People are inherently competitive. Whether it be in their career, sport or a friendly game of Pictionary on a Saturday afternoon people like to win or at least beat other people. The same can be said for bloggers which is a subset of the population who want to get their voice heard and thus want attention. The recent spate of blog rankings has got the whole community excited about being in the top XXX of something.
However when you start to rank people by their blogs you run into a few problems. How do you rank something as complex as a blog? What metrics do you use, when the majority of real data is hidden to the outside user? It's easy to compare sports stars as you rank them based on their performance on the field. If you started adding in income generated, fans and other vague data it'd become a lot more complicated just like it is with blogs. Many assumptions need to be made.
There are a few global and localised blog ranking systems around with some drilled down to specific industries.
There's also special editorials posting the top blogs here and there including Time's Top 25 blogs
Imagine if they ranked the Billboard Top Albums based on more than just sales? It'd become a nightmare and open to tactics used to generate higher rankings.
Right now to rank blogs we have a my rid of metrics such as Technorati inbound links, Technorati inbound blog, Google Page Rank, Bloglines readership, Feedburner readership, Alexa ranking, Yahoo! links.
One thing missing from a lot of these rankings is participation and loyalty of readers. Bannerblog has a very vocal audience who like to share their opinion on banners, and regularly get 15+ comments per post. (not so much in the news) Other blogs find it hard to garner more than 3 comments per post. (like this section) This type of participation I think is an important part of the strength of a blog. I run other blogs (Sleevage, WTFcostumes) that get more traffic but the audience is very transient. Mostly based of search engine traffic. There is a 30%-50% increase in the number of new visitors. Bannerblog sits at a 45% new visitor rate most months. No one really searches for "VW Banner" on Google. But they search for "CD Covers" all the time.
It's almost here. Flash 10 loaded with all the eyecandy features that you never asked for but now you see are pretty awesome. 3D transform, IK (bones) and a motion editor will make stuff much easier to animate and work with. See full feature list here.
Flash versions always seem to go in cycles.
Flash 6 - 7 was all functionality and no eyecandy. Flash 7 - 8 was pretty much all eyecandy Flash 8 - 9 was just for AS3 which is not exactly eyecandy but made flash run fast.
Now the release of Flash CS4 (or flash 10) is here and it's loaded with eyecandy!
make sure to register for the free events happening around Australia too. Click the promo image below for more info and to RSVP.
Everything you wanted to know about the Blogosphere (hate that word) and more. Technorati release their State of the Blogosphere 2008 report.
Reading this series of reports will let you fake your way through any conversation on blogging even if you think a Blogroll is something you find at a Yum Cha restaurant. Anyone out there fluffing their way through a digital strategist role at an above the line agency should have hard copies of this too.
The report contains not just sexy graphs (like below) on blogs but also insight as to why we blog and the people who blog.
Over $184M was invested in Virtual Worlds in the 1st QTR of 08. Full article here.
Even if you take away the $100M invested in 9you this is a significant amount of cash. Not all these worlds are "Second Life" clones.
Second Life makers Linden Labs also talked about their second coming. Yeah I was surprised to that they are still in business. Here's some stats on usage.
Registered users is above 15 million. The more important number is the simultaneous users. That is now more than 68,000.
No indication if this is steady, dropping or rising.
It's not just virtual worlds making cash. Trism developer Demiforce revealed at a games conference that made $250,000 in 2 months via the App Store. Full article here. It helps they had one of the best games available and launched at the perfect time. But this is amazing for a 1 man development team.
Why do projects for clients when you could potentially release your own software to a spend happy consumer market?
Maybe because I've been travelling lately I missed the initial buzz around this but you'd think a new Seth MacFarlane series sponsored by Burger King would have generated more interest.
The full show goes live Sept 10 and I can't wait. Below are two teasers for the series. There is also an official site for the show but with no new content until Sept 10.
I'm not sure of the BK deal usrups the one preivously announced here about distributing the shows 50x2minute episodes via Googles Adsense network.
