Top Searches Can Attract Top Links
The search engines have been publishing their “Top Searches” lists for 2009, so far I’ve collected lists from Bing , Yahoo!, and Google. Other sites posting “top” searches are ESPN, Snopes, and my favorite, Yahoo’s Top Video’s (warning: time killer!). I set my alerts to catch these lists because they spark ideas for link bait and content development [...]
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Online Ads Attached to Video Working Well
This is one of those subjects that I can say that my personal experience actually mirrors what the rest of the market is apparently seeing. Oftentimes that’s not the case since I can be somewhat of a contrarian in my views and habits. Apparently much of initial push back against ads attached to video, in particular pre-roll, is starting to give way to some level of acceptance. While I am still not thrilled with it, I do tolerate it much more these days especially when an advertiser actually gets that 10-15 seconds is not nearly as annoying as 30 seconds.
The NY Times reports that news sites are finding more and more success with their online video offerings as ways to increase ad revenue. The impact is even being felt beyond the delivery of news.
Beyond news sites, video is now the fastest-growing segment of the Internet advertising market. Digital video amounted to $477 million in revenue in the first half of 2009, up 38 percent from the same time period in 2008, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
I have wondered over time as to just how much video ‘regular’ people ingest and if there is room for growth. I am certainly not a ‘power consumer’ of video but I am finding myself watching more online offerings. I still avoid the ‘stupid human tricks’ side of the online video experience. In fact, any ads attached to that kind of offering will fall flat with someone like myself but I am just one point of view.
What’s interesting is that the online news experience is starting to look more and more like one medium it is supposedly challenging: television.
News Web sites are starting to look a lot less like newspapers and a lot more like television.
CNN.com and ESPN.com are featuring video much more prominently on their home pages, often prompting visitors to press play before they begin to read. Even The Wall Street Journal has moved its video player front and center with a twice-a-day live newscast on WSJ.com.
The shift is likely a natural progression since there seems to be more news than ever. Of course, we have the same number of events that are newsworthy it’s just that the ability to now see more is exponentially increased.
“Every watershed event leaves video more popular than before,” said Charles W. Tillinghast, the president of MSNBC.com, a joint venture between NBC Universal and Microsoft.
So as the consumer becomes more accepting and the advertisers actually pay attention to what consumers will tolerate the combination of the two is starting to become a real player in the online advertising space. One drawback will be the cost to produce this content will keep competition down but the big guys actually like that idea.
“It actually works really well,” said Brian Quinn, the vice president and general manager of digital ad sales for The Journal’s digital network. A 15-second pre-roll “followed by two to five minutes of high-quality content is a fair-value exchange,” Mr. Quinn said.
Analysts say they expect the flow of online advertising dollars to video to continue. The research firm eMarketer projects 35 to 45 percent growth for the segment for each of the next five years, topping out at $5.2 billion in 2014. (Even then, it would hardly rival search advertising, which is projected to be a $16 billion business.)
So as this option for marketers grows there will be the usual growing pains. Among those is people starting to confuse an event with actual news and then rushing to produce more noise and junk so an ad can be slapped on it. At that point, it will be up to the consumer to “Just say no!” so the healthy balance between news and commerce can be reached as quickly and painlessly as possible.
How do you feel about ads attached to any video you would like to watch? Is it more acceptable depending upon the venue? Do you make exceptions abot your reactions to ads depending on what you are trying to find?
Internet Summit Gives Strong Sophomore Effort
Living in the Research Triangle Park (aka The Triangle) area of North Carolina is a good deal. The weather is great because you get 4 seasons but winter is just a taste of what most of the area’s Northeastern US transplants are accustomed to. There is also a very vibrant technology and new media scene as the area has even been considered a threat (albeit a minor one in my opinion to Silicon Valley because of the education focus of the area and a reasonable cost of living. What has been missing, however, is an Internet industry event that was worthy of the area’s reputation.
