Here’s a neat bit of alarmingly plausible speculative thinking for you – what if the next frontier for contextual advertising is us?

The gent sitting next to me is an advert for high risk heart disease – the last passenger to rush aboard the plane, snarling at fellow passengers as he marches the isle trying to find space for his luggage, squeezing his plump frame into seat 8E before proceeding to wolf down 2 buttery croissants. It’s a compelling enough everyday drama for the stewardess to raise her seen-it-all-honey eyebrows, and its compelling enough for us to want to know more. If you’re in the business of pushing ads this is obviously an opportunity to push your product.

Sound ridiculous? Well, not really – how many small-time bloggers already rake back a few cents from ads on their sites? And it’s not like we’re averse to the idea of promoting products on our person: think about designer sportswear, or music and film merchandise. [image by Mikey G Ottowa]

By the way, the linked site is the blog of Jan Chipchase, who’s a kind of futurist thinker employed by Nokia to travel the world and think up stuff like this. And if you’re even vaguely interested in futurism (which, if you read Futurismic, I guess you must be), you should really be subscribed to it. He’s a very smart cookie indeed.