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Can Advertising in Windows Client Software Work?

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MSN Messenger does it. Quicken does it. There’s a fair amount of Windows client software that has advertising – the same kind of banner ads present on most Web sites. But there are challenges to ad-powered client software, ranging from technical (how do you create an offline ad store) to sociological (will people be willing to live with ads in their local software).

I think that the technical issues, while non-trivial, are very solvable. What's more interesting is the idea of client software that's supported with advertising and how far our industry can take that before somebody cries foul.

There's certainly proof that people are OK with advertising in their applications -- just look at every ad engine out there. What's more interesting to me is how something like this could help small software creators make a revenue stream. By now we've all heard about Plenty Of Fish, the Canadian dating site where the creator makes $10K/day off of ads. But could the same work for my asphalt mix application creator?

Can people live with ads on their client? What are the blockers? What technial issues do you think the industry will run into? What sociological issues?

Comments

  • Anonymous
    April 20, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 20, 2006
    Sounds like I need to loan you my copy of Quicken 2000 -- the one before ads. ;-)

  • Anonymous
    April 21, 2006
    Lesse, I use IE itself to block out most ads in my webpages (just start listing the source of javascript responsible for the ads as a banned website and just WATCH the ads evaporate!)  I can't even remember the last time I saw a popup.  Those ads that do show up on my page, I mentally filter out and don't even see any more.

    Ads in Messenger?  Don't see them either.  The main interface is closed a LOT on my machine, and the little footer ads don't even register on my conciousness any more.

    Frankly, I have very very serious doubts about the reported numbers for online advertizing (which no one I know of actually likes or uses), and I suspect one day we'll hear about an enron-scale accounting boondogle associated with inflating advertizing incomes.

    Will people tolerate advertizing in their software?  Sure, if it is subtle enough to ignore at will.  I'm willing to bet, however, that advertizing in the app was a major part of why opera never saw serious interest and adoption of their product (yes, yes, it has many other sins, but they would have been fixed if enough people had actually used the app).

    Is every app suitable for ads?  Hmmm... Could you imagine targeted ads in notepad or mspaint?

    I think it could probably be done if you were silly enough, but there is probably a cost/reward equation somewhere that says if you only expect to make 5$ advertizing in MSPaint ever, and it only takes an hour to put it and make it available for distribution, it would STILL not be worth doing, as it could lead to even more costs through support and the added complexity is just something else to go wrong.

  • Anonymous
    April 23, 2006
    (REALLY, REALLY, REALLY NOT SPEAKING FOR MY EMPLOYER)

    I dislike ad based mediums (e.g. radio, magazines, web sites, etc.). I suppose one can make the classic argument "well if the ads were relevant you wouldn't hate it." There might be some truth to this but I'm still waiting to see ads that are relevant to me. It's not that it doesn't ever happen, it's that it happens so rarely it's an event when it does.

    But I think there is a deeper uglier issue here that John, you in particular given your history, should have some sensitivity to. When you have an ad driven business model your customers are the advertisers not the people consuming your product. The consumers are only relevant in so far as they are interesting to the advertisers. Therefore the job becomes to create content that is just interesting enough to consumers to keep enough of them to justify your ad rates.

    The end result is that ad based revenue models tend to work best for content that doesn't have enough value in and of itself that people would be willing to pay the cost of producing it. Hence you need the advertisers to make it all work.

    So when you find that the only way you can make money is by sticking in ads then you can feel pretty confident that what you are doing isn't really all that terribly valuable.

    With that having been said I'm going back to my job at Windows Live.

  • Anonymous
    April 23, 2006
    Of course, Yaron, your own Web site has ads on it. :-)

    But yes, really really not speaking for my employer, I dislike ads in all their forms. I deplored them when I was in the computer trade press and they were our revenue stream, I deplore them as a consumer since they rarely contain anything I find interesting (a few exceptions such as the Honda Cog ad). And if your product stinks, no amount of advertising will get consumers to buy it (usually -- the systems may get messed up but tend to be self-correcting).

    At the same time, lots of customers want to put ads on their Web sites and are exploring putting them into their apps. So who am I to question?

    Back to my job in developer division.

  • Anonymous
    April 24, 2006
    It all depends on the meaning of "ad."

  • Anonymous
    April 24, 2006
    How would you define ad, Dave?

  • Anonymous
    April 27, 2006
    An "ad" could be anything that conveys a brand message, which means that it could be something functional (i.e., of value) to the user. One example would be a branded "Web service." Let's say your client software includes a WinZip file compression feature. Getting away from techie dweebie stuff, the client software might include a secure private channel to a Ticketmaster (e.g.,) advance sales database. Or a private radio station, or another feature that's relevant and compatible with the client software's function. I think you'd find a sharp difference in how user's perceive these "functional" ads vs. some kind of popup/banner.

  • Anonymous
    April 27, 2006
    I still think they'll wind up being intrusive, but to date I've proven remarkably inept at gauging what people in general want and think. Notably inept, in fact. So much so that you can basically bet that whatever I want, everyone else will want the opposite.

  • Anonymous
    May 01, 2006
    <"..you can basically bet that whatever I want, everyone else will want the opposite.">

    Tell me what stocks/mutual funds you own, so I can sell them FAST!

  • Anonymous
    May 01, 2006
    Lots of shares of Google. ;-)

  • Anonymous
    April 28, 2008
    PingBack from http://ezinefrontpageblog.info/a-view-from-elsewhere-can-advertising-in-windows-client-software-work/

  • Anonymous
    May 30, 2008
    MSN Messenger does it. Quicken does it. There’s a fair amount of Windows client software that has advertising – the same kind of banner ads present on most Web sites. But there are challenges to ad-powered client software, ranging from technical (how

  • Anonymous
    June 05, 2008
    MSN Messenger does it. Quicken does it. There’s a fair amount of Windows client software that has advertising – the same kind of banner ads present on most Web sites. But there are challenges to ad-powered client software, ranging from technical (how