Why the BT - Phorm - Webwise trials are a good thing
Posted by Louis Venter on 01 Oct 2008 | Tagged as: Phorm
BT announced on Tuesday that the BT Webwise trials have started again and not surprisingly the reception has been mixed. There is a huge amount of negativity towards Phorm from certain parties; some justified and some not. There is no point entering the debate myself, suffice to say there are some big and trusted technology companies out there that have worse privacy policies than Phorm.
I would rather focus on what they are hoping to achieve now that they have got the backing from the government. Can anyone monetise behavioural advertising in the same way Google has monetised search?
Google started life looking to solve a problem, which is admirable but let’s not forget that they are now a well monetised machine, and as close to corporate as you can get with their structure. Monetisation of the search results is what gave them the budget to advance their technology further than that of their rivals.
Adsense (Google’s 3rd party ad network) was launched because they wanted to control advertising on 3rd party sites; not to enhance the experience but to make more money. Again, their acquisition of Double-click (don’t get me started on their cookies) has nothing to do with improving the web experience but is rather another money making venture.
Google is out to make money. Is there anything wrong with that? No, but then don’t paint them with the saintly brush and trust everything they do just because you like their search results.
I see Phorm as fairly similar to Google. Their business model is very revenue orientated but it also contains elements of problem solving. I’m not going to focus on the anti-phishing tool side of it today, there area bigger fish to fry. Phorm is a company that can solve a really massive problem in the world of online advertising. Relevance.
Let’s face it, Google would be nothing without relevance. Relevance is what FD’s demand and marketers need and until now they couldn’t have it unless they were targeting search. Enter Webwise.
So what is Webwise? Phorm says: “Webwise reduces the amount of irrelevant advertisements that users see, making browsing more relevant and enjoyable.”….ummm ok, that’s a big claim from an advertising platform, isn’t there something that has already attempted this? Adsense spring to mind? Probably not.
IMHO, the reason Adsense doesn’t work as well as it could is that the page content is not the best content to base advertising on. Just because I’m researching the latest SEO trends doesn’t mean I’m going to buy SEO from an agency. (I have my own agency thanks so stop sending me spam about Indian link building companies already.)
So what’s more relevant? What I searched for this morning in my coffee break is massively relevant, (a family holiday in Oahu, or snow-kiting this winter is good too…hint hint), so if I were watching the latest cricket scores on Cricinfo and along came an ad about snow-kiting I would be all over it.
And so I should; I already have a mobile phone, don’t need laser eye treatment, don’t bet, really don’t need another credit card and I’ve got Setanta Sports already, thanks. Conversely, that money spent by Betfair, Setanta,and Ultralase, etc is completely wasted on me. Granted they don’t pay that much for it but who is the loser in that one? Well, Cricinfo is because their ad real estate is worth less than Google. Why? Because of the lack of relevance. Spot the problem?
Webwise would track me anonymously at an ISP level and actually serve me that snow-kiting ad, and because it’s relevant the advertiser would want to pay more, the content provider earns more and I get relevant ads. What’s the problem again? Google and DoubleClick already have massive cookies tracking me, why do I care if Phorm does too?
BTW, they don’t track adult searching (thank god) and I’m hoping that there is no embarrassing medical channel too, (not that I have any I swear). None of the data apparently can be reverse engineered to identify me or my bank details, so job done in my view.
I for one would opt in to get better advertising online. Advertising would become more interesting and actually provoke a response. You never know my terminal banner blindness may just be close to its end. For online advertising I certainly hope so.
