Oh wow ads would be a fun project to hack on.<p>How do you gain traction in that, though? There seems like a <i>huge</i> barrier to entry. I don't suppose adbrite or google like hiring college dropout python hackers, do they? :(<p>Something I'd love to see in ads is the ability to give feedback on them.<p>I <i>like</i> advertisements. One of the things I'll do if there is a new industry that I want to learn about is pickup trade magazines and read all of the ads. My brain has gotten good at filtering out the marketing fluff, so the ads end up being a good piece of information to use.<p>Unfortunately, online ads seem to be taking a bit of a shotgun approach. I'm never, ever going to be buying weightloss pills online, and I wish there was a way of letting content creators know this.<p>I'm also never, ever going to buy anything with a talking ad, or a popover ad.<p>But little boxes with a picture and some text? I'll look at those all day. There is still an ad I saw on slashdot 4-5 years ago that I remember, and have actually tried to find again because the information on it was valuable to me.<p>It said something along the lines of "colo that box under your desk". It was clever, because I had a box under my desk, and I would have liked to have colo'd it.<p>If I could see ads for stuff like that all day, I'd probably buy things from them.<p>If I'm completely honest, I'd probably even willfully give an ad network information about myself so that they could serve me more relevant ads. Make the relationship a mutually beneficial one.<p>I live in Phoenix. There are a number of bars that I go to pretty frequently, and there are a number of areas of the city that I like going to. Tell me about concerts happening in those areas, or drink specials at those bars.<p>There are certain genres of movies that I like, tell me when they're coming out, and take me to a place where I can buy tickets to them.<p>I like DIY electronics stuff. If sparkfun is having some EL wire on sale, I'd love to know about it.<p>Pandora for ads, I guess. I'd love that.