Friday, October 22, 2010

Will Online Ads Rise To The Occasion?

Headline of the New York Times June-29-1914Image via WikipediaA New York Times that is completely digital, completely global, completely social, completely mobile and completely ad driven should make more money than the New York Times that is about to be its ancestor. If not the web is a chimera. And I don't believe it is. On its part the New York Times has made the mistake of not fully converting. On the other hand the ad platforms are not really there yet. The ads on display don't make as much money as they should. And the New York Times has not exhibited the Gawker aggression of going out there and getting your own ads at much higher prices.

News is more important than ever before. More people read more news than ever before. The online editions of the New York Times reache the furthest corners of the globe at little additional costs. And the New York Times archives are practically an encyclopedia. Then what gives?
Chris Dixon's (Event At Hunch: Angel, Super Angel, VC) recent post has echoes of what I said about video content a few days back, that it will be ads that will or should primarily support video content going into the future. (TV's Future)
Chris Dixon: Online Privacy: What's At Stake: This year, the online version of the New York Times will generate about $200M in revenue, a number that will need to approximately triple to support the current Times newsroom..... the best hope for online journalism is online advertising ... the Times could continue to support its current newsroom staff if display ads became even moderately effective. .... As usual .. the best 
McNew York Times SquareImage via Wikipediaideas are coming from startups ...... there are a few hundred well-funded ad tech startups developing clever methods to improve display advertising..... turns out that knowing people are trying to buy new washing machines or plane tickets to Hawaii is vastly more monetizeable than their names, who they were dating, or the dumb things they did in college.
Chris Dixon, a tech entrepreneur by the day, and an investor by the night in a city that never sleeps.

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