isocket

This guest post is by John Ramey, the Founder & CEO of isocket.com, a Silicon Valley advertising startup.

It’s a little late to do New Year predictions, so consider this a general “5 things you’ll see happen in tech” post. As with all predictions (which some think are pointless), most of these will only be half right and there will likely be one glaring failure.

The point isn’t to pretend we know what’s going on – the point is to document our insights today and benchmark them against reality a year from now. Besides, if I knew the future I wouldn’t be telling it to you for free.

1. The advances in the consumer web (which is what Web 2.0 was all about) will seep into the commercial web. Simple design and UI practices that are lean and user/task focused will move over to enterprise apps. Look for opportunities to exploit this seepage – for example, how could you carry the benefits of Mint and TripIt over to tax software?

2. Someone, somewhere will try to push the term Web 3.0. This is the same guy who starts a horribly mistimed slow clap at a funeral. He should be removed immediately and not invited to the banquet. Tim O’Reilly is exempt from this rule.

3. We’ll start to have an ownership of the lessons learned from the last few years. A big lesson: small, lightweight, single task focused apps are almost never venture worthy, earth shattering leaps. They are a lot better for the end user but they typically don’t shift the paradigm. Continue Reading...

isocket, a commission-free platform that connects buyers and sellers of both traditional and non-traditional advertising, just launched a private Beta. They’ll be rolling new users in and new features out over the summer. Want to have a hand in shaping their platform? You can sign up for the invitation request list here. Let’s face it, the Big 4’s (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL) “advertising models” were a good start, but they simply aren’t cutting it. Revenue per thousand impressions is too low (often less than a dollar) and auto-generated programs such as AdSense aren’t capturing the most value from a publishers content and audience. Publishers and advertisers have little control or flexibility over their advertising, where it goes, and how each dollar is spent. iSocket wants to change the way that buyers and sellers of advertising interact. The incredibly intuitive and easy-to-use advertising platform gives users the transparent marketplace, powerful environment, and tools needed to conduct better advertising. What impressed me with this platform was that it was as intuitive as it was powerful. iSocket’s flexible marketplace supports any kind of advertising, which could include website displays, in-video sponsorships, digital billboards, product placement, or innovative new ideas.Continue Reading...