New Online Advertising Model Riles Journalists

Wynken de Word writes "A new online advertising model linking commercial messages to individual words of editorial content aims 'to tap one of the last ad-free frontiers of the Internet -- the text of articles and message boards -- in what [company backers] bill as the ultimate contextual advertising play' according to this article at Ad Age, a leading advertising industry magazine. On the other hand, the article notes: 'If it looks like a pop-up, feels like a pop-up or interrupts like a pop-up, we might as well just assume consumers will outright hate and reject the format,' said Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing officer of Intelliseek, a Cincinnati research firm that tracks online consumer buzz."

Comments

Guess what?

[JNighthawk]

This is nothing new. This has been around for a while. For an example, check out www.experts-exchange.com. A lot of websites and forums already have this implemented.

Re:Microsoft ads

[heironymouscoward]

I believe Microsoft recently stated that their goal was to ensure that everyone saw at least one Microsoft ad when they surfed.

It's just funny to see .NET ads on Linux websites.

Re:They took the idea from wikis!

[advocate_one]

yes, but a wiki requires that you click on the blue link... these shove a mouseover box in your face when you hover the mouse pointer over it...

not only that, but it smacks too much like what Microsoft wanted to do with their browser putting "Smart Tags" on top of ordinary webcontent. That got shot down very fast as a breach of the writers copyright as they were messing with original works in an unauthorised manner...

This is happening on forums I post to as well

[phunhippy]

Not only is it annoying see these types of ads on news sites and what not but one of the places I enjoy playing CS/DOD/NS at(shameless plug http://www.dexworld.org) has started putting the same types of ads into our POSTS in the forums.

So when i'm posting in the tech support forum or whatever and mention one of 9-16 keywords they have relating to different companies from IBM to Nvidia to ATI those words automatically get highlighted and linked to a site where you can buy those companies products..

I don't particullary care for this because while I'm not sure of the legality of it, I don't want MY post and MY thoughts to be the vehicle for targeted ads that I may or may not support. Its one thing with banner ads n such.. but on my posts? i find that to be a new low and now I make sure to use spaces to defeat it.

And to all of you who will say it pays for the site blah blah.. I donate to the site regulary to help keep it running.. I just don't like my forum posts being turned into ADS!!

Re:Ad Agencies

[Blue Stone]

They even target sick people using 'tele-screens'.

Seriously fucked-up psychology.

Re:microsoft smart text?

[vsync64]

Here's what I had to say about Smart Tags at the time. Of course they catered to the "designers" and the one interesting feature they had was cancelled.

it stealses our precious vision!

There's been a lot of whinging about Micros~1's latest Innovation, with talk of the horrible nerve they have to "re-edit anybody's site, without the owner's knowledge or permission, in a way that tempts users to leave".

Aside from the usual Micros~1 practice of claiming others' technology as their own, and the icky ripoff of the Aqua GUI in their screenshot (What is with this fascination with white or almost-white backgrounds? GUIs, Web pages, everything. White backgrounds are too harsh and make reading difficult. One of the more significant advances between Win3.1 and Win9x was the death of the horrible white background everywhere, and now they're doing their best to revive it.), I see this as a good thing.

For once, they seem to be behaving somewhat responsibly in the integration of new functionality (although I wonder how true this would be were the specter of an antitrust breakup not looming over them). Smart Tags are quite visibly different, both in appearance and behavior. They aren't including any tag packages with IE (although I have no doubt they'll plug their ad-pimping package as much as they possibly can). All processing is done locally, which saves bandwidth and prevents a list of all the URLs you visit being sent to Redmond ("What's Related", anyone?).

Smart Tags scare Web "designers" to no end, because they exploit the most fundamental and useful feature of the World Wide Web: hyperlinks. Hyperlinks scare them for 2 simple reasons:

1. Their sites are boring.
2. They lie to their readers.

Obviously, these can't be used as arguments against the introduction of these tags, so instead they complain about how their sites are being edited behind their backs. But this is a lie and everyone knows it. Their pages are still stored on their server in exactly the same pattern of bytes as before. What frightens them is that the reader might be given the option to go read something else, and this is not right.

What they don't realize is that they never had the right nor the ability to control the presentation of their site. From the moment their pages are posted on a public server, I have the right to do anything I want with them. I can view the source. I can critique their site and their product. And I can disable their grotesque colors, their unreadable fonts, and their gratuitous JavaScript. I can see if their site contains any value to me, and if not, I can leave. A browser is not a television for them to flash pretty images on. It is a tool for me to explore publications, and as such I expect it to provide me with cross-referencing features.

There is public documentation on creating Smart Tag packages. Anyone can write their own annotations and distribute them to friends or the world at large. Of course, this ability is only useful to "the hate groups, the spammers and the junk marketers on the Web". I want to see Smart Tags in Mozilla. I want to see widespread grassroots dictionaries, references, and