A fascinating article by John Battelle on 'sell side' advertising. Well worth a read. Seth Godin has a good summary:

Imagine online ads that carry money and rules with them. If you're a blogger or web publisher or even someone sending out email, and you fit the rules for a given ad, you can publish it. Every time you do, you get paid.

The ads deplete the money in their account and then vanish. If the ads are working, the advertiser refills them. If publishers find that readers like them, they publish them more often.

It's upside down because control is now flipped from advertiser to publisher/reader.

The concept sounds very appealing indeed and I will comment on it later.

Back to Big Blog Company