Is Microsoft Waging a Proxy War on Google for Antitrust?
Well, if the shoe isn’t on the other foot. Once upon a time, Microsoft seemed to be the biggest threat to free trade in the computer world, facing suits across the world. And now it’s Google’s turn—and coincidentally, Microsoft certainly looks like the man behind the curtain. In fact, two thirds of voters at the Wall Street Journal think it’s Microsoft’s machinations throwing the gauntlet down at Google:
How is Microsoft doing this? Certainly not directly (pot, kettle). No—it would have to be through backroom puppetry, which Microsoft of course denies. The evidence does appear highly coincidental. The WSJ outlines one instance where Google filed a two-sentence suit against a small site owing them $335,000 for AdSense—and got a 24-page antitrust countersuit, with Microsoft’s chief outside antitrust council listed as one of the litigants.
Note, though, that this is Microsoft’s outside council: he doesn’t work for Microsoft and Microsoft alone. It’s entirely possible that the small website searched out someone who was familiar with antitrust law and actions against Google.
Meanwhile, Google is facing scrutiny in Europe, including an antitrust suit from a Microsoft subsidiary which has prompted a European Commission investigation.
Naturally, many companies and individuals are concerned about Google’s dominance. Accusations and suits seem to be coming from all quarters, including the US government. Microsoft has used a few more open tactics to wage an antitrust war. These latest volleys might not be orchestrated by Microsoft—or are they? What do you think?
Google Resumes China Talks Despite Evidence Of Govt-Hacking Connection
According to the Wall Street Journal, Google has re-engaged with China around its ability to continue operating its number two search engine in the country in an “unfiltered” way. The Chinese have given no public indications that they will permit this in the country, which is ruled by state control of speech and media.
The WSJ [...]
*** Read the full post by clicking on the headline above or, in Facebook, by clicking on the “View Original Post” link below. ***
NY Times to Put Blogs Behind Paywall
After years of debate and experimentation, the New York Times announced its decision of a pay-meter system last month. Although the switch isn’t due for more than a year, we’ve all had our questions. Last week, executives of the Times took the opportunity at the paidContent conference to answer those questions.
Unfortunately, it looks like they’re not all on the same page, especially when it comes to the many popular blogs hosted by the Times. Reports Felix Salmon of Reuters:
[Senior VP of Digital Operations Martin] Nisenholtz did say quite clearly that he expected ad revenue to go up rather than down, which implied to me that that paywall was going to be pretty porous. And [owner Arthur Sulzberger] said that “we are not trying to eliminate ourselves from the digital ecosystem”. But when I asked about specifics, it all got rather messy. It started when I asked whether the NYT’s own blogs would be counted towards the quota, and Nisenholtz replied that “our intention is to keep blogs behind the wall”.
Salmon also reports that the NYT confirmed to the WSJ that the blogs would be kept behind the paywall.
The meter system is designed to allow users to access a certain number of stories for free on the New York Times each month. For the occasional reader, that will probably be fine. However, for loyal followers of such blogs as the Freakonomics blog, it might not take long to meet your free article quota—and though there are many followers of NY Times blogs, I doubt that many of them would be willing to pay to read a blog. Salmon contends that the authors of the Freakonomics blog shouldn’t (and wouldn’t) stand for such an audience-cutting move.
RSS is another issue here: with the execs apparently confused about whether or not following a link from a third-party site would count toward your quota, they didn’t discuss whether following a link from a presumably-summary RSS subscription would count.
What do you think? Should the Times put blogs behind the paywall? Can they afford to sacrifice their readers—and possibly their blog authors?
Facebook’s Privacy Policy Produces Plea to FTC
Back in July, Facebook was challenged by the Canadian government about some privacy concerns around third party apps and information shared that was taken about users. Many wondered how the social media giant would handle the situation. Would they thumb their nose at the information police? Would they stand up to the Canucks? Well, that was answered in August when they folded like a cheap card table and rewrote their policies to meet Canadian concerns.
