Targeted Advertising

I've been frustrated for a longtime by websites that continue to throw irrelevant ads at me in increasingly large quantities. It is well known that major media companies have been actively tracking and trying to make sense of user activity on their websites since the dawn of the Internet. So why am I rarely interested in the ads that I see? You'd think that all those PhDs in Silicon Valley would have figured me out by now, but as far as I'm concerned, they don't know me from Adam:) Yeah, I've heard that one too many times to count.

Last week I came up with what I think is a better way to deliver advertising, and for that matter content in general. I feel that it should be possible to select my areas of interest in a universal profile that I own and control, and have this little profile follow me around the Internet, so that websites can tailor their content and advertisements to me. That would make me really happy. I'd have a great browsing experience, advertisements would actually be informative, and I might even buy something based on those ads.

When I told my friend Eric about this concept last night he immediately gave it some more practical tech teeth by suggesting that I use microformats to create the universal profile. Then he introduced me to the Pinko Marketing discussion group and posted the idea there for discussion. I was surprised to see that 4 people already commented on Eric's post and gave him excellent suggestions and links. Thanks Pinkos! I've joined the fold, so you'll be hearing from me soon.

We're tentatively calling this microformat hInterest. There are a number of issues that need to be solved to make hInterest viable. Obviously, the biggest problem is getting the scale that will required to encourage large publishers and advertisers to adopt a standard format. At least one major player would have to adopt the format before it will be viable at all. With some work and industry backing, it should be possible to give users more relevant content, more control over their information, and a better online experience.