Extension Methods for Profit
Some say we are living in the information age, but I say this is the advertisement age. Marketers strive to cover every square inch of the planet and outer atmosphere with slogans and promotions. We have ambient advertising and advergames, human billboards and celebrity branding.
My prediction is that marketers will become more aggressive in placing advertisements directly inside the software used by information workers who are laden with disposable income. Microsoft is well positioned for the next wave of advertising with the addition of extension methods in C# and Visual Basic. Just imagine the number of eyeballs that will see the following methods in an Intellisense window.
namespace System
{
public static class CurrentAdvertisements
{
public static void TheJoyOfPepsi(this object cola)
{
}
public static void BuiltFordTough(this object truck)
{
}
public static void EatAtHooters(this object notForTheFood)
{
}
}
}
Big bucks are waiting there.
The only question is – will advertisers be content to stick with the traditional camel casing of method names, or will they pay a premium for Underscored_Product_Placements?