There has also been a lot of talk in the Australian press about privacy concerns with Google Street View and people complaining that it makes it easy for people to plan robberies and escape routes.
Will advertising creatives, who don't even like putting a URL on their beautifully shot print ad or outdoor ad, want to chuck a huge QR code in the corner of their ad?
Probably not. They'd say this
If you want to make your own QR code go to here or if you really want to get technical make your own with Google's Chart API.
Is it just me or does releasing a press release about your latest endevor online that hasn't even started yet seem like talking up how you're "totally gonna root that person at the xmas party". Ok, let me know after the party and give me the sticky details, just don't waste my time now.
The latest offender is Naked who reports "Intern Gavin Chimes' first day at work at Naked Communications is one he is unlike to forget after being packed off on a 10-day European tour courtesy of holiday firm Contiki." there's even a link to the Youtube channel.
Not even a video expaining the stunt, or a word from Contiki. They had enough time to write a PR and take photos but not enough to actually get the ball rolling on the actual blog. What if I wanted to blog about this amazing new innovation in marketing? Well I'd be blogging "vaporads". I'll have to bookmark it and then check in a week, maybe 10 days? Or wait for the next PR release. By that time I'd be following some other phantom campaign.
I did find the channel honours interesting though.
I've been a big supporter of Youtube but the stats below are a bit sad. This is Australian stats. I can imagine other countries fare differently.
If 0 subscribers = #2 then what about the other channels?
Oh...
It's weird as Sprite Truth Hunters (the best Aussie example of a Youtube channel) doesn't appear in this list?
I don't want to bag Youtube as I love it. I've also been a strong supportor of it to clients, but you'd think they'd be bending over backwards to make their sponsors channels go through the roof and then try and bilk them for cash when they are happy.
P.S. I'm claiming ownership over the term Vaporads. Adding it to my lexicon of claims including unforghetti and poolates.
Chuck a Sickie banner campaign axed after 29 minutes
VIRGIN Blue has been left red-faced after being forced to scrap an advertising campaign which urged people to "chuck a sickie" and jet off on holidays.
The controversial online "chuck-a-sickie sale" campaign urged frequent flyers to take time off work and take advantage of "top sale fares".
But Virgin Blue chief Brett Godfrey moved to axe the campaign just 29 minutes after first seeing it, following a media inquiry over the slogan.
What I love about having a vested interest in companies on the share market is it makes it easy to follow. When I was a kid all the numbers and numbers in (brackets) didn't mean anything. I had no idea how some shares were worth $25 and others 2c.
Which I why I find following the listed digital agencies in Australia so interesting. I can compare EBDIT's, profile ratios and billings with the others and my own.
While the DOTCOM boom maybe over people are still forking out wads of cash and people are still losing money, CEO's are being fired, companies liquidated, assets written off, profits not being met and much more.
It's sad to say there hasn't been a success case. There isn't any shining light to say this is how it's done. I'm basing my opinons purely off the share prices. Some companies may be running very well but for investors it's been painful.
All this is happening while digital is in a boom with money pouring into the sector from the other mediums.
I first covered this in January of this year and maybe I should have gone on record as things have gone downwill for every major player.
Here's where the shares were as of Jan 3, 2008. (approx)
Winning the battle against boring banners by easing content integration.
New York, New York (April 16, 2008) - Eyeblaster, the global leader in integrated digital marketing solutions, and Dapper, a leader in the emerging content mashup space, announce a strategic partnership to create the next generation of online ads. MashupAds will enable campaigns with dynamic content from external sites. Providing a platform for the delivery, management and analysis of the new MashupAds, Eyeblaster once again shows its commitment to deliver a complete range of ad campaign management services to its clients.
Until now, the only way advertisers could integrate content into online ads was using XML feeds. XML, however, requires coding on both ends - content provider and ad designer. Because of this limitation, most of the Web's content was not readily available and integration was often costly, lengthy and risky.
With MashupAds, designers will be able to make advertising dynamic in ways never thought possible using powerful, user-friendly mashup tools. Ad creators can move text, images and even interactive forms from existing websites into online ads and:
- Integrate advertiser's content into the ad.
