Thanks to Norwegian journalist Kristine Lowe who picked up on the BBC’s coverage of changing media habits. I missed the original piece, no doubt because my copy of NetNewsWire hasn’t recovered since I lost all my bookmarked feeds last week!
Yes, web-readers are getting more ruthless in their browsing. I’ve seen that for myself, but it’s nice Dr Jakob Nielsen and his boffins at the Nielsen Norman Group have some figures to substantiate what’s been my gut feeling for a couple of months now.
As someone who’s just months away from launching an online magazine with a team of 12 writers, I’m genuinely concerned with how we go about publishing for readers who savagely ignore stacks of well-designed, admirably crafted content. Especially as advertising revenue is one of the major ways of monetarizing a website.
What happens when the community creates tools to kick advertising into touch?
I’ve not initially been worried by younger readers configuring browsers to block out all the ads, but now that non-techie oldies I know have gone on a binge of installing plugins to Firefox to keep the ads at bay, I’m genuinely concerned. Let’s face it, when people in their sixties actively learn how to block ads on the Net, it’s time to worry.
From what Nielsen says, SEO is clearly going to be massively important in the next few years. Even more so than the last two. With online publishers grappling for readers that read, remain on site AND get clicky with the ads, thing could very well get nasty.
Ah, for the golden age of newspapers and coffee.
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