Archive for March, 2009
Advertising has been good to us. Sure, it’s often tiresome, but it’s brought us cheap newspapers, as well as radio and television. It pays for most of this magazine. On the internet, however, it’s not doing its job. We’re not paying attention to online advertising and not buying what it’s promoting. That’s a major problem, given the most internet companies count on advertising revenues. And that’s also a major opportunity. Startups are creating new ways to pitch products and services on the web, which could render the ubiquitous banner ad of today antique and enable the net to rival cable TV and even radio as an advertising medium.
Ways have even found to bring internet advertising to our desktops when we’re not browsing the internet. The result is not only messages with motion and sound but messages that can be tacked, so an advertiser knows at once who has looked at the ad and whether a purchase was made. Several companies have devised techniques to embed advertising in freeware. So that clicking on a banner in the program will automatically take you to the advertiser’s website. Other companies provide free event-planning or reminder services in exchange for personal data, which are use to send ads in form of email.