- Include third party content into ad.
- Contextualize the mashup by analyzing the data to target the ad.
MashupAds are an extension of Dapper's proven core feed-creation engine at dapper.net. Through a simple, point-and-click online interface, advertisers and publishers can "unlock" their content to create live feeds that are used to create relevant, compelling ads with no programming. The end result is an ad that behaves like a site feature, combining the advertiser's site functionality with a publisher's context. MashupAds make the difference for advertisers because they:
- Increase relevance through live, updated content beamed directly into the ad.
- Increase interaction, conversion, CTR and ROI.
- Build higher brand awareness.
"Content plays a big role in brand advertising. But content alone cannot connect a brand to its audience," said Gal Trifon, co-founder and chief executive officer at Eyeblaster. "MashupAds will deliver relevant, engaging content closer to the consumer by taking it from the website to an interactive ad campaign."
"We are very excited at this opportunity to work together with a global leader such as Eyeblaster. MashupAds will transform display ads into becoming more engaging, interactive and relevant, and most importantly, enhancing the end-user's browsing experience" said Eran Shir, co-founder and chief executive officer at Dapper.
About Dapper:
Dapper is a U.S. company with offices in Tel Aviv, Israel. Founded by Eran Shir and Jon Aizen in late 2005, Dapper aims to make it easy and possible for anyone to extract and reuse content from any website. By doing so, Dapper hopes to allow others to realize their creativity and implement new and exciting services and applications. For more information, please visit http://www.dapper.net.
About Eyeblaster
In 1999, Eyeblaster was among the pioneers in rich media communication. Today, Eyeblaster extends its inventive heritage in digital advertising through Ad Campaign Manager (ACM). ACM enables interactive agencies, advertisers and publishers to manage campaigns across digital media channels, including online, mobile and in-game, and a variety of formats, including rich media, in-stream video, display and search. ACM is a robust, integrated and easy-to-use platform that allows customers to focus on campaign strategy, creativity and media efficiency without having to worry about the technical complexities associated with managing global advertising campaigns online.
In 2007, Eyeblaster delivered campaigns for nearly 7,000 brand advertisers serving approximately 2,500 ad agencies across over 2,500 global web publishers in over 40 countries worldwide throughout North America, South America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East.
If you run a blog or comment regularly on a blog and haven't installed Disqus then do it now. Well if you comment on a blog regularly, then let the blog owner know they need to get with the times.
Basically it's a centralised system for blog comments. If all blogs ran this system then you could have a centralised database of all your blog comments (across multiple blogs) and be able to track the replies. Who's ever commented on a blog post then forgotten about it. While the replies to your comment stack up.
I also love the Gravatar support which centralises the visual representative of you.
Installation of Disqus took 1 minute for me on Moveable Type. You can then customize the look and feel of the comments through the Disqus admin page.
The only annoying part is Disqus cannot go through previous comments and add them automatically. So Disqus will only be used for new posts onwards. Which is a shame.
Update: I just found the Widget section of Disqus. Check below for an update on the hot topics on the blog. Fantastic. How did I ever blog without this tool
"Video! Video! Video! The rumours are true and “soon” is now. We’re thrilled to introduce video on Flickr. If you’re a pro member, you can now share videos up to 90 glorious seconds in your photostream.
90 seconds? While this might seem like an arbitrary limit, we thought long and hard about how video would complement the flickrverse. If you’ve memorized the Community Guidelines, you know that Flickr is all about sharing photos that you yourself have taken. Video will be no different and so what quickly bubbled up was the idea of “long photos,” of capturing slices of life to share. [...] "
The 90 seconds limit sounds wierd initially, but they have a fair point. We don't need more video sharing sites, we need more cool content.
The video interface looks nice. Interesting to see how it goes.
We posted in January about the fall in digital stocks in Australia and then again in Feb. Only recently have the print press started following the cases of the listed agencies closely as the stories heats up.
