Standardizing Online Video Ads

APRIL 30, 2008
Growing the format by reining it in.
The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) is set to publish new guidelines for online video ads on Monday May 5th. The group has been taking suggestions and input from industry members on proposed guidelines for a month.
The guidelines do not prevent new online video ad formats from developing in the future, but they may cut down on proliferation of forms, which can frustrate consumers and make the business of selling ads more difficult.


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eMarketer predicts that spending on online rich media and video ads will account for nearly one-fifth of all online ad spending by 2012, up from 9.7% of all online ad spending in 2007.

"Video ads command higher prices than static display advertising," said David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer. "That both boosts overall ad spending and draws in more dollars from traditional brand marketers, who have been reluctant to commit much of their ad budgets to the Internet."
Ongoing experiments with video ad formats and a lack of standards have, in part, kept the online video ad market from even stronger revenue growth.
Other hurdles have included limited high-quality video content to attract big advertisers and unresolved issues such as traffic measurement, which will be needed to gain the trust of the most deep-pocketed marketers.
As those problems are solved, spending will increase. eMarketer predicts that US online rich media and video ad spending will total more than $9.4 billion in 2012, which is more than four times as much as the 2007 spending level.

For its part, the IAB said that the guidelines and best practices address the most widely used current in-stream ad products, including linear video ads, non-linear video ads and companion ads.
"Digital video has matured beyond the experimentation stage, and continues to be one of the most exciting platforms within the interactive landscape," said Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the IAB. "The creation of these formats and guidelines will allow digital video to continue to flourish on two levels—creativity and marketplace efficiency."
The IAB said that the guidelines attempt to simplify digital video ad buying across multiple sites with minimum common ad specifications for video, overlay and companion ads. As with standardized ad formats in other media, they are designed to make operations more efficient through a common set of creative submission guidelines.
"In general, the attempt by the online ad industry to create standards and guidelines is most often a good thing," Mr. Hallerman said.
Jeremy Fain, senior director of industry services at the IAB, told eMarketer that the standards were designed to make it easier to buy online video ads on a mass scale.
"The guidelines take out the friction, gather the most widespread formats and make it easier for large agencies to buy across larger audiences online—making digital video a serious portion of their online plan."
He said that designers would still have plenty of room to create.
"All of our guidelines are minimum standards so as to not stifle innovation."
Learn how the online video ad market is developing in Western Europe. Read eMarketer's Online Video Advertising: Focus on the UK, France and Germany report.

MediaPost Publications - Google CEO Predicts Marketing To Become More Analytical - 04/30/2008

MediaPost Publications - Google CEO Predicts Marketing To Become More Analytical - 04/30/2008: "Google CEO Predicts Marketing To Become More Analytical
by Laurie Sullivan, Wednesday, Apr 30, 2008 7:00 AM ET
headshotLook for the advertising and the technology industries to grow cozier in a move similar to one experienced by the financial industry during the 1970s.

That's when a set of scientists and mathematicians developed new metrics, and suddenly a generation of employees focused on analytics joined financial firms to maximize efficiencies and profits, Google chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt told attendees at the 90th annual American Association of Advertising Agencies Leadership Conference on Tuesday in Laguna Niguel, Calif.

'There is every reason to believe marketing will go through a similar transition, but the principles of marketing--which are around storytelling, entertainment, targeting and selling--will be augmented by analytical tools,' Schmidt said.

The goal for Google is to develop technology that delivers actionable metrics, making it easier for advertisers and agencies to optimize and measure campaigns. More advertisers will have the tools to expand into multiple markets that can test consumer interest in products and services.

Take, for example, Cadillac's click-to-play video ads. The car manufacturer had its ad agency create 13 versions of an ad, testing them in"

Forrester Report: Global Enterprise Web 2.0 Market Forecast: 2007 To 2013

April 25th, 2008 | Category: Analyst, Forrester, Enterprise Web, Web Industry

In 2008, Business Adoption Of Web 2.0 Tools Is Expected To Grow Strongly

Global Enterprise Web 2.0 Market Forecast
On Monday, colleague Oliver Young (I was involved with the report) published a forward looking report on the growth of Web 2.0 technologies within the enterprise entitled Global Enterprise Web 2.0 Market Forecast: 2007 To 2013. As I mention with every report, you can purchase it directly from the site, or if not satisfied, obtain a refund, as we stand by the quality of our products.

Who should read this report?
Anyone investing in the space such as VCs, leadership at Social Media companies, or those involved in purchasing at corporations for social media tools.

Caveat: Sans services and “organic” sites
It’s important to note that calculations do not include properties such as ‘organic social networks’ like Facebook (which is valued at $15b), nor do they include services (a report I hope to do soon), so the numbers, in our opinion are just a slice of the overall technology sector. For example, in 2008 we project enterprise spending on Web 2.0 technology to account for just 0.2% of the $364bn global corporate spending on software and to barely even register as part of the $1.7 trillion we expect to see spent on technology overall is a useful piece of context. When you think about social media tools for the enterprise, most often, these commodity technologies are cheap, easy to deploy, and often free.

Web 2.0 Expo, a Physical Manifestation
I spent the last two days at the Web 2.0 expo (I was an advisor to the show), where 7000 people from this market assembled into one building. Who are these people? they are the ‘market’;, vendors, clients, analysts, press, media, and users. It was clear to me many mainstream businesses were attending, I’ll take a guess that many early adopters within the enterprise (I was that guy at Hitachi Data Systems) are dragging their boss, and colleagues who were once nay-sayers to the conference to learn. I saw many Fortune 1000 brands there trying to learn and understand how to use these tools for business.

Mainstreaming
To me, last year’s Web 2.0 expo was far different, it was a geek fest, where live streaming was prominent, and there was much more fascination over the tools –rather than the business impact. This year, many of the questions and folks I met were interested in using these tools to improve their business, they weren’t enamored with the latest widget. On the show floor, I spoke to two CEOs who read the report and commented that the numbers looked in par to their expectations.

Technology Infrastructure moves in
SUN (Who’s had the startup essentials program for a few years), HP, NetAPP, EMC were all present on the show room floor. What do they have to do with Web 2.0? In most cases, this is not their core business, but they realize this growing market will need infrastructure and technology to power these websites. I was pushing for this nearly 3 years ago at the data storage level, but I guess I was too early. Another change is the strong presence of an analyst firm, in this case it was Forrester, we were involved with four sessions, hosted a party, and launched a book. I guess this movement really is headed mainstream now.

What others are saying: in agreement and disagreement
Our friends at ZDNet may have misunderstood what we were actually sizing, at first it was assumed it was just “enterprise 2.0″ (internal) purchases, but in reality, this sizing encompasses externally facing (marketing), and is the largest piece of the pie.

The above and following image was posted on many blogs on Monday, where I encourage you to following the conversation and analysis. First, start with Read Write Web (Oilver and I are big fans of this blog), then Andy Beal takes Here’s the Reason Why Small Businesses Won’t Adopt “Enterprise 2.0″, and for a counterpoint, the respected Dennis Howlett The problem with Forrester’s $4.6 billion prediction, I always enjoy Dennis’ contrarion position, it’s needed in the industry. (update: Oliver Young left a comment on his post)

(This post was reviewed by colleague Analyst Oliver Young, who published the report)

Forecast: Global Enterprise Web 2.0 Spend By Technology, 2007 To 2013

How to Add Content to Wikipedia the “White Hat” Way?

How to Add Content to Wikipedia the “White Hat” Way?: "How to Add Content to Wikipedia the “White Hat” Way?
December 6th, 2007 by CarstenCumbrowski | 15 Comments
Buzz up!

