Topic: Promotional Widgets

"Seeing extra widgets on your chumby that aren't shown in your channel above? These are added by Chumby Industries and content partners. Sharing these promotional widgets with you is how the Chumby Network stays FREE."

How often are these being inserted into the channel rotation? Is it based ever x min or every xth widgets? What's the duration they are set to? Have these numbers changed? Will they? Frequently? Does it very based on time of day? Will my Chumby every try and sell me liquor and feminine hygiene products? Are they targeted? If I have some liquor or feminine hygiene products to sell what's the insertion fee?

Re: Promotional Widgets

Really? No Chumbian comments? You have been so open about most everything else I thought you might share some info on this.

Re: Promotional Widgets

I haven't seen any of these yet.  The only ads I've seen are the ones I manually added, like woot.com.

Chumby birthdate: 10/11/07

Re: Promotional Widgets

Well, the issue is that this is a work in progress, and you're asking for very specific information, that we can't currently provide.

At the moment, we're trying to convey that we're going to be offsetting the costs of providing the chumby service to you by injecting promotional widgets into the rotation - at the moment, they're injected on an "nth widget" basis, however, in the future, they'll be time-based.

The goal is that they'd be somewhat targeted, while taking into account privacy.

Re: Promotional Widgets

derspiess: Yeah, they are there. Currently they seem to all be PSAs from the Ad Council taking the form of movies that wait for you to click them to play. All in all pretty innocuous and not a big deal. Though they do tend to steal my eye more then I'd like.. since they are not a familiar widget I tend to look at them only to realize that I'm looking at what could potentially be a lame ad.

Re: Promotional Widgets

I agree - please be very picky about what you allow as ads on this thing!

At the same time, I might want to advertise since this market is very targeted for me.  Where do I get info on advertising?

Re: Promotional Widgets

limbo wrote:

At the same time, I might want to advertise since this market is very targeted for me.  Where do I get info on advertising?

Your best bet is this form.  If you select "Advertising", it will get routed to the right person.

Re: Promotional Widgets

I'd prefer an pay option to avoid ads, though it should be a small fee

Re: Promotional Widgets

chriscook wrote:

derspiess: Yeah, they are there. Currently they seem to all be PSAs from the Ad Council taking the form of movies that wait for you to click them to play. All in all pretty innocuous and not a big deal. Though they do tend to steal my eye more then I'd like.. since they are not a familiar widget I tend to look at them only to realize that I'm looking at what could potentially be a lame ad.

Gotcha-- I always figured that was from one of the archive.org channels big_smile

Chumby birthdate: 10/11/07

Re: Promotional Widgets

gjeff wrote:

I'd prefer an pay option to avoid ads, though it should be a small fee

Well, if it's a *small* fee, how are we going to pay for all of our Ferraris and and Learjets?

Re: Promotional Widgets

Not trying to be deliberately obtuse here; as Duane says, this whole area is very much of a work-in-progress.  While recognizing that our current PSA placeholders are pretty lame, we're spending time to try to make sure that our sponsored content approach in the future isn't obtrusive or ham-handed/uninteresting, but rather will be something that most people will probably like, i.e., more and cooler widgets because someone with real money, a sponsor, paid to create them.  Imagine a really great chumby game widget that was created because, say, a beverage company spent real bucks to hire a top-notch Flash team to create it.  Or a contest you can enter with a prize you would actually really want.  Or a movie preview from a movie you might actually like to know about.  That's the idea anyway.  The alternative is, of course, subscriptions.  The problem, as you point out, is that the only subscription fee most people would be willing to pay, if anything at all, would be a really small one.  We researched and tested this idea and heard clearly from most people: "no more subscriptions!"  With Chumby putting chumby hardware into the market as inexpensively as it can afford to, and no significant revenue stream from subscriptions to finance ongoing operations and improvements to your chumbys, there really isn't much point to this whole endeavor.  So we've tried to be as clear and as upfront as we can about who pays for the Chumby Network and how it all works -- just that we're still figuring it out and want it to be as compelling as possible so that people like the value proposition and buy more chumbys.

12

Re: Promotional Widgets

Duane wrote:

Well, the issue is that this is a work in progress, and you're asking for very specific information, that we can't currently provide.

I don't know how other people feel about this, but I can assure you that if I open my eyes in the morning and the first thing I see is any kind of ad instead of the current time, I'm going to be very very pissed.

This is not what I bought, ads were never part of the deal, otherwise I wouldn't have bought a chumby at all.

I hope you seriously reconsider this.

Re: Promotional Widgets

cfs wrote:

...ads were never part of the deal...

Not sure what you mean - we explain this on the very front page of the store site, and in the terms of service.

