As people increasingly move online for their news and entertainment, media providers and advertisers alike are seeking new ways to design these environments to maximize audience share, while successfully monetizing the (mostly free) content. In this evolving space, media companies are faced with the constant dilemma of maintaining the proper balance between content and ads; place too many flashy banners and risk losing your viewers, but not enough and your revenue streams suffer.
Until recently, achieving the right mix appeared to be more of a guessing game than anything based on scientific rigor, but all that might be changing as major media companies like Disney and CBS are spending money to pursue research that studies the minutiae of our web-surfing habits using the latest monitoring technologies. Everything from tracking eye movements and facial expressions to reading heart-rates and skin temperatures are considered in an attempt to understand what will hold our attention.
The NY Times reports how this research differs from the current available data:
It is relatively easy for Internet companies and their advertisers to measure precisely how often Web site visitors click on advertisements, and which kinds of ads draw the most clicks. But what about those who do not click, the many millions of others whose eyes merely flit across the screen? Disney and other companies say they believe that not nearly enough is known about them — what kinds of ads in which configurations are likeliest to draw them, and hold them?
Facebook
Twitter
Digg
Reddit
StumbleUpon
