The rest
The technologies above are only a few of the many that could break into the mainstream. In the last few weeks there has been a veritable deluge of news in the online advertising world, with hundreds of new companies making their own splash in the giant Web 2.0 pond at TechCrunch50 and DEMOfall08. Here are a few others that just might be worth following:
Seesmic's slug-line -- the video twitter -- is certainly catchy, and the video platform pretty much works the way it's advertised: as a way to carry out video conversations with users all over the globe. Started by French entrepreneur Loic Le Meu, Seesmic could be interesting for brands in the future, but it currently feels like a community in flux. Still, Seesmic is certainly worth watching.
Like Analog Analytics feels about banners, AdRocket believes the email ad just isn't quite dead yet. Its founders might have a point, with billions of emails sent every year from companies to subscribers. AdRocket is trying to make the ads within those emails -- and they are text ads because images are blocked in most email clients these days -- more useful and relevant to the actual customer receiving them. AdRocket targets its ads for publishers using non-personal information gathered from registration, browsing habits, cookies, and other means. So, the email ad is evolving.
AlfaBetic is the one of the coolest ideas in a long time. Launching at TechCrunch, this translation service/ad network is betting it can be cheaper and better at translating the world's domains than competing companies, a.k.a. Google. The idea is to be able to translate blogs, websites, ads, even comments into 10 of the world's most popular online languages via software, which is checked by a team of proofreaders worldwide and published on alternate language sites for the brand. This means a comment posted on Yahoo Russia will show up in English on Yahoo U.S. Most importantly, AlfaBetic doesn't charge for the translation service -- instead, it gets paid through its local ad network throughout the world.
While all these companies caught my eye, what technologies are you watching out there? Will you share with us, or is it too top secret?
Blaise Nutter is a freelance writer.
