Ringjacker is an application may point the to the future of extreme viral marketing.

Recently demonstrated in IMS World Forum 2007, ringjacker permits you to make a VoIP call on Skype by sending a ringtone - which will ring instantly at the recipient's end. And if the recipient happens to like the tune, then he has the option to buy it instantly (if it's available as an OTA* download).

Basically, Ringjacker is avante garde because it offers instant consumnation of sale along with the viral marketing message !

Of course, this is a sign of increasing privacy-related issues on the Web. And it also reminds us that we are in the "millenium of security issues" !

* OTA stands for "over-the-air provisioning" : the ability to download & install content over a wireless network on demand.


Ad Banners on Google.com?
Google as a company was never really focussed on promoting ads on its online properties. But that just could be about to change drastically.

Google's plans to encourage more people to log in to its home page is close to a "runaway" success. With millions of users creating their personal pages on Google.com, its popularity has already overtaken Google Maps and even G-mail.

Why is Google interested in bringing more surfers (read: searchers) to its site? Obviously, because it is interested in collecting more significant, up-to-date information on current interests & data preferences of Web surfers. (This data is continuously crunched by Google's software to better understand surfers/searchers and optimize the trillions of search requests it routinely processes with devastating efficiency.)

Of course, there could be more to all this than just optimizing searches! Take for example, the fact that its paid over $ 1.6 billion for leading video sharing site YouTube.com many months ago. (For which it has received zero returns till date.) Add its recent about-to-be-acquired online ad serving co. DoubleClick for which it has committed to pay over $ 3.1 billion.

Suddenly, it seems almost imperative that Google focusses on generating ad revenues based around these acquisitions. And what better way than to encourage surfers to create user-defined home pages?