Well, if that was a precedent then the folks who run the Facebook Legal team fan page (Is there really one of these? I just made that up) are about to get real busy. You see there are several privacy groups who are up in arms about the latest privacy policies handed down by Zuck and the boys.
According to the WSJ’s MarketWatch
Ten privacy and consumer groups announced Thursday they’ve filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission alleging that Facebook Inc.’s privacy-policy changes violate federal law.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center said in a statement that it and nine other groups are urging the FTC “to open an investigation into the recent changes made by Facebook … and to require Facebook to restore privacy safeguards.”
These kinds of things usually sound a lot worse when they are first brought to light. Ok, so let’s stand in Facebook’s shoes and let this one sit for a second and let the scariness of the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) being called on to investigate your company’s privacy policies go away. Hmmm. Doesn’t seem to be working this time. Why? Well, because this could be a real serious deal for Facebook.
They went from cruising along and just gathering more and more steam in their quest to become a money making machine to now being a social media whipping boy……again. While what they have been accused of lately (breaking a valued trust with their users by making their information, all of it, public unless opted-out) isn’t sleazy on a Tiger Woods like level, it is a serious issue. That’s not good.
Now add on the possibility of the US government (you know the one that thinks it can do everything for everyone so no one needs to think for themselves anymore) being asked by not one but 10 privacy advocates to take a look at your policies. There probably were happier endings envisioned by the Facebook folks on this one, like huge profits from data being available to mine and sell.
EPIC said in its statement that the service “should not be allowed to turn down the privacy dial on so many American consumers,” adding that the changes “violate federal consumer-protection law.”
As they say in some parts of the world “Them thar is fightin’ words!” Of course Facebook has something to say about all of this.
In a statement, a Facebook spokesman said: “We’ve had productive discussions with dozens of organizations around the world about the recent changes, and we’re disappointed that EPIC has chosen to share their concerns with the FTC while refusing to talk to us about them.”
The spokesman, Andrew Noyes, also said that Facebook discussed its privacy program with regulators “including the FTC” prior to its launch.
Well, shame on EPIC for telling on Facebook after the company worked so hard to grease the skids to prevent this very thing from happening. By the way, how productive a meeting is can be pretty subjective. In other words, there is no mention of groups endorsing what Facebook did, just a statement that they met and talked.
Look this may turn out to be a non-issue. The FTC may decide to not act on the request of these groups but it might be hard for them to do so. Of course, with Facebook letting the world know that they spoke to the FTC before this move was made may make some wonder just what kind of ‘agreements and understandings’ may have been reached. Whatever they were, they may now be null and void if there is enough of a stink raised.
So what looked like a pretty strong year for Facebook may end on a sour note. They’ll get over though just like they did with Beacon. Apparently that gaffe was either forgotten or it’s the policy of the company to see just what it can get away with until someone slaps their hands or slaps them with an investigation. Your thoughts?
Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!
A bit.ly of Interesting News
So you are bit.ly and you just suffered through the announcement that your already crowded area of the Internet space has been sat on by the 800 pound Google gorilla with their announcement of the arrival of their own URL shortening service. That can make for a rough day. Sure competition is a good thing because all ships rise with a rising tide. Google makes those tides rise so fast sometimes though that the little ships get tossed in the air and don’t always land well.
Well, bit.ly is trying to do its part in making the URL shortening industry a little more interesting. They have announced their new Pro service. One wonders if they needed to announce it a little more hastily than anticipated considering the new “Google’s in the URL shortening house!” scenario. At any rate they are offering a chance for users to provide customized / personalized / whatever-ized shortened URL’s for those looking t stand out from the crowd. Their blog’s description goes a little something like this:
As part of our initial beta program, we’re making custom URLs available to a limited number of large and medium-sized Web publishers and bloggers, including AOL, Associated Content, Bing, Clicker, The Daily Telegraph, foursquare, GDGT, Hot Potato, The Huffington Post, IGN, kickstarter, Meebo, MSN, /Message (Stowe Boyd), The New York Times, OMGPOP, oneforty.com, The Onion, slideshare, someecards, TechCrunch, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network — which includes WSJ.com and MarketWatch.com — and blogger Baratunde Thurston (baratunde.com).
