Doc Searls: A Linux Model for Advertising

Consider a trade publication like Linux Journal. The advertising it contains makes it more valuable, not less. Same is true for the classified ads in newspapers. In the mass-marketing world where commercial network TV lives, the problem can get really tough. Your MUTE button is there for a reason. It testifies to the negative value of most advertising messages. That's also why people pay extra to HBO and their local PBS stations.

You'd think, then, that the most useful and efficient advertising medium would be the Web. The problem is users are less inclined to perceive the Web as a "medium" than a place or a space—and a rather private one at that (kind of like the telephone, where we've never welcomed any advertising). So the challenge for advertisers is to make themselves both useful and welcome.

I believe this calls for an approach to advertising that comes from the same unexpected angle both Linux and the Internet came from. It won't be easy. But it's hard to find two better models for usefulness and efficiency.

This is, in essence, the idea behind micro advertising and pyRads.