There are more than 200 million people using social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo but it’s becoming increasingly apparent that social networks as an advertising platform are a dud.
According to eMarketer, ad spending in the U.S. on social networks will be $1.17-billion this year, and only grow to $1.64-billion by 2013. That kind of growth is a long way from the bullish approach many people had about social networks last year when Facebook was all the rage, and Microsoft poured $200-million into Facebook for a teeny-tiny stake.
So, what’s happening? Why have social networks failed as advertising vehicles?
Maybe it has to do with the audience and how they’re using social networks. You’re mostly talking about a multi-tasking, fickle (aka no loyalty),...
It seems kind of strange to see a feature story in the Wall St. Journal entitled “Extinction Threatens Yellow-Pages Publishers”.
By strange, I mean that it’s not really a story for anyone who actively uses the Web. When was the last time you looked something up in the yellow or white pages? I would hazard to guess the answer is you can’t remember.
In my house, the Yellow Pages don’t even make it past the front porch. As soon as they’re delivered, they’re immediately thrown in the recycling bin. If I could figure out a way to stop them from being delivered, I’d gladly do it.
Of course, this new reality is terrible news for companies that publish the Yellow Pages given they’ve been high-margin entities for decades. For example, Yellow...
A few years ago, Stowe Boyd gained some notoriety - and enough money to buy a 30″ Apple monitor - by wearing a logo-ed T-shirt for $15/day.
It was a unique gimmick. That said, two new entries in the pay-me-to-wear-your-corporate-tshirt - iwearyourshirt and Girl in Your Shirt - are just dumb and unoriginal.
There, I said it, and feel much better.
Technorati Tags: Advertising...
Huh? via Mark Evans September 12th, 2008 at 18:08
I definitely get that Microsoft is looking to re-brand itself with a $300-million advertising campaign.
I kind of get that Microsoft hired Jerry Seinfeld to jump-start it.
I sort of get they’re paying him $10-million.
I do not get the videos featuring Seinfield and Bill Gates, particularly this one. That said, I do find them funny, especially Gates, who may have found a new post-Microsoft career.
I’d like to get it but I can’t. Am I missing something? TechCrunchh has questions as well.
Technorati Tags: Advertising, Microsoft...
Can Jerry Seinfeld help Microsoft counter-attack against Apple’s hip, cool and successful marketing efforts?
Microsoft clearly thinks the well-known comedian has the chops given it will reportedly pay him a cool $10-million to appear in a new advertising campaign along with other celebrities.
According to the Wall St. Journal, Seinfeld will appear with Bill Gates in some of the ads. If anyone can make Gates comes across as funny, it’s Seinfeld.
The question is whether Seinfeld will be able to make Microsoft cooler. As Silicon Valley Insider notes, Seinfeld is not that cool. A decade ago, Seinfeld was the ultra-cool as “Seinfeld” was one of the most-viewed shows. Today, Seinfeld is probably best-known for doing voice-overs in movies, and he’s seen as funny but...
Since the Web hit the mainstream more than a decade ago, the 404 has been the standard error message when a server request can’t be fulfilled.
But as ISPs look for news ways to generate more revenue, the 404 could go extinct. For example, take a look below at what Rogers is doing when you mistype a URL. In this case, I was looking for Craigslist but didn’t include the .com.
For Rogers, replacing the 404 lets it present two banner ads (both in-house), some sponsored links, and links to Rogers Media content.
When you take into account this activity, bandwidth caps/tiered service, ad insertion based on monitoring the Web sites you visit, and the sale of value-added services such as anti-virus, it’s easy to see how ISPs want to be much more than just fast pipes to the......
I’ve yet to get my hands on a Samsung Instinct (I’ll do so soon and provide a review), and it’s unlikely it will dislodge the iPhone as the cool smart phone but you have to admire the Instinct’s pluck and willingness to fight the good fight.
For example, I think this billboard is brilliant - smart, attention-grabbing and inspiring. It’s one of those few ads that makes you think “What’s this Samsung Instinct all about?”. As well, it’s done by Bell, which sadly ran with the “Frank and Gordon” beaver campaign way past its best-until date.
What do you think?
More: Here’s CNet’s coverage/review of the Instinct.
Technorati Tags: Advertising, iPhone, samsung instinct...
For blogs and bloggers, RSS is a double-edged sword.
On one hand, it’s a wonderful tool to expand your blog’s distribution and readership. On the other hand, RSS sucks people away from reading your blog given they can see all your posts within an RSS reader. While this is great for blog readers, it also means all those readers aren’t seeing any of your ads…or your comments, cool widgets, new and improved design, etc.
