In an article in the Guardian Unlimited, the writer mentions that there are a growing number of companies that are employing viral marketing techniques to advertise their products on various blogs and social networking sites. while this is true, they then cite Paul Jackson from Forrester concerning the implications of it.
He is reported as saying that this could be the end of these types of sites. The reason he gives is that people are now content to use these sites at this time because they are seen as reliable and independent.
In reference to email marketing and blogs he said, "Email marketing, the last great hope, was quickly discredited by spamming, tt would be good news for newspapers if blogs were also knocked as untrue."
This guy should know better. Consumers are overwhelmingly saying that they don't mind if they receive ads in exchange for partaking in blogs and social networking. The thing they want is that it's not overly intrusive and is identified as being an ad.
As a matter of fact, if the social networking trend isn't monetized, that is what will end their reign; not marketing on them. People are starting to understand that this is a reality. They know that nothing is free. Either there will be a subscription model, pay-per-piece model, or an ad model. The only other option would be to no longer have the service available to use.
Marketing on blogs or social networking sites isn't going to cause their downfall; it will keep them around for a long time. People have already accepted this. Some are only hoping that things will go back to the way they were.
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