I gave tips to people about editing Wikipedia or getting missing content into Wikipedia over and over again, via email, blog comments etc. So I decided to put one up here, which makes it much better accessible for anybody who is interested in this subject. You might also want to see my previous article about Wikipedia article quality assessment.

I consider this the “short version” and it focuses on the content itself and not on “Wikipolitics”, which plays also a role, but is virtually impossible to summarize in a single post or article, without reducing it to a skeleton that is not practical and not realistic at all. The rules for content in Wikipedia are simple and for the most part straight forward actually (even if most people believe that it takes a lot).

1. For every claim made provide a “Reliable Source” that verifies that claim. What is a reliable source: See WP:RS. This addresses the problem of Verifiability (see WP:V). If it cannot be verified and is not backed up by a reliable source, don’t add it.
2. Do not only provide one side of the story or only provide positive things and exclude the negative. This is covered under WP:NPOV, which means “Neutral Point of View“. This is the key reason why “Conflict of Interest” (WP:COI) edits are a problem. If you have a personal or commercial interest in something, then you will have a hard time to be neutral about it at the same time. A sales brochure text is also not “neutral” and the reason why they are removed and whole articles are being “speedy deleted“. Not because of the fact that it is a brochure, but because of the fact that it is not “neutral”.
3. Don’t write your own opinion or thesis about the subject. This is covered by the rules “No Original Research” or WP:NOR.

Verifiable, Neutral Point of View and No Original Research are the three key policies where all other policies derive from. I have a good quote of a guideline on my Wiki Resources page at Wikipedia. The source page (a guidelines page for Wikipedia administrators) where I got it from, was recent changed, but basically states the same as my old quote, with the exception of the addition of “not violate copyright” (WP:CP).

“Wikipedia policy, which requires that articles and information be verifiable, avoid being original research, not violate copyright, and be written from a neutral point of view is not negotiable, and cannot be superseded by any other guidelines or by editors’ consensus”

Quote from WP:DGFA

Some examples of derived rules that are used very often when content is being challenged: The infamous WP:EL rule for “External Links“. Rule of thumb: Don’t link, if it does not serve the purpose of verifiability. There are a few exceptions from that rule, which include articles about companies, organizations, living persons and published content, including copyrighted material that cannot be included in Wikipedia and must be referred to, if no free source of that content is available.

Also implied in this is another infamous rule, used as argument for removal of articles from Wikipedia, “Notability” or WP:N. If you have reliable sources about the subject of an article, then it also proves its notability. If it is not notable, then you usually run into the problem of not finding any reliable sources to backup your claims.

You follow those rules and you will be fine.

If the article is about you, a relative, your business or your employer, other editors like me can help with working on the “neutral” part of an article. It’s hard to change who you are and what you are, trust me on that :) . You should also NOT do the edit yourself, even if the content meets the mentioned criteria, because this avoids the COI allegation issue.

You could fall “victim” to a COI allegation (justified or not), only because you did the edit yourself and somebody finds out about your direct connection and “conflict of interest” to the article later. For changes to an existing article use the talk page to suggest the change or addition. Introduce yourself and state who you are and what your relationship to subject of the article is.

For new articles contact Wikipedians who edited and/or created articles to related subjects already (look for edits that are content additions and not just spam removals, administrative edits (templates added, category assignment etc.) or typo corrections). Don’t offer anything, except for a “thank you” (a VERBAL thank you ONLY). You might be surprised how many active editors might be willing to help you, if you made sure that you followed the outlined rules. Why would they do that?

1. They showed already interest in the general subject by doing contributions to other related articles.
2. Content additions are done by people who did not like the fact that some topics were missing or insufficient in Wikipedia and felt the need to do something about it actively (instead of just writing or talking about what’s missing or bad about content in Wikipedia)
3. The creation of a well written article with good references does look good in the editors track record and writing an article is not as easy for an editor, because he has to spend time looking for references and mentions of the subject. It saves the editor a lot of time to get the content ready and up on the site.

Update December 9, 2007: There is a tool called Wiki Dashboard that allows you to browse Wikipedia and see as an overlay the editors who contributed the most to the currently loaded page. It shows the name of the editors, percentage of the content contributed by the editor to the current version of the page and number of edits made to the article by the editor. This allows you to determine quickly the editors that might be able to help you with your article.

I hope this might helps. Happy Wikipedia editing and cheers!

Carsten Cumbrowski

Affiliate marketer, Wikipedian, editor and owner of the free resources portal to Internet marketing and web development at Cumbrowski.com.

Facebook Launches 'Lexicon' Tool for Measuring Buzz - MarketingVOX

Facebook Launches 'Lexicon' Tool for Measuring Buzz - MarketingVOX: "Facebook Launches 'Lexicon' Tool for Measuring Buzz

Microsoft, AOL: rather flat,
hype-wise

Last week Facebook quietly launched Lexicon, a tool that counts the number of instances a word occurred on profiles, groups and event Walls in its network.

Casual users can compare the buzz-worthiness of up to five different words or phrases at a time. Phrases are limited to two words.

A comparison between Microsoft, Yahoo, Google and AOL found that in a six-month period, Google is discussed at consistently higher levels than any of its competitors. At a rather touchy second is Yahoo, whose popularity skyrocketed between March and April, likely because of Microsoft acquisition buzz.

Throughout the six-month period, Microsoft and AOL remained at the bottom of the graph.

A comparison between the Zune and iPod was equally humbling for the Microsoft camp.

Oddly, BlackBerry and the iPhone are increasingly competitive. The iPhone had a clear advantage in September '07 and peaked buzz-wise between December and January. Since then, it treads water at BlackBerry's side.

Explore Facebook Lexicon, which bears some similarities to Google's Zeitgeist PR tool and Nielsen BuzzMetrics' BlogPulse."

How-To: Using Twitter to Build Brand Integrity - MarketingVOX

How-To: Using Twitter to Build Brand Integrity - MarketingVOX: "How-To: Using Twitter to Build Brand Integrity

Use it wisely

Enterprise blogging has been lauded for its ability to 'humanize' a company and make distant executives feel available to ground-floor customers. Twitter can serve the same purpose much more quickly.

Twitter spearheads the 'microblogging' trend, where people air thoughts and share information in real-time while observing a 140-character limit. Here are tips for getting the most out of it:

Subscribe generously. Twitter is among the only social media brands where the subscriber:subscribed ratio is reversed. Most users follow a higher number of people than the number following them.

Don't just be casual; be personal. Enterprise blogging works best when a blogger is frank about what's happening in his company. But it is generally understood that the blogger will not discuss his personal life.

On Twitter, people expect to learn about you. Only then will they care about your company. The CEO of Zappos generated a sizable following for taking this philosophy to heart. He addresses Zappos employees and Zappos issues, but he also shares the things he saw while walking to the airport.

Be responsive. When you address the CEO of Zappos, he replies to you. The sense you 'know' him contributes to goodwill surrounding the brand,"

Amp Up Quality Traffic With Comparison Shopping Engines » Adotas

Amp Up Quality Traffic With Comparison Shopping Engines » Adotas

ADOTAS EXCLUSIVE — Increasing traffic to an online store can be done in any number of ways. One of the best – and strangely overlooked — methods is utilizing comparison shopping engines. Joining a merchant program of one of the big price comparison engines is one of the least resource-consuming ways to deliver products, services and relevant ads to Internet consumers.

Recent surveys show that the price comparison engines share of shopping traffic is approximately 20%, which naturally strengthens during the holidays and especially grows at the much ballyhooed end-of-year shopping season. This share grows, as more and more Web consumers become online shoppers and online shoppers become online buyers. More than 85% of Internet users worldwide have purchased something online, according to Nielsen’s “Global Online Survey on Internet Shopping Habits,” conducted in October and November of last year.

