I’ve never been one to do heavy thinking on a Friday, so I’ve decided to tackle a lighthearted issue that a colleague here at SugarCRM mentioned, and one that I’m sure have annoyed plenty of you: Internet marketing.

In case you haven’t noticed, Yahoo! has been doing some tinkering with their homepage, and annoying myself and others in the process. The crux of the problem is the advertisement that’s been added where bookmarks once resided. Adding insult to injury, the old Yahoo! page is not being updated with the latest news, forcing users to upgrade to get up-to-date headlines. In essence, it appears Yahoo! is more concerned with putting advertisers before users.

YouTube faced a similar dilemma when it decided to open its pages/videos to advertisers. Adding fuel to the fire, I’ve noticed many of my favorite news outlets, such as CNET.com, are now selling more and more interstitial ads to advertisers. Whether it’s a floating ad, trick-banner ad, or pop-up, marketers continue to walk a fine line when it comes to advertising on the Web, and given the increasing complexity of Web analytics and related solutions designed to optimize one-to-one marketing, the situation could either improve or deteriorate. That said, I agree with the comments of David Weinberger, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and somebody I referenced on a monthly basis while at CRM magazine, in this article about Google’s about-face with Facebook Beacon, which highlights another dilemma being faced by users of Yahoo!, Google, and others.

“I hope [users] don’t get over it,” Weinberger said, referring to users acceptance of online ads. “There are certain things we don’t want to monetize, even if we think people would agree to it.”