Web start ups are in a very precarious situation. Many people expect web services to be free, fully functional and be able to push out new services. With all these expectations from a user many web start ups have depended upon advertisements to keep the fire running. This situation is not working for many, especially in this economy. Web music streaming services such as Imeem and Last.fm are feeling the pain and discovering that advertisements are not pulling their weight. At least the typical flashing banner ads/adsense placements aren’t working.
Customization
Many web services tought the fact that you can customize your profile. Almost every service allows some sort of customization whether it be simply changing your profile picture or letting you change the whole darn page. This is one of the defining features of Myspace that has made it a dominant space in social networking. So with all this focus on allowing customization on the service end, why not the financial end?
Advertisements are usually forced and as much as Google advertisements are relevant for searches they are not so much for web services, and even if they did work the return is pretty horrendous. It’s time that we change how advertisements work, and how we view them. Could customization be the key? It seems to be working for Meebo, and getting amazing feed back.
Meebo allows users to change their background, buddy icons and even you gives the ability to opt-out. Literally “skinning” your Meebo IM experience like one big ad. But do the users care? Not one bit, over 35+ million users get to sport their favorite brand, artist, videos and links willingly. Nothing is forced upon you and even with their latest “take over” ad you had the option to opt-out by clicking the go back to blue link, and there seems to be no signs of Meebo slowing or showing the least bit of financial stress. Meebo is reinventing ads as we know it, by allowing customization. They have even adopted the social media model by having a built in share link.
Is Meebo reinventing advertisements on the web as we know it, and is customization the new form web services should start embracing? I for one wouldn’t argue.
