The Big Digis Want Your $$$
It's been a week of big announcements in online advertising - and not because some new company has launched a thrilling geotargeted ad-serving widget.
Yahoo! has just announced details on an enhanced behavioral ad platform called AMP. Essentially, it's going to make it easier for Yahoo newspaper consortium sites to buy and sell targeted ads. So that means that if you're most newspaper sites in the U.S., Yahoo! will be watching what you click on and how you search. Eventually, you'll get delivered ads that, at least in theory, should grab your interest. Do you read stories about the Cubs, shop at browse on Bluefly and check out foodie blogs? Chances are good you'll start to see ads that are sports-related, offer discounts at online clothing retailers and redirect you to culinary sites.
Click here to watch a video of how AMP will work. Here for more background.
Meantime, Fox Interactive Media is in the process of rolling out a new ad platform itself. The "HyperTargeting" system promises to use demographic information that users enter in MySpace and other sites to display targeted ads.
And of course, Google's moving full-speed ahead on behavioral ads and buying/selling ads for print.
Why does all this matter? Because we still rely on advertising to sustain journalism. And many publishers continue to cite the Internet and new digi players (Google, Yahoo) as threats to traditional news.
I agree that news organizations need to be in the business of producing great content and innovating new models for storytelling. But news is also a business, no? Where's the R&D earmarked for developing new ad platforms of our own? Different business models? Alternative revenue streams?
Fifty years ago, newspapers were shackled to big department stores - and we all watched what happened when those companies either went out of business, got bought or just cut back on print advertising. From my perspective, news orgs are just hitching their carts to a different horse now rather than planning for future growth and sustainability.
Look at what's happening to Microsoft. This Yahoo! hostile takeover thingy has to do with staying relevant and strong against Google after operating system disappointments and the failure to innovate modern web apps. But do you think Google will be around forever?
The business side of journalism must learn to adapt. End of story.
