Kevin Burton’s NEW FeedBlog

It dawned on me the other day that The Onion (print edition) is a perfect example of a long tail ad network.

I’m not sure if it’s present in all cities but the brilliant and funny guys at The Onion have decided to give their print edition away for free. It’s all over San Francisco. Every street corner has a copy of The Onion as does nearly every coffee shop.

All of the ads are for local businesses. For example, I was at a popular geek hangout iin my neighborhood named Crepes on Cole and noticed that The Onion had an ad for Magnolia (a beer pub). They’re just 5 blocks away from where I was having my coffee. Brilliant!

Now I’m not sure about their ad placement. They seem to have places located throughout San Francisco but a lot of them did seem very close to my current location.

I hope this is a trend that will continue into the future.