Virginia Tech II - Keywords ads and the Facebook group

Business is business and that is probably the main reason why several large news organizations like The New York Times or CNN worked with Internet search firms to boost traffic heading to their websites, by buying the same day of the shooting, keywords related to the massacre, like "Virginia shooting" or "Virginia Tech".

I have no intention to enter in the ethics debate about the fact that they used a massacre to 'advertise'. I understand why some people may not like the fact but I also understand why they did it.

But this particular piece of news kept me thinking about what seems could be an important shift in the relationship between media and advertising. While until not so many years ago, mass media will sustained itself through advertising but will not spend in advertising so often --large newspapers spent normally in just 'branding campaigns--, that is obviously changing.

If newspapers are competing on keywords on daily basis, that means that they have become advertisers at a much bigger scale. What may easily change their finances, especially online. They shall receive, yes, but they have to give too, on daily basis. :)

Now, the Dateline NBC post in Facebook that *is* tacky! (and they didn't know that ALL CAPS MEANS YELLING?)