So it seems that all the hyperbole about how the online advertising industry is going to undergo massive growth in the very near future isn't just hyperbole after all. In fact, free ad supported applications such as word processors and photo-editting software are now being adopted not only by consumers, but small-businesses as well. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Consumers have been doing it for years: using free online software services like Yahoo Inc.'s email site or MapQuest Inc.'s maps, and, in exchange, putting up with the ads that run alongside. Conventional wisdom had it that corporate users weren't willing to see ads in their online software.

But "free" is beginning to prove a powerful draw for some technology managers who have decided to run business tasks like word-processing and network management on free Web-based services that come with ads. [...] The problem: Much of the conventional software -- programs that would run on in-house computers -- was costly and geared more toward large companies with big technology staffs.

If this underscores anything, it's that both consumer and business users are becoming more and more reluctant to pay not only for information, bu the means for creating it. Indeed, this is what the internet has been all about. After all, it's always been advertising that's really made newspapers, magazine, and television possible. The subscription fees were mostly to cover distribution and not revenue. Now that the internet has essentially annuled the need to physically distribute a physical product, it's only logical that information will continue to be ad supported.

What's fascinating about this, however, is that this is the first instance (to my knowledge) of information production being by a word from our sponsors. Then again, this much should be obvious given Google's recent interest in web-based apps.

Via Thread Watch.