Have you ever stumbled upon a really entertaining ad? It was funny, entertaining, maybe even enlightening, and you even passed it around to friends to check out. That’s the hope behind the movement of “native advertising,” a spruced up version of “sponsored content” that appears not in ad slots but right in the editorial well. But sometimes these native ads go terribly wrong, as they did with The Atlantic running a sponsored story by the Church of Scientology and comments being censored. Native ads are getting attention at sites such as BuzzFeed and even the Washington Post, but what do you think about them? Do you accept them as a way to help fund journalism? Do they go too far into the editorial well? Vote in our poll below, or tell us your deeper thoughts in the comments. You can hear an in-depth discussion on native ads on this week’s podcast or check out our entire series on Online Advertising, Evolved.
