Week 12: Do we really need to worry about ads?
Maybe I spend too much time online (actually no, I definately spend too much time online), but I was raising my eyebrows while reading David Lee King's blogpost about how advertising on MySpace pages might be construed as endorsement. Do people really still worry about this?
[updated 4/3/09@8:25am]
I have seen so many wildly inappropriate "smart" ads that are offensive in the context they appear in. And I'm not talking about explicit ads, either--I mean google-generated arabic singles ads in forum threads about Palestinian suicide bombers. Now that's just ghoulish. The real strength of King's post isn't really his post, its the generally sensible direction from the comments: Put up a disclaimer. Writing a disclaimer was one of the first things Kelly and I realized we needed for the LOPL Gamer's Den, followed by the code of conduct for users. Interestingly, we completely forgot to cover ning-generated ads in the disclaimer. Apparently, ads are nothing but white noise for us.
I don't really know what else to say about this topic, actually. I read all the linked cotent yesterday, so I haven't got them all in front of me right now--I know one suggest we should "Go viral!" with a youtube video. If multi-million dollars marketing effort attempts to go viral fail most of the time, I doubt it's quite that easy.
I've also been trying to think of ways to bring non-users to library pages, and I can't think of any perfect solutions. Possibly because each library system has its own situation. A library for a small-ish town could use is web presence to act as a clearinghouse for community events and highlight its own activities that way. If it's set-up well enough, people will use it to find out what's going on, and get exposure to the library that way. As always, someone has to find time to run the thing.
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Comments
I think it's a tricky
I think it's a tricky subject: on a whole, I think most people probably realize that the library has nothing to do with the inner workings of sites like MySpace, and wouldn't have control over the adds the site displays.
On the other hand, any web add on the library website itself would be seen as an endorsement, and there are those who clicking on the library's MySpace page might not quite make out the difference. There are also those who may not be as familiar with the web as younger generations in the same household, and with all the past bad press, might assume that anything to do with MySpace is wrong. And of course, there are those who may just think that if they don't like the add on the library page, even if it is originally from MySpace, the library is more accessible to complain to and in their mind suppose to "guard" against this sort of thing.
Don't underestimate the lows that some will protest. Just look at some of the stuff that's been banned from bookshelves.
Best response, (in my mind) is as commented: a quick blurb on the bottom reminding that we don't endorse set advertisements, we've got nothing to do with them, et etc.
CYA, CMA (Cover Your A**,
CYA, CMA (Cover Your A**, Cover My A**)