RadiumOne mines social networking to direct ads
When Gurbaksh Chahal was 16, he dropped out of high school to focus on his online advertising startup, ClickAgents.
Two years later, he sold it for $40 million to ValueClick. BlueLithium, his next startup, also focused on online advertising and sold for $300 million to Yahoo in 2007.
Now the serial entrepreneur is deep into his third online advertising startup, San Francisco's RadiumOne. This time, he's looking at social and mobile advertising, and how best to display online advertisements based on a person's use of Twitter and other online social activity.
RadiumOne began as gWallet, its a loyalty and rewards program, which allows Internet users to receive virtual currency for doing things such as answering advertising-sponsored surveys. It has since expanded to RadiumOne.
Along the way, Chahal also wrote a book and appeared on Oprah Winfrey's show and on the reality television show "Secret Millionaire."
He recently spoke about online advertising trends and how the recent mass shooting at a Wisconsin Sikh temple inspired him to start a nonprofit that works to end hate crimes. The campaign begins Nov. 12.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: What is RadiumOne?
A: RadiumOne does social advertising.
Before, BlueLithium was about if you went to GM's website, you'll start seeing GM advertisements wherever you go. But now people go less and less to GM's website, and they interact with brands on Facebook and Twitter (and other social media sites such as YouTube).
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RadiumOne mines social networking to direct ads