PodZinger today announced the launch of its advertising platform, with free opt-in for podcasters. PodZinger’s service is designed to solve the problem of connecting consumers with relevant advertising in online audio and video content.

With PodZinger, advertisers are able to mine multimedia search data and leverage usage and topic filters to arrive at a better understanding of how consumers are interacting with content. Based on this insight, advertisers can identify the most valuable audio and video programming and deliver the most relevant and effective messages, targeted specifically to the content viewed and its context.

Using speech recognition technology and natural language processing, PodZinger searches words within both audio and video, not just the metadata, to classify content based on topic and usage.

“Advertisers should not wander in to the world of online audio and video with blind hope of finding their target audience,” said Alex Laats, CEO of PodZinger. “With PodZinger, advertisers can craft their campaigns based on real information about consumer intent and usage, aggregated over a broad base of consumers. We are excited to bring this capability to market and share it with our content partners and network of affiliates.”

PodZinger lets podcasters make money by opting-in for free to the PodZinger revenue sharing program.