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Apps are killing the ad bubble

posted by Chad Vavra
Chad Vavra
Chad Vavra

Director of Interaction Design : New York

topics: User Experience

on February 10, 2011 at 01:44 PM
filed under: Brands, User Experience, and Media Planning
http://tbg.cm/gr915P
I was watching a livestream from social media week in NYC on Tuesday and heard a content publishing panelist comment that their iPad app was getting twice the retention (duration) and twice as many stories read as their website. Being an iPad owner this wasn’t a surprise to me. In fact I’d been thinking for a while that the next big reboot of visual design on the web is going to be towards a more app look and feel.
At the end of last year Mike McCue of Flipboard (Apple’s App of the year) was saying the same thing. Flipboard’s Mike McCue
As I thought more about this I realized something that is fairly obvious. Websites are really distracting. Unlike iPad apps for ‘news’ sites, the stories are hidden under, around, and behind advertising. A LOT of advertising. For instance here are a few landing pages for some popular news sites that have iPad apps. The Huffington Post is the cleanest but scroll down and compare them to the iPad counterparts.
The Washington Post – I can see one story and 20% of the page is an ING ad.
but on the iPad I get 6 headlines, the weather, and a Live stream.
Mashable – The site is even more cluttered with ads.
and the iPad again shows no ads, and 8 headlines with 2 lines of copy
The Huffington Post – The website does one thing well. It presents the top story in no uncertain terms, but that’s it. (unless you love navigation buttons)
The iPad on the other hand shows 9 stories in 5 categories!
Reading the stories is even worse. Here’s one example.
The website
The iPad app
To recap, news sources are in love with the iPad because it is returning impressive engagement metrics and we are inevitably going to see a move towards apps and app aesthetics. For instance, the recent Twitter redesign was admittedly influenced by Twitter for iPad.
Right now it would seem that the advertising revenue from traditional websites is paying for the apps existence, and that is great… but as tablets and apps take eyes off of the sites the advertising is going to want to follow. Something has to give. Either the bubble pops, or apps fall into the same distracting trap the sites are in.
Apple introduced iAds to avoid this dilema, but so far the numbers aren’t in the advertisers favor. iAds are hurting There has to be a better way, and I want to find it.
Got an app? Call me.

8 comments

One quick obvious comment: Ad $ follow eyeballs. As eyeballs congregate around the tablet interface for news or any other type of content, ad dollars will follow. It will be interesting to see how the IAB and other publisher sponsored groups look to define the ad space opportunities for publishers to monetize their content. Hopefully, publishers will figure out what your describing here, see it as a barrier to their delivery of great content, and create ad units that aren't as distracting to the editorial mission at hand.

Bill Hewson
hewsonb@gmail.com
billhewson.com
On February 10, 2011 at 01:22 PM, chad Vavra wrote:
Exactly Bill. Right now I wouldn't be surprised if eyes on apps are counting towards total digital views in the metrics for these sites. At some point advertisers are going to figure out that the eyes aren't seeing their ads and they are going to demand a change.

How that change is implemented is paramount in whether apps retain the engagement numbers that are being tossed around.
It seems that the news app is a much more digestible pay wall. Digestible because consumers are agreeing to pay for the content now that it's organized in the right way. The same thing they tried to monetize way back when.

I agree though that with adoption and popularity will come the ad dollars, somehow.
On February 10, 2011 at 01:57 PM, Chad Vavra wrote:
Dino, I didn't pay for any of the apps or content in the screenshots which is why I'm sure that the ad dollars sold through the websites are.

*Washington Post was free over the holidays. That may have changed.
Yeah, I spoke without knowing. I thought most of those apps were pay. My point actually makes no sense. I'd pay for the app though, if I knew ads wouldn't be included in the future versions.
On February 10, 2011 at 02:10 PM, Chad Vavra wrote:
Interesting. Would you be willing to pay monthly, or would you want a one time fee?

If it was one time, would you pay $40? (the Daily)
That's a tough one. You might be able to get me yearly. But I wouldn't pay 40 bones. Ideally, I'd pay once. I'd probably go ten bucks for the right on, but that would cut down one what i'm buying in general. But I don't know where your revenue is gonna come from then.
On February 10, 2011 at 02:50 PM, Chad Vavra wrote:
Research shows that most users are willing to watch ads in order to get content for free.

that research doesn't go into how those ads affect engagement, but I don't think they really have to at this point. It's obvious that engagement suffers distractions.

So that begs the question, how long would you be willing to look at an ad before you get the content? That depends on your situation and environment at the moment in time....

Maybe someday a research specialist will put out a guide. (Mobile advertising human thresholds - white paper)

*are you reading this Cooper?