March 18, 2005
Marketing for alternate realities
There is a single but elementary thing I do not understand about the online marketing business: Its target audience is made up of people who feel like buying stuff after they've been tricked into opening a website they never intended to visit.
IntelliTXT is the latest in a series of hints that I might live in an isolated bubble of space-time warped around itself. Now employed on major content sites around the globe, "IntelliTXT" hijacks single terms in mid-sentence and links them to their advertising partners. The fake links are "marked as advertisement" in form of a tooltip appearing after hovering the cursor over the link for a second before clicking, as everyone does. Joy ensues on sites like GameSpy where you thought you were following a hyperlink to a game review but (ha ha fool!) ended up somewhere completely else. It is this sort of experience that makes me reach for my credit card every time.
How about another theory that doesn't involve warped bubbles of space-time: Content providers and advertising networks don't give a flying fuck because they're getting paid per click. They're simply passing along a steady stream of pissed non-customers and then charge for it. And this is good for businesses advertising with IntelliTXT because... wait. Space-time bubbles all over again.
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