What is your personal operative definition of the Internet? By personal I mean, how and what do you use the Internet for and how do you expect it to work. As an example, I use the Internet to research existing and new technologies, check mass volumes of email, and create pages for the website you are reading this blog post on. Most importantly, I need to do those things as fast and impedance free as possible.
From that bit, you know two things: I use the web for work and I neither have the time or patience for mindless interruptions. And one thing I’m sure most people will agree upon is popup ads on websites are one of the biggest time eaters on the web, with screen freezes running closely behind.
Maybe you’re one of the countless souls who thought the popup blocker in Internet Explorer or other browser would guard you against these intrusions. They still either pop up or you get called upon via a dropdown menu asking if you want to allow an impending popup ad. Or maybe you purchased or licensed a third party app or software that does a better than average job at thwarting the invaders. If you are one of those who have satisfactory or even excellent ad protection in place, it may soon come to an annoying, if not laughable end.
Adaptive Medias, Inc., a video technology company, has executed a Letter of Intent (“LOI”) to merge with AdSupply, Inc, a Los Angeles-based digital advertising technology company.
AdSupply’s product line features patented BlockIQ technology, touted as “revolutionary software that bypasses ad blockers and enables online publishers to recover lost revenue.” The software detects users running ad blockers, including popular AdBlock Plus, and offers advertisers various options that include:
- Display a welcome message explaining the so-called value of the website and the alleged damage to the website and community inflicted by ad blocking.
- Protect the publisher’s content behind the BlockIQ Passwall system that refuses to serve content until its site is white labeled - visitors configure Ad Block to allow ads from that website).
- Bottom line, BlockIQ BlockBypass can defeat ad blocking to serve ads, like it or not, to the visitor.
According to some analysts, websites currently experience between 20% to 40% of their ads being blocked, resulting in $22 billion of lost revenue in 2015. Just a side note on that “lost revenue”, there seems to be not much of difference between not seeing an ad and ignoring one, so how $22 billion is lost will remain a mystery. According to the 2015 Ad Blocker report by Adobe Systems, the use of ad blockers in the United States is increasing at a rate of 48% percent annually.
The merger of Adaptive Medias, Inc. and AdSupply, Inc. will create a combined company benefitting from BlockIQ’s sector leadership and first mover advantage in the industry. Also, the combination of both companies yields significant revenue synergies. AdSupply gains access to Adaptive Medias’ best-in-class Media Graph and high impact ad network, content, and patented, breakthrough BlockIQ technology, Essentially, all of this forecasts greater revenue streams in addition to cross-selling opportunities to AdSupply’s diversified customer base. And the Internet viewing/working public gets to pay for it with hours of wasted time. Or could the public be paying more?
Let’s take a brief look an older technology, cable television (CATV), and it’s costs. At one time CATV was advertising free because one paid a one-time installation fee and a monthly fee for it. Now, you buy your television, pay for the CATV installation, pay variable rates for the quantity and types of channels. You also get more! Not only do you get advertising between shows and on commercial breaks, but you also get them during actual programming. But that’s not a bad thing, don’t complain. The cable companies don’t charge extra for the ads.
Now getting back to ad blocking and it’s real costs. You buy your computer, tablet, smartphone or all three, you pay for Internet service, you pay for wireless service, you pay for home installation to an ISP, then you pay your monthly wireless and/or ISP fees. And you don’t have the option of blocking out ads. Sounds like the lyrics to that old classic rock song: “You will be fooled again, you’ll be fooled again.” ~MD