I'm not quite sure who sent me an e-mail about this a little while ago. Anyway it's an intriguing idea, It's a system that automatically plays a 5 sec audio ad when you log on to a site that has it installed. I'm just not quite sure how I feel about it. Is it an intrusion? Well no more and certainly less annoying than the 6 min commercial break I get in the middle of my favorite 'Startrek' show. I thought I originally signed on to Foxtel so as NOT to have my SciFi interrupted by stuff I'm not interested in!

I already have 'Adsense' on my sites so what is the difference? Well I suppose in many ways it is very much like 'Adsense'. The audio ad that gets served up is context sensitive, that is, it will be related to the content of the page. So, for example, if you had been searching for information on high blood pressure and you came across my site, you would presumably hear a 5 sec ad promoting something to do with high blood pressure and not goldfish!

The proponents of this scheme make the point that free to air commercial TV is on it's way out as more and more people spend time on the internet looking at what interests them rather than passively watching somebody else's idea of what they should watch on television. The effectiveness of free to air advertising is dwindling and audio web ads are seen as a viable alternative.

It's attractive to web site owners because it doesn't cost anything and they will get paid for every single visitor to the web site. It's attractive to advertisers because their ads will only be played to people who are looking for information specific to their business in their geographic area and they will only pay when the ad is heard by a potential customer. In all those respects it is an aural version of 'Adsense'.

If I'm doing adsense then I should also do Pay Per Play.

If you want to better informed you can read more details HERE

So, on the basis that a visitor to my site will only be played one ad once and that it will be relevant to why they are at my site in the first place, I've decided to take part. I've got no idea of results yet because it was only launched on Feb 1st and may take up to 60 days to implemented.

I'll let you know how it goes.