I like a little news with my ads every now and then.

We've been studying Google ads in our Online Marketing class: their cost, effectiveness, wording, manageability, etc. One of the most important factors to an ad's success is where it's located on a person's computer screen. If your ad isn't in the top few spots on the right-hand side of the screen, or in the banner at the top - that is, if your ad is "below the fold," meaning users would have to scroll down their screens to see it - odds are the ad won't make much of an impact. The whole idea behind the ads, though, is clever: advertise right where people are pursuing information.

Apparently The New York Times has decided to go a similar route: they decided last month to open up their front page to advertising. It's a move that seems to have surprised observers, and shows that The Almighty Times is as vulnerable as other newspapers in the massive (and irrevocable) shift toward online media. The first ad on the front page was a banner for CBS television in general that said "Front Page News." Sort of equivalent to: "Front Page News: Brought to you by CBS!"

People are, of course, divided about this - a position I sympathize with. One the one hand, you have The Times, struggling to keep advertisers buying space in order to maintain their print form. A senior VP at the Times said: "This high impact placement represents an exciting new opportunity for our advertisers to reach our educated, affluent and influential readers across the country." I have little doubt that front-page ads are the most effective, even if they are placed below the fold, as they are at The Times - a conciliatory gesture, almost.

Others consider front-page ads as "a commercial incursion into the most important news space in the paper." A point I see, but evidently most major newspapers have front-page ads (The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The LA Times). Still, there's something about ads boldly and colorfully displayed on front pages that makes me question the paper's journalistic integrity. I (completely irrationally, I admit) find it harder to trust a news source that compromises like that.

It's interesting to see the lengths to which newspapers are beginning to go in order to keep their printed words afloat. How far will they go with ad space in their bids to stay in print?