Advertising—A viable source of revenue for electronic publishing?

摘要

The Commission of the European Communities asked the European advertising business to prepare a study on information market policy issues concerning electronic publishing and advertising. This study found it impossible to get more than an indication from advertisers and advertising agencies of their present interest in electronic publishing; however, it did conclude that there was a general healthy growth of advertising expenditures in Europe some of which might be attracted to certain forms of electronic publishing, in particular interactive videotex, in the form of direct marketing, and teletext. The problem was that only the French Minitel system had succeeded in really attracting large numbers of users. The other systems in Europe tended to remain the preserve of business-to-business communications, and had not gained the advertisers' confidence. The longer these systems survived, the more likely they would be attractive to advertising; however, the rapid developments in the other, traditional, media and in particular the introduction of new opportunities for advertising on national or pan-European television, could threaten to disrupt the financing of teletext in some countries. Videotex also raised a number of legal problems (personal privacy, credit card fraud, etc.) which required legislation, but the cure could be worse than the cold unless the legislators were very careful.