Targeted Advertisements Coming to a Cubicle Near You

Thanks for returning. You're a very smart person.

Cubicle dweller’s rejoice! Not only are you subject to sitting at the corporate equivalent of a lean-to, but now, thanks to the wonder of IP technology will be subject to ads delivered directly to your cubicle. Courtesy of your IP phone.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to read the release notes for a new firmware from one of the industry’s leading IP phone manufacturers that highlight a new feature that will essentially turn their phones into desktop billboards. Ok, so that is not the original intent of the new functionality, but sadly tight-wad businesses and “innovative” new service providers lead by maverick entrepreneurs will be drooling over the ability to get and offer free telephone calls supported by ads being displayed on your desktop IP phone.

I’m not going to lie, I like the feature, just not how it was presented to me as a way to offer low-cost or free telephony service for small businesses and residential users. I am not a huge fan of the ad supported business model, but hey if you can make it work, by all means do it. I like the feature, however, because the ability to ad-like content to a desktop IP phone opens up the ability to do something I think could catch-on like sending MMS messages between phones and to display marketing messaging on phones that are in foyers/lobby’s/places where people wait.

Either way, the future of advertising “in-cubicle” is here.