• by February 2, 2001

Sorry to end the week on a depressing note, but yet another company - AllAdvantage - has given up on trying to succeed by paying people to look at banner ads as they browse the Web.

A message on the company website states, "We are sad to report that the major changes in the marketplace that occurred during the last year now require that we close the AllAdvantage Viewbar [a window that displayed banner ads while users surfed] and our pay-to-surf, sweepstakes and other incentive programs.

"Since our founding in 1999, the advertising and capital markets have changed so fundamentally that it is now impossible to continue our infomediary incentive programs and benefits, including the Viewbar software."

But there is a bigger story here than just another dot-com closing doors. AllAdvantage.com is not the first of the pay- to-surf players to tank (LA-based mValue went out of business in October), but their demise may signal rough waves ahead for businesses very different from pay-to-surf.

Just a few months ago, when AllAdvantage quietly cut 35% of its staff, they said the company would begin revamping itself into a B2B play. According to that new plan, AllAdvantage would focus on becoming a specialty ad rep firm to sell banner space in software applications - similar to what Radiate, EverAd, and Conducent are doing.

It AllAdvantage less than three months to figure out that idea was a no-go. Maybe I'm extrapolating too much, but could it be that software application advertising is the next business model to come under fire? Will these companies be able to convince advertisers to seriously consider software as an ad medium before they too run out of money?