I had the great pleasure of seeing a good friend and past co-worker, Jesse Selnick, get married to a wonderful woman, Audrey, on a balmy day in Rye, New York. Below are some pictures from the wedding.
aQuantive’s McAndrews Holds Forth On Microsoft Deal - Fresh off a deal to sell his agency to Microsoft Corp. for $6 billion, all eyes were focused yesterday on aQuantive president and CEO Brian McAndrews, the digital adman of the hour at the American Association of Advertising Agencies’ first-ever Digital Conference in New York.
Pre-Roll: Too Few Advertisers, Too Many Videos - A Promax audience heard that pre-roll is suffering from too few advertisers buying up lots and lots of inventory.
CNN, YouTube Team For User-Generated Presidential Debate - In the spirit of open engagement, CNN and YouTube will team up to produce two Presidential debates driven entirely by questions submitted through the video-sharing goliath.
For Niche Media, Aggregation is Key - Niche online advertising formats, including broadband video platforms, RSS feeds, blogs, and mobile network, were the focus of a Digital Hollywood panel.
About.com Ad Revenues Up 21.6%; Outpace NYTimes.com Growth - While overall ad revenues decreased 8.5% in May, The New York Times Company reported positive news for the Internet side of the business, with About.com leading the gains. About.com’s May advertising revenues rose 32.6% year-over-year, to $7.4 million. The growth was attributed to increases in both display and cost-per-click advertising, and also reflect the recent acquisitions of ConsumerSearch.com and UCompareHealthCare.com.
IDC Forecasts Decline in Search’s Share Of Online Ads - Search’s share of online advertising will decrease from last year’s 40% to 32% in 2011, forecasts research firm IDC. In its study, “U.S. Internet Advertising 2007-2011 Forecast and Analysis: Funding the Consumer Internet,” IDC predicts that Internet ad spending will grow three times faster than overall advertising during the next five years–from $16.9 billion in 2006 to $31.3 billion in 2011.
Virtual World Bubble Unlikely - It seems that talk of a bubble necessarily follows the emergence of any new Internet phenomenon these days. The social networking bubble was followed by the online video bubble, which was followed by a general venture capital/private-equity-led Web 2.0 bubble. Now we may be heading into a virtual world bubble. Watch, a widget bubble will be next. Mind you, none of the other “bubbles” burst. There’s been consolidation and shakeout, but nothing so massive as to affect an otherwise robust Internet media economy.
FTC To Review Yahoo, Microsoft Ad Deals - Last month’s spate of advertising acquisitions by major Web firms and ad-holding companies has created a pile of work for the Federal Trade Commission. While Google-DoubleClick, the first such announcement, is still receiving the third degree, the FTC this week approved ad giant WPP Group’s proposed acquisition of interactive ad serving giant 24/7 Real Media.
Facebook’s Feeding Frenzy - Legions of dreamy-eyed entrepreneurs gathered at the Facebook Developer’s Meetup, looking to develop the next big thing for the social network. The mood could best be summed up by the appearance of one entrepreneur who wrote, “I NEED an APP” on his nametag. Existing Web companies were also looking to develop Facebook apps, hoping to capitalize on the social network’s 25 million-plus user base.
Tensions Rising, eBay Pulls Out Of Google’s AdWords Network - As Google hosts a “protest party” for disgruntled eBay merchants it seeks to switch to Google Checkout, eBay has reportedly pulled all its paid search ads from Google’s AdWords network in the U.S. Yahoo could be the beneficiary.
Internet 1Q Yellow Page Searches Surpass 800 Million: comScore - ComScore released its first-quarter 07 Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) search rankings, and although Yahoo held onto its spot as market share leader, analysts say the findings reveal a fragmented market rife with opportunity.
AT&T To Block Web Piracy - AT&T has flexed its Web censorship muscle in becoming the first major Internet service provider to take steps to block Internet piracy on its network. It’s quite a surprising reversal for a company that has consistently maintained that the illegal downloading of copyrighted music and movies over its network is not its responsibility. Net Neutrality groups are no doubt preparing a response.
