Online Advertising.

I'd like to comment on advertising more thoroughly. While "F Ng" has already commented on Camille Paglia's comparison of online (banner) ads with art, I would like to make a stronger argument that, in essence, they are most akin to hypertext in it's traditional sense. With increased market research and online tracking services, marketers are easily able to know what sites you visit, in what order, track bands, movies and books in your Facebook or MySpace "Interests" and then tailor ads to you and other very specific niche groups. For example, if you are searching cute pictures of cats, you may get an ad for PetSmart/Petco on your next page. Likewise, if tickets for your favorite Indie band go on sale for a local show, you will be shown ads directing you where to go in order to purchase them. This simulates hyper text (not just in the essence of it's definition but of it's functionality) in that we are actively being shown "links" which direct us from our current search into more in depth/ specific information and products, relevant to our initial topic. Additionally, think about Google ads. These are the epitome of the traditional "hypertext link" which allows for you to click on the hypertext and be redirected to a sponsored web site which fulfills the requirements of elements you've entered and submitted into the Google search field.

Can we comparatively say that online ads are as "intrusive" as Paglia suggests television ad spots have become? She comments that tv hosts "...sternly [stop] even the most high-ranking guest mid-flight to cut away for a series of eye assaulting commercials." While commercials have become an integrated regiment of advertising spots throughout television programming, research I conducted last semester shows that students felt more at home with commercials because they are expected. While I believe that online advertising will fade into the background of our online endeavors as we learn to "tune out" the blinking banners much like we have for commercial breaks, I still believe that we are just fighting the initial intrusion of commercialism on our (relatively)new media space. Despite pesky pop-up and pop-under ads, the viewer has a greater choice of whether or not to view the ads (and at our leisure at that). Online, we are choosing whether or not to watch or take advantage of an advertisement. We are an active consumer, no longer passively consuming commercialism, taking control of our information consumption and very ADD online habits. It is at this point in which we have become critics of what we see online that we will become "fascinated by advertising slogans, as folk poetry." (Paglia) They will become culturally integrated with our online experience if they have not succeeded in this effort thus far.

Versatility of Internet Writing

I thought that in the chapter, “Dispatches from the New Frontier: Writing for the Internet,” Camille Paglia’s comparison of the Internet to music and pieces of art was pretty interesting, as I do find that attractiveness of an article on the web does have a lot to do with its appearance. Though I did wonder about her view of advertisements on webpages. “Web pages crowned or rimmed by ads sometimes resemble medieval illuminated manuscripts, with their fantastic embellished lettering, and also Art Nouveau books and prints, with their undulating borders of running tendrils” (270). It seems odd that Paglia would see such things in ads on webpages. I guess I can see that she is trying to show that internet writing still has some connections with its roots in print writing, though many times I see ads as a nuisance as it sometimes draws the readers away from the actual article they are looking at, like it is in magazines or newspapers. I guess I just don’t see the artistic qualities in flashing ads and banners on a webpage. She obviously has a positive view of the layout and aesthetics of the Internet. Paglia gave descriptions of how ads can be seen as a form of art, so I find it interesting that there wasn’t any mention of photographs or images included in written work (probably because she is writer and not a photographer.)

She says that “Internet text at its best is streamlined,” (272) which I agree with; articles online have to be short and to the point in order to keep a readers’ attention. Though in addition to the writing in articles and the setup/format, I think that many readers are also attracted by images, like in magazines. While scrolling down a page, I assume the reader will most likely notice a photograph before noticing any eye-catching words (maybe photographs and images will be described in a different chapter.)

I also agree with her point that the Internet brings more freedom of access for readers and it also provides more information than in other news outlets, such as on television. For example, I recently saw a clip from ABC news about how a religious group was planning on picketing Heath Ledger’s funeral (sorry for bringing it up, but it was the first and most recent thing that came to mind) and the newscaster stated that he wasn’t going to give the name of the religious group because he did not want to provide more publicity for them. However, if one were to put a simple search in Google, the name of the group is given all over the place. So not only does the Internet allow constant information to be transferred and updated almost immediately, but also provides information that would otherwise be filtered out. Although I did wonder just how effective it would be by refusing to tell the name since, if people were curious, they would search for it online, and they would find their website. So, wouldn’t that be providing publicity, just in an indirect way by provoking our curiosity? It seems that older forms of media are helping to push people into looking things up on the Internet, further showing how versatile Internet writing is.