and visitors, I'm pretty sure that advertisers would love me. Whateverlife.com is a perfect example of that. Web analytics is a great tool for every website... to keep track of your numbers, test which parts of your site work best, and to stay aware of click fraud.

I have learned my lesson.

You want it? The Internet's got it!

2007-09-19T19:48:00.000-05:00

Our grandparents' generation grew up on print and radio advertising, our parents' generation grew up on television advertising, and what form of advertising are we growing up on? The clear answer to this question is online advertising. Anything and everything that we want to view can be found with a click of the mouse, be it a simple static ad or an elaborate, entertaining, or even interactive video.

Pretty much any Internet user can create content, but the key to generating buzz, awareness, and success for a brand is to create stuff that intrigues and interests the viewer. It can pretty much all be found on YouTube, where anything from awesome commercials and viral videos to lame homemade music videos and rants can be found. You have some idiots, like this guy, who go on for two minutes and eleven seconds whining, crying, and scolding anyone who ever muttered a negative comment about the infamous train wreck Britney Spears... and then you have geniuses like the Dove company, who displayed a video promoting their Campaign for Real Beauty. Since October 2006, the video has gotten millions and millions of pageviews... while the "Leave Britney Alone" video has gotten nearly 8 million views in just a week! Both videos are interesting (and definitely intriguing!), and have gotten views that would make any advertiser jealous. The moral of the story? Create online content that will pull in your consumers... give 'em the stuff that will generate the buzz!

Some companies invest their money in good things, others do not. For example, when SecondLife began in the virtual world, it was big news in the advertising business. It was hyped to be the "next big thing" online, so brands began to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to get their name promoted on this amazing and life-changing site. As it turns out, not too many Americans lives are being changed, nor are they amazed. Only about 100,000 people are using Second Life on a weekly basis, and out of 320+ million people in the United States, the site is a definite bomb. I'm thinking that these brands should transfer their advertising dollars to a site that can drive in a bit more success.

Speaking of success, how about Chanel? This hundred year old brand has taken themselves to the next level by creating an appealing, engaging, interactive, AND awesome online campaign. Why an online campaign? The brand is aiming to target the online generation of consumers... OUR generation. Thus far, they have had all of the elements to be a successful campaign. This entire campaign is tailor-made to target the online generation of female consumers. Chanel created a new scent, Coco Mademoiselle, as a younger, more youthful version of the classic Chanel No. 5 and Coco scents. Chanel has also hired popular, classy, young actress Keira Knightley as their spokesperson, which is a smart move to keep the Chanel image young. A special website has been created, and is complete with video clips and a virtual tour of Coco's glamourous apartment in Paris. Chanel has also been communicating to some 200 bloggers and V.I.P Chanel customers to generate buzz about this website, and these lucky people have received awesome offers, and exclusive password to early access of the new commercials, and 12 bloggers received an actual tour of Coco's apartment! Maureen Chiquet, who is Chanel's global chief executive, states that the goal of Chanel is to keep the fragrance around for a hundred more years, and that this online campaign is the way to do it. She says that Chanel "can't afford" to not advertise online... she couldn't be more right.

Banner Banter

2007-09-13T00:11:00.000-05:00

Banner ads: you know, those sometimes annoying things that clutter every webpage when you're browsing? They flash obnoxious colors, play irritating noises, and sometimes even enlarge when you accidentally roll over them. To me, they mean "annoying," but to advertisers they mean traditional and time consuming to create a successful one. The goal of a banner ad is to get a click-through, but I know that if a banner is annoying as many of them are, I'm most likely going to either A) ignore it, or B) click on something else in the site to get away from the annoying banner!
I am an advertiser's worst nightmare... I HATE banner ads (well, the annoying ones at least). BUT, I do think that there is no gray area for online banner advertisements; they are either awful and annoying or intriguing and just plain genius!
After thinking about the topic of banner ads long and hard, I have some some personal criteria for what makes a banner ad work for me:
1) The banner works if it is related to the website that I am browsing;
2) The banner works if it my cookies are used for behavioral targeting;
3) The banner works if it is interactive and remotely engaging;
and last, but definitely not least,
4) The banner works if the design is appealing.

When reading this article about banner blindness, I have given myself a personal hypochondriatic case of it, which most Internet browsers have. Most banners are placed at the top or sides of the webpage, but the Nielson Norman Group studies found that those are the least viewed areas on the page. To get these gray areas viewed, an advertiser better try their darndest to make sure that their banners are noticed- WITHOUT the horrible blinking colors and obnoxious noises. The viewer needs to get involved in the ad, not just see it.
I know that unless I hear a lot of hype about a particular banner ad, I'm probably not going to click on it. But I do know that if I actually am going to click on a banner, it better be worth my time. After viewing some of the award-winning banner ads, I have found that the CokeZero banner ads are my favorites. They're funny, engaging, and have a prominent non-annoying logo to click on. Actually, they don't even really seem like a banner ad. I actually enjoyed viewing this list of award-winning banner ads.

