Pajiba

Just for you bitches, I'm gonna click on some ads today! But you could not pay me ENOUGH to click on that creepy photosop-abused pic of the dog-human hybrid whatsitsfuckery.
::jibblie jibblie::

Will I pay for Hulu? Not a chance.
Watching tv at work just isn't that important.

Why the fuck would I pay for Hulu? I'm paying through the nose for my sat TV as it is (and yet they still air 16+ minutes of commercials per hour [which I don't watch. I'll DVR a program rather than watch it live, just so I can FF through the fucking commercials]).

It's like you say: if they're not getting enough revenue, let 'em throw in another ad.

This is a terrible mistake, which they are going to realize around about the time they see their 2nd Quarter 2010 profit sheet. Buh-bye, Hulu.

Continue to be glad I skipped right past Hulu an went straight from DVR to torrenting.

A good private tracker is an important ingredient in my happiness. 8)

maybe it's time for advertisers to get real about how advertising actually works. Entertainment is changing and for some reason neither the ad world or the entertainment industry is willing to adapt. All these creative people should be able to figure out how to get ahead of the technology curve instead of kicking against it.

"that we could watch the same shows we get for free on our television"
---
Shinnied up the pole again, did you? Crazy bastard, you're going to get electrocuted one day, you keep doing that.

I am a cheap bastard (ask Mrs. ,), we have the lowest basic cable service Comcast makes available (no HD, no premium channels, no upper-tier or whatever the fuck they're called channels) and I immensely dislike talking on the phone, and still: our total monthly tab for cable/Internet/landline/cell phone is more than $200 ... $2,fucking400 a year! We could take a hell of a vaction for that.

The sorry part is, to keep Mrs. , and ,daughter happy, I see no way, no way at all, to cut that bill any further. To me it's like throwing money in the fireplace.

Except for "House." "House" is almost worth $200 a month.

The only way I would pay for something like Hulu is if I could use it to replace cable. If I could stream Hulu on my TV like Netflix instant watch, and if they had enough programing that I could get 90% of the things I would want to watch on TV from them, I would gladly switch from cable to Hulu TV on demand. It would be like abandoning my cable but keeping the DVR. The only probably would be sporting events and cable news networks (but fuck cable news networks). Let me keep network TV in HD and I'll tell Comcast to get bent.

But I don't see it working out like that in the real world. Honestly, these people seem to have no idea of how to develop a working revenue model for these things. They just throw up a bunch of content and worry about the rest later. Hulu has to be losing buckets of money right now with no workable transition to profitability in sight.

Personally, I don't use Hulu because I don't see the point of watching entire shows on a computer screen. 3-5 minute clips like Youtube work on the 17" screen. 24 minute shows, I'd rather set the DVR or wait for the DVD. There is no way I would pay for Hulu as it exists now.

I ain't paying for JACK. SHIT.

Oh, Hulu, you ignorant slut. I watch television on my laptop as a last resort. That is, I watch television on the laptop when I can't DVR it or watch it on demand on my HDTV. Why in the shitting hell would I want to pay to watch an episode of Sunny that I can just DVR? Or an episode of Lost that I can DVR or watch for free on the ABC website?

And since everyone is throwing it out there, and I'm nothing if not easily swayed by Pajiba peer pressure, we pay $115 a month for phone, internet, digital cable with HD channels and DVR.

Hell no, I will not pay for Hulu. I will either catch the shows on the website for the channel itself (which I already do with HIMYM), or I will stop watching the shows altogether. That is a very bad, horrible, no good idea. Also, I see no mention of whether that means there will no longer be any advertisements with the videos. So I can only assume that with a subscription, one would also be paying to watch those commercials.

