Why did it seem like a natural opportunity to place advertising in smart phone apps (short for applications, of course) when for over 20 years of desktop applications nary a single ad banner appeared? The majority of smart phone apps are more about content and special interests than about the business-oriented heavy lifting of spreadsheets, word processing, project management, or graphic design, but the semantic line has now been crossed: Applications contain ads.

Certainly part of the historical barrier lay in technology itself: The absence of APIs or similar source-driven update functionality was a high wall. At one time, desktop applications didn’t even have self-prompted version updates (oh, for a return to the user experience of Word 97). Today, persistent connection and constant updating is one of the most powerful features of information technology, and it won’t be long before “disconnected” desktop applications feel segregated from the rest of the world. The lack of collaboration opportunity alone will drive the desktop application into…

The cloud.

Ah, the cloud. The fluffy migration that will undoubtedly be a boon to marketers: constant connection, direct eyeball access, a single click away from engagement. It won’t happen all at once, of course. Adoption — getting people accustomed to the idea of their work product residing somewhere other than in their very own machines — would only be jeopardized by the an initial confrontation with ads. But it will happen. As applications of all kinds, heavy lifting or otherwise, take up residence in the cloud, the advertising opportunities will become irresistible.