youth insight into business models
Typically I see advertising as an invasion. It might be that the volume goes up, the aesthetics are not pleasing to me, and often the messages themselves flop in their attempts to be rad.
In one of the archived presentations by Dana Boyd that I watched, she said the MySpace users she interacts with had a completely different reaction to advertising: It was a sign of stability. They were more confident that sponsored sites/tools/tech would stick around while the free and ad-free offerings were somewhat shunned for fear that they would disappear.
JPG Magazine all but disappeared. It has a bit of a torrid past, drama among the owners and a flood of user loss in response. But overall the concept of an online community contributing and rough editing the content of a print publication is a great one. Which is why, despite the drama and changes already past, I was happy to hear the magazine would be bought out instead of folding. The active community was credited with saving the magazine due to all of the hype generated after the closure was announced.
And today when I went to the site and saw an ad about how to lose 2 pounds of your stomach fat ... that first twinge of disgust reminded me of the potential for stability ...