Sprint Mulls WiMax Move - It’s been hinted, but telecom giant Sprint Nextel, which has taken a leading role in the development and deployment of WiMax technology, could soon form an alliance with WiMax pioneer and competitor Clearwire. WiMax promises the delivery of broadband wireless technology over huge areas using a single access point.
How To Use MMOGs To Conduct Business - Are we trending towards the virtual office? That may depend on how IBM’s latest experiment goes. Forget Second Life, IBM is producing something called Innov8, a virtual world video game that could best be described as “Second Office.” And it’s coming soon, according to a movie-trailer-like video promotion spotted on YouTube. It looks like Innov8 is striving to be the ultimate training tool, used to help tech managers better understand the various responsibilities taken on by a business leader, such as running a call center, operating a brokerage account, or processing an insurance claim.
3D Maps: Sooner Than You Think - If you’re a somewhat forward-thinking user of Google Earth or Microsoft’s Virtual Earth, then you’ve probably wondered how much these programs could improve in the next five to 10 years. How long until we can zip through virtual representations of cities, a la the University of Virginia’s recently released digital recreation of Rome? Not long, thanks to Microsoft and newcomer Everyscape.
Yahoo Shareholders To Semel: Do You Still Want This Job? - Yahoo’s investors came away from the company’s annual meeting yesterday with three key takeaways–a gauge on CEO Terry Semel’s accountability, some clarity on Yahoo’s stance on data censorship and human rights, and plans for filling departed CTO Farzad Nazem’s leadership role.
Jupiter: TV Still Rakes It In - Recent advances in online advertising have yet to take advertisers’ focus off TV, according to a new report from JupiterResearch. The firm attributes this to the Web’s dominant function as a communications channel.
Google Opens the AdWords Curtain - As promised, Google has created Placement Performance reports for AdWords, allowing advertisers to see which sites their ads appear on within the Google content network.
TNS Projects 16% Growth In Internet Display Ads For Year - TNS Media Intelligence adjusted its projection for overall U.S. ad spending downward to $152.3 billion–a 1.7% increase for 2007–while raising its projected increase on Internet display ad spending to 16% for the year.
NBC To Produce Webisodes For Netflix - Assuming a creative agency role, NBC Universal Digital Studios and Netflix are working together to produce a series of online Webisodes promoting classic movies.
Net Leads, Will Content, Contextual Ads Follow? - For contextual advertising to work in new digital media, many tools need to work together. And some elements need to be dropped. The technology is astounding, but will the creative–and the ability to monetize such advertising–follow?
comScore: 5 Million Shares, $14-16 Each - Internet audience measurement firm comScore, in an amendment to its April IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, said it expects to raise up to $80 million, based on 5 million shares selling between $14 and $16 each.
Online Video Ads Bringing Results - Online video ads are leading to sales, according to the Online Publishers Association (OPA) “Frames of Reference: Online Video Advertising, Content and Consumer Behavior” report, conducted in partnership with OTX. Of the 80% of viewers who had watched an online video ad, just over half had taken some sort of action. Nearly a third had checked out a Web site, while 22% had searched for more information, 15% had gone into a store and 12% had actually made a purchase.
Widgets Already Ready for Prime Time - So-called “widgets” (no, not the economics term for “product”) could become major drivers of advertising on social media sites, says The Wall Street Journal. New research from comScore shows that consumers are increasingly interacting with this type of broadband content: in April, nearly 178 million people Web-wide viewed content made with these so-called widgets. The comScore report is one of the first to measure the reach of widget-producers like Slide, Inc. RockYou Inc., and PictureTrail, Inc.
Google Content Filter: Backwardly Compatible with Original Plan - Maybe it’s what Google intended all along, but the San Jose Mercury News says the search giant’s $1.6 billion acquisition of YouTube is less about content than being able to test and improve its video search technology. Sure, content filtering technology is a way to fingerprint material that shouldn’t be there–but it also requires that media companies feed Google more video content to be held in a large database.
eMarketer: Behavioral to Reach $1B in 2008; Quadruple By 2011- The market research firm says U.S. spending on behavioral targeted online advertising will nearly double in 2008–from $575 million this year to $1 billion–and nearly quadruple to $3.8 billion in 2011.
