Hi Rick,
Good thoughts and focus. Suggestions for research when thinking about tech and systems that enable revenue and ads: Check out projects from the persuasive technology lab at Stanford (http://captology.stanford.edu/ ).

And see more on influence on Youtube with videos from Robert Cialdini (Here's the first one: the rest in series should pop up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbBT2H74uW0 )

(Those come courtesy of the UNC class I'm in this semester with Sri Kalyanaraman. )