New avenue to monitize content - Ads in Adobe PDF by Yahoo.
Adobe and Yahoo Publisher Networks have announced a new advertising avenue for Publishers called as “Ads for Adobe PDF Powered by Yahoo!” Till date Adobe had not included any ads in their pdf platform. If a publisher wanted to include Ads, he would need to manually put banner ads and then publish the PDF file. But now with this new advertising network, they can get contextual ads in their PDF documents.
So how does it work?
According to Yahoo Biz News, publishers first need to register an account and then upload their PDF documents to the Adobe website. Once processed, they can then download the document from Adobe, but now the PDF document is Ad enabled. Now when the document is opened, it would serve contextual ads, through the YPN.
To see an example of a PDF Document with Contextual Advertising visit Cnet
Good News for E-Book Publishers:
This is actually a good news for Ebook publishers. Now they can serve contextual ads instead of traditional ads in their E-books or E-Report. One good feature is if anyone prints the document the ads don’t get printed. Oh yes there is one limitation, with which not many people would be happy. This is only limited to US based publishers with English content. I hope they remove this soon and make it available for everyone.
According to Reuters: It’s already been in private beta; the public test is expected to last for several months. So I don’t think this would be available to everyone soon. It would be interesting to observe how this new platform performs.
Do you think serving Ads in PDF files is a good idea?
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10 Responses to “New avenue to monitize content - Ads in Adobe PDF by Yahoo.”
By web tools on Nov 29, 2007 | Reply
This service will definitely benefit the pdf publishers like ebook writers.
By Wayne Smallman on Dec 1, 2007 | Reply
Given that PDF content is indexed by the search engines, I’m surprised something like this hasn’t emerged sooner.
Might we expect Microsoft to do the same thing with Office documents?
Ad’ blindness comes to a PDF near you!
By Vikram on Dec 1, 2007 | Reply
@Wayne Smallman lolz, Well said Wayne.
I am not very sure how this Platform would perform. The point you have stated is valid, as this idea should have surfaced before, but the reason it didnt coz, Adobe was not ready to let advertisements to come into the PDF format, until now of course.I guess the guys at Yahoo are quite persuasive.
As for Microsoft, they already have a lot of competition in the Office Suite section and they wont get into advertisements.
By Wayne Smallman on Dec 1, 2007 | Reply
From a perception point of view, Adobe like to ‘premiumize’ their products — so that they’re perceived as being the originator of platforms that push such things as ad-supported content.
However, in recent times Adobe have started producing software for markets other than creative.
They will have no doubt identified that: 1. Google et al index PDF’s, and 2. that a lot of businesses produce PDF content that can be legitimately monetized.
Which is why I think there’s an argument for Microsoft doing the same thing.
Their own ad’ network is a shambles. So anything that helps them and their customers reuse / re-purpose existing content is likely to go down well with some (but not all, obviously) of their customer base…
By Vikram on Dec 1, 2007 | Reply
You are correct about Microsoft there Wayne.Their Ad network isnt something to sing about.
But Unlike Adobe who have the monopoly on PDF format, Microsoft has already a lot of competition in the Office Suite market.
Most of these are Open source, and arent Ad supported, so introducing Ads in the Document format may push users in moving on to other Office Suite applications.
Although it would really be interesting for content publishers to publish Ads in this format. But ask yourself once, would you like to see Google or that kind of ads If you are reading a Thesis, information resource or a sample resume?
I wont be happy and may be just use Open Office Suite.
By Wayne Smallman on Dec 1, 2007 | Reply
Agreed.
I’m not proposing Microsoft do this across the board. Like any other advertising network, it would be elective.
Taking the Microsoft Office topic a little further, there are even greater challenges for Microsoft; in that they’re presently struggling to assemble a meaningful version of Office for the web that isn’t likely to devour their paid-for version in the process…
By Vikram on Dec 1, 2007 | Reply
Oh thats a big challenge for MS. And I am not sure but I cant help thinking MS is trying to follow the suit of Google and Yahoo.
Google or Yahoo acquires something, then MS comes in acquires their competition. Its almost as if they are just copying what others are doing.
MS has always been a Paid Service and Google has brought in the “everything is free” revolution.
For MS going from all paid to free would be very difficult as their entire back bone was designed to support the “everything is paid” system.
Difficult time lie ahead for Microsoft!
By Qzaki Webmaster on Mar 15, 2008 | Reply
Here is a link to our review of the Beta program (PDF format):
http://www.qzaki.com/Archive/AdsforPDF-Review.pdf