If you missed Larissa Meek’s interview last week, make sure you head over there and read it. This week it’s Lisa Brewster’s turn to show me her desktop.

Lisa Brewster aka. Adora calls herself “just some girl on the internet”, but if you ask me, she is on her way to being much more than that.

Lisa is taking part in Mahalo’s VLOGIdol. She is one of the finalists and could be the host on Mahalo Daily. If you want to support Lisa, which I’ll encourage you to do, join her Facebook Fan group, send her a SASE and get a free “I want Lisa to host Mahalo Daily” sticker and give her your support here.

It’s a tough competition with a lot of talented women with both beauty and “geeky”.

Lisa is the product manager for StartUp Schwag. The Web 2.0 schwag club. Once per month they will send you a bag with schwag, usually a t-shirt and some stickers. I’d love to become a member, but it’s $25 every month because I live in Denmark. US-residents get it a lot cheaper.

If you want to learn more about Lisa and her many projects, I suggest you visit Sophistechate.com, Lisa Brewster Photography and Technarium.com.

And now for the interview:

What is your background picture?
http://www.skinbase.org/rate.php?skins=40303

Why did you chose that picture?

I’ve always been a fan of basic black, but when I got my Thinkpad I wanted something warmer and slightly feminine. My work computer, however, has a picture of a neurotic kitten wielding a chainsaw.

If you have a personal and a work computer, which program do you use the most on your personal computer?

According to Wakoopa, I mostly use Firefox and Photoshop. I recently switched from Miranda IM to Trillian Astra, so chatting in general deserves a higher ranking than what it currently has.

Which program do you use the most on your work computer?

Outlook and VMware Server.

Internet Explorer or Firefox?

Firefox, of course.

Why do you use Firefox?

Since Firefox has such a huge catalog of plugins, I’m able to customize it to fit into my workflow better. I don’t think I could live without the Web Developer toolbar and Remove It Permanently.

What is your favourite program?

I tried really, really hard to pick just one program, but I couldn’t do it. My most useful program is an open source project called Synergy, which I use to connect one keyboard and mouse to the four computers on my desk at work. My favorite program to actually use, though, is a little known video player called Light Alloy. From the very first time I tried it I could tell that the author really understands how to interact with the user while staying out of the way.

Which program is the worst?

Sprint Connection Manager. I groan every time I have to mess with it.

Mac or Pc and why?

Definitely PC. Even more socially uncool is that except for a few quirks (like pesky windows stealing the foreground) I like using Vista. On 2K and XP I always had to customize the hell out of my Windows install with visual styles and shell extensions, but Vista does more of what I want out of the box. The new start menu is so simple and intuitive that it’s practically genius. There are some great applications that are only available for Macs, and Apple has changed the world of UI design forever (I confess that I have a dock myself), but using OS X just never feels like home.

Thank you very much for the help and best of luck with Mahalo VLOGIdol, Lisa! You can always send a sticker and Mahalo greetings to Denmark

According to experts the use of online advertising will increase by 23% in 2008. This is more than 40 billion dollars, but a riot might be around the corner.

Adsense has made Google one most valuable companies in the world and the ads on social networks such as Facebook help those companies make billions each year.

But could all this be in danger?

A new analysis from Deloitte indicates that more and more users are tired of online ads.

Are you one of them? Do you find online ads more annoying than ads in newspapers and television?

A good example is the latest protest against Facebook’s Beacon system. When Facebook users shopped online, Beacon told friends and businesses what they looked at or bought. The latest statistics show that users doesn’t spend as much time on Facebook and MySpace as they used to.

This tendency might turn Facebook and other social network’s ad-goldmine into a nightmare. There might be some light ahead though. According to the Media Summit 2008 in New York, there are other ways of targeting consumers online, but it requires courage.

As you probably already know blogs can circumvent this. If a blog recommends a product on Amazon, you usually don’t consider that advertising. If you let a blogger tell you what they think about a product, it will remove the suspicion towards a product.

But will companies entrust their brand to the users? Brands like Pepsi and Coca-Cola spent billions of dollars building a strong brand. Will they allow users to play with their brand and values on YouTube?

The companies will have to redefine their brand and if they want the users to be engaged, they have to let go of their perfect image. This transformation requires a lot of confidence and I’m certain some companies doesn’t want to risk it.

Sources: Media Summit 2008, Beacon protests, Deloitte Report

From time to time people are kind enough to mail me and ask me to write about their startup or interview someone. I just love to get these mails. It makes me feel important and a bit like Darren Rowse and Shoemoney. Many of the mails are the copy/paste standard “Hey interesting site you have. Let me tell you about this great product we are about to launch…”-mails. Never mind that. Even those mails makes me feel important…

However communicator, Jonas Thoursie from Yooba was kind enough to mention that my site was interesting and that he found my interview series “Show Me Your Desktop“, particular interesting. Because he took the time to look at my site, I’ll take the time and space and write about Yooba.

Let’s start out with the official Yooba introduction.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So what do you think Yooba is about?

What I can see from the introduction Yooba is about redefining ads. The “brute” with Mr Clips (or Clipsy) in chains, changes the billboard from a boring commercial to a more interesting one. The same thing goes for the displays later on.

You can’t find any details on Yooba.com or on their blog, but the Yooba Facebook group reveals a bit more.

“Yooba lets you create different kinds of online content for marketing purposes. It can be anything from a simple ad to a full scale interactive campaign. Yooba provides a browser based flash/flex application that possesses everything you need to design and create your content. You don’t need any programming or artistic skills. If you just have a creative idea, you can have it published in no time.

The publishing is a simple procedure. You can put your creation anywhere you want. Yooba takes care of the hosting. Since Yooba is a completely web based service, you can work from any computer you want, and you can create and save projects and publish them later.

Finally we come to the evaluation part. Maybe the most important one in a marketing manner. Yooba provides a backend system that gives you feedback on your published content in form of information and statistics.”

I think this means, I can take my boring ads and make them flashy and hip without any programming skills. Sounds interesting. Now I just need to be creative.

If you are interested in joining the Yooba Beta, you can sign up on the Yooba page.

So is Yooba anything for you? Is this a new service or do you know other companies that offer the same?