The price comparison engines marketing programs are designed specifically for online retailers –and their shopping search engines are highly effective. The typical business model is CPC (Cost Per Click) or CPA (Cost Per Action) based, which makes it simple to measure, evaluate and optimize. Boasting tens of millions unique visitors per month, being part of these merchant programs can flood an online store with high quality traffic. Simply put, shoppers coming from a price comparison engine are “ready to buy,” which makes them, arguably, much more valuable than those coming from a click on an ad, e-mail marketing or even a PPC result at a leading search engine.

Technically, the comparison engines use Web crawlers that “learn” how an online store’s product pages look and feel. Every 24 hours this crawler “scrapes” the entire Web site and updates products and prices. The scraped data is then analyzed both automatically and manually to match with the huge product databases of the comparison shopping engines. A well-designed Web site, with product pages that look alike HTML-wise, has a better chance for zeroing down crawler errors and maximizing conversions.

So, where do you get started? A first stop is eBay’s Shopping.com. In addition to easy-to-use search tools, Shopping.com also features millions of reviews from Epinions, making it the largest player in the space, right now. Explore ways to increase sales here.

Shopzilla is another strong opportunity. Shopzilla makes it easy to list your online store’s products and its BizRate division, a recognized leader in Web retailing, customer satisfaction, ratings and research, is a bonus. Learn more here.

PriceGrabber also provides an easy and comprehensive environment for consumers to compare prices and for merchants to reach consumers. Grab more information here.

Comparing prices online is not new. Comparing prices in one unique location, whether it’s a Web site, like those mentioned previously or even a downloadable client, isn’t either. However, what is new is that the popularity of comparison shopping tools is growing and rapidly. And the advantages are those key metrics desired: increased audience, sales, and ROI and conversion to sale.

There are disadvantages to comparison shopping engines, including competition with other stores and risk of bad user reviews, which can influence other users’ buying choices. However, these are every day risks of the Internet and I believe the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.

Google Adding Social Features to iGoogle?

THIS IS VERY VERY SMART!!!!!

Read Write Web
Google hasn't said so, but Read Write Web's Josh Catone surmises that the Web giant aims to turn iGoogle, its start page, into a social network. Earlier this week, Google unveiled a new developer sandbox for the start page that includes support for its OpenSocial APIs, which Catone says "makes this officially the start of a trend we're seeing in start pages to get more social."

In its FAQ about the new iGoogle sandbox, Google suggests as much: "This is not the final network that will be used in iGoogle," the company writes about its "friends" section. "Users will have full control over who their friends are and will be able to easily modify their list of friends. Stay tuned for details."

RWW and other pubs have pushed the idea of social start pages for some time now. The homepage, a users' most visited page, is certainly a natural competitor for a social network; "Facebook is just launching their platform," Catone says in a previous post. For companies that provide souped-up start pages, like NetVibes and PageFlakes (which was recently acquired by LiveUniverse), adding social features is a logical next step. If Google really is adding social features to its start page competitor, don't be surprised if that sparks an industry wide trend. - Read the whole story...

UK Search Looks to Boost Direct Sales - eMarketer

UK Search Looks to Boost Direct Sales - eMarketer:Let's get those sales now.

UK paid search marketers are placing a slightly higher emphasis this year on direct sales than on branding or lead generation, according to the E-consultancy-Neutralize "UK Search Engine Marketing Report."

In another survey, US marketers also said they are more focused on direct sales this year.

eMarketer estimates that search-related spending accounted for 50% of all UK online advertising spending in 2006, and 60% in 2007.

While the rate of growth in search-related spending is falling slightly as the market evolves, annual growth is still remarkable. eMarketer estimates that spending on search rose 57% between 2006 and 2007.

In 2007, E-consultancy predicted a rise of 58% in search engine marketing spending for the year in its "Search Engine Marketing: A Buyer's Guide," with total outlay on UK search engine marketing hitting £2.22 billion ($4.44 billion).

E-consultancy's prediction for 2007 search-related revenues was substantially higher than eMarketer’s £1.58 billion spending estimate. The nature and timing of the E-consultancy survey probably accounted for the difference.

E-consultancy interviewed senior executives from search engine marketing agencies (who were likely to feel very positive about the market’s growth and potential). But the survey took place before the cooling economic climate began to weigh on the minds of advertisers, marketers and consumers. Later in 2007 or in early 2008, interviewees might well have been less optimistic.

eMarketer projects that UK spending on search will top £2 billion ($3.8 billion) in 2008, and £3 billion ($5.2 billion) in 2012.

"In 2008, online spending will be buoyed by advertisers looking for cost-effective responses to the economic downturn," said Karin von Abrams, senior analyst at eMarketer.

"When the world’s financial markets hit a rocky patch, everyone feels the impact and advertisers get nervous," Ms. von Abrams said. "Because online channels are typically more accountable—and cheaper—than television, print and other traditional media, they can help advertisers to boost brand and market share even when money is tight."

Learn more about Europe's leading digital advertising market. Read eMarketer's UK Online Advertising: Reaching Maturity report.

E-Mail Marketing Still Works - eMarketer

E-Mail Marketing Still Works - eMarketer: "E-Mail Marketing Still Works

But consumer standards of relevance are high.

First, the good news: permission-based e-mail is great at getting consumers to buy.

Half of US adult e-mail users surveyed in April 2008 for Merkle's "View from the Inbox" study, conducted with Harris Interactive, said they had made an online purchase in the previous year as a result of permission-based marketing.

In addition, e-mail was second only to customer reviews on Web sites for influencing online purchases, according to DoubleClick Performics' "Green Marketing Study," conducted by Opinion Research Corporation in February 2008. E-mail was roughly equal to search results in terms of influencing online purchases.

Bad news for e-mail marketers included the fact that consumers are increasingly willing to revoke permission that they have previously granted and that the bar for relevance remains high.

About one-third of respondents in the Merkle study also said they had stopped doing business with at least one company as a result of poor e-mail marketing practices.

In the same vein, more than half of US adult e-mail users told Merkle in 2007 that they were only willing to get marketing or promotional messages in status or transactional e-mails if the offers were relevant to them.

"There is a substantial gap between what marketers believe is relevant to the consumer, and what consumers rate as valuable," said Lori Connolly, director of research at Merkle.

"Traditionally, marketers believed that relevancy meant pushing content that is based on stated preferences or behavior, but companies need to update their view of what is relevant," Ms. Connolly said.

Consumer wariness is often justified. Some marketers are the victims of spammers, who ruin it for everyone, according to David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer.

"Consumers welcome relevant, opt-in e-mails from companies they have a relationship with," said Mr. Hallerman. "But the broad spectrum of spam—any unsolicited message—continues to degrade the e-mail environment for all parties."

The eMarketer US Online Ad Targeting report will be published next month. Click here to be notified when it is

Expectant Moms Spread the Word Online - eMarketer

Expectant Moms Spread the Word Online - eMarketer
APRIL 23, 2008

Researching and recommending on the Web.

Word of mouth is as important—possibly even more important—to mothers as it is to consumers overall.

In a 2007 study, mom-focused research company BSM Media found 64% of moms asked other mothers for advice before they purchased a new product. Moreover, 63% of mothers surveyed by BSM considered other moms the most credible experts when they had questions.

Need data for presentations? eMarketer subscribers can download charts instantly — over 50,000 choices. Request Info

Pregnant women and new moms also use WOM more than women in general or consumers as a whole, according to a Keller Fay Group and BabyCenter.com study fielded in 2008.

Seven out of 10 pregnant and new moms trusted what they heard from other moms. More than half said they tended to pass that information along.

NPD Group's 2007 "Juvenile Products: Exploring the Booming Baby Business" survey yielded similar results. Nearly three-quarters of the mothers surveyed received product information via word of mouth or from the Internet..