Users and publishers benefit from the additional transparency that this private-label service provides. When you see a short URL like nyti.ms, you know the destination web site before clicking on the link.
OK, good if you are one of the big boys. Goes on the wish list of most others. In addition the service is introducing a new dashboard as well. Go check out the picture at their blog which has itty-bit.ly print for you to strain over. The readable words from bit.ly about the dashboard are
We’re also excited to be introducing a unique real-time dashboard that will provide publishers with even more information about their bit.ly traffic. It’s a real-time view of how a given publisher’s content is being distributed across networks like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace and services like email, SMS, and instant messenger.
Now, I have to admit that this is cool. It’s fun to see this kind of innovation from someone other than the big names. I can’t help but wonder though just how long this kind of innovation will be available now that Google has entered the space. I have been a fan of Google for quite some time but it is starting to feel a little too ‘big brotherish’ at times.
When Google talked about the 3 S’s of their URL shortening service (security, stability and speed) all I could think about is the speed with which they are going to take all of the air out of the room for the little guy in this space and determine who may be allowed to stick around. What if Twitter decides to remove bit.ly as their default URL shortener and creates Twi.tr for their own branding purposes? There may be too much muscle for a player like bit.ly to stick around no matter how much innovation they provide.
Am I overreacting here? I’m sure you will let me know because that’s your job here at Marketing Pilgrim. Let’s hear it.
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?
WSJ: Advertisers Doing More And Less With Search
In case you didn’t see it there was an article in the Wall Street Journal this morning that seeks to capture a kind of shift or broadening of advertisers’ attitudes toward search marketing. Formerly search was something of an island and not well integrated into wider marketing campaigns. Many search + display studies and several [...]
….
Wall Street Journal Ventures Further Into Paid Content World
It’s been a little while since we have drug the already weather beaten newspaper industry back into the spotlight with regard to its desperate need to generate new life. In what appears to be one of the success stories of this new era of content delivery, the Wall Street Journal is stepping up its efforts in this arena. Already one of the premier providers of a paid online version of the paper there is now the introduction of the Professional Edition according to a report from Reuters.
The Wall Street Journal, ever on the hunt for new ways to please its readers and new ways to make money (and what, we ask, is wrong with that?), will launch a new, pricier version this November. Called “The Wall Street Journal Professional Edition,” it is designed for business readers who want more than what the daily newspaper and website provide on their own.
Essentially, it is the Journal’s daily offering, with reports from Dow Jones Newswires and a reservoir of news and information from Factiva, the news archive that Dow Jones owns — and a bunch more stuff.
That ‘stuff’ includes a lot of information that would not be of use to someone like me but to it is to a supposedly large group of business types that need more than just the paper but less than having a full service offering from Bloomberg or another provider. Some of the information includes
- Information from more than 17,000 global sources, some of which are not available to the public.
- A one-year archive of Factiva’s global business sources and a two-year archive of wsj.com content.
- More than 30 industry pages, managed by Dow Jones editors
- Six industry sections managed by Journal editors who select news and information for readers on pharmaceuticals, healthcare, energy, media and marketing, telecommunications and technology.
- Personalized homepages and news alerts for when things break.
So what’s the cost? It’s $49 per month (you can get the current regular edition for around $9 per month depending on the deal you can find). Too rich for my blood but I also don’t require the level of information it offers.
This makes sense to me. It is the slicing and dicing of information to fit a particular niche market. Ideally, this is one of the greatest benefits of the Internet. It would be ridiculous to put together a print edition that tried to address this group because the physical limitations wouldn’t make it much different than the regular paper.
