Advertising will Unchain Us from Our Desks

In Ad Age today:


Paul Leys, director of Ignition Factory East at Omnicom Group's OMD, said agencies and marketers alike have gotten a lot of mileage out of what's happened in the smartphone sector and believes e-reader will soon be offering up the same opportunities. "The platform is showing a lot of innovation for the print industry -- how you can read magazines and how social can be integrated," he said. "Just imagine being able to read GQ and see someone else on the other side of the country reading the same article at the same time and being able talk to them about it. Suddenly there's a different social aspect being added to e-readers. We don't know exactly what this aspect will be yet, but we are excited as there continues to be innovation in the platform."


I have long believed that some sort of flexible, portable, and highly useful eReader would eventually come about, and with it a revolution in how we lived and worked. I've always imagined a foldable or rollable tabloid size device, where you could read any publication you wished, and use a touch screen keyboard to write, design, calculate, and communicate. 


But the innovation could never happen without the monetization, and that's where advertising, so often maligned as an intrusion and an affront to intellectual pursuits, could be the catalyst that frees us from our desks. In my mind, once advertising monetizes the eReader, it will democratize it at the same time, bringing affordable, portable communications, computing, and learning technology to everyone.


Now, that's a nice wish in addition to peace and prosperity this holiday season, is it not?

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