Social Media is Too Engaging for Its Own Good

[Commentary] As someone who has been tasked with monetizing social media continuously since 2005, the single most important thing I've learned is this: The biggest problem with monetizing social media is that the content is too engaging.

It sounds crazy, but it's true. Through years spent working to monetize photo sites, video services and social networks for Yahoo and News Corp., I've learned the hard way. As a result, conventional online advertising -- the publishing model with ads placed adjacent to the content -- feels invasive in social-sharing settings. And consumers do their best to ignore it. In fact, the more engaging the content, the more consumers ignore the ads. And the reality is that social media is only getting more engaging.