The term "Rich Media" advertising was born around 1997 according to the DoubleClick's report "The Decade in Online Advertising".

The simplest definition of rich media is web advertising units based on technologies more complex than GIF or JPG images and simple animations.

In an article titled "The Evolution of Rich Media Advertising" in 2005 by DoubleClick, out of all the technologies for rich media, Flash dominates overwhelmingly (according to Nielsen/NetRatings, 97% of the ads tracked in 2004 were based on Flash).

The IAB (interactive Advertising Bureau) estimated the Internet advertising revenues for 2006 is $16.8 billion and by 2009, rich media ad units will account for over half of all online display ads by spending, according to Jupiter Research.

As an interactive advertising agency, the chance is you will have to design and develop a Rich Media ad unit sooner or later. Over the past years, we have worked with advertising agencies and Fortune 50 companies to design and develop Rich Media Ads including these Sleeper Cell banner ads for Showtime; this Rainbow Six expandable ad for Ubisoft or Viva Pinata expandable ad; this Age of Empire III full page overlay ad for Xbox; and our latest Forza Roadblock ad for Xbox. We have made plenty of creative and technical mistakes and hopefully the tips below will be helpful to some of you.

• Know the Publishers - publishers are sites (like Yahoo!, IMDB, etc.) where the ads will be seen. Each publisher has its own supported delivery platform and specifications. The bottom line is when you are developing a Rich Media ad, keep in mind that most likely, you will have to develop different versions of the same creative for all these publishers
• Know the Ad Formats - there are currently at least 10 different types of Ad Formats including standard banner ads, Floating Ads, Expandable Ads, Full-Page Overlay Ads, etc. Obviously each of them have their own specifications and requirements
• Know the Ad Delivery Platforms - Eyeblaster, PointRoll, DoubleClick and among other online ad delivery platforms all have their own tracking methods, management tools, as well as Flash APIs or components that developers can use to create the ads. Obviously it's a good idea to know what platform you would be working with prior to the development. As if it is not confusing enough, each platform has its own naming convention for the different types of ads. (PointRoll calls their Expandable Ads "FatBoy", whereas Eyeblaster and DoubleClick (DART Motif) call them Expanding or Expandable Ads)
• Know the Ad Specifications - Different publishers and ad delivery platform have different specifications that creative agencies HAVE to follow. Things you have to pay attention to are the initial file size, total file size, audio format, version of Flash plugin supported (We still had to work with Flash 7 80% of the time), video format supported, etc.
• Know the Schedule - This should go without saying but publishers usually have a non-negotiable delivery date since just like TV, advertisers have to go through media buying companies to purchase time slots and space on various sites. When you allocate your resources and do you budgeting, be sure to allocate some time for the testing and acceptance period (i.e. upload to the delivery platform like Eyeblaster and test all the tracking, reporting code)

A nicely done mashup app using Digg and Snap APIs. http://www.yourminis.com/swfs/diggexpose.swf
I haven't had the chance to play around with the Digg API yet and wasn't even aware that there's an open API for the SnapShots.  Anyone know where can I find the SnapShots API?

There's always loads of new tech aiming to be the next big buzzword for the web, however there are a couple that have the backing to actually make a big push to move things in their direction, Sun and Microsoft.  Sun will be announcing JavaFX soon which seems to want to be an AJAX replacement and more, while Microsoft's Silverlight seems to be gunning for Flash.  While our technology primarily places us within the PHP and Flash realm we're very interested in seeing what these technologies have to offer.  Will JavaFX be compelling enough to bring me back to JAVA, I don't know but it might be nice to try my hand at something new.  That's also another reason for me to check out Silverlight since I'm the resident weak link when it comes to media based interactivity (I'm a backend guy, what can I say).  Silverlight presents a more equal footing between me and the rest of the guys here since it's new to all of us, but the initial downloads (Visual Studio Beta and Silverlight framework) to even start with Silverlight seem way too much trouble for a mere curiosity at this point.   If I get a free weekend soon I may delve into it more, but for now I'll be watching eagerly from the sidelines until these technologies become more widely accepted and more accessible.