Here’s a very old post from John Batelle titled: Sell Side Advertsing: A New Model? which resonates even more loudly today than it did when he wrote it in August of 2004. What’s changed in the intervening two years is web2.0, in general, and web badges, in particular.
Read the following paragraph and tell me that this doesn’t sound EXACTLY like what we’ve been talking about with web badges?
Here it is:
Once the ads (insert web badges here) are let loose, here’s the cool catch – ANYONE who sees those ads can cut and paste them, just like a link, into their own sites (providing their sites conform to the guidelines the ad explicates in its tags). The ads track their own progress, and through feeds they “talk” to their “owner” – the advertiser (or their agent/agency). These feeds report back on who has pasted the ad into what sites, how many clicks that publisher has delivered, and how much juice is left in the ad’s bank account. The ad propagates until it runs out of money, then it… disappears! If the ad is working, the advertiser can fill up the tank with more money and let it ride.
Web badges are sell-side advertising!
