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On Sun, 9 Apr 1995, Dan Pacheco wrote:

>    I'm interested to know what newspapers and publications on the Web
> are able to charge for display ads on their web pages.  I'm working on
> several proposals for private projects and need some reference points to
> before I can produce a sensible rate sheet.
>    It seems there are several factors to take into account:
> 
>    1. Does the ad have any interactive depth? i.e. after clicking on the
> ad, can a reader learn more about the company or order products?
Most on-line services are sponsored by brokers.  For example, a stock 
broker will get a new feed and make it available to all of his brokerage 
customers in hopes of triggering a buy/sell order.  A news feed is a 
great way to get short-term investors to churn their stocks (and make 
money in the process)  some brokers don't even charge full commission, 
they just take the "sell price" and negotiate a bit of extra for 
themselves.  In a news-sensitive stock, a rising star can pick up 20% in a 
matter of 15 minutes.  The investor is happy because he made 13%.  The 
broker negotiated a 2% bonus in the exchange.

Real-estate brokers can save time/money by listing houses and web-pages 
on-line.  The potential buyer can browse through a catalogue of houses 
and arrange an appointement in real-time with the broker.  The customer 
doesn't need to see as many houses, the broker can spend much less time, 
and the seller gets his house sold in much less time.

>    2. Does the ad appear on the index page?  This woud guarantee viewership by
> everyone who comes into the web service.
Several web servers have a "Want more info?" button at the bottom of the 
page,  the user, who is reading about something he is really interested 
in can often follow the "more info" thread all the way to the order.

Imagine being able to look at a series of JPEGs in the On-Line version of 
Elle, and, upon seing a trendy outfit you really like, being able to have 
it delivered to a store near you to be tried on in your size.  You could 
even give your detailed measurements for a best fit size.  If you're a 
man, as your wife or girl-friend if she would like to know that she was 
going to go shopping at her favorite store and would be able to try on 
her favorite fashions in her size.  It's most woman's wildest fantasy.

>    3. How much does it cost to produce the ad? (i.e. simply scanning in a
> display ad vs. producing a 7-page hyperlinked virtual space, how much art
> is produced on site, etc.)
Ad copy costs about $35/page to produce, this assumes 100 words of 
narrative and 1 JPEG scanned in a flat-bed scanner.  Use of digital 
cameras and Photo-CDs drop the price substantially.

>    4. How much physical drive space does the ad take?
A JPEG 650x480 will require about 1 megabyte.  A 24bit 1280x960 can take 
6 megabytes.

>    5. How long will the ad appear?

How long would you like to archive it.  With searchable text, you can 
archive and index the related documents for 6 months or more.  Anything 
older than that can be stored on CD and searched at the customer's local 
site.  In fact, one of the "power-features" of MSN is the locally 
searched database.  You can do the same type of LAN or private 
CD-Database and get real-time response to queries.

>    I'm sure there are many more to add to this list.  Any suggestions?

Yes, but I'll cover them later.

> -Dan P.

	Rex Ballard


From rballard@cnj.digex.net Mon Apr 10 19:19:58 1995
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