Emails regularly circulate asking
people to visit news websites and vote for their positions in polls. Such
emails may also contain commentary about perceived website bias on the topic as
well as pleas to sway the poll outcome. These are unscientific polls designed
for the sole propose of drawing people to the website in order to make money by
displaying advertisements. Additionally, almost nobody but the actual voters
ever see the poll results and then usually only while voting. These polls,
therefore, are likely to only affect the personal egos of the voters.
Looking at a random poll on www.CNN.com half way
through the day, the particular poll has had more than 500K respondents, and
that does not include the people who look at the poll but do not vote for
whatever reason. There are different ad types on the pages, and each ad type
pays a different amount of money per-thousand ads displayed. I saw 4 display
ads, a Yahoo tie-in plus pop-under ads. Conservatively estimating an average of
$4 per thousand ads rate, let's do the math:
500K voters (K=1000)
5
ads per person
= 2500K ads displayed.
2500K ads
at $4 per K, results in an estimated $10,000 of income for CNN for the one-day
poll ½ way through the polls run, and the evening rush had yet to begin,
thus the total number of ads displayed will likely double at the least,
especially as the emails are forwarded in multiples. So, the more people
forward such polls to their friends in order to influence the poll numbers, the
more people are encouraging polls about topics they are sensitive to may or
wish never to have been posted to begin with. "This is business," said Boycott
Watch president Fred Taub, "the bigger the poll response, the more polls that
will appear on that topic." CNN will probably bring in more than $25K from this
daily poll alone, not to mention readers of this page which have nothing to do
with the poll.
So much for Jews boycotting CNN with
"CNN LIES" bumper stickers in order to punish CNN for a perceived anti-Israel
bias. By passing along Israel-related polls to their friends, boycotters are
actually helping their boycott target make money, thus defeating their own
boycott efforts.
These polls are also non-scientific
and therefore have no bearing. Website polls are, therefore, statistically
meaningless, yet they draw people to the ads, and that is what these polls are
actually for. There may be, however, PR benefits to participating - you
decide. |
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