Women in general have a high propensity to share positive information about a product. According to SheSpeaks, 87% of female Internet users will mention a favored product in conversation and 64% will forward an e-mail link to others.

"Marketers and retailers must recognize and encourage moms’ interest in sharing ideas with other parents," said Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst at eMarketer. "This helps empower mothers in their purchase decision process."

Moms are heavy Internet users. Read more in eMarketer's Moms Online: Browsing, Researching, Buying report.

Tips for success in a Web 2.0 world

By Dr. Augustine Fou

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MRM Worldwide's digital strategist outlines three key considerations for keeping up with the new online consumer.

Web 2.0 has been described as "lots of video," "cool user interfaces that use javascript," "social networking," "word of mouth." Google, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, etc. have been used as examples, as have countless other companies and terms, correctly or incorrectly. But what really is the essence of this new wave of websites rising from the ashes of the first web implosion? And what are the implications for advertising and marketing?

Web 2.0 versus Web 1.0
Web 1.0 was about the tools which made getting information online easier -- HTML, website creation software, standards, internet connections, etc. This led to an explosion of information online and generated the estimated several hundred billion web pages online today. Web 2.0 is about organizing, filtering and prioritizing the vast amounts of information so that the information becomes more useful, timely, and relevant. Web 2.0 was born out of necessity in the current "age of too much information." It also has profound implications for advertising since advertising messages are part of the clutter and people have accustomed themselves to tuning everything out until such time they are interested in researching something for themselves.

Modern users' high expectations
Web 2.0 sites, which include Google, YouTube, Facebook, etc., have collectively set extremely high expectations among users. These "modern users" are impatient -- they want their information right now; they are intolerant -- if a site disappoints or frustrates them, they won't come back, and they are vocal -- they tell their friends about good sites and about bad ones too. In their quest to cut through the clutter and find the information they want, they demand speed, collaboration, and trust.

• Speed: Modern users are impatient -- they want what they want as quickly and efficiently as possible. The simplicity and single-purposedness of tools like Google have conditioned these extreme expectations.
• Collaboration: Modern users expect the collaborative effort of the community to help them filter and prioritize content -- e.g. bubbling up the best videos to watch, recommending the best products to buy, etc. -- so that the users don't have to wade through the clutter themselves.
• Trust: Modern users have highly sensitive "BS radars" and they tend to go back to sources of information (people or places) that have earned their trust over time. Information from a trusted source is extremely valuable to them because it saves them the time of having to figure it out for themselves.

Implications for modern advertising and marketing
The diverse sites of the Web 2.0 landscape have set an extreme bar of expectations among modern users -- i.e. consumers. This fact has profound implications for advertisers and marketers who are fighting for these consumers' attention (to sell them something) in this "age of too much information." Advertisers must therefore satisfy the three key dimensions of modern users' high expectations:

• Speed: Make information easy to find, persistent, and deliverable through whatever channel or device the user chooses to use when searching for information. In a world where consumers tune everything out until they go looking for something, a broad brand message, targeted based on segments or personas and delivered through "push channels" is just not good enough, fast enough, or useful enough for individual modern users.
• Collaboration: Leverage the collective power and input of your most loyal customers (your power users or enthusiasts) to identify, filter, and prioritize the information for the "rest" of your customers or potential customers -- this helps fulfill both the 1st and 3rd parameters of speed and trust and it may even yield specific messaging that works -- i.e. how would they tell their friends about your "wiz-bang" product or service? -- use their words, not your own.
• Trust: Use more "two-way" tactics such as digital/online than "one-way" tactics such as advertising to create truthful dialogs with customers. Sustained dialog and careful listening engenders the trust necessary for customers to reveal insights about what they value, how they buy, who they tell, etc. This has implications for not only marketing messages but also product innovation (e.g. new features, etc.) or even business innovation (e.g. new pricing strategy, etc.).

Notable quotables
Chris Anderson: "Users are seeking more specialized and less generic products -- the "long tail" of retail -- and they are going online in this quest. The beauty of this is that we can observe what they value, what excites them, and what they talk about."

Malcolm Gladwell: "There are enough technologies, services, communities and information online that we have passed an important tipping point in the age of information -- the shift of power from advertisers to consumers. A single user post on Consumerist.com got amplified to the point that a telecommunications giant publicly announced the removal of an anti-customer clause in their terms and conditions."

Seth Godin: "Consumers are empowered with information, technologies, services and peers to tune out all 'interruption media' until such time they want something; and, even then, they get their information not from traditional advertising and marketing messages, but rather from trusted sources who act as filters that help them cut through the 'noise.'"

Esther Dyson: "Modern users are getting ever more cognizant and savvy about their personal information and who has access to it and how it is used. While traditional advertising pushed the boundaries of privacy in its quest for more information in order to do better targeting, trust and privacy are paramount to the modern user. In the next evolution of advertising, who will be able to achieve perfect targeting (to the level of the individual) while respecting and protecting that individual's privacy?"

Dr. Augustine Fou is SVP, digital strategist at MRM Worldwide.

A Web Shift in the Way Advertisers Seek Clicks - New York Times

A Web Shift in the Way Advertisers Seek Clicks - New York Times: "A Web Shift in the Way Advertisers Seek

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
Published: April 21, 2008

Tyler Townsend, a digital media manager who plans online advertising for travel clients at Ypartnership, an agency in Orlando, had $150,000 to spend on behalf of a Caribbean island’s visitors bureau. And this client did not care about branding — it wanted action.

So Mr. Townsend, who once might have made a simple buy on a site like Yahoo, created a complex campaign, which ran in March. He bought ads on Budget Travel, and he bought out Lonely Planet’s home page for a week. He"He used custom ad networks that included travel-themed sites, and another that would put the ads only on high-end sites.

Last year, Mr. Townsend said, many clients were happy to spend money just to raise awareness. Since January, however, “everyone’s retail-oriented. They want as many clicks for the dollar as possible,” he said.

So far, the threat of a recession has not slowed the migration of ad dollars to the Internet — as Google’s strong results showed on Thursday, when it reported a 30 percent jump in net income for its first quarter. But as Mr. Townsend’s campaign suggests, the slowing economy might be changing where those ad dollars are being spent.

Increasingly, marketers are looking to ad networks, which sell display advertising across groups of Web sites. Some networks offer targeted advertising; others, called vertical ad networks, include sites that focus on one subject, like travel or sports.

Their growth could mean a lower share of advertising for portals like AOL and particularly for Yahoo, which is particularly strong in traditional display advertising. (Yahoo will report its quarterly earnings on Tuesday.)

In 2007, United States revenue growth slowed at three of the four major portals (Yahoo, AOL and Google) according to an analysis by eMarketer. The fourth is MSN. Any downturn could also be bad news for media sites that attract a lot of display advertising, like CNN.com or nytimes.com, at premium rates.

In the United States, $21.1 billion was spent on online advertising last year, up from $16.9 billion in 2006, according to eMarketer. Search advertising — Google’s stronghold — is the majority of that spending, according to Jeffrey Lindsay, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein.

According to a report by Imran Khan, an Internet analyst at JPMorgan Chase, ad networks “are growing much faster than the general graphical advertising industry.” He estimated that the top 20 ad networks had earned $2 billion in 2007, or 14 percent of the display market.

The reasons ad networks are thriving are price and improved technology. Ad networks charge much lower cost per thousand ads served (known as CPMs), as low as $4 on an ad network with some targeting, compared with $40 and up for some ads on premium sites like MSN or Yahoo.

“While the home pages are still very effective media buys, the price tags on them have become a little outrageous for many advertisers. For all the growth that has gone on from a site standpoint, there are other ways to amass that type of audience fairly quickly that are more efficient,” said Margaret Clerkin, the chief executive of Mindshare Interaction, a media-buying firm.

