There are times when technology gets the better of us. Yesterday, for example, the technology driving the dynamic web design at MTV.com created irony when video from the Virgina Tech killing spree became juxtaposed against an advertisement promoting the new "Smokin' Aces" movie -- a film that promises to be full of bloodshed and mayhem.
Dynamic web content refers to an interactive design that places elements on a page in response to various contexts. However, this type of interactivity can also end up sending conflictive messages, especially since studies show that viewers do not navigate web content the same way in which they would read in a traditionanl print format.
To its credit, given the fact that technology can bump heads with social and cultural values, MTV is aware that issues such as this one can arise from time to time.
According to MTV, its news staff makes an effort to "....move on removing such inappropriate juxtapositions...Unfortunately, the system did not react as quickly as we did. We continue to do our best balancing the inevitable byproducts of dynamism."
At the same time, there appears to be a critical flaw in the increasingly blurry lines between news and advertising content these days on the web -- one that places a premium on making money through advertising over the common sense and good judgment of providing reader's with news.
Kate Zimmerman writes about another juxtaposition of questionable ad placement on Yahoo -- one which a reader views a story about the shootings next to an advertisement for L.L. Bean.
Zimmerman notes:
"The contextual ads shown against this story are almost completely irrelevant, if not inappropriate - further proof that contextual ad networks need human editors (or at the very least, a way for advertisers to safeguard against poor placement)."