The Outlook

With the recent shakeup in the dot-com / Internet network advertising industry, I have written and posted up an article entitled "The State of the Internet." I have taken a critical look at the Internet's business model, examined why it has failed, and what it will take to make the online advertising a viable solution.

How many times have you seen a completely worthless, uninteresting ad banner running on this site? More importantly, when was the last time you saw an ad banner you WANTED to click on to find out more information? This fault lies with the online advertisers and their failure to do the necessary research and homework. While they can't get data which is exact as television industry-type statistics, they can determine a general profile of their audience and effectively cater a campaign to them. However, most advertisers haven't been trained to do this. The Internet is a new frontier for them and they have absolutely no clue how to adapt to this playing ground. It's just easier to make one broad ad and toss it to a gigantic network. Then, when it inevitably fails, blame the network and pull out. This situation has happened so often that it has easily become the norm and not the exception.

This is a serious, solid look at why the entire dot-com advertising industry has gone belly-up in recent months and how this situation can be corrected. Hopefully this article will help answer questions many people have regarding the entire industry and why it's currently failing. I have the utmost faith that the Internet will adapt and come out stronger than ever, but I am also sure that things will get much worse before they get much better. Please have a look at the article and post your feedback and comments on the forums.

Thanks

I'd like to thank everybody who have provided support and encouragement during the current network situation. Hopefully eFront will make good on their word and rectify the situation by the end of this week, before I go and decide to walk away forever. I'd like to especially thank the guys at Shugashack, Stomped, [H]ard|OCP, ARS Technica, and Lum the Mad for their support. The gaming network scene, despite growing by leaps and bounds, continually goes to show how close knit and community-oriented they are, and it makes me proud to operate a site that is in any way affiliated with them. I'd also like to thank the people on my forums who have resisted the lure of immediately jumping ship and moving to another site the first chance they got. A lot of vultures recently swept into my forums and tried to pull people away to their own sites for the sake of "the community", and I appreciate all the people who decided to stick with SA until the bitter end. Hopefully eFront will prevent such an end from manifesting itself, and the migration of people to other forums will simply reduce the clutter of newbies and "first post idiots" on SA's forums. This site wouldn't be anywhere without its fans, and I appreciate the people who stick by me and offer their support, instead of instantly leaving.

– Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka (@TwitterHasBannedAllMyAccountsEver)

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