John Battelle pointed me to an excellent article by Kevin Kelly called “A new corner in the future of advertising“. In this in-depth analysis Kevin suggests that the introduction of Google Gadget adds might lead to a future in which the publisher, that is you, chooses which adds can be displays. I talked earlier about such a future, although I speculated on it from a user/consumer perspective. For more on this see here. Kevin shows that the technology is there to do this. He also describes a model in which more traditional advertising (advertiser decides which ad goes where) can live side by side in a world where you decide. I really like this. Not only can it help reduce the number of non-interesting adds I am confronted with on the Internet, but I think if we can unleash the creativity of the community, adds might just become fun! I had a great time looking at some of the best community made commercials for Firefox. I like this one for example. Who knows, advertisement might just become fun again.
A new corner in the future of advertising
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@vanelsas 
Not only fun, but I think we could get to a point where ads become almost *features* (gasp!). But to reach that point, like you say, the consumer has to have some say in the matter — consumer-generated advertising. I don’t mean this in the creative/production way, but in the way of “advertise this sort of stuff to me”.
I don’t think this will work with explicit data — too much to ask for from the user. We’re working on using implicit profiling data, but then coupling a value proposition to that data (not the ads BTW) and offering 100% control.
Jordan, thanks for your comment. I agree with you on tyour remark “advertise this to me”. I don’t want to put too much effort in ads, but if I am going to see them, why not ensure I get the intersting ones. A simple solution might be to let the user simply select categories of advertisement. I’m into sports today, or beer or whatever. Or, let the user simply select a mood button (feeling gloomy) , or a profile button (i’m a metro guy), and the ads can match the user selection. Any takes on this? Other simple ideas that might just work?
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In general, I have doubt that anyone can count on users to provide explicit clues/indications. I think they expect publishers to figure it out for them, and the challenge is to directly couple the act of profiling to user value — in order to drive that virtuous cycle.