Web – bad advertising medium ?

Usability guru Jakob Nielsen puts it quite bluntly:

“The basic point about the web is that it is not an advertising medium.”

Its a handy sentence grenade of quote for a time starved blogger. However the argument is a lot more subtle and complex. And it doesn’t say that the web is bad for ALL advertising. Just a certain type which isn’t going away fast enough. The article that carries all this first appeared in the Advertising Age which requires you to signup before reading anything. massogroup.com carries the article without requiring a login – which is how I stumbled on to it. The article is long but worth a read. Rob O’Regan’s blog carries an useful overview without being an excuse to avoid reading the whole thing.

Given that Adwords and the like is catching on in the outer edges of the blogosphere (like Sri Lanka) I think this article will be interesting reading for quite a few bloggers. Particularly about the types of ads and add copy you might want to have on your blog. For the lazy types, the Silicon Valley insider has an overview with discussion on this intersection of advertising and the internet. That’s still not an excuse to avoid the real thing