Advaliant Shirt Spotted in South Africa

Advaliant/MediaTrust SA office is up and running...
The bay in the background is called False Bay--home to the most prolific feeding area of the Great White Shark.

See you all in a few days!

Trip

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,"