Historically, the newspaper, radio, and television industries
are able to realize revenue and offer information services to the
public at a low cost because they are able to find sponsors who pay
them to advertise products. The World Wide Web has embraced this
business model; most Web sites include some form of advertising.
Web sites that provide information services fund their operations
through the sale of advertising, and companies and e-commerce sites
can also market their own brands through strategic ad
placement.
Windows Media Services provides support for advertising in a
variety of ways:
Playlists. Playlists provide an easy way to provide
interstitial advertisements during a broadcast. Dynamic playlists
can respond to a client's user profile to target advertisements
demographically.
Wrappers. Wrappers can be used to provide a set of
advertisements at the beginning and end of the client's requested
content. Wrappers are often used to implement bumper advertisements
or lead-in/lead-out ads.
Reporting. Detailed log files and real-time performance
counters provide a means of monitoring the activity of your Web
site and evaluating your audience. Counters that reflect the number
of clickthroughs, the number of plays, and the length of time the
client viewed the advertisement are available for you to use in
billing and reporting.