The improved technology has helped. Ad networks once served ads to pages where no advertiser wanted to be, like pages that get few hits or those with controversial content. Now, though, many attractive sites are not major home pages. Also, many ad networks now offer targeting (as do portals, for a higher price), matching ads to likely buyers.

For example, if an airline wants to promote a flight from Dallas to Chicago, it can direct those ads to users with Internet addresses from those areas. Marketers can also direct ads by content: a reader on a cellphone ratings site is probably looking to buy a new phone, while another reader on the Yahoo technology home page might be browsing stories about Wi-Fi and not looking to buy anything.

David Metter, chief marketing officer of MileOne/Atlantic Automotive, a group of car dealerships with over 3,000 employees, said that it was possible to “blow your spend” on a home page ad.

“I would much rather get more specific and go to the customers and have maybe less eyeballs and higher quality eyeballs, or less leads and higher quality leads,” he said.

Based on the success of ad networks, some big players are buying their way into the game. Yahoo bought BlueLithium for $300 million last September. Last July, AOL bought Tacoda for a reported $275 million, and in November, it bought Quigo Technologies for a reported $350 million. Last May, Microsoft bought aQuantive, which owns some ad networks through a subsidiary, for $6 billion. DoubleClick, which also owns ad networks, was acquired by Google for $3.1 billion. Dozens of other networks have sprung up — one tally at eConsultant lists more than 80.

“There’s no slowdown in terms of a really targeted ad spend,” said Mitch Lowe, whose network, Jumpstart Automotive Media, handles ads for 12 automotive sites. (Jumpstart was sold to Hachette Filipacchi Media last year for $110 million.)

However, the reliance on ad networks mean that two of their major attractions — that they are simple and that they are cheaper — are diminished.

“These are the gold rush days now for ad networks,” said David Hallerman, senior analyst with eMarketer. “And that kind of counters the appeal of ad networks for advertisers’ agencies, which was to simplify the purchase of ads. And that’s why its unlikely that a great number of ad networks will survive.”

Even given the choice of ad networks, the continued flow of dollars online means that prices are rising.

Mr. Townsend says that his clients were happy with their campaign and want him to do a similar one. Except this time, they want him to hit the networks even harder.

“We thought,” Mr. Townsend said, “for this amount of dollars, we can get you this many more impressions than we did.”

Ads and User-Generated Content

APRIL 22, 2008


Paul Verna, Senior Analyst

Despite the massive size and projected growth of the user-generated content (UGC) movement, advertising revenues alongside this content will remain relatively modest.

eMarketer projects US user-generated content ad revenues of $824 million in 2012, up from $162 million in 2007. By 2012, this total will represent 1.62% of US online advertising spending, up from 0.77% in 2007.

eMarketer’s estimates of advertising spending against user-generated content are calculated as percentages of ad spending on online video and social networking sites. Because the bulk of the advertising activity around user-generated content occurs on video-sharing sites like YouTube and social networking destinations like MySpace and Facebook, eMarketer’s ad spending outlook is limited to these types of online venues.

Related content categories like blogs and photo-sharing were not included in eMarketer’s calculations because they account for a tiny fraction of overall ad spending against user-generated media. Similarly, eMarketer did not include Wikipedia entries, since there is currently no monetization mechanism for this content.

The inherent unpredictability of user-generated content is the main barrier to the emergence of a larger advertising market around this medium. Another obstacle is the migration of ad dollars toward professional content on YouTube and MySpace, as well as on newer sites like Joost, the NBC/News Corp. joint venture Hulu and other network-affiliated portals.

Because of these market dynamics, Screen Digest recently downgraded its revenue expectations for user-generated online video. The company now expects US advertising revenues associated with user-generated video streams to reach $624 million in 2012, growing from $229 million in 2007.

While these ad revenue numbers and growth rates are respectable, they are far smaller than Screen Digest’s forecasts from May 2007, which called for ad revenues of $956 million in 2011, up from $515 million in 2007.

Explaining this change in outlook, Arash Amel, Screen Digest’s head of broadband media, told eMarketer: “Video-sharing is continuing to grow beyond our initial expectations. However, whereas consumption has been increasing, the failure of video-sharing sites and social networks to monetize their assets in a meaningful way has meant that we’ve had to downgrade our revenue expectations.”

Interestingly, even though Screen Digest lowered its projections for ad revenue around user-generated online video, the company significantly raised its forecast of video streams. It is now projecting that US consumers will stream 62.6 billion user-generated clips in 2012, up from 49.9 billion in 2008. Previously, the company forecast 49 billion views by 2011.

Reflecting this disconnect between the expected rise in user-generated video views and the guarded forecast for advertising around this content, attitudes of US marketers and media executives are all over the map.

On one hand, 68% of US online marketers polled by iMedia Connection said established media will lose dollars to user-generated content.

On the other hand, essentially the same percentage of respondents to an AdMedia Partners survey of US senior media executives said the growth potential of social networks was overhyped. Those same executives were almost evenly split as to whether the perceived growth potential of user-generated content was overhyped or accurate.

To learn more about the amateurs who are creating content that attracts professional money, get your copy of the new eMarketer report,

Will Pharma's Big Ad Spend Move Online?

APRIL 22, 2008

Drug companies won't abandon traditional media.

US direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical marketers say they plan to increase their online marketing spending this year and decrease spending on traditional media, according to a March 2008 Cegedim Dendrite study.

Respondents generally said they planned to spend more this year on Web sites, search and e-mail marketing, and less on TV and radio.

Respondents were split over the effectiveness of DTC marketing; 31% said it was less effective than in the past, while the same number said it is now more effective.

Among those who said DTC had become less effective, a plurality (36%) said there were just too many ads in a saturated market. They also cited public backlash and poor media plans as reasons for declining effectiveness.

Those who said DTC was more effective were most likely to credit increasingly savvy consumers who conduct independent research.

Cegedim said that while respondents said they wanted to see more focus on emerging and targeted channels, and less on general mass media tactics, the industry seemed reluctant to actually reallocate budgets to make it happen.

eMarketer predicts that online ad spending by the pharmaceutical industry will indeed increase through 2011, reaching $2.2 billion from $1.2 billion in 2008.

Yet this will represent almost no change as a percentage of total media spending by the industry. US pharmaceutical and healthcare companies spent about 5% of their ad budgets online in 2006—almost the exact same percentage as they will spend in 2011.

"The pharmaceutical industry is in a state of flux or siege depending on your point of view," said Lisa Phillips, senior analyst at eMarketer. "Some of the trouble is self-induced and some is caused by market and regulatory forces, a change in congressional leadership and just plain bad luck.

"In the face of all this, pharmaceutical marketers are sticking with what they know —brand awareness messages—in the media they know best: TV and print," Ms. Phillips said.

The eMarketer Pharmaceutical Marketing Online report will be published next month. Click here to be notified when it is released.

A Web Shift in the Way Advertisers Seek Clicks

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD

Tyler Townsend, a digital media manager who plans online advertising for travel clients at Ypartnership, an agency in Orlando, had $150,000 to spend on behalf of a Caribbean island’s visitors bureau. And this client did not care about branding — it wanted action.

So Mr. Townsend, who once might have made a simple buy on a site like Yahoo, created a complex campaign, which ran in March. He bought ads on Budget Travel, and he bought out Lonely Planet’s home page for a week. He used custom ad networks that included travel-themed sites, and another that would put the ads only on high-end sites.

Last year, Mr. Townsend said, many clients were happy to spend money just to raise awareness. Since January, however, “everyone’s retail-oriented. They want as many clicks for the dollar as possible,” he said.

