Google Interactive Ads

Google Inc. is testing a new advertising format that it hopes will make people spend more time looking at ads online, and even embed them in their own Web sites.

Called Gadget ads, the service has already been in testing with a small handful of clients. On Wednesday September 19th Google announced that it was widening the tests considerably, which means more of the ads will start appearing on Web sites.

The format allows companies to build ads that include audio, video, games and live data feeds, and to spruce them up with the Flash and JavaScript programming languages. The ads wind up looking like small Web pages within a Web page, and people can save them to a blog or their iGoogle home page.

Google posted several examples of the Gadget ads on its Web site. An ad for a Nissan car lets people type a U.S. postal code in the advertisement to get a map showing traffic conditions where they live. Another for the Six Flags Inc. theme park includes a simple game and a link to “add to your Google home page.”

–PC World, September 19th, 2007