Atlas: Go Beyond the Last Click - A study by aQuantive’s Atlas unit has found that almost 67% of Web ad conversions (sales confirmations, requests for information, or other advertiser-defined actions) came from users who saw ads across multiple sites.
Eyeblaster Intros New Campaign Management Tools - Playing up its position as an independent ad serving shop, Eyeblaster on Monday went live with a new suite of campaign management tools.
iVillage, Flush With Success, Promotes Ad Sales Heroes - Clearly onto something, NBC’s iVillage managed to boost display ad revenue by 46% year-over-year in the first quarter — an imposing figure when compared to the industry’s overall revenue growth rate of 26%, as reported by the Internet Advertising Bureau last week.
Google’s Quality Score Changes Affect Some AdWords Clients - A number of AdWords clients were shocked yesterday to find that the minimum bid for specific keywords had doubled and even tripled–while the Quality Scores of those words slipped from “great” to “poor.”
IAB Launches Database Of Advertising Specs - The Interactive Advertising Bureau has launched a centralized database of specifications for ad units, featuring specs from 88 major publishers in the interactive space. “By creating this centralized resource we hope to simplify the ad delivery process for advertising agencies and marketers, allowing them to leverage the power of interactive media across multiple publishers with greater efficiency,” said Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the IAB.
Q1 Web Advertising 26% More Than Q1 ‘06 - According to a recent IAB release, Internet advertising revenues reached a new record of $4.9 billion for the first quarter of 2007. The 2007 first quarter revenues represent a 26 percent increase over Q1 2006 at $3.8 billion and a 2 percent increase over Q4 2006 at $4.8 billion. For your convenience, annual Internet revenues are included as an historical reference.
Google Cuts User Data Retention To 18 Months - In a rare moment of total compliance, Google agreed to cut the time for which it retains users’ personal search information from 18-24 months to 18 months, a concession to the European Union’s request for improved user data protection. An EU committee, the Article 29 working company, last month asked the search giant to justify its current policy. That data includes the search term, the address of the Web server and information collected from user tags or “cookies.”
YouTube To Test Content Filtering Next Month - Timing is everything: on the same day media executives accused Google of stalling on a YouTube copyright fingerprinting technology, the Web giant says it will have a new system operational in about a month. Frankly, we’ve heard that before, but this time, YouTube has test partners to back up its claims. These include Time Warner Inc. and Walt Disney Co., which, among others, have been anxiously awaiting a fingerprinting technology to help further partnership negotiations with YouTube.
ImageSpan Partners With Visible World For On-Demand Ad Customization Platform - Visible World and ImageSpan today are announcing a new online dashboard that allows advertisers to tap into thousands of videographers and photographers to create rights-cleared creative. Its founders promise nothing short of a revolution for the $8 billion rights management clearance process.
Survey: Companies Need Web Analytics Education - Companies using Web analytics are placing too much faith in technology and people, and not putting enough effort into education and training, according to research backed by the Web Analytics Association.
Podzinger Now Does EveryZing - Podzinger, known until now as a podcast search engine, is getting a new name and more ambitious mission. Rechristened EveryZing, the company now hopes to make searchable the multimedia libraries of the largest media companies around.
Google Universal Search Boosts Video, Map Use - YouTube and Google Maps are the prime beneficiaries to date of the new Google Universal Search, which puts all related Google content behind a single search result, according to an analysis by Hitwise. Bill Tancer, general manager of global research for Hitwise, analyzed the percentage of U.S. visitors to the top Google properties for the weekend ending 5/12/07 and again on 6/2/07 after the launch of Google Universal Search.
Behavioral Advertising on Target… to Explode Online - After years of deriding the Internet as “only” a direct advertising vehicle, major brand marketers are discovering powerful new ways to target their users online, and major online players are clearly noticing. Spending for Internet advertising with a behavioral targeting component will soar from $575 million this year to $1 billion in 2008, and that still represents only 11% of the US display, rich media and video market.
