This week Google has invested in a Silicon Valley startup company called Pixazza, who have developed a system for embedding online ads into pictures that appear when a users mouse hovers over them. Pixazza's CEO Bob Lisbonne says that the system "hopes to do for images what Google’s AdSense did for web pages." The system looks a little like this:

Interestingly, rather than using a complex and highly secretive alogorithm to analyse the pictures in order to display relevant ads, it uses "a distributed workforce of product experts" - otherwise known as people.

CTO and founder James Everingham, said "Pixazza’s unique technical advantage is its crowdsourcing platform. No computer algorithm can identify a black pair of Jimmy Choo boots from the 2009 fall collection as well as a person. Rather than rely on computer algorithms, our platform enlists product experts to drive the process."

Surely it can't be long before Google starts to use this to embed ads into StreetView?

You can read more about Pixazza in an interview with Bob Lisbonne here.