Let's take a look at where they all stand as of April. Those who who have been following will know all that the Opes Prime collapse. This has affected in a small way Hyro, Q Limited and Commquest. Other companies have missed targets and lost millions of dollars so that can't help either.
But all that aside all we want to see is the share price and how each company is performing. I'll start with STW which not only made a tiday profit last year but has seen it's share price swing up.
Mitchels is the only one with potential to go up. But that's only because it's taken a beating hard lately too. It's a long way to get back over $1 and back to square 1.
The rest sadly are all heading downwards. If you sold all your shares in January when I first wanred of the fall you should buy me something nice with all the money you saved.
It's sad to see all the listed digital companies take such a beating. Will we see one of these giants fold and sell of the pieces or will they all solider on? I guess it's up to the market but confidence must be shaky.
Hi welcome to my Mypace page. But I'm not here! I'm at thisis50.com! That's what users are greeted to when they visit 50 Cent's Myspace page.
While Thisis50.com would be renamed thisisshitty.com as it looks even worse than his Myspace page it's sending out a big message to other bands and artists. Why are the big players leaving Myspace? What does this mean to his 1 million friends. How many will follow to the new site, how many even noticed. Is a friend just a badge like a sticker on your school book or is it something more meaningful like having them on speed dial. I know personally I only added friends as a way to say "yeah I like The Simpsons" I never actually returned to their profile.
I can see labels now asking their marketing teams why their band doesn't have their own social network?!? Do smaller bands without a huge fan base like 50, Pussy Cat Dolls or Kylie will still need the large social network audience? Or does it make it more special that you become part of a small niche "fan club" that reall means something.
It's funny you ask for features and then you learn about them from other blogs not via official channels.
Youtube have finally added stats to videos. YAY! But don't cancel you're Tube Mogul account just yet as the features are still limited. But you can now drill down per country and region to see how your video is performing. Very important for campaign based videos where your clients product is only sold in one region.
You can see on my "Lost Fart" video stats above the traffic is waning and also the period of time my Youtube account was cancelled.
It took me a while to actually find the stats. You need to go to your account > manage videos > click on "About my video". Why it's hidden so far down the rabbit hole is a question I'd like answered. Compared to Tube Mogul's quick reference to videos, comparing multiple videos and an aggregate of all you videos combined this is very limited.
What Insights (that's what Youtube's calling this feature) does have over Tube Mogul is country break down and also popularity. Popularity will scale your videos from 100 (most popular) to 0.
So a quick scan over this videos stats shows it's done well in Australia. Compared to my fart video which seems to have only made inroads in the USA.
I hope this insights feature gets expanded and also tweaked. Where's the referrer stats? The insights is missing even the features they already have on the video such as ratings, comments both of which could also be graphed over time.
Why didn't they replicate Flickr's stat system which is much simpler and powerful. Every photo has a quick link to stats (including referrer stats) and then you you an overview of your complete account quickly from the main page. Here's my stats below which sadly is dominate by photos of body painted boobs and ciggeratte photos.
So the stats are almost there and these stats are needed for advertisers using Youtube as their main delivery platform for "viral" videos. Although I will say if you shouldn't put all your eggs in the Youtube basket when it's free to post it on any of the other free video sites.
Contrary to what Adnews is reporting, we think Macquarie Communications Group is a potential suitor for Blue Freeway. Just a guess, but at last look in January, Macquarie Group Limited had acquired 10.39% of BLU Read ASX Announcement
MCG could indeed be Mitchell Communications Group, but we think otherwise.
Mashable has reported on Myspace fast tracking their developer platform and it's due to launch next month.
While late to the party the platform will be built using Google's "Open Social" which means you build one app and it can be easily ported to Bebo, LinkedIn and many other social sites.
I look forard to seeing Zombies and Pirate apps take over Myspace.
*** Update 9:54am ***
The announcement has been made and the trading halt has been lifted. The ASX filing here
In a stunning piece of acquisition action, Photon Group Limited(ASX: PGA )has acquired independent planning shop, Naked Communications. There is currently no announcement of the acquisition lodged with the ASX, but according to sources, the deal includes an initial upfront cash payment of £16.5 million.
