Issue 26: An Inch An Hour  August 25th 2016

An Inch An Hour

It’s easy getting caught up in the flamewars of an industry on fire. Some days, it’s not easy seeing daylight through the smoking ruins of ad tech battles gone by. More often than not, it takes will, determination, and a little bit of grace, too.

Often, I don’t agree with the philosophies or proposed paradigms being tossed around online these days. But, I do find myself coming back to something over and over again these days, and it’s a source of excitement:

We all, no matter our individual stances, realize the current iteration of advertising on the internet is a lot like a battered old boat at this point. No matter how much we try to patch it or add on to it, the water is still finding its way inside. As a result, we’re all trying to find life preservers that look appealing. The thing is, the life preserver that looks the best to me may not have the same glorious sheen to you. The result of those differences -- no matter how large or small -- leads to a tremendous opportunity for innovation. We’re standing at the precipice of a monumental paradigm shift today.

For us, at BuySellAds, we love the idea of publishers and media companies offsetting costs with advertising campaigns. We believe that brands will always pay more for advertisements than a company could ever collect from a reader through donations or subscriptions. That value exchange will never dwindle. But, we also believe that readers and users should NEVER have to sacrifice their privacy or personal data to read something on the free and open web. These two ideologies aren’t in direct opposition, nor should they be treated as such. They can, and do already, exist online. Some of our forward-thinking publishers have already embraced the approach.

The best solutions, of course, lie somewhere between the polar extremes most of us debate these days. No matter where you stand on this discussion, we’re all pretty much fighting the same battle. We’re all on the same team. We’re just in the middle of defining the new rules of our age-old game. Advertising’s growing up. We’ve just be stuck in the awkward tween years for a little too long.

We’re making progress, and things are about to change. It may feel like we’re moving an inch an hour sometimes, but progress is being made by dozens of companies today. The new landscape is emerging in front of us on a daily basis.

Todd Garland, CEO, and Founder at BuySellAds