Individuals' Web Profiles - An Advertiser's Playground?

The outbreak of blogs, the staggering number of Facebook users, and the millions of videos uploaded on YouTube are among the things that advertisers on the web are taking advantage of. Personally, advertisements on the web annoy me, especially when I am watching a video on YouTube, and an advertisement pops up at the bottom of my screen. 

Recently, Facebook came under fire after revealing that they utilize personal information about people's online viewing patterns to attract advertisers, according to a Media Report on ABC. 

I am sure that many of us, as heavy users of the Internet, have experienced somewhat eerie encounters with online advertisements that are surprisingly relevant to us. This is because a large part of the industry is trying to "tailor things to your needs", but also trying to work out the needs for advertisers, as quoted by Antony Funnell on ABC's Media Report. 

A more local example would be Nuffnang, who call themselves a "blog advertising community". Nuffnang bloggers carry Nuffnang advertisements on their blogs and get paid for doing so. The content of these advertisements depend on the blogger's personal information, which is disclosed upon registration. For example, a female blogger would be more likely to feature a fashion advertisement on her blog, instead of a male blogger. 

Example of a Nuffnang ad. 

(Source: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1133/963344147_1053c04a2b.jpg?v=0)

These new trends of online advertising still adhere to certain conventional publishing rules when it comes to getting their advertisements noticed, as practiced by many online advertisers (Google Ads, Nuffnang, Adsense, etc), .  

Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) stress the importance of considering the element of salience when it comes to positioning the components within a document. For example, in a blog layout, the position of the header, font size, formatting, etc. can influence a readers attention and retention to a certain extent. Therefore, advertisers would choose prominent locations to position their advertisements to maximize the salience of the advertised brand. 

 Notice the positions of Google Ads - right beneath the blog banner, and in the middle of the blog content, both extremely prominent and hard-to-miss positions. 

(Source: http://www.chadbarr.com/uploads_chadbarr/CB-GoogleAds-1b.jpg)

Example of an advertisement on YouTube. Notice how the advertisement takes up the bottom space of the featured video.

(Source: http://www.google-phone.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/youtube_google_video_advert.jpg)

Evidently, individuals' web profiles, blogs, uploaded videos, etc. are becoming a playground for advertisers. But do users really "understand" the justification behind the placing of these ads, as quoted by Rex Wong on ABC's Media Report? Are advertisers able to make that distinction or discernment on what content is tolerable by viewers, and what is not? You be the judge. 

References

ABC, 2007. Social networks and online advertising. Retrieved Nov 10 2008 from 

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2124221.htm

Kress, G., and van Leeuwen, T., 1998. Chapter 7: Front pages: The Critical Analysis of Newspaper Layout, Approaches to Media Discourse, Blackwell, Oxford.