So far, the threat of a recession has not slowed the migration of ad dollars to the Internet — as Google’s strong results showed on Thursday, when it reported a 30 percent jump in net income for its first quarter. But as Mr. Townsend’s campaign suggests, the slowing economy might be changing where those ad dollars are being spent.

Increasingly, marketers are looking to ad networks, which sell display advertising across groups of Web sites. Some networks offer targeted advertising; others, called vertical ad networks, include sites that focus on one subject, like travel or sports.

Their growth could mean a lower share of advertising for portals like AOL and particularly for Yahoo, which is particularly strong in traditional display advertising. (Yahoo will report its quarterly earnings on Tuesday.)

In 2007, United States revenue growth slowed at three of the four major portals (Yahoo, AOL and Google) according to an analysis by eMarketer. The fourth is MSN. Any downturn could also be bad news for media sites that attract a lot of display advertising, like CNN.com or nytimes.com, at premium rates.

In the United States, $21.1 billion was spent on online advertising last year, up from $16.9 billion in 2006, according to eMarketer. Search advertising — Google’s stronghold — is the majority of that spending, according to Jeffrey Lindsay, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein.

According to a report by Imran Khan, an Internet analyst at JPMorgan Chase, ad networks “are growing much faster than the general graphical advertising industry.” He estimated that the top 20 ad networks had earned $2 billion in 2007, or 14 percent of the display market.

The reasons ad networks are thriving are price and improved technology. Ad networks charge much lower cost per thousand ads served (known as CPMs), as low as $4 on an ad network with some targeting, compared with $40 and up for some ads on premium sites like MSN or Yahoo.

“While the home pages are still very effective media buys, the price tags on them have become a little outrageous for many advertisers. For all the growth that has gone on from a site standpoint, there are other ways to amass that type of audience fairly quickly that are more efficient,” said Margaret Clerkin, the chief executive of Mindshare Interaction, a media-buying firm.

The improved technology has helped. Ad networks once served ads to pages where no advertiser wanted to be, like pages that get few hits or those with controversial content. Now, though, many attractive sites are not major home pages. Also, many ad networks now offer targeting (as do portals, for a higher price), matching ads to likely buyers.

For example, if an airline wants to promote a flight from Dallas to Chicago, it can direct those ads to users with Internet addresses from those areas. Marketers can also direct ads by content: a reader on a cellphone ratings site is probably looking to buy a new phone, while another reader on the Yahoo technology home page might be browsing stories about Wi-Fi and not looking to buy anything.

David Metter, chief marketing officer of MileOne/Atlantic Automotive, a group of car dealerships with over 3,000 employees, said that it was possible to “blow your spend” on a home page ad.

“I would much rather get more specific and go to the customers and have maybe less eyeballs and higher quality eyeballs, or less leads and higher quality leads,” he said.

Based on the success of ad networks, some big players are buying their way into the game. Yahoo bought BlueLithium for $300 million last September. Last July, AOL bought Tacoda for a reported $275 million, and in November, it bought Quigo Technologies for a reported $350 million. Last May, Microsoft bought aQuantive, which owns some ad networks through a subsidiary, for $6 billion. DoubleClick, which also owns ad networks, was acquired by Google for $3.1 billion. Dozens of other networks have sprung up — one tally at eConsultant lists more than 80.

“There’s no slowdown in terms of a really targeted ad spend,” said Mitch Lowe, whose network, Jumpstart Automotive Media, handles ads for 12 automotive sites. (Jumpstart was sold to Hachette Filipacchi Media last year for $110 million.)

However, the reliance on ad networks mean that two of their major attractions — that they are simple and that they are cheaper — are diminished.

“These are the gold rush days now for ad networks,” said David Hallerman, senior analyst with eMarketer. “And that kind of counters the appeal of ad networks for advertisers’ agencies, which was to simplify the purchase of ads. And that’s why its unlikely that a great number of ad networks will survive.”

Even given the choice of ad networks, the continued flow of dollars online means that prices are rising.

Mr. Townsend says that his clients were happy with their campaign and want him to do a similar one. Except this time, they want him to hit the networks even harder.

“We thought,” Mr. Townsend said, “for this amount of dollars, we can get you this many more impressions than we did.”

E-Mail Marketing Still Works

APRIL 21, 2008

But consumer standards of relevance are high.
First, the good news: permission-based e-mail is great at getting consumers to buy.

Half of US adult e-mail users surveyed in April 2008 for Merkle's "View from the Inbox" study, conducted with Harris Interactive, said they had made an online purchase in the previous year as a result of permission-based marketing.

In addition, e-mail was second only to customer reviews on Web sites for influencing online purchases, according to DoubleClick Performics' "Green Marketing Study," conducted by Opinion Research Corporation in February 2008. E-mail was roughly equal to search results in terms of influencing online purchases.

Bad news for e-mail marketers included the fact that consumers are increasingly willing to revoke permission that they have previously granted and that the bar for relevance remains high.

About one-third of respondents in the Merkle study also said they had stopped doing business with at least one company as a result of poor e-mail marketing practices.

In the same vein, more than half of US adult e-mail users told Merkle in 2007 that they were only willing to get marketing or promotional messages in status or transactional e-mails if the offers were relevant to them.

"There is a substantial gap between what marketers believe is relevant to the consumer, and what consumers rate as valuable," said Lori Connolly, director of research at Merkle.

"Traditionally, marketers believed that relevancy meant pushing content that is based on stated preferences or behavior, but companies need to update their view of what is relevant," Ms. Connolly said.

Consumer wariness is often justified. Some marketers are the victims of spammers, who ruin it for everyone, according to David Hallerman, senior analyst at eMarketer.

"Consumers welcome relevant, opt-in e-mails from companies they have a relationship with," said Mr. Hallerman. "But the broad spectrum of spam—any unsolicited message—continues to degrade the e-mail environment for all parties."

The eMarketer US Online Ad Targeting report will be published next month. Click here to be notified when it is released.

Can User-Generated Content Generate Revenue? - eMarketer

Can User-Generated Content Generate Revenue? - eMarketer:

“Show me the money!”

The user-generated content movement is no longer a fad.

In the US, eMarketer projects that the number of user-generated content creators will rise from 77 million in 2007 to 108 million in 2012.

The content is being read, seen and heard, too.

The number of consumers of user-generated content will increase from 94 million in 2007 to 130 million in 2012.

“US Internet users are creating and consuming user-generated content in record numbers,” says Paul Verna, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the new report, User-Generated Content: In Pursuit of Ad Dollars, “across an ever-expanding range of online content that includes video, audio, personal profiles, avatars, photo sharing, Wiki entries and product reviews.”

Beyond written blogs, established media outlets like CNN and MSNBC, as well as startups like video aggregator YouNewsTV, are empowering consumers to submit video clips and still images of unfolding events.

“Since many of the growing numbers of Internet users creating social media are also consuming it, this is a content chain that feeds on itself,” says Mr. Verna. “There is a seemingly infinite demand for content, and there are legions of Internet users armed with laptops, cell phones and digital cameras ready to deliver.”

So the content is there, but is it accompanied by a viable revenue model?

”Advertising revenues against user-generated content are modest,” says Mr. Verna,” and they are expected to stay that way for some time.”

Or, as Andrew Keen, author of Cult of the Amateur, said in a Newsweek interview, “Nobody wants to advertise next to crap.”

"Given the size and level of engagement of the audience, advertising revenues around user-generated content will not approach the level one might expect,” says Mr. Verna.

Nevertheless, eMarketer anticipates US user-generated content advertising revenue will reach $824 million in 2012, up from $162 million in 2007.

To see why, download the new eMarketer report, User-Generated Content: In Pursuit of Ad Dollars, today.

One Place for Your Many Online Lives

One Place for Your Many Online Lives

FriendFeed is tearing down the walls between Web haunts such as Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, etc.

