Simple Layman’s Audio Pay Per Play Advertisement – beyond the Scams of Larry Host

Share

Nothing more has taken up attention of internet publishers than the scams and the failures of the Pay Per Play advertising mechanism and the scams of Larry Host. In case you are hearing about this for the first time, here is what Pay Per Play (or PPP) means in layman’s terms:

1. just like any other advertisement you display on your website with a small piece of code on your page or blog, you similarly put in a small piece of code but not to "display" anything, but to play a small audio

2. just like you earn money from Google Adsense if any of your visitor clicks on the ads, you get paid every time an audio ad is played to a visitor (note that not every time an audio ad will be played). For audio ads though, your visitors do not have to click on anything

3. just like with any advertisement you get to chose who to advertise and who not to, Audio Advertisers also lets you chose which all ads (or what all types and categories of ads) you allow to be played

4. unlike ads that are displayed and take up space on your web page, audio ads will work behind the scene. They do not show up on your web page and does not occupy any space

5. just like with pop-up advertisements, the audio ads will play for 5 secs and will play only once for 1 unique visitor. This is an intrusive advertising since you are invading into the readers attention, but since nothing else "shows" up, your visitor will not tend to be taken to another website from yours. Your visitor can get terribly annoyed with the pay per play audio advertising and may never return to your site

6. if your visitor happens to have their computer speakers on mute, they will not hear a thing. If they are already using the speakers for some other reason, say listening to music while browsing, they will be interrupted

.

The internet is currently filled with all the news of how Larry Host has scammed the affiliates and the publishers. I will not comment on that and you can voice your opinion on those scams. I would like to focus on the technology though. It seems we have all been bogged down with 1 person who scammed people and confused the audio advertising technology with the implementers.

I think the PPP advertising (as it is commonly abbreviate from Pay-Per-Play) is a step forward. I see a lot of benefits for that:

1. Keeps your website neat and clean. You do not divert your readers attention to flashy ads

2. You do not throw your user into a different website

3. Since it is intrusive, publishers stand the chances of higher Cost Per 1000 Impressions (higher CPM)

4. You can target audiences from different geographies more easily. Even though your site maybe in one language, say English, and is being seen in Germany, you can target them with a German voice advertisement. So you basically increase your reach and cut down on the language barrier of your website

.

The more I am reading about this PPP advertising, the more I am seeing that it is the technology that is being blamed for the incorrect implementation or just because Larry Host has a debatable past!

.

What if a company like Google or Yahoo! Network or Casale Media had implemented Pay Per Play advertising? The difference would not have the technology but the company who implements it.

• I am sure that Google or YPN or others, with their strong search & interpretive algorithm could have made excellent contextual advertising even with audio.
• More over, these companies, Google for example, are perceived as organizations with a lot of integrity towards its advertisers and publishers. They would have laid out and abide by acceptable rules for both publishers & advertisers.
• Again, each of these high profile organizations would have had enough transparencies within their processes that would have helped build the trust of the publishers, advertisers and the internet users.

I sincerely believe in the immense power of audio advertising. Voice2Page – the company that conceptualized and implemented the new technology is certainly forward looking. However, it maybe just a little too early for us to accept that advertising model on the internet. And maybe the researchers should have thought through the implementation loopholes and partnered with someone like Google or YPN to make it successful.

.

There is no reason to doubt the technology. While traditional internet advertisers keep cluttering spaces, audio advertising could be a sustainable advertising mode of the future (except that you cannot put more than 1 audio ad on a page).

.