NuCaptcha – the best start-up idea this year?

We’ve all come across CAPTCHA boxes when registering with websites, and I think it’s safe to say that they’re the traffic wardens of the internet – nobody likes them, but they’re just doing their job. What if they were made more interesting, fun and (dare I say it) profitable?

NuCaptcha is a video ad service that is trying to take CAPTCHA to the next level. The idea is very simple; so simple you’re going to ask why no one thought of it before.

Instead of a static image and a box to enter what the image says, you’re shown a video advert with some letters in it along with the product, and you then enter the letters as normal. For an example see the video above.

The first companies to sign up for a trial of the product are Activision and Disney, so it must be doing something right.

Interestingly this start-up has not been given, nor asked for, any funding. The launch of the product will hopefully give the shoestring start-up some much needed revenue. The company was founded in 2008 and has two offices, in Vancouver and San Francisco.

The company has already developed an API for most of the larger programming languages and a WordPress plugin – I doubt it will be long before this is the standard ‘prove you are a human’ tool.

Each user must watch the whole video to get the code they will need to register with a site. This means the app has an audience who cannot avoid the advert. This is perfect for marketing firms and will ensure they know how many people have seen the video – but how will this affect the viewer, who’ll have to sit through hundreds of adverts just to sign up to websites, could it put them off?

Engage, the company which created the NuCaptcha technology, has said the video CPM cost will be between $10 and $25, or the marketing firms can chose a cost-per-engagement basis costing between $0.10 and $1, depending on the length of the clip.

I would like to think NuCatpcha will put a limit on the length of clips so that it doesn’t annoy the users, but if a large brand offered to pay, this start-up would be mad to turn the capital down.

As this company starts to grow I can see other larger, more experienced firms creating similar products. Google gets much of its yearly $23 billion from advertising revenue, so I’d bet my left leg that Larry Page will be interested in the concept.

The idea brings together two pillars of Google’s product base: reCAPTCHA and Adsense. How long will this site remain the only company to provide this amazing product? Not long, if it continues to grow and sign up big name brands.