14 (edited by gjeff 2007-11-04 02:06:34)

Re: Promotional Widgets

My thoughts, ads sucks and like many I am tired of dealing with them at every turn, in traffic, on the web, we've even got them embedded in the parking lot lines in my town.  I think that forced content cheapens the values of the Chumby for me.  I want my content and only mine.  I don't want one on my desk, showing pictures of my kids or my KPIs and then a ad for toothpaste.  Given the open source nature of Chumby and the fact that business models need to be flexible for small companies to survive, I'd hope that an alternative subscription model will come about otherwise think you'll fine a similarly limited audience you as you suggest with subscription only options.

I believe that there are consumer and business uses for Chumby, the very reason I purchased one was to explore the business end for my company.  If you truly want me to "buy more Chumbys" then there'll have to be some kind of alternative where I have total control over content. From a consume perspective I believe there is enough demand for the same alternative.  Even McDonalds figured out how to allow allow mass customization, I'm confidant the MUCH smarter folks at Chumby will also smile - The key to success is providing choice, providing none has consequences well documented.  I hope that my feedback is taken in the spirit in which it is intended, to make Chumby the best it can be.

Re: Promotional Widgets

I don't mind the ads so much, mainly because you have to click "play" to see them (so I usually don't), they're at this point just PSAs, and they don't stay on the screen too long if you don't actually press play. I feel like God saves a kitten if I watch a PSA now and again.

I suppose it would depend on what I was seeing ads for... If it's stuff I might be interested in, I don't particularly care too much. If it's ads for stuff like... I dunno... hair care products and, um, rodeo clown makeup, I might have an issue. (Oh my god, did I just advocate for targeted ads?)

Re: Promotional Widgets

I am not sure how this clearly defined that we would be getting unsolicited content delivered to our chumby.

Access to the Chumby Network is FREE. No subscriptions to pay, no plans to sign up for. It's paid for by Chumby Industries and by sponsor companies who will be sending you widgets such as music, games, movie previews, customized alarm clocks, and special offers for products and prizes (called "Chumbooty" — coming soon), and who knows what else the future holds? Chumby Industries is 100% dedicated to keeping your widget channels new, intriguing, fun and FREE.

But I think this is a good product with a lot of potential, it will be a shame to see it dragged down into another product that simply delivers ads to our home. I've already got a couple of these with much larger screens, thankfully DVR provides a workaround..

I would simply advise the chumby group not to sell out the dream of a chumby in every home for some quick cash up front..

Re: Promotional Widgets

Come on everyone!  How do you think Chumby can afford to pay for all the bandwidth for everyone to view Flikr feeds and RSS feeds, stock quotes etc... that are proxied through them on their dime.  If they don't do ads, then they will have to charge a monthly fee (or annual). 

I would expect this fee to be around $75-150/year (per device) if I were you given the types of data they are allowing to be sent to this thing.  Bandwidth costs money.  Just look at what Verizon just had to go through with their "unlimited" wireless plans.  No such thing as a free ride!

Re: Promotional Widgets

Limbo: none of that traffic goes through Chumby's site. The communication is from the Chumby device straight to the content provider. The only traffic coming from Chumby central are the flash for the widgets themselves and then those cache on the device and don't need to be downloaded again until they are updated or replaced.

Re: Promotional Widgets

If you don't want to see ads, support the initiative for an alternative interface for Chumby at the Chumby User group on Google smile

http://groups.google.com/group/chumby-u … p?lnk=iggc

Re: Promotional Widgets

Well, the answer's in the middle.  Chumby sends out the Flash widgets on our bandwidth dime, though some of the content may indeed come from another site, e.g., YouTube movies.  Depending upon the nature of the content, the higher bandwidth stuff may come from elsewhere.

The issue's not just funding bandwidth as an ongoing cost, though that's certainly part of it and gets significant as the number of the installed base of chumbys grows, there's also the ongoing costs of running the whole operation, keeping engineers working to improve the chumby, creating content, working with partners to create content, deliver a return on invested capital to keep the business going, etc.  Not to mention the costs of tanks, aircraft and missiles to take over the world :^)

We've decided not to mark up the basic hardware.  We don't believe that's sustainable and we want the chumby to be as affordable as possible.  We looked hard at subscription models and discovered that most people hate them, i.e., they won't pay much in subscription for things of unproven value (phone calling and television, for example, are proven) and, given the choice of free or subscription are nearly unanimous in wanting free.  So that's the way we've gone.  As I've said before, the burden, indeed the success of our business, is then upon us to make sure that the sponsored widgets are targeted, relevant and interesting -- in other words that you're delighted to see them.  Not unlike a magazine where, because of the topic, you probably enjoy the sponsored pages (the "ads") as much or even more (e.g., if you've ever read a fashion magazine) than the editorial content.

And, as you've already picked up on, the chumby's designed to be hackable so, if you don't like where we're going, you are free to take your own chumby in different directions.