Photon entered a trading halt last night, and are expected to resume this morning according to an ASX filing.
We posted in January about the fall in digital stocks in Australia. It seems a lot can happen in a month with two of the biggest players having more troubles and management changes.
And it seems Blue Freeway has continued to be hit hard. Their share price was $1.11 when we posted and now sits at $0.44c. This from a high of $2.44. Ouch! Richard Webb their CEO has stepped aside after just 12 months and management are fanning the fires by announcing restructures and top level job cuts.
All this noise about Blue Freeway covered the fact that Hyro's share price dropped from 16c to 9c in a day and their CEO step aside the day after.
Ashadi pointed out that Apple shares have also dropped since January (down form $199 to just $136) so anyone heeding my investment advice would have been screwed either way.
But the share market is for the long term and it will be interesting viewing watching these local tech stocks as they keep their head above water.
I checked my ASX watch list for the first time in a while and I was surprised that the four major listed digital media companies are all sharing a sliding share price for the last year (Jan07 to Dec07). Despite this being the best year for digital media and with another bumper year to come? Commquest can be excused as it's only been listed for less than a month.
STW Group, Blue Freeway, Commquest, Q limited and Hyro represent almost all the listed digital agencies in Australia. If you need to brush up on your web talk and buzz words browse the list ;)
Now I've never heard of Akon or half the rappers in the top 10 of music I do know a little bit more about the film side of things. And looking at the report it makes me wonder.
The top then movies downloaded in 2007 according to Wired are:
1. Resident Evil: Extinction 2. Pirates of The Caribbean: At World's End 3. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry 4. Ratatouille 5. Superbad 6. Beowulf 7. Transformers 8. American Gangster 9. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix 10. Stardust
I'm not 100% sure the data is accurate though (these networks don't exactly provide logs) as "I now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" being the #3 movie. C'mon. The Simpson's movie was everywhere on the networks and had a greater global appeal than some B grade comedy. And Stardust? That's certainly not the film for the "P2P crowd, which is made up largely of younger males."
This also shows that while music seems to be suffering because of P2P, all the films in the top download list did pretty good in the box office. Yep even Chuck and Larry pulled in $120 million.
So film distributors needn't be worried about P2P downloads, Box Office earnings were the biggest yet $9.68 billion with ticket sales staying steady from 2006.
29 sequels in 2007 brought in 22% of the earnings, or $2 Billion dollars. Compared to the 346 original screen plats that brought in $3.3 Billion.
I look forward to "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry 2" coming to theaters soon.
I guess that goes to their bandwidth bill because they saved money on hiring a designer for the site.
It's like the DOT COM days all over again. I had this naive view that Will Farrel just did it off his won back. Silly me. I wonder what ROI the investors are expecting from the site.
Here's the top video on Funny or Die with 50 M views
Did Turner spend $15M developing SuperDeluxe? I doubt it but without the star power and media attention Will Farrel gains the site didn;t get anywhere near as much press.
Here's my fav video off Super Deluxe. It still makes me laugh.
And I doubt Vice had $15M to throw around with VBS.TV
**** Update : Thursday 6th December. As expected, the Federal Communications Minister has today ordered an investigation by ACMA into the sale of adult content ****
Australia's #1 Telcommunications carrier, Telstra is this morning embroiled in a scandal involving it's YouTube styled user generated content site WotNext, which was found to have a number of soft-porn clips.
WotNext is unique in that it has a revenue sharing model whereby contributors earn money each time a user of Telstra's NextG mobile service downloads a clip. Each clip is charged at $1 and Telstra takes 50%, with the other 50% being credited to the user.
The key issue is that no age verfication takes place either on the site, or the mobile handset, therefore minors can access adult content.
News.com.au and the Sydney Morning Herald are both reporting the story, with News.com.au having captured and censored one of the clips for publication.
