• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, December 12, 2005

At this stage in the game I could easily devote this entire space to the growth and distribution of online video ads, but, I know, to neglect rich media's principal technology and players would be a sin. So, back to the basics we go:

CNET.com has begun running a Circuit City rich media ad inviting viewers to click-to-flick the "pages" of the unit as if it were a print catalogue. CNET had the unit, coined the "Page Turn," tailor-made by rich media shop adInterax, and plans to use the unit with its other advertisers.

DoubleClick last week updated DART Motif with multimedia features, including Flash, Firefox and Netscape support.

Rich media outfit Sonic Foundry has launched a searchable library of video and audio recordings featuring "expert" information on a broad variety of topics--academic lectures, seminars, and reports--totaling thousands of hours of content. The content is all available on the Web, but Mediasite.com aggregates it onto the site, ad-free. The site is supported by Google AdSense ad units, and, according to a spokesman for Sonic Foundry, the company is considering adding more extensive advertising in the near future.