Ad News and Views from Around the Web

Paying consumers for privacy; holistic SEO; more on demand-side platforms, notes from SES, and more

Should ad companies pay for your privacy?
The issue of privacy has hit the mainstream, getting a lot of attention from consumers, the FTC and congress. One way to get around that, suggests BNET’s Jim Edwards, is for companies to compensate consumers for their data. Consumers who don’t want to be tracked—and don’t want the money—could simply opt out.

Michael Walrath on demand
We’ve been trying to keep you up on the emergence of demand-side platforms for awhile now (like here, here and here). Over at AdExchanger, Michael Walrath, former CEO at Right Media (now part of Yahoo!), has penned (or is “pixelated” the right word?) an op-ed piece on demand-side. Look out agencies, he says, because demand-side holding companies just might be poised to swipe your martini money. 

“Holistic” SEO
Lee Odden of TopRank fame recently wrote a piece for ClickZ about how search has gone “holistic”—meaning that search engines now include data from social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Companies and agencies naturally want to take advantage of this new data, but it’s not always as easy as it seems. If you’re at SES New York this week, give Lee our best.

SES NY keynote interview: David Meerman Scott
Sepaking of Lee Odden and SES,—Reporting from the event, Lee interviews David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to use news releases, blogs, viral marketing and online media to reach buyers directly, offering tactics for going beyond search and display advertising. It’s a must-read for anyone just getting into the digital marketplace.

The value of narrative
Getting your story out is vital. AdFreak’s Rebecca Cullers interviews Rob Walker, New York Times columnist and author of Buying In: What we buy and who we are, on how successful advertisers move product through story. “Narrative,” says Walker, “is a key x-factor influencing an object’s exchange value.” Of course, it’s not easy to tell a story in 70 characters, but you can to it.

— Michael Mattis