Attention, attention: The latest tech darling has arrived, and it goes by the name of FriendFeed. Silicon Valley is buzzing about the seven-month-old startup, which offers a promising if somewhat messy new Internet service. Part of the interest comes from the blue-ribbon pedigrees of its founders, including Google (GOOG) alums Paul Buchheit and Bret Taylor, who honchoed Gmail and Google Maps.

But just as much of the hullabaloo stems from how the founders are addressing a growing issue online: the balkanization of the Web. People are socializing on networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace (NWS) and sharing pictures and videos on Web sites including Flickr (YHOO) and YouTube (GOOG). But all these activities have been walled off from one another, like separate digital worlds. To keep track of friends and colleagues, you have to log in and out of different services constantly.

IT'S WHO YOU KNOW

FriendFeed is one of the first major efforts to break down these walls. With the startup's service, subscribers can pull together on one Web page everything their friends and colleagues are doing on more than 30 Web sites. The goal is to organize the Web's information in valuable ways, a bit like Google does. But instead of using search, FriendFeed uses people you know to uncover valuable information. To find movie recommendations or news items or provocative ideas, you can tap into the wisdom of friends. "Our thesis was that the best filter for information is people you know," says Buchheit.

The FriendFeed service looks a bit chaotic at first. After logging in, a subscriber sees a Web page with a steady stream of items from people he has signed up to follow scrolling down the screen. A news item on the Chicago Cubs. Photos from a trip in Costa Rica. A blog post about bug-eating bats. Depending on how many people you follow, you can see dozens or even hundreds of items each hour.

But FriendFeed isn't passive. Each subscriber can search, sort, or comment on the information in his feed. Thinking about seeing the movie 10,000 BC? Do a quick search on FriendFeed and you may find two colleagues who advise you not to bother. Want creative vacation ideas? Your friends may have suggestions. And if someone posts a link to a New York Times article on Senator Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) campaign, you can start a debate about his chances in the election among your friends. "We tried to map the natural thing that happens in real life, like when someone mentions an interesting TV show at a dinner party," says Buchheit.

The founders plan to sell advertising on the site, which is free to subscribers. They raised $5 million in venture money in February, so they have enough cash for operations in the near term.

Tech experts see a great deal of potential in the effort. "With the democratization of the Web, everyone is creating information, but what you want is a way to consolidate that information in an intelligent way," says Pradeep K. Khosla, dean of Carnegie Mellon's College of Engineering.

FriendFeed is developing filters and other tools to give subscribers more control over the information they get on the site. Subscribers now sometimes feel they're being deluged. "When Friendfeed came on the scene, it was like a clean slate," says Jevon MacDonald, a Toronto tech consultant who uses the service. "But then it became overwhelming to me. It is pretty obvious that it's in its infancy."

FriendFeed will have plenty of competition. Facebook offers a similar service where people post updates of what they're doing on the site that could be expanded to include information from other sites. Google is working on ways to share information across Web sites and is pushing for industrywide standards so that data from one site can be easily transferred to another. "The important thing for Google is we want to make the Web better by making it more social," says Kevin Marks, developer advocate at Google. "But the social pieces should be part of the Web, not part of separate sites."

FriendFeed's founders are Silicon Valley standouts. Buchheit joined Google in 1999 and is credited with coming up with the company's famous "Don't Be Evil" motto. He met Sanjeev Singh, another co-founder, when the two of them worked together on creating Gmail.

Taylor and Jim Norris, the other two co-founders, joined Google in 2003 after studying computer science at Stanford University. The two helped come up with Google Maps while tinkering with the search service for local businesses and addresses. The four teamed up last year to work on FriendFeed, which launched publicly in February.

For the four young men, all in their late twenties or early thirties, there's a clear challenge ahead. There's been an explosion in user-generated content over the past five years, and nothing, including Google's powerful search engine, has been able to help people easily find the information they want on social networks. They hope to create a new kind of Google for the next stage of the Internet. "There hasn't been a scalable way of finding the interesting stuff," says Taylor. "There are lots of tools to help me publish that content, but few to help me find the relevant information."

10 Billion Online Videos Viewed in February - Up 66% in One Year - MarketingVOX

10 Billion Online Videos Viewed in February - Up 66% in One Year - MarketingVOX

US internet users viewed more than 10 billion online videos in February - up 3 percent from January (despite February's being two days shorter) and a 66 percent gain from February 2007, according to data from the comScore Video Metrix service, MarketingCharts writes.

Google Increases Share of Videos Viewed

Google Sites once again ranked as the top US video property, with nearly 3.6 billion videos viewed (35.4 percent of all viewed videos), up 1.1 percentage points from the previous month:

• Google's YouTube.com accounted for 96 percent of all videos viewed at Google Sites.
• Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 586 million videos (5.8 percent), followed by Yahoo Sites with 293 million (2.9 percent) and Microsoft Sites with 293 million (2.9 percent).

Audience Data (Unique Viewers)

Nearly 135 million US internet users spent an average of 204 minutes per person viewing online video in February:

• Google Sites attracted the most viewers (81.8 million), who spent an average of 109 minutes per person watching video in February.
• Fox Interactive attracted the second most viewers (55.7 million), followed by Yahoo Sites (37.1 million) and Microsoft Sites (27.1 million).
• ABC.com attracted the tenth-largest viewing audience, and its viewers exhibited heavy engagement, averaging 51 minutes of online viewing per person.

Other notable findings from February 2008:

• 72.8 percent of the total US internet audience viewed online video.
• 80.4 million viewers watched 3.42 billion videos on YouTube.com (42.6 videos per viewer).
• 50.2 million viewers watched 539 million videos on MySpace.com (10.7 videos per viewer).
• The average online video duration was 2.7 minutes.
• The average online video viewer consumed 75 videos.

A Widget's Worth

A Widget's Worth

Social networkers frequenting the likes of Facebook can't get enough of these small apps, but developers are still trying to determine how to make money

IEEE Spectrum: People Who Read This Article Also Read...

IEEE Spectrum: People Who Read This Article Also Read...

The recommendation systems that suggest books at Amazon and movies at Netflix will soon bring you personalized news

Good Data to Prove OQ value

Can User-Generated Content Generate Revenue?

APRIL 17, 2008

“Show me the money!”

The user-generated content movement is no longer a fad.

In the US, eMarketer projects that the number of user-generated content creators will rise from 77 million in 2007 to 108 million in 2012.

The content is being read, seen and heard, too.

The number of consumers of user-generated content will increase from 94 million in 2007 to 130 million in 2012.

“US Internet users are creating and consuming user-generated content in record numbers,” says Paul Verna, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the new report, User-Generated Content: In Pursuit of Ad Dollars, “across an ever-expanding range of online content that includes video, audio, personal profiles, avatars, photo sharing, Wiki entries and product reviews.”

Beyond written blogs, established media outlets like CNN and MSNBC, as well as startups like video aggregator YouNewsTV, are empowering consumers to submit video clips and still images of unfolding events.

“Since many of the growing numbers of Internet users creating social media are also consuming it, this is a content chain that feeds on itself,” says Mr. Verna. “There is a seemingly infinite demand for content, and there are legions of Internet users armed with laptops, cell phones and digital cameras ready to deliver.”

So the content is there, but is it accompanied by a viable revenue model?

”Advertising revenues against user-generated content are modest,” says Mr. Verna,” and they are expected to stay that way for some time.”

Or, as Andrew Keen, author of Cult of the Amateur, said in a Newsweek interview, “Nobody wants to advertise next to crap.”

"Given the size and level of engagement of the audience, advertising revenues around user-generated content will not approach the level one might expect,” says Mr. Verna.

Nevertheless, eMarketer anticipates US user-generated content advertising revenue will reach $824 million in 2012, up from $162 million in 2007.