I often wonder what total monies per annum are spent on advertising in this country? I should have gotten into that field. Geezis. Can you imagine what could be done with all that money? That family who lives in the box down the street could maybe get a house, instead of staring at the advertising on the side of their box. (And before I hear the "well maybe that family should get a job and then they could afford a house like the advertising guy that works so hard" argument, it's bullshit; you know it, I know it, we all know it, so don't even go there.) I also often wonder what I would do if I went through one single day without being inundated with advertising? The average American, I seem to recall, is hit with something like 3,000 advertisements per day. Your "news"paper is 40% advertising. Magazines even more. Radio, teevee, billboards. The packaging on products you buy advertises not only itself, but the company's other products, or other companies' stuff. It's completely inescapable. And we wonder why we have no attention spans, or why people want to take their autistic kids to Mongolia.

Wow, that was sort of a rant, huh? Hm. Anyway:
Also, I already pay for Netflix. If it's something I really want to watch, I'll wait for it to come out on DVD and slap it in my queue. Look, I have the pretty picture-box on all the time, but when it comes down to it, it's just teevee. It's not life-changing. It's the crap they film to put between the advertisements.

I wouldn't pay for hulu even if I'd be able to watch their shows. You want to make money? That's what ads are for. You're already cheaper than an regular TV network, because your staff isn't as big.

I would pay for hulu if I didn't have to deal with the ads, no adds on the page and no ads during the commercial breaks. And if I paid the shows don't expire for me.

But I'm only willing to pay around $10/month.

Oh and the image quality would be better.

Unfortunately, if I had to pay for hulu, I would cancel my cable, it wouldn't be worth it to pay for both.

Will I pay for Hulu? No. No I will not, and you can't make me. I can watch all the shows that I want on the internet for free anyway. There are tons of sites, mostly based outside the US, that offer free streaming of just about any show that you can think of and others that you never knew about. I have my computer hooked to my TV and surround sound system so I'm not watching on my tiny computer screen. I won't pay for something that I can get for free elsewhere.

Yos (can I call you Yos? I feel like I can. I feel our relationship has progressed to that level), I realize I'm being cynical about the whole thing today. And I realize that even since its first days, television has been supported by advertising. But we do pay for it... we pay the cable company (or satellite, or however you get your TV) to advertise to us. We pay for our fancy flat-screen, hi-def TVs, and all the accoutrements (surround sound systems, DVRs, DVD players, the furniture to hold all this). Further, advertising creates false need. You don't need 98% of the products that are advertised at you. That creates greed, and leads to mass amounts of credit card debt and people who have their homes repossessed because they live outside their means, because that's the American dream: to buy stuff. To have stuff. It also leads to people being on shows like Hoarders.

I just get so tired, sometimes, of being sold things all the time. That Hoarders show? I am destined to be on it. I have boxes-no, rooms- full of things I've purchased and have no use for, no need for, no place for. Yes, certainly my own lack of willpower led me to amass my own credit card debt purchasing unnecessary items, but I would never have even known about those designer Barbie dolls if they hadn't been so effectively advertised to me. And where are they now? In a cardboard box, under a bunch of other boxes. Taking up space, mocking me and my debt. And who's going to pay "market value" for them now? I'll have to wait until we're out of the economic slump to sell them for even the price I paid for them.

As I say, I do recognize your points; I utterly adore Buffy the Vampire Slayer, among (many) other programs, and I do recognize that there are creative and artistic talents behind these shows. I certainly couldn't write them, or even imagine them up. I'm a media studies major, for heaven's sake; I intend to teach media and film studies courses someday, and am therefore planning to make my own living off of this stuff myself. It just... concerns me at times that we, society as a whole, that is, are paying to be advertised to, so that we can pay some more when we go shopping, do you see what I mean? I feel like it's a big old downward spiral situation.

Again, I am being rather cynical about this today. I did just get an email that my Macy's card received my payment, and said, "Oh goody, now I can order that $200 Coach bag!" Really, me? Really? I'm really just annoyed that a thing I find great is going to start charging. I can't afford another service per month. I'm looking for a way to cut costs, not add to them. And so that means if I can't catch my shows on Hulu, or on the stations' websites, then I have to wait a long time for them to come out on DVD before I see them. And that's sad.

I ain't paying for JACK. SHIT.

