AOL's Sun Sachs
with
Don Schechter
Sun Sachs, Director at AOL Key Experiences, discusses the importance of integrating the users experiences, marrying meaningful content with the advertising.
Transcript: AOL's Sun Sachs
I ve seen some pretty interesting widgets, desktop or web-based widgets. Things that marry their brand with a little bit of consumer facing content like videos audio little mp3 downloads. Ive seen Coca Cola, Verizon, and a number of automobiles. I've seen Dodge, I've seen a number of advertisers pretty progressive and what's great about them is that it actually combines something that gives users full control which is powerful and they can grab the content and have it the way they want it but also marries the brand with it. And I think that s where advertisers are seeing the value and I think you ll start to see more of that over the next year.
As you see Myspace mirroring Facebook and adding on things like widgets and open source we'll see where the crossover is and if Facebok can continue taking the lead or if myspace potentially also has other things at their disposal in the same way that facebook has by giving users the ability to put widgets and other custom modules on the page whereas in the past myspace didn t do that. And now their hand is being force by Facebook and at AOL we are really excited by that because it just increases the landscape for us to create different compelling modules that hopefully users will adopt. The main problem tht has been prohibited in the past with mobile in the context of advertising or even web based content is that the operating systems across all mobile headsets have been so different and so diverse. Sort of like the web circa 1995 when the computers were poor, the internet connection was poor. There wasn t a lot you could do. It s the same landscape that we are in with phones and now with phones that are trending like iphone where it s literally a mini computer it s naturally going to open up and you are going to see the same types of advertising initiatives as well as as probably totally new inventions on the same idea.
My favorite thing is because my team is and AOL is actively building on this technology, it s called Air. It s an adobe product that is actually launching as a gold maser the beginning of next year And what it is it is a cross platform desktop technology that takes web based content and desktop based content and marries the two. So you can have a mini web page on your desktop and also take advantage of things you wouldn t normally be able to do on the desktop. Generally in this landscape users want control. They want to be able to own the content. Own the brand. Create the experience the way they want it and with advertising. The real challenge and the big opportunity is to be very integrated with the experiences and so things like skins. Advertisers skins, user generated skins, things like contextual content that not only fits with the experience but also fits with the experience but is also meaningful for the advertiser and the user. So for instance you are watching a video. Why not have a sponsor actually provide mp3 downloads. That s where you will actually have this great crossover where there s really a blurred line between advertising content and you know programming content. So to me that s where the real benefit is for both advertisers and users if it s done right.
