Lapizuli - 1:48 am on Oct 15, 2009 (gmt 0)

I was wondering if this would happen when interest-based advertising began and content that didn't attract targeted ads--such as news articles, as you mention--would now magically become relevant, by default. I wondered what effect it would have on niche revenue. I'd love to see more stats, but it kinda makes sense.

It's as if a tourist interested in five product niches wanders into town and visits all five of the niche stores one by one and makes a lot of purchases (obviously a context-based advertising model).

Then he goes and sits on a bench outside and eats his picnic lunch, not expecting to buy anything (comparable to landing on entertainment-oriented content), except the owner of one of the rollerblading stores has followed him out and has sat down next to him. After lunch, the tourist goes to that store and buys another set of rollerblades.

Now, the rollerblading store owner realizes he can reduce his store hours (niche advertising budget) because he can reach customers outside his physical store (in other words, outside the smattering of niche content on the Web). So, no longer physically restricted by a storefront, he worries less about competing against the other rollerblading stores around and spends more time figuratively fishing, throwing lures to the wind....

All the stores in town follow suit, until the storefronts begin to slowly rot from disuse and disrepair...hmmm, not a pretty picture for niche publishers.

The suitability of interest-based ads for non-niche subjects is why I think Google AdSense should offer different kinds of targeting on different kinds of websites instead of making us choose one or the other. Once they do, there should be a virtual explosion of certain kinds of content that were hard to monetize before--including but not limited to news content.

I'm still not sure what will become of niche content. Maybe if there's a uprising by the tourists, who don't like to be followed about...?

And by the way--thanks for posting these stats. Been waiting, vulture-like, to hear reports on interest-based advertising. I opted out at the beginning because I'm a strong niche writer (in part at websites like yours). Anyone else have any stats to share? (swooping low)