Dotomi, a advertising technology company that I have been watching with interest, has closed a round of funding.

[from Dotomi Closes $10.5 Million Round of Funding press release]

Boston, Mass. -- September 27th, 2004 -- Dotomi, the leader of online customer retention for permission-based messaging between marketers and consumers, today announced the closing of $10.5 million dollars in funding led by Investor Growth Capital ("IGC"), a new Dotomi investor. Existing investor U.S. Venture Partners ("USVP") and new investor Velocity Equity Partners also participated in the round. The funding will be used to grow the Company's sales force and marketing programs to continue to position Dotomi Direct MessagingTM as the best one-to-one communication channel for building and retaining strong online marketer-consumer relationships.

[...]

Jupiter states that over the course of 2003, the average U.S. online consumer received 3,920 unwanted commercial e-mail messages. This number will grow to reach an outrageous total of 6,395 by the end of 2008. However, contrary to popular belief, spam is not the greatest barrier to reaching consumers. Rather, it is the volume of messages sent by legitimate marketers. Dotomi solves this communication problem by providing the benefits of data-driven messages similar to e-mail marketing, but delivered unobtrusively in the ad banner space – finding customers as they surf the Web.

You heard it from me. Keep your eyes on this. Just like the email and Internet open addressing models led to the woes of spam and pop-up ads, presence and permission-based advertising offers us a way out.