On a recent Backwards Gang episode of the Gillmor Gang (hard to tell which one eh?), Jason argues about AdSense being more like Direct Marketing and that it will be the incumbent form of marketing for next few decades. He also touches upon the YouTube/AdSense relationship at his blog
Well, he’s partially right but he’s missing one important part of the recipe.

I agree that AdSense is more like Direct Marketing than advertising and  it’s way more efficient than prior forms af advertising given that it’s pay-per-click.
The important piece of the puzzle that Jason is missing is the quality list, something of a cornerstone for Direct Mail or Email advertising.
A better list is a better open-rate, and a bigger ROI.

The fact that AdSense is only contextual is a shortcoming, and for both Google and the advertisers, making it more efficient will make more money for each respectively.

Despite it being pay-per-click, more click-throughs mean more revenue for both Google and the advertiser.

Where is the quality list in AdSense?

You could argue that it’s in the context of the web page, but this is only superficially true.

To rev things up, or “press on the gas,” as Jason would say, a bit of behavioral targeting needs to be added to the mix.

Get more of these ads in front of people who really want them, or are at a particular point of the buying cycle and your CTRs will go up, and revenue will follow.

This can all work in conjunction with contextual data, but will enhance contextual delivery immensely.

So while I agree with Jason’s prediction that AdSense will dominate for years to come, I think Google must improve upon it, or else risk losing marketshare to a behaviorally enhanced version of adsense that may provide a similar ROI, but in a condensed amount of time, which equates to money.

If Jason thinks that Google will rise to Microsoft levels of dominance in this space, they are going to have to address the quality list or lead, in this case, by the use of behavioral targeting.

I think they will. In fact, I think  it will be an integral part of their Cost-Per-Action experimentation that began when the rumblings about click-fraud were at a peak.

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I’ve always dreamed of RSS replacing email as a spam-free person-to-person communication device.

Adam Curry says it’s not possible, though I don’t see why anyone would believe him. I’ve never heard  or read Dave Winer talk about if this was possible.

For me, I originally thought a system of RSS+SSE might be possible for this, except for the fact that it would seem no better than email because of SPAM issues, so why bother?

I met Jim Moore at OPMLCamp a few months back and recently sent him a note. He’s using a service called Spam Snag to pro-actively stop SPAM.

I got a reply and had to click-through before my email and any subsequent emails got through.

It occurred to me that by building that into the protocol, we could create a better, stronger, faster messaging service right on top of RSS.

I’ll think on this some more. I did have some wine with dinner, so I may be missing an obvious  reason why this won’t be feasible.

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