Andy has a bit about Pudding Media, which wants to monitor customers’ phone calls in order to deliver targeted advertising to them. Oh and give those calls away free. The catch? You’ve got to be at a PC. For that reason alone, Pudding is going to flop. Skype is already (basically) free, as are Gizmo and Sightspeed and a host of other PC-based tools. Andy points to a very cranky Silicon Alley Insider post that decries Pudding Media as “doomed from the startup“.
But there’s nothing wrong with the fundamental idea behind putting: use information gathered about network usage patterns to place targeted ads in front of the consumer. That’s the formula that made Google the largest purveyor of advertising in the world… and it’s MySpace’s bread and butter. If you’re a guy, you get ads for a dating site with chicks. If you’re a chick, you get ads for dating sites with guys. And so on and so forth.

The day is coming, people, when Google does exactly what Pudding is doing–except it won’t be restricted to a PC. It’s be device-neutral and ubiquitous. And no, maybe they won’t listen in on phone calls. Instead, they’ll keep track of who you’re calling (say Joe’s Pizza Shack) and target ads to you (say Domino’s Pizza). Called three transmission shops in a month? You might get an ad for a new car dealer. Very Google-like.