Posted by: BarbadoSlim at October 23, 2009 11:23 AM

That's because they haven't invented TV where you live yet. I imagine your internet connection is coprised of a dude standing on top of your house with an antenna and a battery hooked to a giant hamster wheel. I can't imagine how difficult it is to type and run in one of those. Kudos, sir.

because the ads wouldn't have to compete so much for your attention

This. Is exactly it. It's not just the fact that there are ads (and Dustin, honest to God, I'm not railing against you, here, or Pajiba running ads... run all the ads you like. I can't promise clicking, I can't promise looking, but I'm not complaining about you), it's the fact that they're all in constant competition for your eyeballs, and your dollars. And it's not just TV, it's DVDs, it's magazines, radio, newspapers, billboards, coffee cups, food wrappers, and it's 24-7, and it's INESCAPABLE.

Posted by: J at October 23, 2009 12:28 PM

I love it when someone in an industry we're talking about comments. Excellent. Thank you for this insight, sir. (Or madam. No offense intended in assuming either way.)

I can't even watch Hulu and I think that this plan is full of stank.

Personal ethics that one may have aside, it can't be very good business to increasingly inconvenience your viewership. Unless it can. I've never studied it so I'm totally ignorant, but here's what it looks like to this layman:

'Hey, you know what people like? Paying for things that used to be free.'

I don't think that people start feeling entitled until you put up barriers between Point A and B where none previously existed. Hulu isn't the only game in town when it comes to these things, and I'll wager that a lot of people aren't going to feel drums of sympathy for the fiscally- negligent/short sightedness management of its operation. People always say that 'business is business', so if that's really your model, you have to accept that the other party has the very real option of opting out when--for him-- the cure seems worse than the disease. We're not talking about intellectual or artistic property that is being pirated without the knowledge, compensation or permission of those to whom decisions about distribution are incumbent. If these financial developments come as a surprise to the company, then said company is shockingly stupid. Who hasn' been told 'you should've known better', or 'you're so stupid, I wonder how you breathe?' I'm obviously being hyperbolic, but sometimes you wanna shrug.

I wonder if YouTube has ever made a thin dime of profit.

This type of entertainment distribution isn't new anymore. The grace period is officially over, so if they wanted to introduce a pay model that wouldn't have resulted in this much enmity, it is fully reasonable to expect that they should have though about these developments in the first place.

Intellectually, I have no quarrel with the idea that the media outlets don't owe us anything. I've heard this argument before, and it often seems to come from the lips of the laissez-faire tycoon type who sees the earth crumbling. I'm not saying that is without exception, but it's some choppy water through which the newly-minted Margrave of Spare-A-Dime must navigate.

Bros said, 'I owe you nothing. Nothing, nothing at all...', but if those are the house rules, you had better believe that there will be people who say, 'I'm not responsible for coddling away your moon-calfed incompetence.'

'When will I, will I be solvent? I can't answer--I can't answer that!'

-Apologies for that last one, it's been an aggravating few weeks. Two Bros references are two too many.

Pissant

Clicking on the ads at a site like Pajiba isn't about supporting the advertisers, it's about supporting the web site. If anything, you would be harming the advertiser by clicking on ads for products you don't want or causes you don't support. Essentially, by clicking an ad (try: open in another tab, then close it out) you are causing the advertisers to have to pay Pajiba.

Considering all the time you waste online anyway, and on this site in particular, it couldn't hurt to click a few ads a day just out of sheer goodwill for the people who run this shindig. Anna, think of it as your way of spitting water in the face of the Ad Men.

I would not pay for the Hulu,
I would not pay, nor should you.
I do not care what they do,
I will not pay for that Hulu.

Q: Can't you watch a lot of these shows on various network websites for free?
A: Hell yes.
side note: Goodbye, Hulu.

appwitch,

You started with "ITA" and I was lost from there. My rant, which a lot of you a-holes seem to be ignoring, is that people take this stuff for granted and happily steal whatever they can get their grubby little hands on. And then, in the end (as it so often occurs) the honest business has to keep upping the price. Every time I see my supervisor streaming a current movie at his desk I want to punch him the face (Zombieland was a particularly low blow).

