As a content provider a switch or move towards distributing content over the internet is quite a big thing, you can leverage the power of the internet, the extra input devices such as built in cameras, microphones and the standard keyboard and mouse.

With that, one would assume that you could offer a much richer platform for your advertisers and far more entertaining advertising content for your viewers, rather than disliking advertising breaks and finding ways to avoid them by installing various plugins for their web browsers they could at some point enjoy them.

The BBC have been great pioneers in the UK for experimenting with online distribution of their content. Most recently they have integrated twitter into their subtitles so that rather than users sending a text message into a show with their thoughts, viewers simply tweet with a hash tag of “bbcrevolution” and their thoughts are displayed as subtitles whilst the show is being broadcast on BBC iPlayer. (via http://www.rsc-ne-scotland.org.uk/mashe/2010/02/twitter-powered-subtitles-for-bbc-iplayer/)

Examples like this are great, but it should be down to the advertisers and content providers to communicate with each-other to develop a platform that benefits both the user, advertisers, the products and services that are being advertised and the content providers.

The current way of thinking is that you broadcast a program, and you allocate time slots in-between the breaks to place advertising, this is great, and it works. But why? Research at the London Business School has found that most people don’t actually sit through and take in the advertising breaks, they ‘chose one of six activities: social interaction, reading, doing a chore, surfing channels, watching the television and interacting with adverts.’ (via http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/what-viewers-really-do-during-commercial-breaks-596691.html). I haven’t found any research but I assume that the same applies to online, but what makes online so different from advertising on TV? Technology would be the first thing that springs to mind, content providers use the same types of distribution platforms, these are primarily Adobe Flash and Silverlight.

What confuses me is the lack of interest in experimenting with these platforms, they were never intentionally made just to distribute video, they were created to offer ‘breakthrough Web experiences to over 99% of Internet users.’ (via http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/) the flash player intro video says it all.

In my experience, it doesn’t take much to produce an interactive flash advertisement that’s enjoyable for the viewer, why can’t advertisers spend their £1.752bn (via http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8280557.stm) advertising budgets on creating good interactive advertisements for content distributed online? Or is this really the root of the problem? Maybe the problem is that content distributers don’t have a platform that can offer rich advertising experiences for the online viewer, I’m sure most viewers would find playing tetris or breakout for 30 seconds with the end result being a special offer for cheap car insurance far more entertaining over watching another annoying go compare advert.

Or maybe the problem’s even worse, advertisers simply can’t get their head around how to advertise on the current online distribution platforms, not realising that the internet is non-linear and that people often don’t/won’t do what we expect them to do with our content.

We really need new thinkers in the industry, advertising has changed from advertising things that people need to things that people want, people (I’ve switched to people here over viewers as I’m looking at it from another perspective) can switch channels, or watch your programs on websites such as surfthechannel.com where there are no advertising breaks and no restrictions of what you can watch and when. Feel free to discuss this topic, any input would be much appreciated.