Over at Information Week, Thomas Claburn wrote a preview article discussing some of the themes around next week's Web 2.0 conference.

He points out that besides being in love with the ideas and startups that Web 2.0 is generating, the conference will also tackle the thorny issue of privacy and security.

I am likewise in awe that so many people on social network pages such as Twitter, MySpace et al are willing to share their up to the moment thoughts and where they hang out. This information is a stalker's paradise.

Some of these same folks don't like it when advertisers or websites follow them from one location to the next. Target marketing has to be done within limits, but it is curious that indignation about privacy comes at the same time that so many are willing to tell so much for so little reason.

The sticking point is how much disclosure about what is being tracked is necessary, and when is registration needed, which gives a certain amount of license to keep an eye on user activities.

I look forward to hearing what happens at Web 2.0.

I really like when ideas I've had are validated by someone creating a service around it. Ever since I heard about RSS being used to display product information from catalogs as advertisements, I thought this would make sense in a traditional ad unit.

I created a rough version of an ad for promoting Books That Matter that rotates through our library of recommended books, and the click through rates and sales have been amazing.

Now Pheedo, one of the top RSS marketing companies IMHO, and agency Connect Direct are helping Cisco with an RSS marketing program that takes this idea to a new level.

Direct Connect discusses how RSS feeds can be used to create channels of dynamic ads based on RSS feeds.

Per Howard Sewell, CDI can "develop and place so-called “feed-powered” ads, either in-feed or on traditional Websites, in which the client’s ad is populated by dynamic content powered by the client’s own RSS feed..."

This is powerful stuff. Why have one ad when you can create a number of ads via an RSS feed. Javascript can call up the fresh content while the framework of the advertisement stays the same. This can be done when viewers see an ad the second or third time per day if ad tracking is also implemented.

RSS advertising is taking off much slower than I imagined, but just like XML, smart technology will eventually find its way to market.

If you've seen the Tom Cruise movie "Minority Report" you are familiar with the potential big brother-ishness of targeted ads that know who you are. In the film video billboards change to directly target the person walking by.

Online something that is not so nefarioius is occuring as more and more ad networks and sellers customize their offerings for demographics or individuals. AdKnowledge this week has opened up its AdStation technology which delivers targeted ads through an API. The most appropriate ads based on the person browsing will be delivered on the fly.

As long as their is consumer consent for the tracking, custom ads are appropriate as a way of better satisfying the consumer and the advertisers. I wish that I could go to my favorite sites and only see relevant ads. Amazon.com and Blockbuster know my tastes because of my past history and data I provided when registering, and mainstream publishers and advertisers need to continue moving in that direction.

The annual Ad:Tech awards were held in San Francisco this week, and among the winners were Pete Blackshaw, an Executive VP, Digital Strategic Services at Nielsen Online who was recognized as a 2008 Industry Achiever. Congrats to Pete, a guy who has always shown great insight and passion whenever we've spoken.

The Best Next Generation Ad winner went to HEMA for its Rube Goldberg animation that takes viewers through an online product catalog. Very clever indeed.

The Best Rich Media ad went to Yahoo's ad featuring Gwen Stefani.

You can see all of the award winners here.

The Internet Advertising Bureau has been busy creating new standards for video ads and measurement. Earlier this month the group released a draft of Digital Video Ad Format Guidelines, a necessary step to organizing the countless proprietary video ad units.

The first company has been certified to comply with IAB's Ad Impression Measurement Guidelines, giving the standard some teeth. Video advertising technology company Eyeblaster was audited by the Media Rating Council (MRC), the first company to pass on rich media measurement and guidelines.

The IAB is doing its part in coming up with a variety of voluntary standards to encourage companies to adopt common best practices.

Because rich media publishers will charge higher CPMs, the onus is on the industry to verify their worth. Verifying that ads were viewed as part of the video stream and measuring the time viewed is more complex than your basic CPC tracking, so standardization in how views are defined and measured is a positive.

A new tool called Publisher Genome has been released that enables advertisers and affiliate markets to better track campaign performance across ad networks.

Created by Syntryx Executive Solutions, the software collects demographic data and tracks referals from any of the big networks, including Google Ad Sense, Commission Junction, Blue Lithium, Link Share, Double Click, Performics, Tradedoubler, and aQuantive.

Tracking referals generated by keywords is crticial to reducing the cost of search marketing because you can focus on the keywords that are working. Since many large advertisers use several networks, tools such as Publisher Genome can be helpful in reducing the manual work of comparing reports across campaigns.

Today at Ad:tech Wyndstorm unveiled a marketing platform based in Flash that can create interactive virtual worlds without a download.

Avatar-based worlds have always been limited by requiring users to commit by downloads. Wyndstorm avoids this by using Flash which is relatively easy to implement and ubiquitous.

Flash provides a unique opportunity for advertisers because of its interactivity and ability to draw in users. While I'm not high on virtual worlds as a source of revenue, I can see mini-universes built in flash to introduce people to a company and its products. For product launches big brands could create characters that interact with the product in fun ways.

Flash is a nightmare today from an SEO standpoint, so marketers have to develop a marketing plan that will drive traffic virally.

According to TechCrunch, Twitter has begun testing ads in its stream-of-consciousness service.

Twitter has proven that there's a demand for in-the-moment musings and has built a dedicated audience. The company's investors have been patient in allowing Twitter to burn through several million dollars before implementing a revenue model. Hopefully for their sake the company has more ideas than running ads in between the ramblings of users' Twits.

Living off a banner advertisements from user generated content is a tough task, and building an advertiser-worthy demographic around individuals' random thoughts seems dang near impossible. Twitter needs to get more vertical in organizing users and offer some other value-add subscription services.

The three largest terrestrial broadcasters in the United Kingdom are joining together to form an online video on demand service, a good idea that U.S. should follow. According to Reuters, the big three in the U.K. will pool resources to make it easy for netizens to watch ad-supported TV shows online on demand. NBC and Fox are doing this with Hulu, but CBS and ABC should join in.

The TV nets are in desperate straights for revenue and to increase the audience. This reminds me of a quote from Ben Franklin during the revolutionary war, when he urget that "we hang together" or we will hang separately. The competition from internet content providers and cable companies are too much for the networks to handle on their own, so working together is the only option.

Blockbuster wants to buy electronics chain Circuit City and will pay shareholders about twice the stock price to do so.

This is a bad decision at a bad time that will result in Blockbuster's demise. I fully agree with Don Reisinger that Blockbuster is headed in the wrong direction by going into consumer electronics.

Blockbuster's lunch is being eaten by Netflix and video on demand services. So instead of acquiring another digital content company or Internet play (adding to last year's Movielink deal), Blockbuster is going into consumer electronics. Blockbuster has to figure out how to get into people's TVs and broadband connections, and selling video games at retail isn't the solution. Buying TiVo or someone in the digital content arena would have been a much better move.

Blockbuster won't turn around Circuit City, which faces more competition. If anything the acquisition should have gone the other way.

Look for Comcast or Time Warner to buy Blockbuster in about a year and spin off the Circuit City business.