If people had just been happy with the three thirty second ads on a thirty minute Hulu show, they probably wouldn't have to end up where they are now. But instead, some idiots are getting p.o.'d because they have to wait to download Where The Wild Things Are.

Anyway, I was confused by the way you phrased your statement appy, so if you'd like to clarify I'd love to discuss.

Oh and Yossarian thanks for taking my idea. Are you sure you're not in advertising?

Kayanne, ITA = I totally agree.

Kayanne, I didn't ignore your rant per se. However, I don't take things for granted, and I don't steal things (ie download movies/music/teevee). I do pay for the goods and services I receive. My hands are rather clean. Furthermore, I'm not an a-hole, nor am I an entitled jerk-off. Just ask my mom.

If people had just been happy with the three thirty second ads on a thirty minute Hulu show, they probably wouldn't have to end up where they are now.

Also, while people have complained about this, it hasn't changed. There are still three 30-second ads during the stream of a 30 (well, 21) minute program. Or, you have the option of clicking on a longer ad at the beginning and no more ads throughout. The ads play; there's nothing you can do about it. What they can't control, of course, is whether you sit there and *watch* the ad, but they can't control that on TV anyway. Additionally, if I was the sort of person who illegally downloads or streams things, I'd likely not be watching them on Hulu in the first place.

Ok, I'm kind of all over the place right now, but what I'm trying to say is A) you start off by calling people names, which is likely why they're ignoring your rant, and B) your argument doesn't actually make all that much sense in the context of the Hulu discussion. It's not an illegal streaming website, and people still watch it; whether they complain about the ads is kind of irrelevant. As far as I know, people are allowed to voice their displeasure with having to be inundated with ads.

P.S. I believe "ITA" = I Totally Agree.

And this is why people use torrents. Can't leave well enough alone, got to squeeze the blood out of a stone. If Hulu isn't making enough on ad revenue, charging for content that is free isn't the answer.

So this means that the actors/creators will be getting a cut of Hulu revenue right? Just like they do with itunes downloads and netflix rentals, right? Right?!?!

Wow. This thread turned into quite a little conversation. I'll just add this to Pissant: We don't have an ability to decide what ads we run. Not realistically. Realistically, we run whatever ads we're offered, because, right about now, we'll take what we can get to survive. We don't have an ad sales team; we can't solicit. It's only been in the last year that we've actually managed to move up to the tier of movie sites that actually run movie ads. Sites like this are dropping like flies on shit (Spout Blog, what I regard as the highest brow movie blog, is dead as of Oct. 31st, for instance). We'll run whatever is offered, and then we'll pray that the damn holds for another month and that our readership doesn't flee out of irritation.

If you do want really well-targeted ads, well, those are called advertorials. And though we have been offered those, even for movies/shows/products that our readership generally likes, we're not going down that ethically trippy road. Slashfilm recently did, and got an immense amount of shit for it, especially by CHUD. Two months later, CHUD was doing the same thing. That's what we're up against.

Ha ha, bitches! Now you'll feel the pain of...never being able to use Hulu because I'm not in the US.

fuckers.

So...curious...do you guys only get paid when someone acts upon an ad click (buys something) or do you get some infinitesimal return on a per-click basis?

Yossarian and Kayanne:

I understand the whole "click on it to support the site" idea, I just don't see it as making sense in the long run. If the advertisers don't see any returns from clicks(which is what y'all propose with these "empty" clicks), they won't advertise here*.

Realistically, we run whatever ads we're offered, because, right about now, we'll take what we can get to survive.

I get that. I'm not calling out Pajiba specifically, just the entire advertising idea. It's easier to do shotgun blasts than really specific targeting, and what I really want to see is probably not possible right now. Hell, only Google could feasibly do it. Also, I'm a little paranoid, so I'd never sign up for letting them keep my data and everything just to be served ads. I'm mainly just bitching about ads in general, or their implementation, rather. I don't mind ads, I'll sit through them if I must(ad blocker is for bandwidth cap at work, 20 MB/day), but I think they could be a lot smarter about it. If they were, people wouldn't hate the ads so much and the advertisers would probably make more money.

