Advertising on a Free Wireless Network?

Mischievous0ne asks: "I had an idea yesterday, and I wanted to run it past the Slashdotcommunity. Would you use a honeypot (free wireless access point) that covered a large downtown area (3-4 blocks of restaurants, coffee bars, an iceskating rink, a small park, and general hangout) if you had to have a framed banner ad at the top of every page you visited while on the network? Do advertisers still pay for banner ads? Are banner ads, effective? I live in a college town in Indiana, and I know there are wireless users here, but the campus wireless network is severly limited. I'm also not sure how people would react to the banner ad space in exchange for free access."

Nothing wrong with this

[thatguywhoiam]

I think it's a fine idea. My own slant has always been this: if it's free, as in beer, then subjecting yourself to ads is fine. You pay, no ads.

On a side note, I think the reason advertising on the internet gets such a negative response is that they are designed badly. Why do banners animate? Banners should not animate. Nor should things pop up/under what you are working on. People are just fine with the ads in magazines and such because they aren't constantly dancing around and flashing things at you. It's distracting, and detracts greatly from the reading experience. I'm sure static banners would raise a minimum of fuss in the average user.

I mean, we're predators, and our eyes are automatically attracted to movement. That's why good UI design calls for animation only when you want the users attention for something important.

Aww crap, I just answered my own question. I hate people.

Re:it all depends on

[doublem]

This brings up a good point.

As wireless networks become more and more common, how long will it be before we have a lawsuit involving the content on those networks?

Can't you imagine some litigation happy jerk finding porn on a shared drive and suing for distributing the content?

"We must protect the children! My son say porn on my neighbor's hard drive over the wireless network!"

Say hello to Junkbuster

[Wee]

Sure, I would use your network. And I'd filter your ads, too, so I didn't have to be distracted by the annoying flashing. (I paid for Opera -- on both Linux and Windows -- so that I could toggle off the "Show animated GIFs" and "Use plugins" options, and not have to see the built-in ads. I don't like flashing things when I'm trying to read.) I'd use your network and I wouldn't see your ads. I don't think the idea is a good one. You make more money papering the parking lots of large malls or putting out door hangers or something than you would through banner ads.

Slow news day?

-B

A better idea...

[Elwood P Dowd]

Step 1) In a major metropolitan area, set up a huge wifi network. Name it "GCN $50/mo 555-1212" where 555-1212 is your phone number and GCN is the name of your ISP.

Step 2) ...

Step 3) Profit!

That's what some folks are doing in Mendocino, and it seems like it'd be a great service. I opened up my laptop in a friends house, and saw I was getting wifi access. I'd have paid them $10 for the weekend, easily.

Subscribe to get rid of the ads, and GPS use?

[Brian Stretch]

Offer paid subscribers the option of turning off the ads. That way, the cheapskate users can't complain too much.

Neat GPS tie-in: click on an ad for a nearby coffee shop, send them your GPS coordinates with your order (paid by credit card or PayPal), and they'll deliver for a fee based on your distance from the shop.

OK, maybe that's a bit too geeky...

Free community wireless projects

[tierra]

There are free community wireless projects all going up, and they can't fail because they don't rely on revenue. Talking with these people setting it up, they won't accept contracts with businesses to do advertising of any kind. It's a pure network like your home LAN, all based on charity and whoever has the equipement to help out.

Introducing a wireless network with advertising is going to go down the hole. Especially with these community wireless projects popping up in most major cities.

Re:Free Internet access works so well...

[Reece400]

What yor missing is that Netzero & juno were large contintal ISPs with hundreds of dial in numbers, therefore ads on it were very expensive,,, this, is only a simple 3-4 block Wireless network, most liksey only one simple access point, after the inital cost, he would only need to pay for bandwidth, no employees, no phonelines, etc. Therefore, the ads would be much cheaper, and i'd think, if marketed correctly, many companies, possibly even personal ads. I think it could be quite sucessful if enough people in the area would use the internet wirelessly...

Reece,

PS. If you do,, you might try having a weather forecast, etc. for your town show up every say 10 minutes, so people would realize that your add bar is usefull to them also,, just a thought,

Re:remember netzero

[KUHurdler]

One of the downsides to the dial up is that there has to be a POP somewhere that can handle many-many phone line connections. I think the monthly fees on that would be huge.

I dont think it would cost nearly as much to run a monthly wireless if you owned all the access points.

Re:What utility software?

[morgajel]

2 questions
1) do you remember alladvantage?
2) where are they now?

people don't give a shit about web banners... however there was one critical factor they forgot-

local ads.

people are way more receptive to hungry howies pizza down the street than than lowermybills.com

if you advertise local stuff, local companies would be willing to pay.
go outside the area tho and you'll shoot yourself in the foot.

don't force advertisements either. show people what they're willing to see.

Re:If its free..

[Xaoswolf]

But those were done on a much larger scope than what is being tried here. The funds generated from the banner ads weren't enough to back the cost of multitude of users. Now a wireless network with fewer users in a local area won't need the same kind of monitary backing. I think that if he gets local people to advertise, and perhaps a few larger corporations to advertise, then there is a rather good chance that it will work.

Re:You can't make money this way

[Dan Crash]

Hey, you may have just hit on something there. Obviously, the closer you are to the business, the better the banner ad works, but I think this would have some appeal for businesses across town. Your banner ad could even offer directions to the store from the viewer's general location.