Articles of Day
Ford Commits To 12-Month Schedule With Specific Media - In a somewhat unusual move for ad networks, online display advertising is getting its own upfront season. Ford’s Lincoln and Mercury brands have placed 12-month commitments with behavioral targeting ad network Specific Media.
Broadband To Launch Vindico Ad Serving Platform - Broadband Enterprises on Thursday plans to officially launch its own ad serving platform, named Vindico, and will host an online video ad upfront to present advertisers with five original Web-exclusive series.
Is Google Ogling In-Game Ads? - Google’s recent patent filing in the U.S. and Europe to covertly monitor the way users play online games, following its $23 million acquisition of AdScape Media in February, has bloggers and industry sources alike seeing a pair of logically synchronized steps toward the company entering the lucrative business of in-game advertising.
NBC Digital Goes Social With MyNBC - Watch out, MySpace–because NBC Digital this fall plans to launch its own social network, which will be integrated into NBC.com to encourage visitor interaction and involvement.
IM Site Meebo Adds Rooms, Rich Media Ad Options - Instant messaging Web site meebo yesterday launched meebo rooms, enabling a target millennial demo to share, chat and view media clips. The effort launches with a raft of content partners. Eidos, Sony and Blockbuster are test advertisers.
Internet Captures Half of Spare Time - Broadband users spend almost half their spare time in a typical weekday online, according to Media-Screen’s “Netpop|Play” report. A copy of the study provided to eMarketer stated that the average broadband user spent an hour and 40 minutes of her typical weekday spare time online. Over half of that time online was devoted to entertainment and communication. Josh Crandall of Media-Screen said that the point of the results was not that broadband users spend more time online, but that online marketing is still underused in proportion to that time.
Teens and Young Adults Spread the Word - Call them Gen Y or Millennials or just “people ages 13-24.” Whatever the name, this group spreads the word quickly on things it likes and enjoys user-generated content, according to the “State of the Media Democracy” report commissioned by Deloitte & Touche and conducted by Harrison Group. When members of the Millennial group found a worthy TV show or Web site, they told an average of 18 people, compared to only 10 people for all age groups. In fact, word-of-mouth was the main reason Millennials visited Web sites, followed by TV ads.
Copyright Light Amid Web Radio Doom - Copyright law has proved to be a real drag on Web users this year. First, the Googlization of YouTube put the stop (inadvertently) on certain video content, then Web radio was told to pay astronomically higher licensing and royalty fees to Big Music to retain the right to Webcast their music. The injustice exposed by the latter could force Congress into overhauling all copyright law–but there’s a ways to go yet.
The Specter Of Ad-Blocking Services - Do the legions of ad-haters out there understand that if they want free content on the Web, they have to deal with advertising? That said, there’s an entire industry full of intelligent folks who’ve devoted themselves to creating ad-blocking software. There is a new program developed by conceptual artist Steve Lambert that replaces display ads with contemporary artwork chosen by curators. During a demonstration, the banner and rectangle ads on the Fox News Web site were replaced with a bald eagle illustration.
US Retail E-Commerce: Entering the Multi-Channel Era - eMarketer estimates that US retail e-commerce sales (excluding travel) will reach $131 billion this year. As the online channel matures, from now to 2011, the annual average growth rate will slow to 17.5%, and increased spending by existing online buyers–rather than new buyers coming online–will be the driving factor.
Buying Into Digital: A Look at the Holding Companies - Digital is the future. On that point, industry executives agree. But how best to tackle this fundamental shift to creating communications to a digital world is a matter of debate, as the differing strategies of Omnicom, WPP, Publicis and Interpublic Group of Cos. attest. In the past 18 months, each has invested in digital companies to strengthen its offerings in creative and media, but the amounts of money spent and deal structures vary widely, as does each holding company’s use of acquired assets.
MySpace Sends Out For Videos - News Corp.’s MySpace has launched a new video section containing clips from media companies like The New York Times, Reuters, and Fox’s IGN Entertainment, the company said today. With the new initiative, material such as the Times’ “Vows” videos and episodes of National Geographic’s “The Dog Whisperer” will be available on branded news channels on MySpace video. Of course, with much of this material already available on the Web, the question arises why the media companies are willing to syndicate to News Corp.
Who Is Today’s Gamer? You Have No Idea - Can you guess who’s at the control of this video-game screen? If you said a teenager, you’re only 17% right. In fact, it could be a senior citizen or a young kid, a fan of global multiplayer fantasy games, or a sudoku fiend. Online gaming, in particular, attracts a varied crowd of players. While console play tends to have more limited ad opportunities, the possibilities in online gaming are endless.
Why Your Branded Widget Might Not Be Welcome on MySpace - The talk around MySpace and Photobucket highlights one of the great divides in the philosophy and business models of social networks: to be open or closed. Historically, MySpace has been an open environment, one in which users were responsible for designing and crafting their own profile pages, and an entire cottage industry cropped up around that environment. But as companies like YouTube and Photobucket gained page views and began making money off those services, MySpace started encouraging users to use its own video and photo tools. (At one time MySpace infamously tried to block YouTube videos.)
WPP Eyes Small, Mid-Sized Digital Deals - WPP Group Plc , the world’s No. 2 marketing services company, is eyeing small- to medium-sized acquisitions of digital advertising companies amid growing competition from the likes of Google Inc. “We will be making investments in the digital area,” WPP CEO Martin Sorrell told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit via video conference from London. “We would tend to focus on … let’s call it the small to medium sized-acquisitions, which is consistent with what we’ve been doing historically,”
Cisco Developing Social Network Tech Tools - Cisco Systems Inc. is developing offerings to help create social networking Web sites that let groups communicate, Chief Development Officer Charlie Giancarlo said on Tuesday. Cisco recently purchased Utah Street Networks, which owned the technology behind pioneering social network site tribe.net, and also bought Five Across, a company that provides software for building social networks on sites such as the National Hockey League’s NHL.com.
Sport, Internet to Drive Lagardere Growth - French media group Lagardere, the world’s largest consumer magazine publisher, is banking on the Internet and sport to drive its growth in coming years, its chief financial officer said on Tuesday.Lagardere plans small and mid-sized Internet acquisitions, targeting content-based Websites with high margin potential in countries where it already has strong positions, Dominique d’Hinnin told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in Paris.
