Semantic advertising applies semantic technologies to online advertising solutions. The function of semantic advertising technology is to semantically analyze every web page in order to properly understand and classify the meaning of a web page and accordingly ensure that the web page contains the most appropriate advertising. Semantic advertising increases the chance that the viewer will click-thru because only advertising relevant to what they are viewing, and therefore their interests, should be displayed.

Advertising on the Internet has the potential to be finely narrowcast, i.e., specifically adjusted to the interests of the individual viewer. However, mainstream techniques for identifying these interests—contextual advertising and behavioral targeting—are problematic.
Semantic analysis of a web page provides an understating of its overall meaning in the semantic approach. By comparison, contextual advertising technology bases web page advertising on a keyword scan of the text of a website or Internet search. An automated function loads advertisements onto the web page based on the text. However, keywords can have various meanings. For example, a web page containing the word “jaguar” may generate ads about zoos and cars. The very different nature of these contextual results means that someone’s advertising budget is not being spent wisely.
Behavioral targeting uses information collected on an individual's web-browsing behavior, such as the pages they have visited or the searches they have made, to select which advertisements to display to that individual. However, many platforms identify visitors by assigning a unique HTTP cookie that tracks the web pages they visit. Cookies are the subject of controversy due to privacy issues. In fact, the United States and European governments have taken action towards restricting their use.

David Crystal OBE FBA FLSW (born July 6, 1941) is a linguist, academic and author.

Crystal was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. He grew up in Holyhead, North Wales, and Liverpool, England, where he attended St Mary's College from 1951.

Crystal studied English at University College London between 1959 and 1962. He was a researcher under Randolph Quirk between 1962 and 1963, working on the Survey of English Usage. Since then he has lectured at Bangor University and the University of Reading. He is currently an honorary professor of linguistics at Bangor. His many academic interests include English language learning and teaching, clinical linguistics, forensic linguistics, language death, "ludic linguistics" (Crystal's neologism for the study of language play), English style, Shakespeare, indexing, and lexicography. He is the Patron of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) and honorary vice-president of the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP). He has also served as an important editor for Cambridge University Press.

Steve Rubel is a public relations executive and professional blogger. While with the firm CooperKatz & Co., he advised clients on using blogs in their business strategy and started his own blog, Micro Persuasion, in 2004. The focus of his blog is the effect of blogging on the public relations industry.

Rubel moved to the Edelman public relations firm in February 2006, to help it use blogs more effectively. The firm later came under criticism when one of its clients, Wal-Mart, helped pay for a couple to blog their cross-country RV trip on which they parked at local Wal-Marts. The blog, "Wal-Marting Across America", was quite favorable towards Wal-Mart, but the extent of the financial support was not fully disclosed (any RV can park overnight for free at Wal-Mart, but the company also paid for renting the couple's RV, along with gas and other fees). As the firm's blogging expert, Rubel was a focus of some of the criticism, but he said he was not personally involved in the project.