For the last three years I've wrestled with how to make money from advertising in digital publications - and of course traditional wisdom has it that print advertising can be modified by merely stripping in a URL.
That however doesn't work - advertisers are unconvinced, response isn't trackable, and readers don't see the benefit.
Kevin Kelly, the former editor of Wired, however, may have the answer. His latest book, a film tome entitled "True Films", is being offered as a free PDF download ; with a twist. Using an Adobe plug in called PDF Ads, he is able to offer contextual advertising from Yahoo on an opt in basis to readers. The ads can only be seen in Adobe Reader 8, and its far from clear how many of the readers who download the magazine will click thru, but it is undeniably a very, very interesting business model.