To me, it just seems like business as usual. Just keep doing it because that's the way it's been done. But, with all the sub-prime what have you, have we not learned enough about unsustainable business models recently?

* - This is all very idealistic, granted.

Pissant

I can't claim to know exactly how it all works, but my general understanding is that sites like Pajiba benefit when you click on ads. A random click by a pissant like you isn't worth much by itself but this site does get a lot of traffic and they add up.

You're not wrong in questioning the logic of basing advertising compensation on 'clicks' but that's not the point. That is the way the system works right now. Don't overthink it. Daydreaming about technology that can anticipate your specific tastes and target advertising to you is irrelevant; worrying that you are undermining the click based revenue model is also unnecessary. Pajiba is small potatoes in the big picture, the advertisers are not that sophisticated, and the industry will adjust over time regardless of what you do.

The point is: Pajiba is free for us. We don't pay anything for the content and yet Pajiba costs money for the people who run it (hosting, bandwith, time & effort, etc). There may not be a tacky "donate here" button on the header or annual pledge drives but there are ads. If you click them, you are effectively giving back (just a tiny bit but it adds up) to the people who make this possible, rewarding them for their effort (or maybe just helping make sure they break even and that Pajiba is still around to skewer Michael Bay's Summer 2010 offering)

Also, what Yossarian said.

FYI- There's a strong argument in the industry that clicks are way overrated as a measurement of success:

Natural Born Clickers:
http://www.smvgroup.com/news_popup_flash.asp?pr=1643

In the study above, they found that 5% of the population account for half of all clicks. Habitual "clickers" also tend to have incomes under $40K, visit gambling and career services sites.

Clicking on an ad when you have no intention of buying doesn't help Pajiba either. A high click thru rate + low sales = bad ad campaign. Media buyers look more at engagement nowadays anyway (ie. how much were you interacting with the ad? How long did you spend on it? etc) until a better metric comes along.

K: I also kick puppies and hate rainbows. ;)

Dustin, improper etiquette, schmimproper schmetiquette. Thanks for explaining how it works. See, now that I know that, I can turn off my adblocker for my first few visits, squinch my eyes shut, and let the ads play away, then turn the adblocker on later, when I get tired of squinching.

P.S. I have clicked on a few here and there, because I don't, in fact, want your child to starve.

P.P.S. I'm not gonna stop kicking puppies. Or hating rainbows.

Full disclosure: I do not work for nor am I affiliated with Pajiba.com or it's subsidiaries. The use or first person plural in my last post was meant to be inclusive of the entire Pajiba community and should not in any way imply that I am in bed with management (although I do kind of look like Ryan Reynolds*)

*Full disclosure: No, I don't

I'm not in the media part of it, so I don't entirely understand it, but it's not necessarily about click-through. Obviously, advertisers like it when you go to their site. But online ads are kinda like every other ad: it's about unique "impressions" or visitors to the website that contains the ad. Sites that get a lot of visitors can charge more than sites that don't. And yeah, I'm pretty sure Google is number one on that. I'm not sure who number 2 is. Yahoo, maybe? As for the pricing structure, I have no fucking idea. We do tons of online ads, I have no idea what it costs. But a decent online ad is not cost- or trouble-free to make. There's a cost to it. Just because this shit is digital doesn't mean it doesn't cost something to produce.

The Internet has not killed TV advertising yet, and I don't think it's gonna happen for a really long time. More people still watch more TV than sit on the computer for hours and hours. That's why TV ads are so damn expensive.

