ZD Net: Europe's Net users will pay to play

Jupiter Research released a study today claiming Western European Internet user's reluctance to pay for online content has dropped from 47% in 2001 to 41% in 2002. This seems to makes sense since advertising revenue has not been the greatest form of income for web sites forcing them to come up with quality content that people will actually pay for.

The Costs of Spam

Here's a new analysis of the real costs of spam:

A study to be released this week attempts to quantify the annual cost of spam: $8.9 billion for U.S. corporations, $2.5 billion for European businesses and another $500 million for U.S. and European service providers. [_Go_]

AdAge: Merger of Adveritsing and Content Worries Consumers

Seventy-five percent of U.S. consumers believe that the intrusion of advertising into TV and movie content has increased over the past year -- and many find it a distraction, according to an exclusive Advertising Age survey. [...]

When consumers were asked whether they found product placement and integration and other new genres, such as online ad films, entertaining or distracting, 62% said they were distracting, with only 38% finding them entertaining. In a separate question, the majority, 72%, said the new genre was too pervasive, though consumers in the prime advertiser demographic of ages 18 to 34, were receptive: 46% of that group find it entertaining and 35% say it's not pervasive enough.

At best I think that this survey is confused, however it is interesting to see that these issues are being looked at. There is a massive difference between product placement and advertainment, to bunch both together without drawing a clear distinction is almost certainly very misleading.

[MarketingFix]