Sponsored Content: The Early Years

From Kevin Drum @ Mother Jones:

BuzzFeed and the Future of Advertising

...I'll bet 90 percent of [BuzzFeed's] readers never even notice their bylines.

And I'm pretty certain the folks at BuzzFeed know this perfectly well. They do everything they can to make advertising look staff-written, including in tone, style, and format, but leave themselves an out by putting corporate bylines on the ads and pretending that everyone will notice them. Hey, it says Sony Entertainment Network at the top! What more do you want?

I imagine this is a glimpse of our future. You have been warned.

The future?