• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, June 9, 2011

I've always been fascinated by the connection between the marketing intelligence world (ie. Madison Avenue) and THE intelligence world (ie. intelligence agencies like the CIA, former KGB, etc.). From what I understand, it really began during World War II when the U.S. military enlisted Madison Avenue to help with propaganda, and that extended into intelligence work that extended post-war, into the Cold War, etc. Of course, nobody actually talks about this for explicit reasons, but my first real exposure to the connection started with a precursor to social media monitoring and tracking – the public relations measurement business.

An old pal, Mark Weiner who used to run PR measurement firm Medialink (no, not THAT MediaLink), once considered licensing some decommissioned KGB technology to help automate its media coverage gathering and analysis process. And years later, I discovered that early Web tracking firms were doing work for the U.S. military and Homeland Security. That makes eminent sense, of course, given the need for security and intelligence agencies to keep track of "the conversation" to identify potential threats, etc.

Well this morning, just before OMMA Social got under way, I came across an announcement from Tel Aviv-based Taykey, a start-up created by former intelligence officers of the Israeli Defense Ministry, that they had officially launched a new service utilizing proprietary technology to analyze real-time data capable of predicting where online users will "be next."

Wow, that effectively sounds like a predictive behavioral targeting tool.

Not sure how Taykey does that, but the folks in the VC field seem to be keen on it. Taykey said it closed a $9 million round of funding from Sequoia Capital, Softbank Capital and Crescent Point, which will be used to help the Tel Aviv-based company to build out a New York City-based sales team.