US Broadband Fulfills Need for Speed - Broadband is getting cheaper, faster and more widely available, which is why 70% of US homes will have broadband Internet access by 2012, according to JupiterResearch’s “US Broadband Forecast, 2007 to 2012: LECs Maintain Advantage over Cable Operators in Quest for New Subscribers” report. That means 36 million new broadband subscriptions in the next five years, resulting in 86 million households with high-speed Internet connections.
Media Execs: YouTube Stalls On Copyright Issue - The agitation is mounting among Hollywood executives with respect to YouTube’s perennially “still-coming” content filtering system. It’s now been two months since Google CEO Eric Schmidt quelled Hollywood fears over the forthcoming program, which he said the company is close to enacting. But CNET says it’s not just the “hold on, it’s coming” thing that has media executives angry, it’s the “no-shows at meetings and canceled test programs” that lead them to believe Google might be stalling.
Investors Unimpressed With eBay Growth Strategy - It’s ambition is enviable, but just where does eBay think its heading? The online auction and e-commerce giant is branching out, having spent some $6 billion on new media acquisitions in the last five years. From online payment service PayPal (which proved to be a smart, synergistic decision) to the $2.6 billion Internet telephony giant Skype (eBay overpaid and the jury’s still out), to classified sites around the world, including a 25% interest in Craigslist and Kurant, which sets up online “storefronts” separate from eBay, to ticket reseller StubHub (its newest acquisition), eBay thinks it can be everywhere in the world of e-commerce.
Report: Google Last In Privacy Satisfaction - The online rights group Privacy International has labeled Google as “hostile” to privacy in a new report about how Web firms handle personal data. It said Google is leading a “race to the bottom” among Web firms in terms of how they protect their users. The PI report is the result of six months of research, which scrutinized the personal information practices of 20 big Web firms.
Yahoo To Carve Niche In Celebrity News - In the last 10 years, the celebrity-news sector has exploded like no other category in the publishing industry. And while other print pubs have seen ad revenues eroded by the surging use of the Web for gathering news, this sector has remained relatively unaffected. But that may change. Yahoo on Monday took the curtain off a new celebrity-oriented Web portal called-get ready-omg!, or “oh my God”, a 24/7 celebrity news site set to compete with Time Warner’s TMZ.com and celebrity blogs like Perez Hilton and Jossip.
Time Warner Chief: Telling Year For New AOL Model - By the end of this year, Time Warner should know if its business model for AOL has succeeded, Chairman and CEO Dick Parsons told the Merrill Lynch US Media Conference in London.
FeedBurner Ad Leader On What Google Deal Means - Brent Hill, vice president of advertising services at RSS leader FeedBurner talked with Online Media Daily about what the combination with Google means from an advertising standpoint.
CBS CFO: Last.fm Our Last Big Web Buy - Don’t expect any more big Internet acquisitions from CBS Corp. in the foreseeable future. That was the word from Fred Reynolds, CBS’ executive vice president and chief financial officer, who opened the Merrill Lynch US Media Conference in London yesterday morning.
Advertising Trust Varies by Medium and Viewer Age - Because of Yahoo’s interest in Bebo (a next generation social networking site where members can stay in touch or connect), comScore reissued a review of an end-of-year study of consumers’ receptivity to advertising in different media formats. The report, edited by Gian Fulgoni, finds that an ad’s effectiveness is based, in part, on the medium that carries it, and how much trust consumers have in that medium. The survey found that 85 percent of consumers are most likely to notice advertising for a product or service if they see it on television. User-generated content sites (UGC) achieved a much lower (28 percent) attention level.
Are Marketers Growing Numb to Click Fraud? - Fake clicks don’t seem to be a deal breaker. There are two main types of click fraud: One is when a competitive firm clicks on another’s ads to drive up its costs, deplete its budget and hopefully have that company drop out of competition. These frauds typically occur on search engines. The second type of click fraud is perpetrated by publishers or networks on contextually linked ads in order to boost their own pay-per-click revenues.
