Over the weekend, I had a discussion about online advertising with friends. The point I made – which I will likely write at length about in the future – is that no matter what any advertiser/marketer tries, the conversion rates will never get much higher than where they are today and have been. Nonetheless, there is a constant inflow of upstarts trying to be the matchmaker of ad and person. In particular, these days there is an emerging ecosystem around social network marketing, as startups seek to the close the gap between time spent on social networks and the amount of advertising dollars going to them.

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