It seems that Amazon’s found yet another way to rake in money — as if selling record numbers of e-books wasn’t enough. When I loaded their homepage today, this is what I saw:
I like how they call it “sponsored screensavers.” I suppose it’s slightly better than “blatant advertisements that you have to look at every time you take your Kindle out of your bag.” And wait! It gets better! You can choose what you want your advertisements to look like.
It’s certainly an interesting idea, though I’m not sure how I feel about it. Amazon is playing off the (likely accurate) theory that customers will happily put up with advertising to pay a little less for the hottest e-reader on the market. But even if I didn’t care about ads showing up as my screensavers, I’m not sure I like the idea of being a walking advertisement — which is exactly what every single person who opts into this deal will be.
Amazon is allowing customers to vote on prospective screensavers, which opens up a whole bunch of other interesting ideas. I’m interested in the concept of consumers being given a voice, a new way to interact with advertisers and give feedback other than in ad revenue or, say, volume of click-throughs. I am also intrigued by the possibility that advertisements of this medium could become some sort of new art form. Obviously the most successful screensavers will be the most aesthetically pleasing ones, which means they’ll need to be interesting and/or artistic or at the very least, sexy.
This isn’t a new concept of course — advertisements that we see now already try to beat the competition by presenting the most interesting two-dimensional visual pitch they possibly can. But who really cares all that much about an advertisement that comes in a magazine or on the subway train? Screensavers, I feel, operate differently. On other electronic devices such as computers or smart phones or even other e-readers, people want their backgrounds and screensavers to be images they choose: favorite actors, cute animals, friend/family photos, beautiful landscapes, funny pictures, works of art. It seems like such a small thing, but it’s almost like we’ve been trained to care about our screensavers.
On the page listing more details about the sponsored screensavers (and other offers), you can see some sample screensavers — they’re not terribly impressive. But I expect this form of advertising will catch on, and I’m definitely interested to see what kind of ads companies start to produce when AdMash launches.