Advertising’s Web Growing Pains - The press often says the ad industry is a dying business operating in crisis mode. We at MediaPost believe there’s never been a more exciting time to be in this business, although we’ve understand that digital upheaval is forcing ad agencies to adapt their strategy to a phenomenon they don’t completely understand. But advertising is far from dead–rather, it’s moving ahead, thanks to the latest round of Web acquisitions. As ad dollars shift online–at a growth rate seven times faster than other media–an interesting thing has occurred (in the U.S., anyway): oligopoly. In this most democratic of mediums, Google, Yahoo, AOL and MSN captured 85$ of spending in 2006, while the top 10 Web sites attracted 99% of gross ad dollars.
Ad Firm Goes Private To Compete with GoogleClick - It’s all about consolidation in the online advertising industry, which makes the recent decision of Innovation Interactive, parent company of search agency 360i, to buy itself out seem strange. However, in arranging a management-led buyout, the marketing services holding company may be dressing itself up for a resale.
Lots of Froth but No Bubble - Marc Andreessen, the inventor of the first commercially viable Web browser and the co-creator of Netscape, finally has a blog. And he started this week with a splash: in his third post, he offered a harsh (for him) rebuttal of the spreading notion that there is a new Internet bubble forming, that Silicon Valley is overexuberant about “Web 2.0,” and that soon it will all come crashing down (blog.pmarca.com).
MLG Improves Its Game With GotFrag Buy - With its announced acquisition of PC-based gaming news source GotFrag.com, Major League Gaming (MLG) aims to gain exposure to a host of new advertisers, and introduce a new segment of the competitive gaming community to its network of editorial, video and social media content.
Clearlake Capital Group has acquired a 9% stake in Buy.com, an Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based e-commerce company. No financial terms were disclosed. In other Buy.com news, the company has withdrawn registration for an IPO.
Internet Business Listings Company YP Buys Classifieds Network LiveDeal For $12 Million - Online business listings manager YP Corp. has acquired internet classifieds network LiveDeal. Under the terms of the purchase, LiveDeal’s shareholders received 15,968,514 shares of YP common stock, which Alarm Clock said was valued at $12 million. The company will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of YP. The two companies are working out how to leverage one another’s content, sales teams and technology.
Jupitermedia Buys Ad Industry Community Content Sites -Jupitermedia has acquired ad-related user generated content sites AdsOfTheWorld.com and CreativeBits.org for its Graphics.com network. The two sites claim to attract over 1 million unique monthly visitors combined. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Google/DoubleClick Deal Draws More Fire From Privacy Groups - The drumbeat grows louder from opponents to the Google/DoubleClick merger as three consumer-interest groups yesterday filed an amended complaint with the Federal Trade Commission calling for the agency to impose stringent restrictions on data use and collection before letting the $3.1 billion deal go through.
Consumers Like 30-Second Pre-Rolls, OPA Study Finds - The longer pre-roll ads leave a more positive impact on consumers than 15-second ones, according to a study released Wednesday by the Online Publishers Association. Some analysts, however, did not buy the idea that consumers would respond more favorably to longer ads.
DoubleClick Division Says Panama Lowers Search Costs - Yahoo fared well in DoubleClick Performics’ Search Trends Report for the first quarter, with the research finding sharp decreases in Yahoo search costs due to the new Panama platform.
NBC Universal Adds Widget Partner - NBC Universal has partnered with widget maker Clearspring Technologies to increase the spread of its content throughout the Web. Users will be able to personalize widgets–carrying NBC news, entertainment, and sports–and post them on their own blogs, social networking profiles, Web sites, and even wikis.
ComScore WhitePaper Details Cookie Deletion Impact On Audience Results - Digital measurement firm comScore has publicly released its white paper addressing how cookie deletion affects server-based audience measurement. The study estimates that without appropriate adjustments, site-server audience reports can be inflated up to 2.5 times the actual number of unique visitors.
Retailers Turn to Shopping Social Networks - Shopping social networks have become increasingly important in helping shoppers make decisions, and retailers are catching on. Indeed, stores and designers are launching pages and making product pitches on Shopbop, Shopstyle.com and Stylehive.com, which are serious drivers of sales.
