Page 182 - Convergent Journalism an Introduction Writing and Producing Across Media

MULTIMEDIA ADVERTISING

living rooms—and bedrooms—to voyeuristic Web droolers. Today,
Webcams feed live pictures from around the world. There’s even a
Web site for Webcam locations: http://webcamsearch.com.
Advertisers saw this potential and began targeting high-volume chat
rooms with banners and pop-up ads. For many Web sites, chat room
advertising is a way to make money to keep the site running. For
advertisers, chat rooms and Webcams provide many opportunities:

• Live interaction lets businesses find out how customers feel
about their products.
• Entertainment sites are growing as people look for places to get
in-depth information about movies, games, and celebrities.
• Web sites that offer chat get more return visitors (remember the
importance of eyeballs?).
• Online communities grow around chat rooms because users
have the same interests.
• Chat sites can use banner ads and memberships to make money.

172 Burger King used the power of an interactive Webcam as the basis
for its successful “Subservient Chicken” spoof. Visitors could type in a
command and watch the chicken perform a live stunt online viewed
via a Webcam. As of late 2004, the Web site had received more than
320 million hits from 100 countries, according to bangoncreative.com.

Staying Connected with Instant Messaging

A growing trend is the use of chat with instant messaging (IM). The
major IM providers (AOL, MSN, and Yahoo!) have connected chat
rooms with their instant messaging services.
Since AOL invented instant messaging in 1999, no other form of
Internet communications has grown as fast. Today, there are more than
50 million IM users in America, and more than 200 million around the
world. Businesses and consumers are using this simple technology to
stay in touch without having to use e-mail or the phone.
For young adults and teenagers, IM has become the cool tech
tool. A 2004 study by the Pew American Life & Internet Project
(http://www.pewinternet.com) found that 62 percent of adults ages
18 to 27 use IM; for teens it’s 74 percent. They keep in touch with
family, send photos, play games, and make dates. It’s life at the speed
of light.