Social Networkers Aren’t There for Ads December 5, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentUsers want to communicate with each other, not necessarily with brands.
Monetizing social networks was challenging enough before the economic news got so gloomy—it will get even harder now. That’s because the huge traffic numbers at MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and the rest do not necessarily translate into ad dollars. More than one-half of the US population surveyed uses social networking sites, according to IDC, but the ad dollars have not followed. The research company found more than 75% of social network site users logged in at least once a week and 57% did so daily. IDC also said more than 61% of those users spent more than 30 minutes per session on social network sites, and 38% remained parked for 1 hour or more. Good news for marketers, right? Not necessarily. Only 57% of social network site users said they clicked on an ad in the past year, compared with 79% of all Internet consumers.
Read The Rest—->Social Networkers Aren’t There for Ads
Report finds most blogs host advertising :: BtoB Magazine December 2, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentReport finds most blogs host advertising CLICK TO READ :: BtoB Magazine
AOL Sued for E-mail Ads | California man filed class-action suit against AOL for allegedly including text e-mail ads in footers of paid subscribers’ outgoing messages November 5, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentA California man has filed a class-action suit against AOL for allegedly including text e-mail ads in the footers of paid subscribers’ outgoing messages.
Filed by Encino, CA-based Hamner Law Offices on behalf of Frank Cecchini, the suit claims AOL wrongly inserted the ads in outgoing e-mail from 2 million paid subscribers, or 20% of AOL’s e-mail users.
The suit claims that nowhere in AOL’s terms of service does it say ads will appear in paying subscribers’ messages.
“As such, AOL pay e-mail subscribers expect the ability to send out e-mail without advertisements inserted into their e-mail,” the suit claims. “This is different from e-mail services provided by so-called free e-mail accounts (such as Hotmail.com and Yahoo.com) which do insert various advertisements into sent e-mails.”
The complaint continues: “Unlike ‘banner’ advertisements or other overt Internet advertisements, these footers, or ad tags, essentially add to and/or change the actual message contained in the e-mail.”
As a result, AOL users who don’t want ads inserted into their messages choose the premium service, the complaint said.
Sen. Kohl asks for continued Google, Yahoo monitoring | Technology | Reuters October 2, 2008
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentWASHINGTON (Reuters) – Yahoo Inc’s deal to put some Google Inc ads on its searches may hurt the industry, and warrants monitoring by the U.S. Justice Department even if the agency eventually approves the deal, according to the top lawmaker on the Senate’s antitrust panel.
Sen. Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat and chair of the antitrust subcommittee, did not urge that the deal be blocked, saying on Thursday his panel was not privy to “confidential business information supplied by the companies to the department.”
But he added that “should the amount of advertising outsourced by Yahoo to Google grow significantly, we believe the threat to competition will also increase.”
READ THE REST HERESen. Kohl asks for continued Google, Yahoo monitoring | Technology | Reuters
FTC Proposes Self-Regulation Rules for Behavioral Ad Players December 21, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentThe Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today released five proposed guidelines for self-regulation in the behavioral advertising industry.
The guidelines document suggests a general framework for how Web sites and other stakeholders in the behavioral ad space should communicate with Web users, gather data about their online activities and treat that data once they’ve collected it. With the release, the FTC opened a two-month comment period, after which the FTC may release formal guidelines.
The first and perhaps the most glaring of the proposals aims to make data collection more transparent to consumers, of whom “few appear to understand the role that data collection plays” in subsidizing free content, the FTC says. The suggested rule also calls for an opt-out mechanism on all sites engaged in behavioral targeting.
According to the proposed guideline, “Every Web site where data is collected for behavioral advertising should provide a clear, concise, consumer-friendly, and prominent statement noting that (1) data about consumers’ activities online is being collected… and (2) consumers can choose whether or not to have their information collected for such purpose.”
The would-be rule also indicates such sites should provide “a clear, easy-to-use, and accessible method for exercising this option.”
Other principles include one requiring “reasonable security” of consumer data; one proposing companies keep data only long enough to fill a “legitimate business need;” and another insisting data collectors only gather sensitive data such as information on a consumer’s health or children’s activities if they’ve obtained express consent.
If the language seems exceedingly non-specific, there’s a reason, said Eileen Harrington, the FTC’s deputy director for consumer protection.
“We are proposing broad principles and self-regulation… precisely because of the rapidly changing and evolving nature of these practices, including the parties and the nature of the parties that participate in them,” Harrington told ClickZ News. “These principles are intended to be broad enough and flexible enough to encompass anyone who is operating in that space.”
Two additional guidelines cover the use of data tracking for purposes other than behavioral advertising, and notifying consumers of policy changes regarding the use of behavioral data.
The complete proposed guidelines document is available on the FTC’s Web site.
Viacom and Microsoft Sign Advertising and Content Deal December 19, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentBy Kenneth Li
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp won an estimated $500 million, 5-year Internet advertising deal with MTV Networks owner Viacom Inc, giving the software giant a boost against rivals Google Inc and Yahoo Inc.
