The response given by student one is true and evidential. Needless to argue, online advertising, not necessarily via Google is way too far better that the traditional ways of advertising. The reasons of the students are true; it is true that the positive reason outweighs the negative of online advertisement. I could buy their story and term the Google adverts as being a solution, to an otherwise controversial issue in the media, of how effective advertisements are to the company’s goals and objectives.
As stated, it is true that most adverts delivered via other media apart from the internet seem to miss out on the target audience. This is so, especially when the people intended to get the message are either not able to access the media, watching TV or reading newspapers. The student also terms cost as a major disadvantage of the traditional means of advertising. This is not to imply that online advertisements are ay cheap, just that the costs are effectively, and fairly controlled to suit the cost-benefit analysis. This is to imply that companies will only pay for advertisements depending on how much value it added to their business, thanks to Google’s pay per click feature. There is also much advantage to the company especially when it uses its own site for advertising, which can also be used for other profit generating services.
On another note, I tend to disagree with the student on some claims recorded in the discussion. It is not obvious that people will manage to use the internet hence access most of these advertisements. Depending on where the audience is, I feel the traditional advertisements could be accessed easily as opposed to the online ones. This stems from the fact that advertisements, especially on the TV and newspapers are intertwined with the most influential and catchy news. It will, therefore, be a bit difficult for people to miss out on them. In the business world, advertisements are meant for every potential buyer; including those the company thinks are not likely to consider their products. Google and other online advertisements tend to limit their adverts to their regular customers. They ignore other potential buyers that end up missing out on such information.
Online advertisements also borrow so much on the weaknesses of technology. For instance, there is the issue of down time when sites are not accessible to the public. This puts the companies at risk since they tend to lose so many customers who could have added value to them. This is a problem that is totally unheard of the traditional advertising media. There is also the issue of internet users going online to search for what they want and nothing else.
Truth be told, most people have also not fully embraced online advertisements. This is so since internet users do not have full confidentiality of such information. This is because since it is the type that is mostly used by malicious people to spread viruses. There is also the issue of pop-up windows used for advertisements. These tend to be more of irritating than informing to most people. I also do not fancy pop- up windows especially when one is focused on doing something noteworthy, or even trying to catch up with time. This is one of the major disadvantages of the online advertisements.
Security issues are also a serious concern to the internet users. In as much as confidentiality has not been possible with the internet use, users also seem to overlook so many measures that could grant them at least some sense of privacy. For instance, most pages have provisions for users to optimize their security settings as regards what should be seen by others and what should be recorded of their internet use. Most people make no efforts of effecting these changes but only keep complaining about how no confidentiality the internet is. It is surprising that most users tend not to care about their internet privacy, and I am left wondering if it is a case of ignorance or they just do not care.
Businesses are going global, and according to me the main aim of the online advertisements is to reach the global community. Basing on this, issues of Geo-tagging make less sense to me in this debate, and their applicability and relevance remains unknown to me. I wonder why Google allows this feature, and to whose benefit if the business is ever to go global. It is needless for buyers to base their search on localities; since I believe they are aware of most of their local businesses and need not search for them over the internet.
Search engine optimization has not been addressed in this discussion, yet it is the root of all internet searching. Businesses need to go an extra mile of carrying out SEO if their sites are ever to be recognized by Google, especially now that it seems the most prominent and most widely used search engine.
References
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