by insomniasexx

So I found this article interesting and is a great "headline culture" 101. More interestingly is that the sole point of the post is to promote sharethrough - a native advertising service.

For those who don't know, native advertising is "the future" and the name for those scummy ads that don't look like ads. They look exactly like the content existing on the page. The tweets with the small "ad" label. The articles on gawker that are a slightly different background color. Etc. "The advertiser's intent is to make the paid advertising feel less intrusive and thus increase the likelihood users will click on it" Blah blah blah.

There are two links in the article to sharethrough as well as a comment (and another link):

Simone Stolzoff I may be biased, but I think brands must create meaningful content that adds value to people’s lives. I work for a company (sharethrough.com) that powers in-feed ads— my heart is behind our mission

Even more interestingly, he makes this point:

but publishers will lose their most valuable asset—the trust of their audience.

And what is native ads? Not losing the trust of your audience when I accidentally click an article title that is sneakily labeled as an ad in a way I won't notice? That's not losing my trust?

This, my friends, is the future of marketing and advertising. Not just the services like sharethrough - but the articles like this that promote those companies through places like medium.

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I actually think this is really really worth watching:

Hubski breaks this. We dive deeper. We actually engage. We don't swipe past each other. Are we doomed because of this? Who knows. I certainly hope not.