The moral of the banner advertisement story: let your viewers laugh, interact, and most importantly, engage in your ad!

I'm just blousing... er... browsing.

2007-09-05T20:28:00.000-05:00

With the Internet being our "way of life" these days, the idea of behavioral targeting seems genius to me. Behavioral targeting, which uses ad networks and cookies to track our browsing, is ideal mainly for the fact that it is so personal. Since we have talked about it in class, I have noticed traces of behavioral targeting in my daily online browsing. I have noticed that Amazon and eBay are tailored reflect my past searches; the homepage shows items that I would have an interest in based on things that I have browsed for in the past! Not only is behavioral targeting personal, but it is also somewhat subliminal, which seems to make these ads less annoying. It sounds pretty cool, right?

To follow a user's browsing patterns, a company can hire an ad network to track cookies that are left behind to find out the consumer's interests. One of the cookies on my list was for digitalsaver.com. I have been browsing the Web for a new digital camera lately, so when I am browsing other sites online, there may be more pop-ups and banners advertising digital cameras. I also check my e-mail, myspace, and facebook accounts multiple times a day, and I have also done a fair amount of browsing on apple.com, as well as priceline, amazon, and ebay. This is really valuable stuff for advertisers, because they can loop these sites together to advertise my interests- such as advertising a digital camera on amazon or a plane ticket sale on Yahoo! mail.

As far as cookies goes, I understand the point of them from an advertiser's standpoint. They help to track our browsing, which in turn makes behavioral targeting possible. I think that behavioral targeting is an awesome advertising strategy, but I find the cookies really bothersome and annoying. I will admit that I am not extremely computer savvy, and I haven't deleted my cookies in a long, LONG time. Some of the obvious ad networking sites on my cookie list were AdRevolver, Adsonar.com, Servedby.advertising.com, Ad.Yieldmanager.com, and Ad.DoubleClick.net. I found this list to be kinda creepy, as well as alarming that all of this crap is the reason that is making my computer run so slow! Also, after seeing this extensive list of cookies, I am also a bit fearful of my online privacy. How much do these ad networks REALLY know about me? I am sure that this list has provided them with quite a bit of information. Programs such as SpyBot can be downloaded and cookies should be cleared out on a regular basis for personal protection, but at the same time, it seems as if we are hurting the ad industry by deleting our cookies. I think that cookies turn behavioral targeting into a fairly bittersweet strategy that takes the annoyance from our browser and puts it right into our computer's hard drive.

whatever is more than a mumble.

2007-08-29T20:59:00.001-05:00

Maybe I missed the age group of bloggers. I have actually never "blogged" before, but it seems like most of the people who are two years younger than me blog on a daily to semi-daily basis.

Even though I don't blog, I know that I probably spend just as much time online doing other things to waste my time. Just when I start thinking about how much of my life I waste surfing the Web, I also realize that I am no different from everyone else that is my age. Out of my roommates and me, I think it would be safe to say that we spend more time in front of our computers than we do in front of the TV.

The Internet is no longer really something we "do," it's a way of life. Young kids that can barely read to people that are my grandparents' age are surfing the Web at least once- if not multiple- times a day. The Internet has grown to accomodate all of these ages, demographics, and psychographics. No wonder companies are turning to online advertising to promote their products! The Internet has become like a friend to us, it knows our Interests, it knows our favorite websites- heck! It even knows our name! That's why I think that we don't really find Internet advertising as intrusive as some other forms of media. Aside from pop-up ads (which will always be considered annoying), most banner and margin ads include things that we individually enjoy, and since they are at tops or sides of the pages, the ads seem to sink into more of our subconscience rather than being right in our faces. We don't think about it as much.

The thing that I think is COOL about the Internet, or Myspace, rather, is that we can have our favorite brands be our FRIENDS! By having a brand as your Myspace friend, you can receive discounts or peeks at the brand's latest trends! This is great advertising for these brands since pretty much every kid in junior high years and up seems to have a Myspace profile. Kids (myself included) get so wrapped up in their Myspace profile that they log on multiple times a day and spend countless hours personalizing it. AshleyQualls took that to her advantage by creating whateverlife. This website offers loads of Myspace page layouts and graphics, catering to teenage girls. This girl is a genius! She has gotten so many hits a day on her site that the advertising big-wigs began to notice, and now this 17-year old girl now has her business financed by major advertisers and makes a hefty $50,000-$70,000 a month paycheck! Advertisers love her, girls want to be friends with her, and I am jealous of her.