When companies try to repackage their regular offerings with an extra bell or whistle here and there then have the gall to call it ‘bigger and better’ that’s when you get screwed. We are now in a time where there needs to be a significant improvement or much deeper offering to merit any cost at all. This approach in the business sector will work because information wins the day. Will it work in the entertainment magazine or local newspaper market? Not likely.
So there will be models moving forward that make sense to pay for. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that an audience like the WSJ’s can afford it either. Are you seeing any other pay for content models that make sense out there? If so let us know. Are there any publications that could do the same as the WSJ? Think about it. We would love to hear your thoughts.
Will Yahoo’s New Marketing Blitz See Success? It’s Up to You!
Who’s responsible for the recent turmoil at Yahoo?
Who’s responsible for Yahoo signing a deal with Bing?
Who’s responsible for its stagnant search share?
It’s You! It’s all you, baby!
OK, perhaps that won’t be the entire message in Yahoo’s new global marketing campaign, but the "It’s You" part will be in there.
According to the WSJ, Yahoo is launching a new mega-million dollar marketing blitz tomorrow, with the emphasis on letting the public know that Yahoo is all about your experience.
Buzz around the new campaign has been building since Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz disclosed it to investors this summer, and the company invited reporters to a press event in New York Tuesday. Bartz, who joined Yahoo in January, hasn’t been shy about saying that the company needs a fresh start…
I’ll interject here, because Beyonce had the best marketing campaign ever and let you know that the campaign will feature new tools and also some guerilla marketing tactics to emphasize that the "Y" in Yahoo, stands for you.
Ok, back to the WSJ…
…and has expressed repeated frustration that the public doesn’t fully appreciate Yahoo’s massive scale and reach. This campaign is a big step to try to change that.
Erm, the public doesn’t fully appreciate Yahoo? I know that isn’t a direct quote from Bartz, but let’s assume the sentiment is accurate. Yahoo is frustrated that it’s not better appreciated? And they think spending millions of dollars is going to change that?
Maybe Yahoo should talk to its new partner, Microsoft, for a history lesson. Microsoft spent hundreds of millions trying to convince us to use Live Search. They failed. You see, you can polish up a turd and give it a glitzy ad campaign, but people will still see that it’s a turd. Microsoft did what was actually needed, it built a better product in Bing. With Bing, Microsoft has a great product to go along with its mega-million marketing efforts. See the connection here Yahoo?
I know that Yahoo is desperate to grow and build shareholder value, but it seems to me that the public doesn’t appreciate Yahoo because Yahoo has nothing that "flicks our bic." It’s not Google, not Facebook, and not Twitter. It’s just the same old, same old Yahoo.
Sorry Yahoo, it’s not us, it’s You! that needs to change.
Kai-Fu Lee Leaves Google; Soft Snickering Heard in Redmond
The man that gave Google one of its biggest legal headaches, is leaving the company.
According to the WSJ, Kai-Fu Lee, president of Google’s China operations is leaving Google to work on his own start-up. You may remember that Lee, was smack in the middle of a legal battle between Microsoft and Google over allegations that he breached his employment contract, when he took on the job of helping Google with its efforts in China.
The two companies settled in 2005, and since then Lee helped Google build its Chinese search share to 20%–measly compared to Baidu’s 76% dominance–but still a big improvement for the company.
Of course, Google’s moving quickly to ensure Lee’s departure is not too much of a setback. Lee shoes will be filled by two people–those must have been big boots!–and Google will double the size of its sales force in China.
It will be interesting to see what Lee will do next and if he’ll come clean about his reasons for leaving. I suspect that frustration played a key role in his decision. Google has faced many uphill challenges in China–mostly due to the company’s US roots. If Lee decides to base his start-up in China–and work closely with the Chinese government–he might find less of a hard road to hoe.
