Wise Startup Blog

So I was doing a quick little experiment tonight, and forgive me for my ignorance, but after digging around, I did not realize that not all searches on Google are sponsored.

For random searches (like Grooveshark) there are no sponsored links.

This pretty much makes sense to me now that I think about it, because somebody would have to specify Grooveshark specifically as their search term, thus enabling the advertiser to target their campaign and therefore have some control (or at least think they do) over their success.

That being said, the majority of terms that have sponsored links are those terms that are associated in some way with a service or product (one could argue those links are two in the same)

On a side note, Google does not have any sponsored links for “escorts”, or flat-out “prostitutes”, but they do allow MyForeignBride.com, oh the irony.

So, back to my point, advertising is going away from simple banner ads to user-specific advertising (exactly what google adwords does) along with the entire $15 billion valuation for facebook.

…And, the majority of Wikipedia’s content is filled with fun, random, useless stuff (for monetization purposes).

That being said, I think it will be a lot harder for Wikipedia to find real, quality ad dollars coming to the site, especially considering the numbers projected for the site.

Am I wrong, naive, stupid? Let me know …