It’s official, ads are coming to BlinkFeed. HTC officially announced yesterday that they will begin running promotions in their news aggregator and that the update will begin rolling out soon. Now before you cry foul, it’s not all bad.
First off, HTC is running this as a pilot project first; therefore, only select markets will be receiving the updated version of BlinkFeed. These markets include the U.S., U.K., Germany, Taiwan and China. That’s right, Canada is safe…for now. Secondly, HTC has stated that they will be implementing a way to opt out of receiving the promotions. Now the key words are “will be” which, to me, implies that you can’t currently opt out.
In terms of what HTC will be promoting, the company has stated that in addition to their own ads users will see “relevant promotions of sponsored apps from AdNetworks partners such as Yahoo, Twitter, and Appia.” The ads will appear as normal BlinkFeed posts so you won’t have to worry about any annoying pop-ups or banners.
What do you guys think about this move from HTC? Should OEM’s be building ads into their skins and services?
[HTC]