In the beginning, the internet was a money maker for about three things – Amazon, gambling, and porn. Â Oh, and maybe some travel sites.
So everyone else had to live on the money that advertising brought in (let’s not take a look at Yahoo! today, it just makes us sad), and that was the monetization.
- Then the FTC came along and said that affiliates who blogged had to disclose their advertiser/affiliate relationships in a prominent place. Â And advertisers shook in their shoes.
- Oh yeah, then Apple said “bring your adblocker programs, we’ll sell them in our AppStore“. Â And advertisers truly started to panic.
- And now? Â That same FTC (pesky folk, as some people see it) just announced last week that there will be new guidance for native advertising – you know, the content that’s really an ad, it’s just not written by a blogger so it doesn’t fall into the affiliate disclosure situation.
[Tweet “All in all, a bad situation for advertisers. Â “]
And probably for publications who depend on native units to demand top dollar for ads that actually draw eyeballs and attention.
PJ Bednarsky, from MediaPost, ran a good article about the situation a couple of days ago.Â
What does this have to do with you, us, or this website? Â Well, we could be snarky and giggle like little schoolgirls, since any time you pull the rug out from under the status quo, all kinds of things begin to happen. Â And we have been telling you, for what seems like ever, that mobile is the way to go.
Unobtrusive, controllable, location and context specific, mobile. Â Mobile that leverages existing user bases and distribution systems, mobile that is simple and easy and gets the job done in a way that makes sense to mobile users.
The Mobile Marketing Association has released some materials today, we haven’t had a chance to read through them, so we’ll update as we go along with this one. Â And there will be a few more commentaries, articles, suggestions and hoopla, so we’ll keep track of that and point out the interesting ones as well!