A Necessary Evil or Valuable Tool?

This is a response to an article on theglobeandmail.com by Ivor Tossell entitled "Online ads shouldn't irritate – they should complement"
Here is the Link to the Article

The poster "Be a companion Not a predator from Toronto" is misinformed. Neither Facebook nor YouTube's owner Google have even come close to making a profit on those sites yet. And what's wrong with profit anyway? True there has to be a balance between profit and social responsibility but the American system of Capitalism has done the best job of balancing that so far, at least compared to other systems like communism.

The current economic upheaval will only serve to improve the system in the long run as greater regulation and oversight curb greed.

The relationship between advertising and content has always been a rocky one. These "frienemies" have coexisted in traditional media to date fairly well but Ivor makes a good point that it is much more difficult online.

The initiatives the consortium are taking to make ads bigger are a step forward for the reasons Ivor outlined but the bigger challenge to advertisers is to make advertising more relevant to the individual.

Google recently announced a product to do just that and I applaud them for it. Making advertising more targeted makes it more relevant and therefore more useful.

Some responded to the article about Google's plans with the usual vitriolic postings about the evils of advertising. They stated their intention to block any and all ads and proudly proclaimed they never click on them. I find such comments to be infantile, reactionary and unhelpful.

Google and theglobeandmail.com offer a free service supported by advertising. If you use that service I think you are beholden to at least look at the ads and support the companies and people who work for them.

But the companies also have a responsibility to make the ads more relevant and targeted to your interests. And I might add, it is in their best interest to do so.