I have since been to confession at the Birmingham Apple store to be absolved of my guilt.

A “fondleslab”, for those not down with the kids, describes any portable touch screen device so beloved by its owner that it is incessantly fondled in public.

I swapped the faithful fag packet and lighter combination (which served a similar social purpose) for an iPhone a few years ago, but now, to keep down with the kids, I need an iPad 2.

But it occurred to me that my unquestioned loyalty to Apple needed questioning.

Why did I want to pay over the odds for a hard-to-get-hold-of tablet when there were a plethora of cheaper Android alternatives on the market?

Android is an open source mobile software platform donated by Google to the smartphone world, now adopted by most major phone manufacturers.

The more cynical looked for an ulterior motive than altruism and found one when it was discovered that Android allowed phones to be track via the WiFi connections they made and helped Google to deliver location-based advertising services.

It is reported that if you have an Android phone, Google knows where you are to within 89 feet of where you are sat.

Then it turns out that my iPhone was recording the same location data (for Apple’s own permission-based location services) and due to a bug, anyone clever enough could access a year’s worth of my movements.

Of course the platform with the better social media applications will be triumphant – you knew the S&M word would have to popup sooner or later, didn’t you?

Some surveys report that more than 50 per cent of social networking is now done on the move and the take-up of mobile-specific features such as FourSquare and Facebook “check-ins” suggest few have a problem divulging their location.

I understand this is an exciting development for brands wanting to engage in context of location, but personally don’t want anyone to know were I’m when I’m fondling a slab.

Once again, I woke up this morning to the fat opera singer, belting out that annoying jingle. The wife’s insistence on watching Sky News, at an inhumanly early hour, means I’m bombarded with ads before I’ve even had a cup of tea!

So instead of getting mad, I’m going to exact social-media-revenge on the insurance price comparison site by telling you that I was thanking my unlucky stars the last time I went to GoCompare.com.

The insurance firm that appeared at the top of their results page reneged on the quote that got them there, then hassled me by phone with hard sell. Ah – now that feels much better. So, on to the main point of this blog. I wonder how many of us after the World Cup, will be driving a Hyundai, drinking Lucozade or Castrol GTX for that matter, or flying Emirates this summer?

More generally, I don’t have a cat or eat dog food and I don’t wear nappies. I seldom purchase female hygiene products and, being follically challenged, have absolutely no use for shampoo, however life enhancing it appears to be.

Don’t these brands know they are wasting their money selling to me?

More importantly don’t they know I’m not alone?

Don’ t they know we are living in the Post Advertising age?

Or the Post-Interruptive advertising age at least, where people consume media at a time and place of their choosing and filter out TV adverts both mentally and physically via DVRs and on-demand services.

Perhaps that’s why the brands that still have budgets to waste on TV are clamouring for world cup slots, as live TV events are the last bastion of this old fashioned, poorly targeted advertising model. But, given the modern consumer is a more critical, cynical and in my case irritable audience, the potential to damage a brand by annoying them has never been more real.

I, like most, would rather have seen Stevie-G’s goal against the USA than the Hyundai ad ITV-HD decided to broadcast on Saturday and will now never ever buy one. And carpet bombing news channels with a jiggle more annoying than a stadium full of vuvuzelas is never going to turn me into an advocate.

Since last August, Mr Murdoch has been threatening to charge for access to The Sun and Times Online by erecting a so-called ‘paywall’ around the online versions of his publications.

Read: Simon Heath‘s blog Murdoch on the defensive (6/08/2009) for background.

So why has he not done so yet?

The question is – given so many free alternatives, the BBC and Google News for instance, will people stump up the cash? Even Mr Murdoch is not sure of the answer.

The likely scenario is that if a paywall goes up, no one will visit the sites and advertisers, the major source of News Corps’s revenue, will go elsewhere.

The crux of the matter is this: old-fashioned newspaper moguls are used to having their cake and eating it.

Back in Jurassic era, they could monetise news and monetise audiences at the same time. They charged their subscribers for content then sold them, or at least their attention, to advertisers.

The industry blames tight consumers for not wanting to pay for “quality” journalism, but perhaps they have just wised up to this double wammy.

I personally think paying £30 a month for Sky Sports to watch England play cricket is a bit steep. But then to be subjected to an advert between every over is taking the mickey.

Murdoch understandably hates the BBC because they don’t have to make this choice between subscribers and advertisers. They don’t need advertisers because UK law makes anyone who owns a television their subscribers.

His gripe against Google is even more understandable, they being the rather large cuckoo that has taking over his media nest. But to prevent people from finding his content via search engines would decimate traffic to his websites and devalue their advertising real-estate.

No, the only way Murdoch can safely put up a paywall and bar Google, is if all his competitors do so at the same time and that is unlikely to happen.

Related links : Anna Blackaby – Problem with great paywall of News International

Update: 19-Nov-2009

Seems Rupert hasn’t taken my advice – further plans for the Murdoch paywall have been revealed according to Brand Republic article.

However, how many people do you know would be prepared to pay £1 a day to access the Times Website ?

friend

“If you’ve no desire to go on Facebook, think Twitter is full of twaddle, haven’t got the slightest inclination to write a blog and ignore all invites from Linkedin, you’re probably a director of a successful company!”

Read more: The Reluctant MD’s Guide to Social Media

The mistrust built up by ad men trying to brainwash us into thinking that naff products will change our lives has tarnished even the advertisements of those that actually can.

“Advertising is dead, long live social media” seems to be my current mantra and it’s not making me many new friends (well not in advertising at least).

Don’t blame me, I’m just the messenger. Consumers migrating from traditional broadcast media to online is the root cause of the problem, but perhaps I could deliver the message with less schadenfreude.

Of course advertising is migrating online too. The problem is that for every ten pounds lost in offline ad sales only one is gained in online banner sales.

Great news for brands wanting their ad spend to go further, if indeed straight advertising works online. Bad news for traditional media owners, even if they have managed to migrate their publication to the web.

The bulk of online advertising spend currently goes into Google’s pockets, paid-search being the ultimate in highly targeted no-waste advertising, but offering little for those wanting to build brands, the traditional role of advertising.

Man’s new best friend, the iPhone, could present salvation for advertising. Its impending new software release, with its ad friendly features, could breathe new life into online advertising, given the trend to surf while on the move.

Strangely enough it is social media that presents the best opportunity for the future of advertising, despite consumers using social networking to gang up on errant corporations and ridicule their marketing messages.

For the right brands, the highly targeted world of Facebook is one of the better places to advertise, but only in support of more subtle social media marketing activity.

The message on Facebook banners needs to change from “click here to buy this” to  “become our friend” and by implication benefit from a two-way relationship.

In this social media world of openness and sharing, the less we look like we are trying to sell stuff the better!

We need a new breed of ad men, who are acutely aware that advertising in the social media space can start conversations about their brands but not control consumers conclusions.

Ironically, if the web has scuppered the adverting industry, by morphing into a social media platform, it might actually get advertising afloat again.