NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Banner serving based on content of news...
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Banner serving based on content of news...
jgehman_at_creativelabs.com
Tue, 22 Sep 1998 05:48:51 -0500 (CDT)
Editorial adjacency is just the tip of the iceberg. For
better or worse, consumers are much less concerned with
"journalistic ethics" than writers and editors. In fact,
commercialism is the rule, regardless of the medium. By
definition, almost every medium is supported by advertisers.
US consumers and editors abdicated non-partisan reporting
long ago in return for price (just compare newsstand price
of a paper in the US vs Europe and the number of ads in
each). Along the way most consumers have learned to filter
content and assess its integrity level. Moving beyond the
quaint notion of pairing advertisements to page views--the
goal should be to evolve the whole experience around the
user--in real time. After all, the true reason for matching
an ad to content is the hope that both are
appealing/relevant to the eyeball on the client side. The
advertiser is merely hoping that the content is a proxy for
the user's true interests, with the end goal of inceasing
response rate. Why use a proxy, when the actual behavior
can be used?
As personalization and other dynamic techniques are refined
and perfected, the notion of "pages" may completely fall
away. What is left are content elements--they may be ads,
they may be headlines, they may be stories, etc. This is all
part of a continuum that is leading from static to
completely dynamic Web sites (and we're not talking about
Flash or other real media types) that are never the same
experience twice. Ultimately, sites should "merchandise" in
real-time based on how a user interacts and behaves. The
result is a reworking of the real estate concept of "highest
and best use." The idea that for every parcel, there is an
ideal purpose. Every pixel has meaning and should be used
differently for every user. It's a "choose your own
adventure" on a massive scale.
How does it work? Perhaps someday a visit to a news site
will entail stories and ads that are selected based on your
behavior the previous visit--and more importantly--your
behavior right now. The idea of myportal.com is outmoded.
Users don't outline all their preferences at one point in
time. This model has no counterpart in the analog world.
Personalization (a euphamism for building a relationship)
happens very iteratively. Every interaction should serve to
add a layer of complexity to your profile, to the depth of
the relationship--all very seamlessly without the user's
overt input. This may be housed in a database, but
unlikely. Concerns for privacy, security and the ability to
resolve everything on the fly will likely give way to
algorithms and other real-time behavior modeling
applications. In the end, only content that has a high
probability of relevance will be shown. Because whether I'm
an editor or an advertiser, the goal is for the user to
"click."
This level of personalization is the only thing that will
stop the current death of the portals and nearly every other
"mass" site. Every day, the portals lose SOV relative to
the Web. Static content becomes less and less meaningful.
With only one home page, it is very hard to be all things to
all people. Specialization is an alternative, but
specialization doesn't scale--it's a niche approach. What's
left? Mass specialization is the only way to aggregate
millions of eyeballs and give them all what they want. Done
effectively, pointing your browser to www.myportal.com will
yield a different experience for each user.
Along the way, expect to see a lot more "editorial
adjacency."
========================
Joel Gehman, Internet Marketing Analyst
mailto:jgehman_at_creativelabs.com
408-428-6600 x6904
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