Adticles

People hate 'em and the Internet is one massive space that cuddles them.

Call them adticles or the merged term for advertisements and articles. They inform, persuade, convince, or provide updates. The catch: they're somewhat biased. Well, what do you expect? They're written to introduce products or form part of a marketing campaign. Appearing in a variety of forms and styles, these adticles seem to overpopulate search engines' result pages. They also comprise the greater number of pages in magazines and periodicals. They're everywhere.

Are they good? Bad?

The key is in the writing. Adticles are drafted for some definite purpose and when properly written, they inform. Assuming readers are smart enough (as every reader ought to be), they should know how to respond to adticles. Information is a factor -- basically the biggest factor that defines an adticle's worthiness for publishing and reading.

I tried writing a couple of adticles for some websites before. Broadly, adticles don't deserve the negative impression they generally get. While they may be annoying in their very aggressive forms, they're just like any other article that a blogger, for example, writes. They write some facts, introductions, opinions, or a re-echoing of thoughts on a certain subject. What difference does it make when one expresses insights on something really worthy?

Even reviews have their biases.

Reviews may echo a bit of prestige or authority. I say they're just adticles with an ego. I can't help singling out those so-called "professional reviews." While I don't intend to trace indirect links or interrelationships here, let me just point out a few reasons why reviews are written.

Reviews intend to assert some sort of standard. They try to point out banes and boons according to some criteria of what is good or bad. Guess whose criteria these are?

Moreover, reviews are somewhat tools for establishing identity and authority. Billboard would give Celine Dion's latest album a good review or rating while RollingStone.com disses it with a flunking 1 out of 4 stars. Well, don't expect rock n roll to easily yield to hyped power ballads and insult its fan base. Each reviewer cum advertiser has its target audience. Every review tries to go by its own set of standards and please as much of its base of followers. Indeed, reviews are adticles with an ego.

Don't want adticles?

then ...keep off this site
...don't 'search engine' what you're looking for
...stick to answers.com and wikipedia
...stay away from company websites

That adticles take some potentially misleading form or style is not something I would deny or argue upon. They are marketing tools and that is expected of them. I created this website to do a little contribution in developing the art, craft, and ethics of adticle writing. Informing, persuading, or motivating need not be a task that is as boring as an encyclopedia, straightforwardly newsy or bulletin-y, or as annoying as a politician's speech.