June 18th, 2003, the way people do business on the web changed for ever. That's when Google launched AdSense. It's such a powerful business model that captures the long tail of online publishing.
The real estate in big cities such as New York are expensive, for a reason, location! A lot of people go there. For the same reason, why can't we cash in from the location by renting out street-front windows for ads just because they catch a lot of eye balls?
Using a similar business model as AdSense, one can connect empty ad spaces from millions of apartment dwellers, to ad suppliers and agencies. With creative, artistic designers, this may as well put some additional coloring in the dynamic city landscape.
To put this idea further, in fact, yellow cabs have lots of ads, outside and inside. Smart marketers have noticed that ton of turn-overs in and out the cab, which means gazillion eyeballs. Hey, why not stick some ad on my car also? I don't mind, knowing that it generates additional income. :)
Ad is a form of information transfer. If it delivers that right piece of information to the one in need, it's beneficial to both and our society. Shall we have more ads, please?
photo credit bass_nroll