Now this is targeted advertising: I was looking at Platial — the site that lets you push pins into Google Maps — for something I’m writing and I found an ad there for the Sony GPS add-on to cameras, which lets you record your location with your photo, a cool device I saw in action at the Guardian. It’s perfect targeting — and, I’m sure, not expensive marketing — and it struck me that no Google algorithm would have made that placement. In fact, Platial would know best what plays with its audience. This reminds me of the discussion of sell-side advertising, the idea of the publisher picking the ads because it’s the publisher who best understands the audience and the context, and the advertiser pays on performance. It still makes sense; we just need the infrastructure to enable it.
Byline
by Jeff Jarvis