Interactive media and advertising

Before Internet and interactive media, advertisers relied heavily on traditional unilateral methods of broadcasting commercials. These are advertising that are in the form of a classified in a newspaper, a color spread in a magazine, or a clip on TV. As media and entertainment morph into a digital format, advertisers have largely remained stagnant. Although some advertisers are taking advantage of pop-up commercials in the form of a flash movie on websites or Google ads that reflect the audiences’ preferences, the method of advertising continues to be largely unilateral. With vast information collected about users and somewhat predictable patterns, I would expect that at 1.30 pm, after I have spent 6 straight hours working on a term paper, my Google desktop would ask me if I am hungry and show me the latest McDonalds commercial or discuss with me what type of car I should be driving after noticing I have been looking at cars the past 3 days.