Microsoft will help Viacom place advertising on its network of entertainment Web sites in the U.S., such as MTV.com. Microsoft will also be the exclusive seller in the U.S. of remnant display advertising, which is ad space that Viacom has been unable to sell, company executives said on Wednesday.
The deal replaces online ad firm DoubleClick, whose services Viacom currently employs among other partners. Google, which Viacom sued for $1 billion for copyright infringement, is set to purchase DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.
The broad agreement involves Viacom’s online games, television shows and films. Microsoft will license long- and short-form television and movies from Viacom for Microsoft’s MSN Internet network and its Xbox 360 game system’s online network.
The deal is seen as a coup for Microsoft’s Atlas advertising platform as it makes inroads against Google Inc and Yahoo Inc in the overall online advertising business, which Microsoft has estimated at $80 billion by 2010.
Each company has raced to purchase new advertising businesses and lock in exclusive agreements.
Yahoo signed a deal in April with Viacom to provide search advertising for 33 of its Web sites, which remains in place. Viacom’s properties include the Paramount movie studio, and MTV and Comedy Central cable television networks.
Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft in August made its biggest purchase ever in the $6 billion acquisition of digital ad firm aQuantive in an effort to transform into one of the Web’s top two players in the online ad market in three to five years.
About 50 Web publishers have signed on to use Microsoft’s ad platform since it announced the aQuantive deal in May, said Kevin Johnson, Microsoft’s president of platforms and services. “This deal is another milestone in our quest to build a world-class advertising platform,” he said in a phone interview.
In October, Microsoft sealed the exclusive rights to sell ads outside of the United States for Facebook, and it also purchased a small stake in the popular Internet social network.
As part of the Viacom deal, Microsoft also agreed to buy ads on the media company’s broadcast and online networks over five years and to help Viacom establish itself as a publishing partner on Microsoft’s casual Internet gaming sites.
“We are always in discussion with Microsoft,” Viacom Chief Executive Philippe Dauman said in a phone interview. “This broad-based relationship will lead to conversations in other business areas.”
Responding to a question of what other areas, Dauman said video games development could be one arena in which the two companies could work together.
Viacom, which also announced on Wednesday a splashy development deal with “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Top Gun” producer Jerry Bruckheimer, sees online games and those played on game systems as a major pillar of growth.
“What impressed me was the extent to which Microsoft is making the commitment, technological, financial and otherwise to be a winner in this space,” Dauman said.
Microsoft shares were up 20 cents to $34.94 in early trading on the Nasdaq, while Viacom shares were up 1.8 percent, or 76 cents, at $43.83 on the New York Stock Exchange.
(Reporting by Kenneth Li; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Derek Caney)
Traditional advertising tactics fail on social networks September 3, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentTraditional advertising tactics fail on social networks
New research suggests that most marketers continue to use traditional marketing tactics on social networking sites, and it’s affecting their return on investment.
Forrester Research released the results of a study last month appropriately titled “Marketing on Social Networking Sites”. The results indicated that traditional advertising techniques and microsites were still being used to “push” messages to users of these networks. However, the return on investment from these type of campaigns remains low.
“We believe that marketing needs to turn itself on its head,” said Gurval Caer, president and chief executive at marketing agency Blast Radius. “The goal should not be messaging customers, but rather should be building relationships from the first moment of a delightful experience that will make people’s lives easier, better and richer.”
Forrester found many Internet users were interested in viewing marketer’s profiles – one-third of Gen Y users and nearly half of adults. The best way to engage them on social networks was, the report said, to make use of branded viral elements and to form personal relationships as “friends”, much like “how bands promote themselves on sites like MySpace”.
CPM Evolves into Buddy Black Market… May 23, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentCPM Evolves into Buddy Black Market…
CPM Evolves into Buddy Black Market
Every shoulder has its cost
Social network marketing need not be a painful endeavor. The MySpace Man says he can find marketers 6,000-10,000 MySpace friends in a week for a neat $199, according to The Globe and Mail.
Friend-adding sites, called friend trains, speed up the process of online relationship-building by joining users eager for large numbers of friends. Users generally pay a higher figure for a position in a user’s Top 8.
MySpace Man, who writes for Mysocialmarketing.com, places customers at the top of a number of friend trains. His blog illustratively totes his offer as the “Whore ME!” package.
Marketing experts are generally wary of friend trains. “If someone ever figures out that you’re paying for MySpace friends, your credibility on the Internet instantly turns to zero,” said Nick Barbuto of Cossette Communication Group, Inc.
MySpace also frowns upon these tactics, having threatened to shut several such services down.
The Specter Of Ad-Blocking Services May 15, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentWeb Fight: Blocking Ads and Adding Art
There has long been a cat-and-mouse game between Web advertisers, which pay to place their messages on sites where people view content, and ad-blocking services, which let people hide those messages from their browsers.
Steve Lambert, a conceptual artist, plans to add his own twist to one type of software that blots out commercial messages. His add-on will replace the display ads — which are usually papered over with blank windows — with curator-picked artwork from contemporary artists.
