It Finally Happened
I finally clicked on an ad in the GMail right-side panel. I was reading an email from AOPA, the pilot's association I belong to, and one of those innocuous little links on the right-hand side made its siren call:
Free Flight Planning Software!
I clicked through to check out some interesting desktop software, presented with an exceptionally annoying Flash site nav menu. (Don't believe me? Here.)
If you're a GMail user, I'd be interested to know if you've ever gotten anything particularly useful out of the Sponsored and Related Links sections -- or if you've ever seen anything that raised your privacy hackles. (If you're not a GMail user, and you wanna be, let me know. I've got 50 invitations gathering dust.) I still believe GMail is the best web email user experience going. I just wonder how much longer they're going to sit on whatever RSS subscription application they've got in store.