Times are tough (people keep telling me!), so I can only assume that organisations are going to become more focused on measuring return on investment from online advertising as opposed to the rather speculative approach we have seen in the past. Has online display advertising reached the end of the road? Are there new forms of advertising platform emerging that are worth looking at?

This morning I read about Adap.tv over at techcrunch and was encouraged to read that they have achieved funding at a substantial level despite the current economic climate ($13m second round funding). Adapt.tv is a platform for the distribution of video adverts across the web.

It is increasingly accepted that users are becoming blind to banner and display advertising, its effectiveness appears to be reducing and there seems to me to be a clear need for more compelling advertising. Users are crying out to be engaged and not bored into submission!

With the advent of video based advertising we can start to exploit the media. But what happens when different channels converge. What happens when I am watching TV and want to click on the BMW in the film to find out more about it and book a test drive at my local dealership. Non-linear broadcast is not a new concept but has been slow to emerge. Listening to Small Biz Pod today it would seem that quick.tv would also like to play in this arena. Despite their rather poor web presence their proposition is interesting and worth looking into further. My advice for the day is listen to Alex’s interview with them on the small biz podcast.