The six cable companies involved with Canoe Ventures -- Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, Charter, Cablevision and Bright House -- will be turning loose the targeted ad technology that has been in the works for a while now. Especially in the midst of the economic crunch, you just know that tax brackets are going to drive the tailoring of the bespoke ads, which go by the friendly name of CAM (community addressable messaging). Fully interactive ads will have to wait for tru2way, so for now CAM 1.0 will swap in one of two versions of a spot, depending on whether the destination is in a zone designated as "over $100,000." We foresee some interesting water cooler discussions ahead as coworkers report seeing different ads at halftime and thus give away some personal info.

One look at a company like, say, Google, and you know there's something to online ads. Cable companies have been working on competitive ad targeting for TV programming for a while now, and tru2way is just the thing needed to close the circuit. Your viewing habits are not all that different from the trail of cookies built up in your browser, so it's just a matter of time before someone brings up the idea of monetizing that information. Of course, TV that watches you will have to walk the line between pitching you ads that are relevant/interesting and making you feel dirty and violated, so expect some pretty interesting times ahead while the boundaries get set; with two-way communication over wide bandwidth pipes, though, you know this is coming.

[Image courtesy simonrules]

Comcast is rolling out its Spotlight program in Baltimore in Q3 of this year. There's a scary threesome involved in the effort: Comcast, media agency Starcom MediaVest Group and technology partner Invidi. Central to the program is Invidi's Advatar technology (no, not that Advatar) to deliver ads targeted to individual users. Before you get too scared by the "Big Brother" sound of all this, consider that Comcast's initial trial of addressable placements showed 38% less ad-skipping; that's a pretty good indication that people preferred the ad flavor cooked up by Comcast. Let's face it -- in conventional broadcasting (and increasingly online as well), advertising is a proven model. So programming is going to be sprinkled with ads; wouldn't you rather have them be personally interesting? We certainly prefer this to the "run the ads louder" approach. The real tricky issue will be maintenance of anonymity; we'll see how consumers respond as TV increasingly watches them. All companies involved would be wise to keep in mind the cost of winning back violated customer trust.