As much as TechCrunch is more than happy to have 907,000 people subscribing to its FeedBurner RSS feed, I’m also sure Mr. Arrington and his advertisers would be happier if they were visiting techcrunch.com.
For blogs trying to make money, the big problem is advertising (aka feed-vertising) within RSS feeds has been, to date, a dud....
Ever since Amanda Congdon’s controversial and dramatic departure from Rocketboom two years ago, it seems like the video news site has disappeared from the spotlight.
Perhaps it has to do with the fact Rocketboom and videoblogs are no longer shiny and new. Or maybe Rocketboom simply lost its “je ne sais quoi” after Congdon and Rocketboom co-founder Andrew Baron went through a very public and nasty he-said-she-said break up.
In any event, Rocketboom is still rumbling along. In fact, TechCrunch is reporting that it has entered into a distribution and ad sales deal with Sony Pictures “in return for a seven-figure guarantee plus a share of revenues”.
Given Rocketboom’s lost luster and the growing competitiveness of the videoblog market, I’d say Barron...
J.C. Penney is learning the hard way that once something is released on the Web, it’s nearly impossible to get it back.
A fake ad features two teenagers (a boy and a girl) timing themselves on how quickly they can get dressed. The subtle message is they are preparing themselves to do “the nasty” in the basement of the girl’s house while her mother reads upstairs.
J.C. Penney is a PR lather because the ad is based on its tag line “Every Day Matters”. As a result, it wants its ad agency, Saatchi & Saatchi, to “remove it from the Web”.
Ha!
Given how quickly content can be distributed, reformatted, etc., getting a video pulled from the Web is like trying to put the genie back in the bottle.
You can understand why J.C. Penney wants to avoid a...
A couple years ago, I was introduced to Enquisite, a Victoria, B.C.-based startup developing an analytics tool that showed how Web sites were ranked by the major search engines, as well as providing details on search engine referrals and how visitors used Web sites.
It was an interesting service but it was difficult to tell if Enquisite (then known as Metamend) could turn technology into a business. Flash forward two years, and not only is Enquisite still around but it’s on the verge of taking some huge steps forward. I talked recently with CEO Richard Zwicky, who will be appearing on a panel next week at the Search Engine Strategies conference in Toronto.
Zwicky said the company’s growth is being driven by interest in Enquisite Pro, which provides users with tools to examine...
Louis Gray has an interesting post looking at Blogging 2.0 in which the content and conversation (C&C) are increasingly happening in places other than a blog.
He suggests this is “going to cause serious strain” on people who make a living from blogging given page views will likely decline. This will make blogs less attractive to advertisers and less lucrative in terms of AdSense and e-commerce opportunities.
While I agree with Louis that bloggers need to embrace the new landscape, the reality is if blogs continue to lose their role as the primary way people consume content then the days of the pro blogger running a lucrative blog franchise are going to be over soon.
Amid this environment, there seems to be few opportunities for people to create a viable blogging business....
In the wake of all the talk involving about Shyftr and its service that pulls content and the conversation from blogs, there was some discussion about monetization. For people interested in make money, Shyftr and its ilk are bad; for people more interested in building brand and distribution, Shyftr’s doing nothing wrong.
But let’s put aside Shyftr and the issue about whether blogs will slowly see their traffic erode as consumers read content in a variety of external places. Instead, let’s focus on the money. In particular, let’s focus on advertising dollars attracted by user-generated content makers (bloggers, podcasters, video-bloggers).
Before we do that, let’s look at some bullish sexy numbers from eMarketer (aka The New Forrester Research of Web 2.0)....
In thinking some more about the enthusiastic discussion about Shyftr over the weekend (and I refuse to call it a “Bitchmeme”), a few major themes for bloggers emerged, especially those interested in making money even to cover monthly costs such as hosting. (Hat tip to Steve Hodson, who wote an excellent post yesterday, and Deep Jive Interests, who accurately described Shyftr’s activity as “scraping”, although Shyftr claims it’s going to change its scraping ways.)
1. As long as RSS receives little love, attention and money from advertisers, pageviews are still important. No pageviews, no advertising revenue - regardless of whether it’s CPM, CPC , AdSense, sponsorship, etc.
2. It’s your content so make sure you control it. If brand and...
If you think the online ad market is going soft, eMarketer has come to the rescue with some much-needed bullish projections - including the suggestion online advertising will account for 10% of the total U.S. market in 2009.
Technorati Tags: Advertising, eMarketer...
