DM News: Forbes.com Puts Advertiser Links in News Stories

Forbes started putting links to advertiser sites in the midst of editorial. IntelliTxt provides the technology behind the ad links, with Overture supplying many of the advertisers through its Content Match system. The concept of making certain words hot in a story to send people to the highest bidder has proved controversial among mainstream publishers due to worries about mixing advertising and editorial. In the web community, more publications have expressed worry about compromising the user experience by breaking the expectation that hotlinks imply relevant additions to the editorial content.