In the beginning, the internet was a money maker for about three things – Amazon, gambling, and porn. 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. And advertisers shook in their shoes.
- Oh yeah, then Apple said “bring your adblocker programs, we’ll sell them in our AppStore“. And advertisers truly started to panic.
- And now? 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. “]
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.
What does this have to do with you, us, or this website? 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. 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. 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. 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!