5 seconds is definitely long enough to make an impression, and it’s exactly how long Bre.ad pauses on an interstitial page before redirecting to a target link. If you arrived here via the shortened link http://bre.ad/04azuz, you have just experienced Bre.ad.

Bre.ad lets you personalize the ‘billboard’ users see before being taken to a shortened link destination. The name is derived from the idea that when your friends and followers click on your Bre.ad links, they see a “slice” of your life.

YOU customize your billboard image, logo, and text on the ‘toast page’ (or you can choose an already created toast for your favorite brand or charity). You can create a number of different toast pages and bre.ad will randomly serve up one of them for each link someone clicks on that you create using bre.ad.

If you choose to use someone else’s toast to create your shortened link, you just go in and find the toast page (here’s one for Roll Mobile’s careers page) and ‘make a toast’ with it. That means the link you create – redirecting anywhere – will pause on this page for 5 seconds before taking users to your destination.

It’s easy to shorten links, too - either typing Bre.ad/ in front of the link or using the interface on the site. When users click the shortened link they will be served up one of your personalized billboards.

This idea has intrigued Lady Gaga and 50 cent, who have been using the service to shorten links through Twitter. This means LOTS of eyeballs on their links and has caused speculation that this could finally be the way Twitter can monetize the service. One thing that’s nice is that if you are involved with a charity, it’s a great way to raise 5 seconds worth of awareness.

What do I think?

I was turned off by the idea of an interstitial, because it reminded me of pop-up ads and banners that are either annoying or ignored. So from the perspective of both an advertiser and a consumer, I could see a negative. However, in a bit of banter on Twitter, the @breadsupport account let me know that since the banners are user-created, they tend to not be as obnoxious as other ads. In addition, there is an option to skip the ad on the toast page.

I’m still not sold on the idea completely though, because as I went through testing the process, I had a lot of trouble cropping due to their restrictive 720×300 banner size. A standard photo just doesn’t crop well at this size, and I had trouble cropping the icon for the page as well. Again, @breadsupport let me know that their team will help you create your banner.

On a mobile device, the 720×300 banner just takes too long to load. I was redirected to the destination before the banner was even shown. That’s a big mobile FAIL. Sara would *facepalm* right now. However, a shoutout to the @breadsupport yielded this response: “Our engineers are working hard on a mobile version. Standby ” Ok, Sara – regain composure. They’re on it!

As a user, did you land on this page after stopping on a the toast page? What did you think – was it annoying or does it have potential? I’d love to hear your opinion, so leave it below.

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Anne Munkwitz is a Project Manager at Roll Mobile. She is a fitness fanatic and Twitter addict. Suggestions for a BLOG@ROLL topic or inquiries about how YOU can be mobile can be sent to anne@whyroll.com or on Twitter via @RollMobile.