I was talking to an old college buddy of mine last night, regarding browser extensions that block ads — including text ads. He mentioned that he felt that Google, Yahoo, MSN and others that rely heavily on text ads would soon be in a world of hurt due to browser add-ins and extensions that could potentially block otherwise ignored text ads.
On one hand he does have a point, however there is a relatively simple solution these firms have done to prevent that from happening. Simply put: develop the browsers themselves to stymie such an occurrence. I have doubts that Microsoft would place a feature into IE that prevented users from seeing these text ads on their own MSN search — it would only hurt their ability to generate revenue. Similarly, Google has shrewdly hired a number of developers of the Firefox browser. While the primary purpose was to support a standards-based alternative browser, one should not put aside the ulterior motive. Smart play on their part.
With that said, there are extensions available for browsers that do block these ads, but again, I have my doubts that even a small majority of users will install them en masse anytime soon. It could happen down the road, which could be on driving force behind the continued expansion of Google, Yahoo and MSN into other markets and services independent of text ads (such as BPL).