Another link, if anyone's interested: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=134787

Why the Click Is the Wrong Metric for Online Ads

Here's a listing per Nielsen (from August):
GOOGLE 158,084
MICROSOFT 140,094
YAHOO! 138,312
FACEBOOK 103,886
AOL LLC 92,574
NEWS CORP. ONLINE 91,632
INTERACTIVECORP 72,161
EBAY 68,731
AMAZON 62,045
WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION 59,062

Number is unique visitors. Interactive Corp. (I had to look it up, I'd never heard of it) owns a shitload of websites, including Ask.com, Evite and Chemistry.com.

I never click on ads, but thanks to that slate article I've taken to waiting through the little preview ads that pop up before it takes you straight to the page you want. Admittedly, I usually flip over to another tab while they're playing, but I'm hoping the advertising agencies don't have any way to know that.
(ps, does anyone else remember the hands-bra ad? The one where it looked like the naked lady was covering her breasts with her tiny, freakish hands, but when you looked closely you realized it was just a hand-shaped bra? I have no idea what it was selling but it uh...it definitely left an impression)

Wait! So I read through this whole thing, and I'm confused. As Dustin says, the first and foremost thing the on-line advertisers are trying to do is saturate or bombard us. So just by coming to the top level page every day, we "contribute" to the value of the site by allowing ourselves to be bombarded. (Unless you have ad blocker? Which I don't.) That part I understand.

Now, if I open a new Pajiba front page many, many times per day, does Big Brother Advertiser know this? Is it better to open a new Pajiba front page many times, or refresh the page while leaving it open? Does the deal with clicking the arrows from previous to next article actually take away from the almighty "hit count" or whatever, as discussed on a couple of threads a while back? Because I never do that. (Nothing against it, I'm just weird and stupid.) I always go back to the front page, then click on another article.

And so you're saying it helps almost not at all to click on the actual ads and go to their pages, albeit briefly and without actually doing/buying anything? Or it helps a little bit to click, so please do it every once in a while, but don't drive yourself crazy?

What about the interstitial ads? If you click the skip button at any point, does that not count? Should I let them play through (heavy, resigned sigh) for maximum advertising dollar?

Honestly, Dustin, I don't want your children to starve.

(In no way should anything above be taken as sarcastic. I am actually wondering what the most effective way of supporting the site is.)

MM -- Simply put: Visit the site often, and read lots of posts! That's the best way to support the site. Honestly. Click through those prestitials all you like (and if you have cookies enabled, you should only get one per day).The best thing that anyone can do is, hopefully, enjoy the site and visit it often. And if you really like a post, submit it to Digg, or reddit, or fark, or stumbleupon, or mention it on Facebook or Twitter. (And thanks to whoever submitted the Saw review to Fark today!)

Otherwise, as much as I really appreciate y'alls interest in helping the site, the most important thing is to have a good experience, and not to worry about clicking or not clicking on ads.

And sincerely, thanks to all of you for frequenting the place.

Dial 'Whoa' for Intense. I love you guys like I love a group of strangers, which is to say, I'd never intentionally hurt you people. But if I'm going to go full disclosure: I'm here for shits and giggles. I get neither of these things in life, so I'm coming to forget the morass. Ding-Dang, I'm enough of a colossal failure in real life without having my 'Brotherhood of Inter-Tubed Harlots' membership revoked because of um--my lack of faith? Cream And Cheese, I'm not even American. I don't even know what...fuck it. I'm eating pretzels.

Peace be with you, but not my pretzels.

Who cares!!! My boyfriend also agrees with me. He is 10 years older than me, lol. We met online at age-gap club -- http://AgelessMeet.COM/. Maybe you wanna check out or tell your friends.

I'm so conditioned by virus fears to not click on things, especially ads. I'll try to get over it. But the lamp/crotch IQ ad is creepy. I think it wants to give me herpes.

Hold on a minute, though. Isn't Hulu only available in the states? I can't view any of this stuff for free in the backwards wilderness where I live (it's called Canada, I don't know if you've heard of it), so...yeah, I download. I don't have a TV in residence, so that's the only way I can get my shows until they come out on DVD (and if I like them enough to download, I'm probably going to buy the DVD).

Aw. I disabled ad-blocker for this website only. It's a little dirtier in here, but...we're all in it together now.