From the company's webpage (www.unitedvirtualities.com):


what´s a shoshkele?

Expression Enabling, Intelligent Branding!

Our first Expression Enabling ™ technology is the new medium creation, Shoshkele™.
As the Internet becomes ubiquitous, Shoshkele™ will revolutionize the industry according to the principles of successful marketing and brand building, reaching the right target, at the right time with the right message.
They are a technology that allows Internet advertising to support brand essence as well as productivity. We call this Intelligent Branding™.

Shoshkeles are browser driven, platform agnostic, sound enabled, free moving forms that marry total creative license to a whole new level of effectiveness. This technology does not require plug-ins, and there is no discernable download for users.



Now that you've read through all the corporate bullshit, I'll tell you what these evil pieces of web technology actually do. The real definition of a shoshkele is an advertisement which does not live inside a little box at the top of a webpage. Shoshkeles can be animations which can display anywhere within the browser's window. So basically, you have the same obtrusion of television ads combined with the annoyance and interactivity of a web advertisement. A good example is the one currently (07/19/01) running on Fileplanet (www.fileplanet.com) which displays the shadows of dinosaurs flying across the entirety of the webpage and then swooping into an equally annoying icon-type ad for Jurassic Park 3 which follows you as you scroll down the page. All in all, one of the most annoying and effective advertising technologies to date.