Television 2.0: Content Convergence - It’s been a looming change for so long that it seems TV’s complete digital transformation can’t come quickly enough. But even before TV’s Next Big Thing (is it Joost? Is it Brightcove? Is it Apple TV?) fully establishes itself, media futurists are looking towards Television (Content) 2.0. By that time, TV will already be a fully interactive, on-demand, personalized experience, and the TV spot will either disappear completely or be scaled back to 15-seconds. The migration of TV content to the Web and Web-based devices is one thing, but imagine the resulting transformation of content. Consumers will one day watch news broadcasts by choosing relevant categories; similarly, demographic information will be key as content makers create programs for specific audiences.
What’s Next In Ad Targeting? - I’ve been involved with ad targeting technologies since the beginning of the Web, having founded both Real Media and TACODA. I’ve seen the industry evolve from early fixed banners on Web pages, to rotating ads to registration-targeted ads to cookie-based targeting to sequential targeting to search targeting — and now to behavioral targeting. What do I think is next? Predictive targeting.
CDN Limelight Networks IPO Today; Raises $240 Million; Stock Up Around 50 Percent on Day 1 - A good opening day for the company: shares of Limelight jumped 48 percent after its IPO, as investors bet demand will grow for its business delivering video for sites including ABC.com and Netflix, reports Bloomberg….stock rose $7.18 to $22.18 at 4 p.m. EST on Nasdaq.
Cost Per Action Ads Help Marketers Win Consumers’ Hearts, Minds And Wallets - At several points during her presentation, Kim Malone, Google’s director of online sales and operations, told attendees at the Future of Online Advertising conference that Google has a number of new AdSense initiatives coming this summer, but that she’s being watched and would be shot if she offered any details. Therefore, she concentrated her talk to AdSense’s Cost Per Action (CPA) clickable ad network and why its right to get a burst of attention, but perhaps not the best thing for branding.
How Not To Waste Billions Of Advertising Dollars - Over $112 billion of U.S. ad spending is wasted, says Greg Stuart, former CEO and president of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, opening the two-day Future of Online Advertising conference in New York: “This is a problem. Here’s what needs to happen.” Stuart has also authored a book on the situation, What Sticks: Why Most Advertising Fails And How To Guarantee Yours Succeeds.
Internet Ad Spending Up 16.7%; Financial Services Leads - First-quarter Internet display ad spending hit $2.7 billion for the first quarter, a 16.7% increase over 2006, TNS Media Intelligence reports. The financial services category led the way at $488.7 million, up 51.2% year-over-year. IAC/InterActive Corp., meanwhile, was the leading online advertiser.
Joost’s Volpi Touts ‘Targetability’ - Web TV startup Joost handed the reins to Michelangelo Volpi on Tuesday, naming the seasoned Cisco executive as its CEO. He explained the power of Joost in one word: targetability. “Our biggest asset is targetability, and our belief is that TV advertisers want a high degree of targetability,” he said. “From an advertiser perspective, we know exactly who’s watching what content.”
Google Streams Roll On In comScore’s Video Rankings - Nearly a third of U.S. Internet users streamed video through YouTube and other Google sites in March, according to the latest comScore Video Metrix rankings. The Google sites accounted for 57.4 million unique “streamers,” or 32.3% of all Web users. YouTube by itself had 53.5 million unique streamers.
Brand Marketers Use Direct Methods - Brand and mass marketers are now using direct techniques in their campaigns, according to the Direct Marketing Association’s “The Integration of DM and Brand” report. More than half (56%) of respondents to the DMA survey used one or more direct marketing channels in conjunction with their brand awareness advertising. Specifically, 50% used Web marketing with direct response mechanisms included, 48% used trackable offers and 45% used call-to-action on Web pages.
Net Ad Rev Soars To $5 Billion In 1Q - The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) today announced that Internet advertising revenues reached a new record of $4.9 billion for the first quarter of 2007. The 2007 first-quarter revenues represent a 26% increase over 1Q 2006 at $3.8 billion and a 2% increase over the fourth quarter of 2006 at $4.8 billion.