Looks like we may be on the way to curing that ill. Today was the programming portion of the 2nd Internet Summit that is put on by TechJournal South and Southern Capitol Ventures. The site for the event states simply
The Internet Summit supports web oriented entrepreneurial activity, innovation, and the resultant economic development of the southeast region.
While I did not attend last year it is apparent that there was no evidence of a sophomore slump. In fact, the brand spanking new Raleigh Convention Center as a setting made it very comfortable and that was before any presentations were given.
As for the content it was well presented in moderated sessions with some pretty serious titles on the various panels. There was Rick Klau, product manager for Google’s Blogger platform, John Kosner, SVP of ESPN Digital Media, Richard Jalichandra, President and CEO of Technorati and Joe Kennedy, President and CEO of Pandora to name a few. Oh and of course the organizers had the good sense to make sure that MP’s own Andy Beal was on a panel talking about, you guessed it, New Media and Personal Branding.
A rather cool feature included a demo hall where area technology start-ups, as chosen by the Summit’s team, displayed their offerings. This included a wide variety of early stage companies that had a chance to show off their offerings to a tech savvy crowd.
This is the fourth event I attended this year and it was by far the best of the bunch. While I could give you some of the highlights all you need to do is search Twitter for #isum09 and you’ll get the gist. Better yet plan to attend next year. The Triangle would love to have you!
Publications Taking ‘Pay to Play’ to Heart
There has been much talk about the survival of the traditional media in the online era. Magazines have avoided much of the focus as it relates to the transition to their online presence. Why? It’s likely because magazines are not a daily publication that has its weaknesses exposed by the more “real time” acquisition of information that the social web and search engines (to an extent) can provide.
Recently though there has been fallout in the magazine industry, as the venerable Conde Nast dropped some major publications. Along those lines major papers in the UK have introduced their version of having to pay for content. The latest and probably most recognized name to join the ‘pay-wall’ fray is The Eonomist. The Guardian reports
The Economist is restricting the number of articles that online readers can view for free, the latest sign that publishers are rethinking their attitude to web content.
Only articles from the last 90 days will be available to general readers, rather than 12 months under the current system. From 13 October, anything more than 90 days old will be put behind a pay wall and thus be available to subscribers only.
In another change, only subscribers will be able to look at the “This week’s print edition” feature that allows online readers to browse the current edition of the magazine as it appears on the page.
Ben Edwards, the publisher of The Economist’s online presence is unapologetic in saying
“We consider this to be a premium reading experience and plan to develop the online edition of our magazine for our most loyal and engaged readers: subscribers.”
While I am not a reader of the magazine (it would cut into my time with other important media outlets like ESPN.com) it seems like this may be a little over the top. Of course, the readership of this magazine is not so concerned about price and may actually welcome the exclusivity of the online ‘club’ mentality.
Would this go over with the People Magazine crowd? Will this technique bleed over into mass-market publications and will the general public, who is already hurting economically and turning to the Internet for an escape, pay to play? Let’s hear your take on whether this is a widely adoptable technique or a play for very specific offerings.
Why Internet Summit Might be the Best $295 You’ll Spend in 2009!
When do you ever find an internet marketing event with this much to offer?
Speakers? How about this line-up:
- Microsoft
- Digg
- AOL
- comScore
- CBS
- Technorati
- Expedia
- Pandora
- ESPN
- Many more!
Session topics? Broad and deep:
- Blogging
- Search marketing
- Mobile
- Cloud computing
- Social Media
- Email marketing
- Video
- Real-Time
- Plus more great topics!
Location? The mild Fall temperatures of Raleigh, North Carolina.
The cost? Just $295 if you register this week! Yes, just $295!
Last year’s Internet Summit sold out early and was one of my favorite events of the year. I’ll be there again this year–speaking on the Blogging panel–and I hope you’ll join me!
