[imjk]

While I agree with the author's conclusion that better integrated "ad" units like StubleUpon's Paid Discovery, and Twitter's Promoted Tweets will become both more prevalent and affective, his premise that contextual ads don't work is just false. He's also also wrong in thinking that these more integrated ads are entirely new concepts, divergent from old media such as television, cinema, magazines, and periodicals.

The truth is that integrated advertising on these new social web services is just catching up to what has long been standard in traditional media. For example, in TV and cinema, product placements by brands have been an effective alternative or supplement to standard commercials. In the same way, magazine and periodicals have long accepted "advertorials" by staff writers that passively mention/promote specific brands/views along with their traditional page layout ads.

While he's correct to think that these more integrated types of ads will be more affective on the web as they're more "consistent with the way their services natively work," it's something that traditional media advertisers have known for a long time.

[aweissman]

i dont think traditional media advertisers have applied these principles to web ads; thus my conclusion that display doesnt work. New products - maybe even some that I mentioned - will work better