This post is a reply to Jason Kolb's post titled: Using Advertising to Take Over the World. Jason's post is a response to Robert Scoble's post titled: Why Facebook has never listened and why it definitely won’t start now.

Jason:

Scoble is sensing what comes next, but in my opinion, describes it using an old obtrusive advertising model anecdote.

I've penned a post or two about the "Magic of You" which is all about the new Web power broker (Entity: "You").

Personally, I've long envisaged a complete overhaul of advertising where obtrusive advertising simply withers away; ultimately replaced by an unobtrusive model that is driven by individualized relevance and high doses of serendipity. Basically, this is ultimately about "taking the Ad out of item placement in Web pages".

The fundamental ingredients of an unobtrusive advertising landscape would include the following Human facts:

  1. We are social beings and need stuff from time to time
  2. We know what we need and would like to "Find stuff" when we are in "I Need Stuff" mode.

Ideally, we would like to be able to simply state the following, via a Web accessible profile:

  1. Here are my "Wants" or "Needs" (my Wish-List)
  2. Here are the products and services that I "Offer" (my Offer-List).

Now put the above into the context of an evolving Web where data items are becoming more visible by the second, courtesy of the "Linked Data" meme. Thus, things that weren't discernable via the Web: "People", "Places", "Music", "Books", "Products", etc., become much easier to identify and describe.

Assuming the comments above hold true re. the Web's evolution into a collection of Linked Data Spaces, and the following occur:

  1. Structured profile pages become the basic units of Web presence
  2. Wish-Lists and Offer-Lists are exposed by profile pages

Wish-Lists and Offer-Lists will gradually start bonding with increasing degrees of serendipity courtesy of exponential growth in Linked Data Web density.

So based on what I've stated so far, Scoble would simply browse the Web or visit his profile page, and in either scenario enjoy a "minority report" style of experience albeit all under his control (since he is the one driving his Web user agent).

What I describe above simply comes down to "Wish-lists" and associated recommendations becoming the norm outside the confines of Amazon's data space on the Web. Serendipitous discovery, intelligent lookups, and linkages are going to be the fundamental essence of Linked Data Web oriented applications, services, agents.

Beyond Scoble, it's also important to note that access to data will be controlled by entity "You". Your data space on the Web will be something you will controll access to in a myriad of ways, and it will include the option to provide licensed access to commercial entities on your terms. Naturally, you will also determine the currency that facilitates the value exchange :-)

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