Image Courtesy - ab initio ad infinitum
So it would seem that everyone is in a race to become as transparent as possible. It has become (clearly) evident that there is more revenue potential out there by opening up everything and making it available than there is by keeping it all horded and secret and hidden in the dark.
Cell phone technology is a brilliant example of transparency becoming extremely key. It's helping mobile carriers and equipment providers to quickly and easily design, develop, and deploy in tandem. It's also giving software development platforms such as Google and Microsoft the opportunity to build out their handset web technologies.
According to Wikipedia, Open source is a set of principles and practices that promote access to the design and production of goods and knowledge. It also goes on to say that The principles and practices are commonly applied to the development of source code for software that is made available for public collaboration, and is usually released as open-source software. Well, that description works for me. I think it sums it all up nicely.
So, Yahoo! What do these smarty-pants folks have up their sleeves? Are they about to gift users with the ability to view their Ad Profile and (dare I dream) make adjustments to it so that it becomes more accurate to their individual tastes? Open Ad Profiles! Of course from an advertising perspective, there would need to be no option for removing advertising, but instead have a way for users to provide more specific info for delivering up relevant (and targeted) ads to each user. It would also need to be an opt in type of service so that people receive their regular normal advertising unless they opt in for the more tailored stuff, but it's a kinda neat idea! I like it!
From an SEM perspective, it's got teeth too, particularly with display advertising on the move. There's gonna be new market development and metrics to play with all over the place.
Image courtesy - imdb.com
Certainly someone used their wish wisely when they freed their genie from the bottle! They're opening up a hidden door.
Send along your thoughts!
Best!
The Doug
Aka Doug Gebhardt