Friendster Thrives Overseas - The talk in the Web industry these days is about Facebook, MySpace, Second Life and the virtual worlds catering to kids. Many may be wondering what happened to Friendster, the original Web 2.0 social network? It just moved to Asia (sort of). Incidentally, business is good, too-very good.Friendster is still live in the U.S., but nobody over here is taking much notice (including the company), because some 70% of the social network’s traffic now comes from Southeast Asia. It’s the most popular Web site in the Philippines and the second most popular site in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
Virtual Worlds: The Anti-MySpace - Virtual worlds are hot. The press can’t stop talking about their potential as acquisition targets, which surely means–if the myriad “unnamed sources” that likely come from VC firms and acquisition-happy Web companies are to be believed–that some action is in the offing.
Google On More PCs Than Windows XP - Various statistics were hurled at reporters by Google CTO Michael Jones on Tuesday at an industry conference. The most eye-opening was the revelation that Google Earth has drawn more installations than Microsoft’s Windows XP. “That attracts attention,” Jones said, adding that the program has drawn praised from French President Jacques Chirac and U.S. President George Bush. Never mind the contention that Google Earth is a potentially useful tool for terrorists, too.
The Best Videos, Delivered Daily to Your Inbox - Are you tired of the glut of bad online video out there? Michael Caruso, the former editor of Men’s Journal, believes he has the answer: He’ll find the good stuff for you. His new project, called The Daily Tube, plans to send its editorial staff out to online video sites across the Web to bring back a list of the day’s best videos for its users, organized by category.
Users Bullish On Video Clips - Online video users tend to watch clips fairly frequently, with the vast majority viewing Web videos at least once a month, according to a new report by the Online Publishers Association. Forty-four percent of 1,422 U.S. online video users surveyed by the OPA reported that they watch clips at least weekly while 73% do so at least once a month. What do they watch? News and humor are among the most popular content, with 14% of online video users reporting that they view news clips daily, while 45% say they view such at least weekly. Nine percent say they watch humor videos daily, while 39% watch comic clips at least once a week.
Ask3D Search Promises ‘Instant Gettification’ - Ask.com today unveiled Ask3D, a re-engineered version of its search engine featuring a three-panel layout and promise of “instant gettification” by offering people a quicker route to what they need, without forcing them to keep clicking around.
Publicis Eyes More Digital Buys - Delighted with its recent purchase of Digitas, Publicis Groupe plans to make additional digitally focused acquisitions, Maurice Levy, company chairman and CEO, said during an annual shareholder meeting on Monday.
Q&A With Mahalo’s Jason Calacanis - Web entrepreneur Jason Calacanis talked about the advertising implications of his new “human-powered” search engine Mahalo, which is backed by NewsCorp. and CBS.
Borrell: Local Online Ads to Climb 31.6% This Year - Bucking the trend of slower online ad growth, local online ad spending will climb 31.6% this year to $7.5 billion, says a report to be released today by media consultants Borrell Associates. By contrast, national online ad growth is expected to rise by 20%.
Yahoo Rolls Out Commercial API Program - The imminent departure of Yahoo CTO Farzad Nazem has not yet impacted the company’s growth plans for its Panama advertising platform, as evidenced by the rollout of its Search Marketing Commercial API Program.
Europe Beats U.S. In Internet Users On Some Measures - An average of 122 million Europeans ages 15 and up were online on a typical April day, compared with 114 million Americans, according to comScore World Metrix’s first-ever comprehensive review of Internet activity across 16 European countries.
Marchex Expands Ad, Content Networks with Yahoo, Fox - Seattle-based search and media firm Marchex has inked a distribution deal with Yahoo to expand its Enhance Interactive ad network and a partnership with News Corp.’s Fox Latin America Channels to develop a set of Spanish-language Web sites.
Jupiter/iProspect Study: 88% Now Measure ROI - A study conducted by Jupiter Research for search engine marketing firm iProspect found that 88% of search marketers are now measuring ROI, up from 79% in 2005. The Search Marketer Measurement & Performance Study, also found that 86% of search marketers tie performance evaluation to search metrics, up from 81% two years ago.
