Mad About Ads (and Other PR Blog Jots)

Free Press
Six Pixels of Separation
The New York Times announced this week that all online content would be free of charge from now on, and Mitch Joel thinks it signifies a shift in power from paper to electronic media. The NYT is just “following the money,” and realizing that the profits may not lie in subscriptions as much as online advertising and other methods. The audience for the paper’s online content will only increase now that it is all free-of-charge, and therefore the cost of the ads can also rise. “While many in Digital Marketing question the power (and longevity) of online display ads (the cool new saying for "banners"), NYTimes.com generates tons of traffic, and this move will open up the inventory and enable them to stockpile some ad cash in the short haul. Sulzberger and his team may not be looking at the next four years to stop the presses, but there is no doubt that they are testing the model of "content as media" in a very unique way.”

Speaking of Ad Dollars...
MicroPersuasion
Steve Rubel argues that there are some social media or networking sites that will never attract the big money advertisers, no matter how popular they become. According to Steve, it’s the audience that matters most, and the type of consumer a site attracts. While many 2.0 sites (Twitter, for instance) attract a great number of eyeballs, those eyeballs don’t have enough of a “commercial intent” to be attractive to advertisers. “My personal conviction - one that I plan to table - is that search should be the most important driver for how advertisers size up the influence of different community sites and the individuals who make them up. The problem is no one is thinking this way. Everyone is overlooking the organic impact of Web 2.0 on product-related searches in favor of quick and dirty old school metrics.”

Ads vs Privacy?
Marketing Conversations
Following the MySpace announcement that it would begin tailoring advertisements to users’ individual likes or activities, Dani Sevilla wonders if this practice (which is common throughout the Internet) might infringe a bit too far on users’ privacy. Dani argues that while any user of a social networking site is aware that the site’s administrator’s can access their profile, they may not be aware that their personal information is being shared with any corporation willing to pony up the money for ad space. “Users of MySpace are already going to be attacked by these oh-so-enticing advertisements geared directly towards them and in addition to this MySpace is going to help the advertisers know MORE about their target audience. Social network users would surely not like to know that not only are they being monitored but that their “private” information is being sent out to corporations for the purpose of being able to sell them more things.”

I Don't Want to Go Off on a Rant Here...but..
Strategic Public Relations
In a rant I could not agree with more, Kevin Dugan wonders why companies (using Yahoo! and their new social networking site Mash as an example) feel the need to jump into the social networking craze on their own, instead of using an existing network to their advantage. For example, Wal-Mart, after attempting to launch its own network, reaped far greater rewards by involving itself in the already existing world of Facebook. “While being a small widget with a long tail is all the rage, we see old world thinking bolted onto the new. My guess is that many companies want the new world rewards of customer engagement without relinquishing old world control. If they own the social network, it’s easier to presume that control exists. The benefits of giving up control of the message are proven online. New tools require new rules and you should expect mixed results (at best) by mixing the two.”