Targeted Ads | featured news

What if mobile ads for games and other apps weren’t quite as random as the standard dating service and fantasy game fare, but actually showed some effort in reaching you, the individual user? An app discovery platform, Hooked, has been trying to do that in the chaotic marketplace of Android app stores. Now it’s looking to add some accountability to those ads by integrating its recommendations into ads for mobile apps and browsers.

Technologies that target ads to specific consumers, rather than aggregate audiences offered by publishers, are punishing newspaper, broadcast and magazine sites.

After years of promises and false starts, TV commercials targeted at individual homes may finally be ready for prime time. DirecTV Group is planning the biggest rollout yet of "addressable ads," allowing advertisers to reach close to 10 million homes with commercials tailored to each household. Dog owners, for instance, could see ads for dog food, not kitty litter, while families with children could be shown minivan spots.

Akamai’s real-time ad targeting solution could well be an important growth driver in the future for the company given the growing importance of behavioral targeting technology in the context of web advertisement. Companies such as Amazon and Google currently use similar technologies to identify user behavior and then offer suggestions or products that might interest users.

Advertising billboards similar to those seen in the film Minority Report, which can recognise passers-by, target them with customised adverts and even use their names, are being developed by computer engineers.

The Federal Trade Commission has been gently pressuring the Internet advertising industry to reveal more information to consumers about how it collects data and targets ads.