In examining an Advertising Age slideshow on online ad rates, one of the things that caught Joe Coscarelli's—and no doubt most readers'—attention is that Kim Kardashian earns a whopping $10,000 per tweet when she shills for companies. Kardashian, who has 2.7 million followers, earns such big bucks by hooking up with the company Ad.ly, which helps celebrities make money off their Twitter accounts. Generally, they're limited to one such commercial tweet per day.
But ten grand? "As depressing as that reality is, it speaks to the shakiness of the whole" online advertising system, writes Coscarelli at Mediaite. "No matter how focused the content or how technologically advanced the pop-out, screen-hogging spots are, a simple link from a celebrity spokesperson brings in more for far less work. Does that mean that online content is worthless? More likely, it just means the system is broken—or at least, not the way of the future. Or so we hope." (More Kim Kardashian stories.)