• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, November 23, 2011

Ramping up for the 2012 U.S. elections, Pandora became the latest Internet publisher to announce it will begin accepting political ads. The streaming Internet music service follows in the footsteps of Facebook and Twitter. The targeted local and national personalized ads will be served  to voters during the audio breaks based on their ZIP code entered at registration.

The targeted political ad message will tap into who, what and where we are at any given moment through search, interest-based keywords, and social signals.

Pandora might have been the latest to tap into political ad targeting, but it won't be the last company. In 2008, John McCain and Barack Obama spent a combined $370 million just on TV ads. This figure is bound to increase during the 2012 presidential election. 

Mogreet also plans to provide support for politicians.  The company's CEO James Citron said next year one of the more exciting forms of mobile technology will target and market politics through video. In 2008, President Barack Obama used text messaging to change the perception of the political world. Politicians will begin tapping into the next generation of mobile, such as location-based services. 

In early November, Bizo teamed with Vizu to better understand where political allegiances fall before rolling out a targeting solution that could secure donations and influence voters. It turns out small-business executives are 26.6% more likely to donate to political causes then executives at large companies. Big business executives are evenly divided between the parties, with 33.8% claiming to be part of the Democratic party; and 35%, Republican.