In many ways, podcasting has been the bastard-child of the user-generated content world - talked about but mostly unloved by the masses - while blogging and video-blogging have hogged the spotlight.
eMarketer, however, believes podcast advertising is poised to explode (relatively speaking). The research firm, which seems to be bullish about an awful lot of online markets (the New Forrester Research?) suggests U.S. podcasting ad spending will nearly triple to $435-million by 2012 from $165-million in 2007.
All things considered, it’s pretty impressive growth. Perhaps I should revive the Talking Tech podcast given this bullish environment.
eMarketer suggests advertisers will be seduced attracted by the growth of the podcasting audience to 65 million by 2012 - with 25 million being...
I don’t get much spam these days but one type that continues to slip through the defenses is e-mail promising to extend, well, my member.
Some of are downright insulting, describing it as a “baby carrot” while others contend I could be a more satisfying partner if only I would augment my appendage to “the necessary size”.
Not that I’m concerned about my carrot but if I was, I wonder whether any of these generous offers would lead to a better - and bigger - love life. Maybe some of these offers are legit. Maybe people who feel they’ve been short-changed can find salvation from the Web.
I can’t believe anyone really believes any of these offers but if they keep on coming, there must be an audience. I mean, why would a spammer flood millions...
Want to work 10 hours/week and make profits of $10-million a year?
If you’re Markus Frind, who owns the Plenty of Fish online dating site, you’re living the dream. It’s like winning the lottery every year as he operates a skeleton bones business out of his apartment.
While the New York Times accurately describes POF’s interface as a “visually painful experience”, hundreds of thousands of lonely souls clear like what POF has to offer.
What particularly interesting is Frind’s relatively low profile in Canada. He is, by far, one of the country’s most successful entrepreneurs yet he hasn’t anywhere near the accolades he deserves. Maybe that’s by design. After all, what else do you need if you’re barely working but making...
In theory, podcasts are an excellent idea. It’s like radio but better because they’re lots of content out there and it’s pretty easy to access what you want.
And while everyone loves the idea of a podcast and lots of people enthusiastically talk about making podcasts, it’s actually difficult to find a lot of people who admit to listening to them. Hands up, how many people out there listen to podcasts on a regular basis. I’d be surprised if more than a few people raised their hands.
If the paucity of podcast listeners is true, why is that? Podcasts should be popular because they’re easy to produce, which means they’re a huge variety of content available; they’re pretty easy to find and download, and listening to them on your computer or MP3...
At a time when newspaper and magazine advertising is struggling amid increasing competition from the Web, there has been little attention paid to another ad market that continues to see solid growth: outdoor advertising - you know, those ubiquitous billboards that catch your attention when you’re driving and talking on your wireless device.
According to eMarketer, the outdoor ad market will rank second beyond online in terms of spending growth. Over the next four years, eMarketer believes the size of the U.S. outdoor ad market will climb to $10.2-billion from $7.4-billion, while the online market will double to $42-billion from $21.4-billion.
So why is the outdoor market thriving while newspapers and magazines are struggling, and being forced to reduce costs and change their...
As 2008 rolls around, I’ve been spending some of my holidays time tying up some loose ends.
One of them is cleaning out an inbox fueled/bogged down by multiple e-mail addresses and subscriptions to far too many newsletters. Although there are still a few still running wild, I’ve been on an aggressive newsletter unsubscribe campaign in an attempt to manage my in-box better. Anything that isn’t a must-read is abruptly turfed, and the more turfing I do, the better it feels.
It’s interesting to see the different unsubscribe options. The best and most efficient are ones where you click on a link at the bottom of an e-mail, which causes a Web page to open with a “You’re now unsubscribed” message. Now, that’s user-friendly!
Then, there are...
There’s this thread (Bits and TechCrunch are good examples) going around the blogosphere that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg apologized for Beacon’s flawed launch into the world, which led to a wave of privacy concerns and public retreats from high-profile advertisers who had been Beacon supporters.
Truth be told, Zuckerberg did not apologize; not even close. In fact, you could argue he and Facebook are unrepentant about what was/is a major strategic mistake. All Zuckerberg will admit is “we missed the right balance” by not giving people enough flexibility to opt out of Beacon.
Ha! It’s like Facebook introduced a car with three wheels, and then concedes there wouldn’t have as many accidents if it had thought it through and offered a fourth wheel....
Last week, I installed a Wordpress plug-in, Open Web Analytics (aka OWA), that provides a pretty good snapshot of how much traffic a blog receives and how it gets there.
