Latest Invention Lets Users ‘Speed’ Through Online Ads

Daisy Rodriguez

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Stan Wong, chief executive officer of VAAC, LLC, produced a voice activated accelerator called the VAAC Army which speeds up video ads when a viewer says the brand tagline to the VAAC Army application.

For this to work, the user cannot use an ad blocker, which is detrimental to content creators.

Ad blockers cut off ads completely to the viewer, therefore the content creators cannot not be paid.

Wong started this new technology in Austin, Texas in 2012 and since then has been available for eight months for the Google Chrome browser, six months for Android devices and four months for iOS devices.

The reason for this app is “to protect content creators from ad blockers,” said Wong,”to have the advertiser get the message through to their viewers and for viewers not have to wait or not have to download an ad blocker.” Therefore, the content creator is still being paid and can create more content for everybody to enjoy and watch.

“If a Coca Cola ad comes up and the user sees the Coca Cola ad and he’s seen it three or four or five times before, he gets the message and he doesn’t want to see that ad again…he says the tagline [to the VAAC Army app]…he doesn’t have to watch the ad anymore. It’s done in three seconds, it’s over, everybody wins.” Wong says.

The goal for VAAC Army is to work directly with all advertisers and sites to accelerate through all ads. For now the VAAC Army app only works on YouTube, however Wong says that their “developers are working on other sites for our app.”

Wong anticipates that if people keep downloading ad-blockers, “all the revenue going out of the industry and content on the internet will probably decrease if it continues.”

Compared to YouTube’s five second skip button, which has a viewer wait five seconds to skip a full ad, the VAAC Army fast forwards the ad in three seconds.

This new technology is currently free for users to download and free for advertisers to give the VAAC Army app their name and tagline for this purpose.