March 02, 2005

Focus Ads

About time this idea saw some action: Weblogs, Inc. has introduced what it calls Focus Ads, which lets the user community comment on the companies that run ads on the site.

I proposed this exact same idea at MP3.com in 1999 -- you'd have a little "comment" button underneath all 468x60 ad banners and you could comment, vote/review, or just read everyone else's comments. I also proposed that there be an "ad map" on the site -- think of it as a "site map" that listed all the advertisers, and from there you could comment on or review others' comments on any of those companies.

Never got the execs to buy in on the idea, but I always hoped it'd get tried out somewhere.

Will be interested to see how this takes off. I suspect lots of sites will start doing this. I hope Endgadget didn't patent it.

Posted by brian at 05:20 PM | Comments (4)

Too Busy to Post

It's awful, I'm so busy right now I haven't had a second to touch the blog. Hope to have some time soon.

In the meantime, RIP Jef Raskin. I had the pleasure of meeting him on a number of occasions at conferences over the years, and at one point he gave me a copy of The Humane Interface which is a great book.

Posted by brian at 12:09 PM | Comments (0)
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