Cleverset Awarded “Best In Show” Prize At Web 2.0 Summit; We Peek Inside

There was quite a bit of news made last week as a result of the Web 2.0 Summit (an O’Reilly conference) in San Francisco. Microsoft laid out its plans to buy up a heck of a lot of startups in the future in order to enhance its Web presence. Yahoo! made news, too, with it’s announcements of new features and upgrades to its star online photo utility/network, Flickr. The list goes on.

But now as things have more or less wrapped up, and all who attended the three-day event have gone their separate ways back to home base (wherever that might be; the Valley’s a good guess, generally speaking) I thought it might be worth taking a look at one particular development, a nugget of the Web 2.0 world, if you will, that, while looked over by a good number of media outlets and online publications, likely deserves closer examination. After all, it was awarded the prize of “Best in Show” at the Summit’s Launch Pad 3.0 event, a venue where (a chosen few) new businesses try to grab the attention of a panel of venture capitalist. Which is no small accomplishment, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Alright, so, onto the main subject. It’s called Cleverset. And it’s all about personalized advertising. Or targeted advertising, if that’s how you prefer to think it.

Now, I know an advertising firm or business or whathaveyou doesn’t scream “sexy” to Average Joe Internet User. You’ve seen quite enough of those countless banners and flashy, graphical, move-your-mouse-over-to-expand-for-no-good-reason spots, and to think any more of ‘em will be coming your way makes you squirm. And rightfully so. You’d think that of all the product placement you’ve seen, you’d be getting paid rather than those hawks putting them before your eyes and ears every hour of the day.

But let’s face it, advertising isn’t going away. It was with you yesterday. It’s with you today. And it’s going to be with you for many, many tomorrows to come. And, well, to be fair, it’s not entirely terrible. There is the non-evil segment of the ad world, who work to show particular ads to particular people in a particularly intelligent way, so as to elicit from the consumer/reader/viewer an emotion of tolerance, acceptance, or even – dare I say it? – a click of the cursor. Yes, there are those in the ad biz who want to make sure you don’t melt down and dream of throwing a fist through the screen. They want to show you something that interests you. You know, cell phones (if that’s what you’re on the prowl for), or computers, or televisions, or novels, or a music releases, or musical instruments, or birdseed, for heavens sake. In short: anything.

Yes, you are the keyword they’re working to understand. Not what’s popular. No, just what floats your boat.

One such outfit is Cleverset. The venture is working to perfect something they’ve called “Me-commerce,” a variable supply of algorithmic technologies that (somehow) enables advertisers to show you things you want to – or don’t mind – see, and is apparently doing quite a good job of it at the moment. Hence the “Best in show” award. Not everyone in the targeted-ad biz gets to share the limelight. The fact that Cleverset was asked to take the stage at this year’s Web 2.0 Summit and impressed the jury is evident that it ain’t just another enterprise.

Do remember, what Cleverset works with are individual behaviors. It doesn’t work on some stupid, time-consuming surveys that promise to chart your personal preferences or anything of that sort. As we all know, our moods do change, and something we showed no interest in a month or two ago now sparks that feeling of intrigue in our heads. So Cleverset operates on a kind of amorphous principle. It’s clever.

Why does this matter? Because it ensures the evolution of the advertising business. It ensures that we don’t have to deal with this constant back-and-forth bickering between us and the advertisers indefinitely. Those putting up the banners complain about the ad blockers used to rid webpages of their spots, and reversely, those blocking the ads tell their corresponding advertisers to eat (bleep), (bleep) off, and leave them to their blissful ad-less browsing. Well, if Cleverset gets to where it wants to be, perhaps the war won’t have to endure for much longer.

Besides, if more people browsing the Web get to see more of what they want, that’s a plus for everyone, no? Generally speaking, that means more clicks. Which likely means more sales of those products and services. And that means more ad revenue for Internet businesses and publications (like this one here).

A nice picture to look forward to, eh? I think so. How about you?