On a recent afternoon, Mr. Lambert demonstrated a test version of AddArt at the Chelsea studios of Eyebeam, a nonprofit arts and technology center where he has a fellowship. Mr. Lambert opened the Fox News Web site on his computer, and both the banner ad at the top of the page and a rectangular ad on the bottom were replaced with a bald eagle illustration. (He is using stock art rather than original work at this point, which can be downloaded from www.addart.eyebeam.org.)
Mr. Lambert, 30, said he and Evan Harper, an artist, are not starting from scratch, but rather were modifying the program Adblock Plus. “Why reinvent the wheel when you can insert a gear and make it run backwards?” said Mr. Lambert.
Far from taking umbrage, the developer of Adblock Plus, Wladimir Palant, who lives in Norway, wrote in an e-mail response to questions, “Replacing annoying and obtrusive ads with some eye candy, turning them into their exact opposite, is a consequent continuation of what Adblock started — making the Web endurable and enjoyable.”
As open-sourcers, Mr. Lambert and Mr. Palant give away software and encourage others to tinker with it, which they believe improves the Internet by putting users’ interests over commercial ones. They have renounced their intellectual property rights to join a community where, in a sense, when everyone kicks off their shoes, stepping on someone’s toes is not an issue.
Firefox, the four-year-old browser developed by the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation, does not have proprietary code like the leading browser, Microsoft Internet Explorer, that precludes users from developing such add-ons without paying licensing fees. Adblock Plus — like AddArt — works only with Firefox, the second-most-popular browser, with 15 percent of the market share, according to Net Applications (Internet Explorer leads with 78 percent, Safari is third with 5 percent).
Ad blockers that cost money for other browsers — with exterminator-worthy names like Ad Killer and AdBeGone — also are popular. According to Forrester Research, 53 percent of consumers had ad-blocking software on their computers in 2006, up from just 21 percent in 2004.
But being part of a larger trend does not make blocking ads sit any better for those in the online advertising business.
“There ultimately has to be a balance established where consumers recognize that if they don’t take the ads, there won’t be free content,” said Dave Morgan, founder of Tacoda, a Web advertising firm. In fact, EnvironmentalChemistry.com, a news and educational site, in 2004 began blocking anyone with ad-blocking software.
Kenneth Barbalace, its owner, said that heavy traffic on the site kept exceeding his available bandwidth, costing him up to $300 more monthly. Meanwhile, 10 percent of users were blocking ads, so he bid them adieu to reduce his traffic — and expense.
“A user who comes to my site and is blocking the ads is essentially denying me the ability to pay for the content that they are getting to access for free,” said Mr. Barbalace, who lives in Portland, Me. He said he found himself in “a little arms race” with software developers: they would rewrite the program to access his site, and he would in turn rejigger it to block them.
Finally, in 2006, Mr. Barbalace called a truce. Bandwidth is much cheaper now, and his ad revenue is way up. Plus, all the extra code he wrote for the site to keep ad blockers out made the pages load slowly. “I saw the 5 or 10 percent of people using ad blockers as an annoyance, as a philosophical problem, but not as a business problem,” Mr. Barbalace said.
Mr. Lambert recently got private financing to complete the AddArt software. He still is seeking “a few thousand dollars,” he said, for stipends for both the curators to choose work and the “young, contemporary artists” who will be featured.
“If you hate the artwork, there is a way you could turn it off until the show was over,” Mr. Lambert said. “I don’t make money from this, so if it bothers some people, that’s O.K. Art should bother some people.”
Auto Ad Spending to Fall, but Online to Grow May 14, 2007
Posted by Mark Blei in : Uncategorized , add a commentAuto Ad Spending to Fall, but Online to Grow…
Auto Ad Spending to Fall, but Online to Grow
Traditional media won’t be raking in the money from automotive advertising for much longer as vehicle buyers spend less time with traditional media and more online – five hours’ worth on average – researching vehicles, writes MarketingCharts, citing a new report from Borrell Associates.
Also, manufacturers and dealers are spending more on their websites, cutting out media middlemen by providing product and price information directly to buyers, according to the report, “2007 Online Auto Advertising Shifts Into High Gear.”
Some key findings from the study:
- Automotive advertising has grown into a nearly $31 billion category, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.7 percent in the past five years; however, Borrell projects a CAGR of 1.7 percent in the next five years.
- Online automotive advertising, though, has grown at a 13 percent CAGR in the last five years and is projected to reach $2.8 billion this year, accounting for 7.6 percent of all automotive advertising.
- By 2010, online will reach $4 billion, becoming “the second-largest medium for automotive advertisers, surpassing newspapers, cable, radio, direct mail – everything but broadcast TV,” according to the Borrell report.
- Moreover, at the local level, used-car marketers will spend most on online media, surpassing newspapers for the first time. Used-car dealers have already allotted a greater share of their budgets – 19.6 percent in 2006 – into online than manufacturers.
The Internet will soon become the number one media channel for private used-auto sales. In 2006, $421 million was spent on used-auto sales by private individuals, of which $114 million – 27 percent – was spent online, Bizreport adds, citing the Borrell report.
ClickZ also provides some Borrell data, which MarketingCharts summarizes.
