Perplexed looking for a guide

Advertising is Evil

I came back from a long business trip a couple of weeks ago, and what struck me was all the advertising I kept running into. It was on the walls of the airport terminal, on the coffee bug I picked up, on the TV monitors in the waiting area, etc. I thought I might get a break when I got on the airplane, but no, even the in flight shows included commercials!

When I got home, I played with my sons for a bit and then they watched a TV show. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they were more in tune with the commercials than real content of the the shows they were watching. After they went to sleep I watched a Red Sox game for the first time in quite a while. Not only were there commericals during the breaks in the action, but even during a pitch you could see the advertising on the stands behind the batter. I was pretty fed up. I hadn't realized how good I had it locked up in a conference room for a week drinking coffee, Dr, Pepper, and eating strawberry licorice and cookies.

I don't mind seeing a mind seeing an ad every once in a while. Sometimes they inform or are amusing, like the current Apple ads. But more often then not they are annoying. Afterall, that's why God invented Tivo---to restore a balance with the evils of adverising and commercials.

But then it hit me. My last refuge from commercials and advertising was the library. There are never commericals there, just books and people reading them. But today, the library is being replaced by the Internet (see the May 14, 2006 NYTimes article in the magazine section). And what's the portal to the Internet library? It's Google. And Google is constantly inserting advertisements around the results of my search.

And when you look at business plans for startups these days, it seems the most common approach is that by using this nifty new technology they invented, they will create a unique community that can be used for targeted advertising (which of course, we will make unobtrusive but which the users will find irresistible). Isn't there a way to provide real value to your targeted community? Is advertising the only way to make money these days?

Posted at 01:37PM May 30, 2006 by rezippel in Personal  |  Comments[2]