We don’t talk about Cooliris nearly often enough. The Palo Alto-based company has done a fantastic job in pushing the limits of interactive photo and video browsing with its 3D Wall, a plug-in for Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox that enables users to enjoy viewing their photos on Flickr or Facebook and their YouTube videos in a rich setting that drips of coolness. If you haven’t tried it and you’re using one of the supported browsers, give it a shot or check out the Flash-driven Cooliris Embed Wall below.
Today, the VC-backed startup is introducing what was always in the cards for them if they were ever going to make money off its innovative product: a Publisher Network that integrates non-intrusive interactive advertising units into embeddable 3D walls.
You can already see the new advertising solution in action thanks to a partnership Cooliris has sealed with marketing agency OMD and one of its historical big clients, Infiniti. Basically, Cooliris will be integrating custom blocks for the Infiniti G Convertible ad campaign into streaming photo walls throughout its freshly launched publisher network, more specifically on popular websites like Yahoo! News, Golf.com, the New York Magazine and Style.com. See it in full effect at this section of the New York Magazine website or just have a look at the screenshot below to get an idea of where the company is going with this.
Personally, I’m a big fan of Cooliris and the way they are going about trying to generate revenue from its product. In the past, we’ve talked about other innovative advertising strategies we actually appreciate, and I think this is what should be drawing the attention of The Online Publishers Association. Maybe that way they will finally realize that just making display ads units bigger isn’t going to solve any of their members’ problems without annoying the heck out of their respective website visitors.
Cooliris on Yahoo! News Photos
Embedded 3D Wall (doesn’t work so well in Firefox for some reason)
