Calacanis weighs in on root.net
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Jason Calacanis riffs on root.net - and defends CPM (i.e. views vs. actual behaviour).
Horrific simplification - advertising isn't just about click-throughs (a la adwords) but visual reinforcement - the billboard model/justification.
I.e. attention is not just about the here/now, but the latent awareness that turns into a purchase/response in the store, the cinema, etc.
Reminds me of that old adage (or is that ad age) "50% of advertising works, we just don't know which 50%"
Calacanis knows his shit - I met him briefly at Reboot, and he's a living, breathing personification of a traditional 'publisher' (right down to the ballsy persona, blazer and cigar, which I thought was rather cool), in the good sense.
He's pretty negative about root.net -
"You see, us publishers are in the business of selling our reader's attention. If the users sell their attention to the advertisers direct with the help of ROOT we lose revenue and we can't provide free content (which is what users really want).
Call me paranoid, but if a service like this were to work and advertisers went to Root Markets instead of to the advertising department at Weblogs, Inc. to get their needs filled (i.e. leads) we would have a big problem. Root Markets and their users sell their data direct to the marketer and where does that leave the publisher? "
I thought it would be individuals who wouldn't buy into the root exchange model...without decent incentives (browsing my historical behaviour, while interesting, has little economic benefit until tied into other services - look at how useful amazon makes your 'attention data')
Ah, just noticed a comment by the root founder...go read the post
I'm fascinated by this stuff - and I keep saying it - these guys are breaking the ground for how to capture attention in the workplace...this is the future of e-learning.
