Tables have turned since the ousting of former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel, with Jerry Yang regaining control, companies have been bought, and Yahoo is again heading upward. One area still lacks however, advertising.

Yahoo has been slow to market with their online advertising solutions. Microsoft and especially Google still have them beat in this area. Is that about to change? Yahoo has developed some kind of patent pending "SmartAds". This new ad platform will allow marketers to deliver powerful and direct ads to a highly targeted audience. The new technology will automatically convert marketer's creative campaign elements with targeted offerings, and turn them into some kind of highly customized and relevant display ad. The SmartAds are powered by Yahoo's demographic and geographic targeting capabilities. So for example, if a user did a simple search for Pizza, and they had Santa Monica selected as their default location in Yahoo Weather, an appropriate ad would be put together and served based on what Yahoo has compiled on the user.

Yahoo has done their research, and believes this is what marketers want from online advertising. Can this new tailored approach that customizes marketing messages based on consumers help Yahoo in their quest to gain strength in the online advertising realm? Sounds very promising. Nobody wants untargeted ads appearing all the time, that just distracting. But display an ad that speaks directly to me and although scary, I might be enticed click it.