Hi,
There's something to be said for monopolies.
Obviously, they're great when you own one but
they have another advantage too.
They make life easier.
They don't make life better. But they do make
life easier.
Just think how much time you'd save if you were
to walk into a supermarket and find only one type
of bread and one brand of laundry powder and one
sort of breakfast cereal. The bread might taste
like chalk, the laundry powder might make your
clothes dirty and the breakfast cereal might be
made of sawdust... but at least it would be easy
to decide what to buy.
It doesn't sound good, does it? Competition might
create work for consumers who have to make
informed choices but it's worth it.
That's as true about contextual ad systems as it
is about anything else.
Although Google is still miles ahead of anyone
else, it's not the only company that can put
contextualized ads on your website. For the
moment I wouldn't swap AdSense for anything
else... but that doesn't mean I haven't
considered it.
In fact, I consider it all the time. I'm always
stopping by at YPN to see what Yahoo! is up to. I
make it a habit to look in at Kontera and Chitika
to see if they've got any new products.
When Intellitxt started putting videos in
contextualized ad balloons, my eyes lit up and I
rushed over to see what they were doing.
And as soon as eBay and Microsoft started their
contextualized ad Betas, I was reading around the
Web to find out what they were paying and whether
AdSense was about to have a fight on its hands.
So far, I haven't seen anything to persuade me
that I can earn more money with Google's
competition. But I am glad they've got some and I
make it my business to be certain that every time
I decide to stay with Google, that decision is an
informed one.
You should do the same thing.
Keep an eye on Google's competition. Know who
they are, follow what they're doing and
understand what they might be able to do for you.
It's possible that one day you might have to make
a real choice about your ad supplier.
What are your thoughts? I'm eager to hear them!
Post your comments at:joelcomm.com/watching_the_adsense_competiti.html

To your success,
Joel
Joel