SAN JOSE, CA -July 12, 2006- BlueLithium, Inc. has been named the Top Innovator of the Year by AlwaysOn, joining the ranks of past winners Google, Skype and Salesforce.com. Just two years old, BlueLithium is already one of the largest and fastest growing online ad networks and the first to receive the coveted award.
Some may be surprised to see an ad network among the innovators who have been honored with this prestigious award, especially when the media is burning up with news of podcasting, social networking and blogging. In 2002, Forrester Research released a report entitled "The Death of Ad Networks." In 2006, companies like BlueLithium are blazing the trail for a new generation of ad networks. Gone are the days of bulk banners and "spray-and-pray" ad placement. Next generation ad networks are about extreme targeting, behaviorally targeted video ads and "extending audiences" for online publishers.
"It is a tremendous honor for us to win this award, and it's also testament to the explosive opportunities for targeted, next generation ad networks," said Gurbaksh Chahal, CEO of BlueLithium. "Our company is at the crossroads of two important trends: advertisers demanding greater accountability and thus shifting money from TV and print to the Web; and the emergence of new online targeting technologies that are maximizing the value of ad inventory for advertisers and publishers."
AlwaysOn is the Silicon Valley VC network that is on the forefront of upcoming technology and businesses on the rise. In 2003, AlwaysOn named Google their first Innovator of the Year; it was clear that search would rock the Internet and soon "Google" became a verb. In 2004, they honored Salesforce.com, recognizing the disruptive force of on-demand enterprise applications. In 2005, they recognized Skype, signifying that phone calls delivered via the Internet would be a major consumer breakthrough. In 2006, it's BlueLithium-an ad network.
"Companies like BlueLithium are driving the next wave of innovative technologies that are disrupting the old guard and shaping the new media landscape," said Tony Perkins, founder of AlwaysOn. "As ever, we were inundated with nominations from leading companies, and it's heartening to know that tomorrow's thought leaders and technology visionaries are already out there. My congratulations to the winners of each top award - these are the companies which we predict will have the greatest market traction, strongest innovation and most game-changing approaches this year."
BlueLithium has also been named to the AO100 Top Private Company list for the second year running. The winners of the AO100 are handpicked from over 1,000 companies by the AlwaysOn editorial panel based on a set of five criteria: technology innovation, market potential, customer adoption, media buzz and investor value creation. BlueLithium and the other AO100 winners will be honored as part of the AO2006: Stanford Summit, July 25-27 in Palo Alto, California. Gurbaksh Chahal will be featured in the CEO showcase, wherein top private company CEOs, pitch their business models to a panel of VC experts.
About BlueLithium
Based in San Jose, CA, BlueLithium challenges the legacy ways of doing business to help online marketers achieve extraordinary results. Combining a powerful one-two punch of one of the largest ad networks with superior targeting and optimization-on-the-fly technology, BlueLithium creates a unique site network for each advertiser that is customized to their marketing objectives. Reaching 100M unique users or 51 percent of the Web, BlueLithium delivers 6 billion impressions per month across more than 1,000 sites. For more information, please visit www.bluelithium.com
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