United Virtualities is best known for its invention of the now ubiquitous Shoshkele, the overwhelmingly successful rich-media format out-of-banner ad. Now it’s teamed up with DreamWorks to launch an Ooqa-Ooqa branded browser campaign in the UK for ‘Shark Tale’, the new computer-animated movie from DreamWorks. The three week campaign will run on www.citv.co.uk and upon entering the site, visitors will see that their browser has taken on the ‘Shark Tale’ branding, while playing a version of the 70’s hit ‘Car Wash’ from the movie soundtrack. In addition to the standard browser buttons (back, forward, refresh, home etc); the Ooqa-Ooqa includes links to the ‘Shark Tale’ Web site and, via links, gives an opportunity to view further trailers. Users clicking on ‘Get Down with Oscar’ will see their browsers transform into a menu to launch the movie clips directly from the Ooqa-Ooqa.

The campaign will also run concurrently on sites in other markets including France, Spain, Holland, Mexico and Chile. This is the first time that Ooqa-Ooqa will be coupled with UV’s high-definition streaming video technology, ShoshtvHDTM (see the Shrek2 example).

On the technology of Ooqa-Ooqa, Mookie Tenembaum, founder of UV says, “Ooqa-Ooqa creates new inventory for publishers and advertisers and brings a new dynamic to the user relationship because the user interacts with the brand both actively (via brand functionalities) and passively (via standard browser buttons).”

During our interview, Tenembaum related with marked “Ooqa-Ooqa” giddiness his long-term plans for this unique browser. Tenembaum is quick to point out that, “All our Ooqa-Ooqa(s) have close buttons. You will not see them again, once you’ve opted out. You’ll never see it again. We don’t install anything. We don’t endorse any of the adware/spyware which in its most extreme is really about ‘kidnapping the user’.”

Tenembaum believes it’s very important in marketing to identify with the user first and the technology second. “Before anything else, I’m a user. I won’t do anything that will pollute my user experience and we don’t want to do anything technologically that will pollute our users’ experience. We give the user control. Whatever the user wants that is what he/she will get.”

UV has won numerous awards for its rich media innovations, and Tenembaum wants his Ooqa-Ooqa to become the standard for the “contextual browser” -- relating it’s similarity to local search offerings for instance. Tenembaum notes, “Ooqa-Ooqa is able to give the user contextually what they define they want. Right now the browsers are not contextuous -- meaning you have the same browser, it does not change. Ooqa-Ooqa’s future is a browser that changes contextually. And it’s not just for advertisers.”

With Tenembaum’s almost mythic rich media touch, some day in the very near future all of us could be Ooqa-Ooqa’ing instead of “googling.” Tenembaum said UV is on the verge of launching its Ooqa-Ooqa browser on several sites, but until then you can ogle it in the deep blue sea, but keep an eye out for sharks while you’re there.