Advertising for non-dummies
Sometimes, I’m good. I try to pick up a copy of the Guardian whenever I’m in the newsagent. Flickr, Picnik, Last.fm and Remember The Milk have all managed to crack open my online wallet at some point but in the main I’m a web parasite.
Every day I use the online Guardian to get my liberal prejudices, Facebook to stalk zombie sub-acquaintances and Google to basically function online. All these are dependent on advertising revenue yet I blithely ignore them. Hell, I even try and block them using various Firefox extensions when they get particularly annoying.
Maybe I delude myself that it’s some kind of penance, that merely by suffering irrelevant and gaudy adverts I am satisfying a sadistic advertiser’s desire. A straight transmutation of pain into gain.
The rational alternative is that online adverts are there to be clicked. But since I’m not clicking them, who is? Judging purely from many the adverts, its that specific demographic called Idiots. My surfing adventures are being powered by the infinite supply of compulsive clickers.
Here’s the kicker.
Who is going to pay for the bleeding-edge social media tools we all know and love if not the early-adopting, kool-aid drinking aviators like me? If the mighty Facebook is ‘breaking even‘ with everything it knows about you, all the opportunity it has to target you and all the aforementioned demographic, what chance for lean, hackerphilic platforms like Twitter? Google has put it’s money on Jaiku, so no help there.
Answers on a postcard, in comments or indeed tweeted at me if that’s what turns your key. But preferably in comments.
