CAPTCHA Advertising: Make Money and Be Less Annoying to Your Site Visitors

Sick of internet advertisements? Like it or not, banner, contextual, and even pop-up ads have become an integral part of nearly all modern websites. While it’s understandable that all of our favorite websites need a way to subsidize server costs, and web-based businesses must maintain profits in order to survive, where is the line drawn?

Just when you got used to the standard forms of internet advertising, a new up-and-coming type of ad is aggressively making a name for itself in the market. If you’re already sick of internet advertisements, get ready to be thoroughly annoyed. Introducing… CAPTCHA advertising!

It’s times like this when I smack myself in the head and say “Why didn’t I think of this?”. Yeah, someone actually has found a way to make me relieved to see an advertisement, anything that saves my eyes the damage of trying to decode some jumbled mess of words is a savior in my book. In this case the savior came as “Invisiline Teeth Whitener” as seen here.

What is CAPTCHA?

The term CAPTCHA, or Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (whew, that’s a mouthful), was first coined by four professors at Carnegie Mellon University. The professors went on to make a variety of CAPTCHA forms that became popular in the year 2000.

The Company Behind This CAPTCHA Advertising

The company, AdCopy, is a new company without any history but it seems they’re legit or at the very least putting on one hell of a show. With physical addresses listed in New York City and Philadelphia, AdCopy is currently beta testing the new form of internet advertising. Advertisers and website owners interested in trying out the service can request a beta invite into the system on AdCopy.com by filling out a short form. The site boasts of a self-serve advertising platform that will allow advertisers to create and upload their ads directly to their system using a simple interface.

Expect a number of ad platforms to pop up in the near future that mimic the AdCopy model of CAPTCHA advertising. Companies are likely to attempt to differentiate themselves with different costs, expanded placement options, improved statistical tracking, and increased opportunities for advertisers to customize their ads. Websites will begin to implement these CAPTCHA ads as they become more widely known and publicly available.

Anyway, I just thought this was an awesome idea and I have this haunch that they are going to be very successful. Too bad I have no sites which required captcha, or I’d be all over this. What is your opinion on this new form of advertising – CAPTCHA ads? Are you insulted or indifferent about this new form of ad poisoning?