Perhaps the most popular of current advertising models is narrowcasting (also known as push advertising). Unlike the other advertising models where marketers struggle to draw consumers in by integrating their ads with existing content, narrowcasting attempts to capture the user’s profile and tailor the advertising to that consumer. "The distinguishing characteristic of this new push media is that it finds you, rather than you finding it. That means the content knows where you are and what you are seeing." PointCast was, and continues to be, the first to achieve notoriety using this model.

PointCast’s Push Tool

PointCast, Inc. is an Internet company that provides free software that, in turn, allows the end user to receive customized news, weather and entertainment on their personal computers and view this information through a PC screen saver or the client application itself. Its main source of revenue is sales from advertising. Advertisers on PointCast pay for 30-second animated ads that run on the screen-saver for a month.

What makes PointCast’s advertising model unique is its ability to send advertising directly to the desktops of target customers, instead of waiting for the PC user to stumble on the ad as they surf through the web. The process is relatively simple. When the customer downloads PointCast, they are asked to provide specific channels (news, weather, sports, etc.) and subjects of interest. With this information, the software is able to collect information and updates on the specified subjects continually behind the scenes and displays the new information as part of the screensaver. This information about the customer allows advertisers to target and customize their content to the people who are more likely to pay for their products/services.