A few weeks ago I opined that content websites, which only make their money through advertising, should be selling Advertorials, as long as they don't alienate their readers tooooo much.
To remind you, BuzzFeed Ben was called a right winger by a "hater" b/c he sold an advertorial on immigration to the Koch Institute.
In the last few weeks, almost every news organization now agrees with me. The latest, is NBC breaking news.
Now, these articles have to be done right! You can't screw with your readers as The Atlantic did with its Scientology love fest a few weeks ago.
Not all advertorials have to be controversial. I heard, that slate published an article that was on its front page, an advertiser liked it, and a week later, the same article was sponsored content and was at the top of the page. Nothing controversial there.
I think, as they become more and more mainstream, readers will get more and more used to looking for the "sponsored content" indication at the top of any page.
As a NYT reader, I'll be interested to see how advertorials impact their business.
While BuzzFeed is still the leader, there isn't as big a difference between their decisions and the big news organizations anymore.
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