Brands 2.0

One of the interesting people I met last night was Jeffrey Tannenbaum, CEO of Brands 2.0. He's a veteran entrepreneur, having started several other companies already, along with some healthy exits. His new product is straightforward - image overlay advertising for your website. It's subtle, but potentially effective, both for content providers and marketers.

They provide an additional point of sale for websites, either big or small - just like AdSense. I'm in the process of adding this to my blog - to get a feel for it. I have a few hesitations about the service, but what the hell, it's worth a try.

So what are my questions/concerns? The issue over whether you have control over the types of advertisements show up in your photos? If you don't, it may seem like you're endorsing a product that you don't want to endorse. What if Starbuck's coffee show's up on an image and I'm a Peet's fan. Will I care? Maybe. It's probably more likely if I'm passionate about a product.

Or how about from an advertiser's perspective? What if your brand is being advertised on a website that doesn't necessarily support your point of view? When ads are shown in banners or along the side of a site, users understand that they're there as ads. When they are actually embedded within personal photos, as I mentioned above, it may seem like an endorsement.

Another issue is that it may inhibit the user experience. Having a website inundated with banner ads is bad enough, but now additional real estate is starting to be taken. When is the whitespace in your webpage going to be used for advertising? I'm sure people are working on that.

I'm also curious to learn about the CPM and CPC model they have - and how it relates to the rates AdSense provides for example. I'd think they should be higher since they're much more visible.

Now if this product's technology can handle those issues - then they may be onto something. For example, this could be a perfect solution to Facebook's monetization issue.