Glam, Google Sign Multi-Year Deal - ONLINE LIFESTYLE AND FASHION PUBLISHER Glam Media announced a multi-year deal for Google to exclusively provide it with search and contextual ads through AdSense. Last month, Glam selected DoubleClick’s DART for Publishers as its ad management platform.
Tech Buyers Go Deep For Information and Bite on White Papers - Eighty-four percent of technology buyers begin their online search for information with one of the major search engines and ultimately use multiple channels during their search, including online publications, analyst sites, directories and IT vendor or community Websites. By using search engine optimization (SEO), paid search/search engine marketing (SEM) and content syndication, the study finds, marketers are able to effectively cover the Internet.
Package-Goods Marketers Finally Find Value in Search - “There’s an elevated consciousness [among package-goods marketers] that search is driving awareness and trial,” said Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing officer of Nielsen BuzzMetrics. “Five years ago, that was an awareness exclusively confined to higher-involvement products.” The conventional wisdom has been that low-involvement household and personal-care brands don’t get much out of search. Few people search for “laundry detergent,” for example. They more often search for benefits the brands confer, though many marketers have been relatively slow to capitalize on that.
Yahoo Turns to Openness - At a time when advertisers are questioning whether myriad new-media deals will be good for them and the FTC is investigating whether the Google-DoubleClick deal will bring together too much online ad power under one roof, Yahoo is taking another route, touting openness as an increasingly important part of its online-advertising strategy. Today, for example, the company is set to unveil open access to its commercial application program interfaces — more commonly known as APIs — which will let agencies, tool providers and even individual developers tap into the Panama ad platform and build applications on top of it.
How Martin Sorrell Closed the Real Deal - When Google announced its $3.1 billion deal to buy DoubleClick on Friday, April 13, WPP Group Chief Executive Martin Sorrell reacted. That Sunday, Mr. Sorrell got in touch with 24/7 Real Media Chairman-CEO David Moore to broach an acquisition. By mid-May, Mr. Sorrell had a Real deal, agreeing to fork over $649 million cash for the web ad-services outfit. Mr. Sorrell might have been able to pay less; in the end, there was only one other bidder. Private equity took a pass.
Applause For New Ask.com - Ask.com on Tuesday completely revamped its search interface–a bold move combining a new platform, a new search technology and a new nationwide marketing push. Ask, fourth in the increasingly one player search market, is doing what only a fourth place player can do — it is betting on a new interface. The boldest thing about the new Ask3D is its decision to abandon the ages-old 10 blue links approach in favor of a more robust, navigational approach to results combining visual, textual, and design elements.
Joost CEO Hints At Apple TV Partnership - Joost, the Web-based TV and video service, is in the news nearly as often as regulars Google and News Corp.’s MySpace. If it hasn’t raised additional funds, the peer-to-peer TV platform has mostlikely added another major media partner or recruited a big-name exec. Today it’s the latter: Joost named Mike Volpi, formerly of Cisco Systems, as CEO.
ANA, Four A’s, Question Industry Acquisitions - Major ad industry associations like the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4 As) expressed their concern over the recent spate of mergers and acquisitions in the industry–most notably the Google acquisition of DoubleClick, which it questioned in a joint letter to the Federal Trade Commission.
Google Strikes Partnership with Salesforce.com - As expected, Google has joined forces with Salesforce.com in launching a new Web site that allows Salesforce to resell Google’s AdWords through the company’s core customer relationship management software. Called Salesforce Group Edition, the companies will jointly market the new product, which records sales leads generated through ads placed on Google.com and the company’s AdSense network.
Spyware Still Plagues Web Searches - Search engines continue to drive users to spyware and other nuisances. That’s according to McAfee’s recent second annual State of Search Engine Safety. Overall, 4% of all search results take users to sites characterized as “risky,” down from 5% last year. Sponsored links account for more than double the risky links as organic results, according to McAfee, with 6.9% of paid links leading to suspect sites, compared to 2.9% for organic links.
