Pamela Parker

A Vibrant Media Competitor?

  |  April 25, 2006   |  Comments

As editorial types, we weren't that crazy about Vibrant Media's Intellitxt contextual ad product. You remember, it's the one that creates ad inventory from text articles online. Within the article, a keyword that has an ad associated with it is distinguished somehow (such as with double or different colored underlines). Then, when the user mouses over that keyword, a little box pops up containing the text ad. Maybe you remember the hubub that ensued when it got out that Forbes was testing the company's solutions. Haven't heard much from Vibrant Media lately, myself.

I did a doubletake today when I heard about an apparent Vibrant Media competitor, Kontera, which just received funding (amount not disclosed) from well-thought-of VC firm Sequoia Capital. And former Jupiter Research analyst and now Ammo Marketing guy Gary Stein is quoted in the company's press release saying pretty positive things. Am I missing something here? I haven't seen an implementation but is Kontera that much more relevant than Intellitxt? Honestly, I haven't minded Intellitxt-type ads so long as they're placed in appropriate places (maybe forums, or other difficult-to-monetize areas) but are they effective enough to warrant investment from Sequoia (which funded the likes of Google and Yahoo!)? Just asking.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pamela Parker is a former managing editor of ClickZ News, Features, and Experts. She's been covering interactive advertising and marketing since the boom days of 1999, chronicling the dot-com crash and the subsequent rise of the medium. Before working at ClickZ, Parker was associate editor at @NY, a pioneering Web site and e-mail newsletter covering New York new media start-ups. Parker received a master's degree in journalism, with a concentration in new media, from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

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