The Format Dynamics presentation was interesting. As Brad Feld once put it – They solve the “prints like shit” problem. The Denver-based company enables nice-looking printing of online content. If you’ve ever tried printing a document from Firefox or Explorer, you’ve seen super duper ugly crap at its very best. By partnering with large publishers, Format Dynamics should be able to create a premium print ad network. They’ve already been working on this and have coined the term “printerstitial” (cute) for this sort of ad. They also allow for quick printing of brochure related to an ad that you are viewing on the net. The company has raised 4.4M in angel investment and is currently seeking a larger institutional round. For large publishers, this is an easy way to get some incremental revenue and provide an enhanced service to their customers. Something about it gnaws at me though – do people really still print anyway? And how do you know how much they do print? And if they do print, do they just get paper-based ad impressions that we’ve all been trained to ignore?
I missed the Yieldex presentation (but heard lots of clapping next door), so I’ll just let you check out their (sparse) web site. Yieldex is listed as a San Mateo, California based company with offices in Boulder. They help optimize the allocation of online ad inventory. According to their web site, “Every ad supported site, large or small, leaves money on the table, month after month after month. Yieldex provides technology that helps you identify it, quantify it, and recover it.” I wanted to include their logo here, but I couldn’t bear to look at it any longer.
