A New Twist to Online Advertising

A new twist to online advertising has been proving its mettle among BlueTie's SMB customers and has now caught the attention of Amazon.com, FTD and Research In Motion.BlueTie, a Pittsford, NY-based provider of hosted email services and online collaboration software for SMBs, is talking up "featuretisements," which it says is more effective and less disruptive than banner and text ads. For advertisers or retailers, featuretisements blend the targeting of AdSense with the one-click sale of an auction or store listing, BlueTie CEO David Koretz told ComputerWorld. While working within a Web application, a featuretisement could pop up based on what the user is doing (for example, checking a birthday in a calendar app could initiate an ad from FTD.com); advertisers only pay BlueTie if the user clicks on the pop-up.

Koretz predicts featuretisements will help BlueTie pull in about $2 per user this year, and between $7 to $9 per user in 2009.Computerworld