Intermediads is a new service just launched in closed beta. Developed by serial entreprenuer Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, it’s based around the idea of 125×125 advertising buttons. So that’s it? Not quite. These small rectangles give readers and advertisers very little information. They are basically pretty useless. So the idea is you hover over the ad and a small grey border appears, just like on a Flickr profile. If you then click on the border a small layer comes up with a few options. Check out The Next Web blog and hover over the ads for a live demo. After testing they hope to open the service up for other blogs to use, suggesting this could be a new type of ad network.
I don’t believe the idea is original – but since many blogs run this size of button ad and ads generally are annoying because you have to click away, and ad network based soley on this format could well appeal to blog readers and publishers. If I didn’t have to click away to a new page I might be more inclined to see what an advertiser was about. In fact, I wouldn’t mind advertising nearly so much.
Intermediads is not designed as something to replace your current ad network but as a service that will increase value to your current ads. We hope that by offering more information before people click they will end up being more informed and therefor more valuable as visitors. Time will tell…
Is this ad service based on CPM methods?
@Kjeld: we track more than just CPM. We track regular views and regular clickthroughs but also Hovers (you point at a button), Half A Click’s (you open the extra information layer) and any click in the information layer. You can charge an advertisers differently for each action…
Hmmn. Boris, couldn’t an existing ad network just re-produce your roll-over code?
@mike: . What we offer is a complete solution including tracking and stats that you an install with a few lines of code. Why bother building it yourself (weeks of time and money spent on developers) if we can offer it simple and cheap.
interesting