It will be interesting to see whether Telstra will undertake an audit of its userbase to ascertain whether any minors have indeed accessed adult content and whether Telstra is prepared to refund any money it earned through minors having access. No doubt the incoming Communications Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy, will be asking Telstra to 'Please Explain'.
Furthermore, Telstra may have potentially committed a criminal act by selling porn to minors. The Australian Media and Communication Authority's (ACMA) "Internet Content Guidelines" and "Adult Verification Scheme" has specific guidelines relating to the access of adult content online.
Earlier this year, the site was lauded for its effort by the Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA) when it won Best of Show at the 2007 Mobile Marketing Awards. The agencies credited include, George Patterson Y&R and Tiger Spike.
Unlike YouTube, Telstra claim the site is moderated. However this Google cache snapshot, clearly shows at least one of the controversial videos was posted back in July 2007, casting doubt over Telstra's assertion that the site is moderated.
Itunes downloads of your fav shows was the catlyst behind the Writers Strike. Tom from Kerker emailed us with this insight on the issue. It's all over the news in the US and has already claimed some vistories. 24's premiere will be delayed, SNL will go into reruns and the finale of The Office may not be.
"Maybe you've seen the coverage and you're depressed that Lost will likely only have seven new episodes this winter.
I'm sad about not getting my full share of Jack, Kate, Sawyer and the rest of the island gang, too.
But I'm excited. The Writer's Guild of America strike is almost exclusively about the internet. You can read more about it here, but in short, the writers want to get paid fairly for their work that gets consumed online.
With both the major producers and the WGA calling the internet the future of their business, there's a lot to be encouraged about within our world of advertising.
In 2007, the primary role of the internet switched from Communications to Content. As the internet content business starts shifting into fifth gear (or sixth), they'll need to monetize the content. Forrester noted in May that ad-supported online video would begin to significantly eat into paid videos (like iTunes, Amazon Unbox, etc.).
More importantly, seven of 10 internet users prefer ad-supported online content to fee-based.
So as the WGA strike is bad for us TV viewers (and Lost superfans), it's great for us advertisers – the strike implicitly injects major relevance into online content. And that content needs to be monetized via ads."
Thanks for the info Tom.
All I can say to the big studios is let the writers have their money! They only get 4c for a $20 DVD dating back to a 1985 aggreement, so at least let them make some extra alcohol money from online.
In a move that only benefits advertisers Youtube have launched in Australian version. And to mark thsi special occasion they produced this video with almost every stereotype known. Sadly no "shrimp on the barbie" and "crikeys" to be found.
What this means for Australian advertiers is access to the featured video and the ability to do competitions, or as Youtube calls them "Community" channels, which was previously USA only.
Supervirals.com (terrible name made worse by the logo) is a new venture that allows brands to brief out "viral video" in exchange for prizes. They've signed up mambo, Krispy Kreme and Nudie juice so far.
They describe themselves better than I can so this is form their FAQ section
"SuperVirals is a new creative platform where you can win big prizes by creating and uploading original ideas for sponsor brands. Which means it's also the place to see the best new viral content on the web!"
The briefs are open enough to allow creative freedom but my cynical view on the world won't be banking on this taking off. It just feels too labored?. But I've been wrong many times before. I think 1% (read here) sums it up well.
I haven't hear much from Telstra's WotNext site but it still seems to be going so that's one thing. They also have Project Joystick which is asking for game ideas.
All comps require the user to sign over all IP with their winning entry. I guess this matter little to the general public but matters a lot to people who actually have talent.
So we're a bit late on posting the news about Microsoft buying aQuantive(Avenue A/Razorfish, Atlas amongst others) however this deal has got me thinking about another side of the story I have yet to see covered by the mainstream press.
Microsoft, is at it's heart a technology company and it thrives on ensuring its technology remains dominant. The technology in this case is Silverlight - Microsoft's answer to Flash, and what some commentators have described as a 'Flash Killer'. My opinion is that any many ways, the purchase of a digital marketing agency like aQuantive is more driven by Microsoft's motivation to cement it's own technology as standard than to directly take on advertising and media agencies.
