• Seattlepi.com, Wednesday, December 12, 2007 2:15 PM

Omar Tawakol has left his position at Medio Systems to head up an online marketing startup called BlueKai. Seattle-based Medio's technology powers on-deck search for giants like Verizon and T-Mobile -- and Tawakol served as chief advertising officer, spearheading the company's push into mobile advertising.

Author John Cook wonders if Tawakol's departure may seriously hinder Medio's business development strategy, as he helped orchestrate the company's recently inked search and ad deals with CBS in the U.S. and mInfo to power search in China.

BlueKai is in serious stealth mode, with just snippets of information available on the site at www.bluekai.com. Sources have said that the company will be focused on a cookie-based advertising offering that aims to assuage privacy concerns. A Medio systems spokesperson noted that the mobile search firm "would be involved in BlueKai."

Medio's VP of marketing John Kim will fill Tawakol's role in the interim. Kim, former senior director of strategic and product marketing for Yahoo Search Marketing, joined Medio this August.

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