Yahoo! Previews Powerful New Online Advertising Management Platform: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Yahoo! Previews Powerful New Online Advertising Management Platform: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Yahoo! Previews Powerful New Online Advertising Management Platform: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Yahoo! Previews Powerful New Online Advertising Management Platform: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

RS #11 - Matt Galligan of Socialthing! - Relevantly Speaking - A MediaTrust Blog - Relevantly Speaking is a weblog by MediaTrust about online media an

RS #11 - Matt Galligan of Socialthing! - Relevantly Speaking - A MediaTrust Blog - Relevantly Speaking is a weblog by MediaTrust about online media and advertising, relevance, technology an

Recession and convenience drive coupon use - E-commerce - BizReport

Recession and convenience drive coupon use - E-commerce - BizReport

Recession and convenience drive coupon use

Coupon redemption rates in the U.S. have dropped to around 1% during the last decade, but it appears that the whiff of recession in the air and an online distribution strategy is enough to turn even those on above-average incomes into coupon clippers.

by Helen Leggatt

If you haven't already heard, coupons are making a comeback. The most recent survey to back this up comes from ICOM Information & Communications (ICOM). Their findings add weight to previous studies concluding that, during a recession, shoppers are more likely to seek out and use coupons as they become more price-sensitive.

Of the 1,529 U.S. consumers that took part in the survey, 67% said they were much more, or somewhat more, likely to use coupons during a recession (45% much more / 22% somewhat more).

A somewhat surprising statistic is that paperless coupons account for less than 1% of the coupon market, despite the technological advances in many other marketing channels.

Consumers love convenience and the ability to download or print a coupon from the Internet, or connect it to an online frequent shopper card, would encourage 58% of the ICOM survey respondents to increase coupon use.

"Marketers have the opportunity to discard the old-school thinking about coupons and be smarter this time around. There's no need to send out more mass coupons, such as dog food coupons to households that don't have pets,” said Peter Meyers, ICOM marketing vice-president. “Brands should do their homework and send offers relevant to the needs of individual consumers.”

Kontera enters ad partnership with Microsoft, LinkedIn - Advertising - BizReport

Kontera enters ad partnership with Microsoft, LinkedIn - Advertising - BizReport

Online Searches for Auto Insurance Quotes up 35%

Online Searches for Auto Insurance Quotes up 35%: "Online Searches for Auto Insurance Quotes up 35%

Wednesday, April 9th, 2008;
-- Janet Meiners |

comScore reports that more people are searching for auto insurance quotes online. It also looks like people are more influenced by paid search than natural search results. The queries for auto insurance quotes were up more than 35% in 2007.

There were nearly 9 million search-referred auto insurance quotes made in 2007. More than one-quarter of were made through a search engine. The overall growth for online auto insurance queries increased only 15%.

If you’re in the auto insurance industry, here is some advice: rather than advertise your company name, like “Geico” use generic terms, like “car insurance quote.”

* For paid search, branded terms didn’t lead to completed quote applications (19% did) compared to generic search terms (33% completed quote forms).
* In the organic search, generic also led (22%) over branded (11%).
* After seeing an insurance ad, people were much more likely to visit the company website or do research on the company.

Paid search keeps getting more expensive, especially for generic terms. For local insurance companies and national, running local ads usually mean less competition. You can spot a local ad by seeing the nam"

E-Mail Works for Banks and Card Issuers

APRIL 8, 2008

They are getting better ROI than other industries.

If you have a mailbox, it will come as no surprise that US credit card companies and other financial services firms spent more on direct marketing in 2007 than any other industry. Banks and credit card issuers are masters of mailing targeted offers, and that mail accounts for nearly 42% of their direct marketing budgets.

E-mail is becoming part of this massive direct marketing effort as well, according to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA)'s "Direct Marketing Facts and Figures in the Financial Services Industry."

The DMA had previously released some information from the study in a press release, but a recent Marketing Charts article cited more, revealing e-mail as the number three direct marketing tactic in the industry.

The DMA also said that banks and credit card direct marketers had a better return on investment in 2007 than did any other industry, at $13.37 per dollar spent.

That may have something to do with the high open rate that the financial services industry gets.

E-mail list management company MailerMailer found that nearly 29% of direct marketing e-mails sent by financial services companies were opened during the second half of 2007—more than for any other industry.

eMarketer predicts that financial services spending on online advertising will also continue to increase through at least 2011. That means more offers on any given Web site, not just in your inbox.

Since e-mail marketing works for banks and card issuers, consumers can also expect more offers in their inboxes to join those in their mailboxes.

5 factors that determine your advertising CPM rates

An interesting post at Techcrunch: Pubmatic Data Suggests Small Sites Command Higher Rates For Remnant Ads Than Large Sites.

I love seeing this cross-site ad monetization data, since it's rare to get your hands on it unless you work for an ad network. For people outside the ad industry, advertising CPMs seem like black-boxes.

How to guess CPMs - 5 factors
At Revenue Science, a regular game of mine was to eyeball a site and guesstimate the CPMs.

A couple of the factors that I'd use:

1. Is the site "sticky" or is it a one-hit wonder (like a reference site)?
2. Is the site pretty general, or is it in a particular category (like cars)?
3. Who uses the site? Everyone (including international) or just US?
4. How dependent is the site on Google SEO versus a community site that draws people back?
5. How many pageviews does the site have? Is it a lot? Or is it a small amount

Easy to monetize, hard to monetize
For the people who are curious, this is the easiest to monetize:

One-hit wonder site that exist in a particular category, are based in the US, and have lots of search traffic

In particular, your site is likely to have high CTRs since people are in a "transactional" mode. If you have all of those, and have a ton of pageviews, then you'll make a ton of money.

The hardest to monetize?

Highly sticky sites that are general (like communication), based 100% outside of the US/Europe/Japan, with lots of pageviews

In a setup like this, not only are people unlikely to want to buy anything, even if they did, there'd be no way to make money off of this group.

Example categories
As a rough rule of thumb, I'd typically guess the following - these are very rough approximations, just to illustrate a couple points:

• Social sites (forums/chat/etc) without direct ad sales teams: <$0.25 CPM
• Largely international sites: <$0.50 CPM
• Medium-sized sites that use banner ad networks: <$1 CPM
• Reference sites in a specific category: >$5 CPM or sometimes much higher, depending on category - we ran into home improvement reference sites that did $20 CPMs

Because we were mostly dealing with so-called "remnant" advertising, these numbers are likely to be at the bottom of the range for these sites. That is, social networks might quote a CPM of $20 CPM, but what they really mean is that 1% of their inventory is sold at that, and the rest of the 99% is sold at <$0.25 prices.

As you can see, as a website property, you fall into either of two categories:

• Horizontal sites used daily which command low CPMs with huge pageviews
• Vertical sites that capture user intent - often used intermittently (with lots of traffic from search) with high CPMs and low pageviews

Horizontal sites, when scaled up to a large enough site, can employ direct ad sales teams that raise the CPM by a significant amount, but the entire process is demand-constrained.

Google is lucky to be both horizontal and vertical - it's used everyday by people, but also captures user intent.

As stated before, social networks monetize poorly
Of course, sites with lots of pageviews are often ones that are general, are sticky, and have lots of context-less social content. I've written up a broader discussion of social network monetization at "5 things that make your social network monetize like crap."

Back to small sites versus large sites
Now, the Techcrunch article discusses the idea that small sites monetize better than large ones. I think that's actually a correlation rather than a causation. There are a ton of small sites out there, and much of their traffic comes from Google. It's much harder to build a functioning social site where people coming back daily than a site where people occassionally stumble on it through their search engine.

As a result, my guess is that the mindset of the typical user includes intent - and that makes all the diference.