Content is global. In every corner of the world there’s people wanting to read, listen to and watch content produced in every other corner of the world. The only thing that slows it down is language; cultural differences not so much.

Advertisement is not global. A restaurant wants to advertise only to people that could actually go to it, not to people that lives across the continent. Even global companies run very different advertisements in different countries and regions. In some places, competitive advertisement (where you mention your competition) is illegal, in others it’s the norm, maybe in some it’s allowed, but considered low. Nudity is OK in some places, illegal in others. Advertisement is local.

During the old-media days, that wasn’t a problem because content distribution was local. TV, radio, newspapers, magazines could reach only people in some well defined region. Content was mixed with ads in each region and shipped or broadcasted. No issues there.

But content distribution today is global and it’s called the internet. And this seems to confuse and startle a lot of people. What do we do with ads? Do we show USA-based ads in all the world? That means that most people won’t care about the ad, and even if they do, they won’t be able to buy the products. A huge waste. The solution: let’s break the internet into regions and limit the distribution of our content. Wrong!

We are not mixing ads and content manually at a central location an then shipping it anymore. Today we have these amazing machines called computers that can mix ads and content every single time a viewer or listeners asks for the content; and every single time the result can be different. A New Yorker using a Mac listens to one ad, a New Yorker using a PC listens to another ad, a Berliner listens to another ad, and an Australian to a different ad. That is how we deliver ads at Hear a Blog. Our content is for the world, and our ad market is also the world.