Note: Internet Summit is an advertiser on this site, but this post is not a paid endorsement. I’m going and speaking, regardless! 
NBC Goes Mobile With Investment
NBC understands that the future of television may have less to do with TV’s. As a result, the company has made a move into the mobile ad space by investing in the mobile ad network Greystripe. The funding is said to have been made to assist the sales team headquartered in New York in selling more ads across the 1,000 mobile apps and games on over 1,400 devices that Greystripe can provide.
Greystripe, a mobile advertising network that distributes ad-supported games and applications, said it secured $2 million in funding from the Peacock Equity Fund, a joint venture fund co-founded by GE and its NBC Universal unit, ending a Series C funding round. The funding and a new strategic partnership with NBC Universal give Greystripe an edge in the hyper-competitive mobile ad world.
This ‘hyper-competitive’ market is projected by some to reach $2 billion per year in 2014 so there is certainly a lot at stake and getting in now rather than after the ship has sailed shows that at least NBC is paying attention. That can’t be said for all traditional media that has traditionally been slow on the uptake of the most current ways to reach consumers
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As more evidence of just how the advertising world has changed one needs to look no further than other investors in Greystripe up to this point
Today’s funding news marks the second time a major media corporation-backed fund has invested in Greystripe. Steamboat Ventures, Walt Disney’s venture capital arm, led Greystripe’s Series B funding round in 2007, injecting $8.9 million into the ad network. In addition to receiving capital from NBC Universal, Greystripe will partner with the media corporation’s big-name properties, such as the Sci-Fi (sic) Channel, Bravo and MSNBC, to provide ads on its mobile applications. At the same time, NBC Universal can now sell ad space within its mobile apps to advertisers through Greystripe’s mobile ad network.
Yup, that’s Walt Disney Co., owner of ABC and ESPN among others. While this type of ‘partnership’ is less and less unusual it still shows just how much the advertising world has changed over the past several years as a result of the Internet and mobile computing / browsing.
One major competitive differentiator for Greystripe, notes their CEO Michael Chang, is that the network can serve ‘flash-like’ ads on the iPhone. The iPhone does not support flash yet but Greystripe apparently has some kind of workaround / variation on the flash theme that was attractive to a broadcast company like NBC.
Maybe mobile is finally here. If the networks are on board that means there can’t be too many adopters left out there.
Twitter Keeps Growing
While a lot of the talk around Twitter is hype and hyperbole and anything else that is based in theory there are some real numbers that Twitter can point to that are hard to ignore. In June, according to comScore as reported by TechCrunch Twitter had 44.5 million visitors to the site. This is a pretty large number on its own, placing it ahead of ESPN and just shy of Craig’s List as well as the BBC’s site. In a pure ranking sense the site now sits at the 52nd largest site in the world. The graph below represents the kind of ‘hockey stick’ growth that most just dream will happen.
These numbers represent visitors not accounts so the number of Twitter users and the number of active accounts are not part of these results. What they do represent however is an increase of 7 million visitors from May to June of this year which is pretty strong. Amazing what a little political mayhem in Iran can do to goose the business fortunes of Internet entrepreneurs in the US.
Twitter must be happy with these numbers for sure, especially the fact that there was a remarkable 1,460% increase in visitors from June of 2008 to June of 2009. So how could this be better? Well, about 20 million of the total 44.5 million visitors are from the US, which means that the international appeal of the service is very strong. The best piece though is that it is estimated that only about ½ of the total Twitter user population actually visit the site. The heaviest users in fact are using a variety of third party apps like TweetDeck to manage their Twitter experience.
So you can talk about all the psychology and community and whatever other ‘ology’ there is about Twitter but at the bottom of all of it are large numbers of visitors and users. These are the things that companies spend money on. You know, pesky numbers and cold hard facts. Now if only Twitter would try to make a little money from all of this ‘success’. It’s getting to the point now that this needs to be the next news coming from the little bird, don’t you think?