Consider this,
Microsoft now owns a significant number of pieces for it to play in the online space. It has it's network of content properties (MSN, Hotmail, Messenger etc), media platforms (Xbox, Media Centre, Zune etc) and now a digital marketing company to make it a very dominant force.
When you own that much of the landscape, you can certainly influence the technology standard for the industry. Why wouldn't Microsoft look at this as an opportunity to push it's preferred technology - Sliverlight across the industry? It has the desktop prescence to meet Flash's penetration effectively overnight - just roll out a service pack (either for Windows or IE). With the purchase of aQuantive, MS will also control an an ad-serving company, Atlas, which gives its the necessary system in which to deploy Silverlight as an online advertising format (MS has already started showcasing Silverlight as a technology for online advertising(which to date has been done with Eyeblaster). Put this together with Microsoft's network of content properties such a MSN, Hotmail, Spaces and media platforms such as Xbox, Zune, Media Centre, and you can see just how easily Silverlight could become a dominant format. (not to mention pricing it in such a way that is preferrential towards the use of the Silverlight format).
The only thing that might slow down the uptake of Silverlight, is the lack of agencies and staff trained to use it, nor are we an industry with abundent labor. But then, Microsoft now owns Avenue A/Razorfish "the largest interactive agency in the US" thanks to the aQuantive purchase and additionally the fact that in some markets MSN maintains inhouse production capabilities, such as it's ninepixels unit in Australia where ninemsn is partnership with media company PBL
It's also widely acknowledged that MS has somewhat missed the boat on digital media. It's struggled to get acceptance of its digital music format and Windows Media Player has been pushed aside in favour of Flash Video when it comes to video streaming on the web. So therefore it should come as no suprise then that Silverlight will feature HD quality video format. This time however, Microsoft appear to have learnt the benefits of cross platform
When you put all this together, it certainly makes for a very plausible outcome. Some of you may decry this as a conspiracy theory, I can see it as a definite case of reality in the not to distant future.
Google has bought Feedburner. The RSS feed tracking site that tracks over 70,000 blogs. The price is reported to be around $100 million, which is chump change in the recent spate of acquisitions. Seems everyone is cashing in.
This is a great move for those who have an adsense account as this will open up RSS feed ads. It also gives Google a great stranglehold on blogged content search.
This gives Google instant access to display advertising and with the recent Tangozebra acquisition means they now have a direct competitor to Eyeblaster, Pointroll and the other rich banner serving solutions. We'll see how this affects the industry in the next 12 months.
Also in a round-a-bout way this site is now sponsored by a Google company.
Getting back @ Google for the deal falling through
An attempt to make their partnership with Joost seem more legitimate
A frustrated lashing out of old line media at a the fact that they no longer control the distribution of content once it is released
All of the Above
I'm not sure where I come in at, although I'm pretty skeptical of the whole thing. Even if they do have a leg to stand on under the current US law (which they may or may not,) they are potentially doing more harm than good to their business.
To me this just points again to the complete lack of understanding that big business has of the "new world" created by the Web 2.0 world and consumers use thereof. Those clips are up on YouTube because of dedicated fans... perhaps rather than sue, Viacom should have just quietly asked for an ad revenue cut. So, syndication, but user initiated / driven. Or perhaps they should have cut a deal with Brightcove since their whole model incorporates syndication and user distribution.
Da Bitch from Ad-Rag/Commercial Archive has posted her experience with a banner that took over her browser and made her install a program. Pretty scary.
I've had a similar experience when on Mypace with ads getting around the popup blockers installed. These type of ads should be policed better, especially if they are running through ad networks and not just rouge websites.
LONDON, March 1st, 2007 - DoubleClick Inc., a leading provider of digital advertising technology and services, today announced that it has acquired 100 per cent of Tangozebra, a pioneer in the rich media industry and a leading digital marketing technology provider in Europe for advertisers and publishers. This acquisition underscores DoubleClick’s commitment to providing leading technology and best in class service on a global basis to the fast-growing rich media market.
