Pudding Media, a start-up in San Jose, CA has introducing an Internet phone service that will be supported by advertising related to what people are talking about in their calls. The Web-based phone service offers calling without any toll charges. The trade-off is Pudding Media will eavesdrop on calls via voice recognition software in order to display ads on the screen that are related to the conversation. Voice recognition software monitors the calls, selects ads based on what it hears and pushes the ads to the subscriber’s computer screen while they’re talking.
Pudding Media is also working on a way to e-mail the ads and other content to the person on the other end of the call, or to show it on that person’s cellphone screen. Pudding Media also asks users for their sex, age range, native language and ZIP code when they sign up. For now, the company is running ads that are sold by a third-party network, but plans to also sell its own ads in a few months.
The consumer site is found at ThePudding.com.
