In-text advertising that doesn't make you vomit

It doesn't make me vomit, but I can still taste bile in my mouth. This is still a <i>very</i> intrusive form of advertising that destroys the usefulness of linking within content (everything is assumed to be an ad), and also ruins the trust between content producer and consumer.<p>I don't like it - it's an improvement on the status quo, sure, but merely having an eye poked out instead of being decapitated is small comfort indeed.

<i>The guys at Atma are building an innovative app that should shake up the in-text advertising market—a market that has earned a bad rep due to companies like Kontera, which often deliver spammy ads. Atma’s app eliminates the spamminess and delivers ads that are actually useful.<p>The Atma guys hacked up a way to integrate their in-text links with SeatGeek. Thanks to Atma, select words in this blog will now link to SeatGeek event pages. Let’s say, for example, I’m talking about the Cleveland Browns. Whenever you roll over the Brown’s name, you’ll see a small popup that links to the SeatGeek page for the Brown’s upcoming game.</i><p>Translation: all those <i>other</i> in-text links are spammy, but the ones that point to <i>our</i> service are tremendously useful!<p>Come on. How is this different from any other in-text advertising scheme?

Based on a quick glance, SeatGeek is far less of an affront to my eyes than Kontera, but Kontera would look just like this if they used the same CSS styles. (Not literally, but you get my gist.)<p>I don't think in-text advertising is leaving us anytime soon. So, I think the best thing you can do is to make the difference between normal links and ad links very noticeable. The little pop-up should not be very large, slow to load, or look like it might be some type of legitimate information source. It should totally say in big letters at the top: "Advertising by SeatGeek." Black background, white bold text.<p>I've thought about this a couple times, trying to see if I could come up with something that the established companies haven't. I really can't wait for some clever person to figure out the perfect way to put in-text ads in content.<p>Maybe there should be no ad links at all, but a little icon to the right of the phrase, that upon mouseover will highlight the phrase and display the pop-up.<p>Ultimately though this method of advertising gives site owners the opportunity to deceive their visitors into clicking ad links. Less so than Adsense, I would think.<p>--- Edits for proof reading