Thoughts about design and technology.

Articles

Targeted advertising and rich content ads

July 19th, 2007

While going through some of the presentations given at this year’s Mix Conference from Microsoft, I realized that while there was a good amount of effort put into showing how Microsoft is paying attention to the interactive user experience, the main focus seemed to be on advertising and what tools Microsoft provides for advertisers for integrating into content on the web and interactive TV. But while watching what new possibilities there were for advertising, I started thinking about what kind of advertising people would be more attracted towards.

Google showed us that the way advertising works best on the web is by making ads that are very specific to the content of the page they’re placed. Microsoft is following Google’s model but they’re also taking a different approach. Throughout the years they’ve made their way into the television market, most notably with the Xbox and Media Center PCs.

Currently, the way web ads are displayed compared to television is quite different. On the web, your screen is divided with regions for content and others for ads, giving you the option to just ignore the ads completely. On TV, ads split up content during certain time periods, completely taking away what your interested in and giving you no option but to watch the ads. With software like Microsoft’s Media Center, TV ads could also appear around the content, like at the bottom in the form of a ‘bug’ with the ability to interact with it and choose to pause what your watching and view the ad as rich content.

It looks like Microsoft wants to lead the way for next generation television technology where they can also implement their advertising model. Google doesn’t seem to be a competitor on the television side, but their investment in YouTube is leading to some speculation about their future plans. They could also get into the next generation of television through a different route. A potential competitor to the Media Center is Apple’s settop box which works with their already popular iTunes. All Google would need to do is partner with Apple to provide YouTube content and their advertising system and they would be in direct competition with Microsoft.

So there may be a race towards the future of television using the success of advertising on the web. It’ll be interesting to see things progress and which model would work better. Either Microsoft’s standard technique of taking control of a market by throwing money at it or Google’s unique way of easing into other markets.

Rich content based advertising may take longer to catch on, possibly making Microsoft’s effort appear to be ahead of its time (in a similar way as their Web TV venture). Google has always had a pretty clear vision and has a good track record so far. I think for both companies and the next generation of television, targeted advertising is what’s going to change the market.

Related Articles

Tags: , , , , ,

Previous: Why Microsoft loses customers
Next: Desktop Wallpaper Overload

Leave a Reply