OWA isn’t significantly different from Clicky, Mint, Google Analytics, etc. but, for whatever reason, it hammered home the message that the number of people visiting my blog is fairly insignificant. Rather than be disappointed, this reality is interesting because, I think, there are lots of people are reading my blog judging by the 1,600 or so FeedBurner subscribers.
What’s happening is most people who take the time to check out MET - and I thank them for investing some of their time to do it - are doing so through an RSS reader. And I think you could make the same argument for many tech blog readers. Of...
Apple has been having a field day with its cheeky, funny and smart Buy a Mac ads but you have to wonder when Microsoft finally counter-punches. Is this new Apple ad, the final straw?
Technorati Tags: Advertising, Microsoft, Apple...
Ever wondered why Canada’s online advertising market is lagging behind the U.S.? eMarketer is puzzled as well, although there are signs of life.
“Canada’s online development has been a paradox, The country has one of the best broadband infrastructures in the world and higher household Internet penetration than the United States. The online population is engaged, tech-savvy and independent-minded. Canada is home to a cutting-edge computer games industry, assisted by substantial tax breaks. The size of the country and its pioneer heritage encourage efficiency and progressive thinking. Yet Canadian companies have generally been slow to advertise online.”
- Karin von Abrams, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report Canada Online Advertising.
Technorati Tags: Canada...
I was spending some time recently exploring the seemingly bottomless world of Wordpress plug-ins - looking for a sidebar widget to showcase most popular posts.
One thing that popped up on a number of sites were requests for donations. They seemed pretty reasonable given that someone had spent the time to develop a plug-in, and wanted to be compensated for their work. In an ideal world, everyone would happily comply by throwing them, let’s say, a buck or two for something they could potentially use for months and months.
Unfortunately, donation and tip boxes across the Web probably gather an awful lot of dust while they patiently waiting for someone to click on them. Right now, the FreeWeb is alive and well in which no one seems willing to pay for anything no matter how valuable or...
Stuff that caught my eye this week….
1. Universal McCann CEO Nick Brien claims that major brand marketers are tried of traditional media, and could move “50% to 60%” of their ad spending online.
Right, Nick. eMarketer expects the Web will attract a mere 7.4% of ad spending this year before climbing to 13.3% by 2011. Even Proctor & Gamble, one of the most progressive big-brand advertisers, is spending single-digits of its massive ad budget on the Web.
2. Songza.com: A cool way to search and stream all kinds of music. Even my brother’s band, Freeflow, could be found.
3. For all the talk about saving energy by installing new light bulbs, it was still a little surprising to see LED Lighting Fixtures received $16.5-million of venture capital. LLF makes light...
One of my favorite quotes from M*A*S*H (the television comedy for you young’uns) is the bumbling Frank Burns, who is a brief moment of sensitivity, blurts out:
“It’s nice to be nice to the nice.”
I’m not sure why this quote popped up when I heard about Freshbooks and the Triscuits but it seems appropriate.
A few months ago, my friend Mike McDerment (who runs Freshbooks, a cool online invoicing service) wrote a blog post about two new kinds of Triscuits - Cracked Pepper and Olive Oil. The post elicited a comment from a Freshbooks’ customer, Oceanic Communications, who lamented that these products weren’t available in Fiji.
In jest, he suggested Freshbooks should stop talking about food that others couldn’t get, or they would cancel their...
There’s no lack of stuff to read about Facebook’s new social advertising announcement but here’s the bottom line:
In making Facebook one of the new ways to socialize and communicate - as well as attracting thousands of developers to make the platform more attractive - Facebook has been encouraging people to provide a mother-lode of information about themselves - where they live, what they do, their age, education, interests, etc Now, Facebook is going to use all that information to unleash targeted advertising at its loyal users.
It’s like Facebook has been your friendly corner drug dealer, peddling the soft stuff to slowly build your addiction. Now that they’ve got more than 50 million people hooked, the stage is set for Facebook to start selling the hard...
Amid the current online boom and the growing fascination with pageviews (Eyeballs 2.0), it’s good to see the New York Times put the spotlight on the different ways to measure and present traffic.
Web site A claims it has x number of visitors while measurement services such as ComScore and Nielson/NetRatings suggest it’s much lower. Who’s right and/or more accurate. The answer: no one really knows because there are no industry standards when it comes to accurately determining pageviews, which is strange given it’s become such an important part of the Web’s economic landscape.
You figure the Internet Advertising Bureau or some of the major Web sites that depend on accurate traffic numbers would have done something. Instead, there’s been a proliferation...