I used to think all ads were spam. That sentiment had its origins in traditional media where some kind of adspace cosmological constant keeps pushing real content further and further apart, filling my field of view with a relevance vacuum of feminine hygiene, SUV, and sorority girl chat line commercials.
However, I’ve been coming around to V.’s way of thinking about ads in new media lately. I don’t mind as much because ads are at least loosely targeted to the topic-specific sites I frequent; sometimes I’m even grateful when I encounter something previously unknown and personally applicable. That happens more when I’m willing to make Google privy to my electronic life or tell Hulu when ads are relevant. Old media pushes me further away while new media draws me into its less-adflated, more-relevant open arms.
So I came home from a MarkLogic event at The Palomar–ready to blog about some things they get that EMC is just starting to grasp–to find a new comment on an old post about the iPhone Clock app. It was an ad (no surprise) but it was perfectly relevant to the post and even got me into iTunes to download the app (big surprise). A few more things like this might even get cynical me to stop cringing whenever I see “please moderate” in my inbox.
The reward for that relevance is an extra plug. I haven’t tried the app yet since there’s nothing to time at the moment, but I encourage you to take a look:
So, please do check out http://www.elapsedapp.com – you’ll find it to be a significant upgrade from the default Clock app. Oh, one last thing… its FREE!