Re: Promotional Widgets

When I first turned my Chumby on, it said *out loud* that it would bring me "everything I'm interested in, and nothing I'm not." I remember thinking that I liked that phrase, and that it captured nicely the Chumby spirit that made me want one to begin with. But ads aren't the least bit interesting.

You're right, of course - I can see now that the website says there'll be ads. I'm not sure it says so quite as clearly or as obviously as I would have liked. I was so excited when I first read about Chumby that I signed up right away; I must have missed the ad bit.

I won't watch ads. They'll not be shown on a device I own. I don't watch television because of the ads. My e-mail is filtered against spam. I use browser extensions to block popups and banners. I opt-out of junk mail. Most people don't do these things, I admit, but most of the geeks I know do - and this is a very geeky product you've designed.

I wonder what percentage of your market will be cool with your long-term plans. I've only just gotten mine, and much as I like it, I'm already starting to think in terms of replacing the firmware.

22 (edited by Everywhereasign 2007-11-21 12:56:01)

Re: Promotional Widgets

My initial reaction was the same as many other's.  I was a little taken aback that I would be "forced to watch ads."  Then I started using the Chumby.

In night mode the clock stays on all the time, also when you load a blank channel, no ads.  I stared at that clock for a few hours last night without being "fed" an ad.  When my alarm went off, I picked up my Chumby and scrolled through the widgets reading headlines, checking weather, seeing just how long I have to shop until Christmas.  Again, I wasn't "fed" a single ad, I was scrolling manually though what I wanted to see.

I moved my Chumby next to my computer so I could tweak some widgets, play with ssh a little, and meddle with the alarm clock.  As the Chumby sat on my desk, it played mp3's and scrolled through my widgets.  I wasn't watching the Chumby like I watch TV, I was glancing at it now and again.  After a few hours of glancing as I was working, I noticed a widget I hadn't seen before. I did a double take because I first thought it was a new Flickr picture, no, it was an ad.  Now I didn't lose it, I didn't feel ripped off, I looked back at my computer and continued typing.  I wasn't expecting to see anything else specifically, so it didn't phase me.  Had I really *wanted* to see my Flickr stream I would have picked up the Chumby and changed the channel.  When I glanced back <15 seconds later, the ad was gone and it was replaced by a picture of a cat with rolls of toilet paper on his feet.

My Chumby doesn't stop my widgets, crank up the volume, and tell me to lose weight for 3 minutes.  My TV does, and I pay for that service.

My Chumby doesn't play music and news for half an hour and then play ads at me for 15 minutes.  My radio does, and I bought that for my car for more then the Chumby cost.

My Chumby doesn't interrupt me when I'm doing something else and tell me about a new product.  My phone does, and I have to fight to keep the calls down to once a month.

My Chumby *does* provide me with an extremely different way of interacting with media, it lets me tweak, and adjust it.  It lets me try things out, and if they don't work, go back to the way they were.  It lets me experiment with computer skills that I'm just starting to develop.  All it asks is that every once in a while, when I glance at it, it's showing me a small ad rather then one of the many widgets I have selected.  Moments later, this ad is gone and I'm back to my channel, no noise, no interruptions, subtle marketing to off-set costs.

I don't mind one bit, and I love my Chumby, his name is The Chairman and if he doesn't do exactly what I want, he will.

Re: Promotional Widgets

The ads don't really bother me so far. But you know somebody is going to hack the thing either completely or to somehow not make ads show up. It will be interesting to see how Chumby Industries responds when that happens, as they've invited the hacking in the first place. I was kind of shocked to hear that there are no margins on the hardware itself - I had assumed from the start that the hardware was the main business plan, as it's an attractive, premium-looking device that can be repurposed easily.

One option, I guess, it to always offer a better package deal than the hacked version, with quality partnerships that somehow wouldn't be possible without the real "Chumby OS". And if somebody puts together something really cool in a hacked version, Chumby could buy it from them.

Re: Promotional Widgets

It's been clear to me since I first saw the Chumby site that ads were the cost of participating in lieu of subscription costs. So far, they haven't been obtrusive at all.

That said, I'd still rather pay $20/month for it as a service instead of getting ads. I certainly wouldn't advocate going to a subscription-only model for the entire user community, but providing the option for users once they bought their chumby would be nice.

A benefit of subscriptions is that the revenue tracks the number of users. Will chumby attract enough users to make it truly attractive to advertisers? I have no idea, but the thought worries me. I could probably hack my chumby to do neat stuff if Chumby the company went under. But I'd rather not.

Re: Promotional Widgets

skada wrote:

It will be interesting to see how Chumby Industries responds when that happens, as they've invited the hacking in the first place.

Well, what might happen is that we go out of business, then no chumbys for anyone.  It would prove that the "prevent hacking by customers" crowd was right all along.