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December 2005

December 31, 2005

Meet Mr. KentuckyFriedCruelty.com

A PETA staffer has legally changed his name to KentuckyFriedCruelty.com (yes, of course there's a corresponding Web site).

The former Chris Garnett decided to "make a statement" against KFC every time he meets someone new or signs his name. Not to mention garner international media attention for his cause, and direct consumers to an online resource, too.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 12:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 30, 2005

More on MSN's Live Coverage of the Apple Drop

We already ran our story, but I just picked up a few extra details on MSN's live Web coverage of Times Square tomorrow night. My questions, their answers:

How many streams did you have last year? Roughly 10,000.

How often will the ads appear? In the main feed, we will run four :30s an hour.

How is the advertising priced... per impression or a sponsorship model? Per impression.

How many advertisers has MSN signed? Two or three

How will the ads be targeted? There’s no geotargeting of these ads.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cookies. Scary, Scary Cookies.

First the story was BoingBoinged. Now, mainstream media has picked up the story about how the White House is using cookies on its Web site.

"Unbeknown to the Bush administration, an outside contractor has been using Internet tracking technologies that may be prohibited to analyze usage and traffic patterns at the White House's Web site, an official said Thursday," reads the alarmist AP story.

This is not good, people. Personal data are not involved.

The industry is going to have to redouble its cookie PR efforts in the coming year to fight ignorant broadsides such as this one.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 28, 2005

New Year To-Do: Change that Boilerplate

A good tip from Steve Outing at Poynter: don't forget to update your site!

Most Web sites have copyright and other boilerplate info hardcoded into footers. On Jan. 1, roll that 2005 over to 2006.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 1:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 27, 2005

Spam Free or Die

Eventurally, spam would have to turn into a music video, right?

Herewith, Javier Prato's SpamFreeorDie.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:33 PM | Permalink

December 23, 2005

Holiday Greetings to You and Yours

That blessed silence you hear results from the industry grinding to a halt for the long Christmas weekend. We at ClickZ are no exceptions. We'll take the weekend and Monday off, and return on Tuesday for the final wind-down of 2005. As we shutter the blog for the hiatus, the ClickZ team would like to wish you and yours the very best for the holidays. It's been an incredibly busy year. We all deserve a few days of rest. Hope yours are relaxing, warm, merry and bright.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 2:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Semi-Interactive Ad Medium: Dry Cleaning Bags

Technically speaking, it's not interactive. But advertising the Bodies exibition on dry cleaning bags has a certain air of genius, no?

And there was a degree of interactivity to the campaign, in a manner of speaking. We saw the bag being carried out of ClickZ's new HQ by Ryan, who works at Ambient Planet which developed the campaign. Nice way to meet the new neighbors!

They're having problems convincing dry cleaners in the city, most of which are owned by Koreans who speak little English, to carry the bags. I wish them luck.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Predictions for 2006

In case you missed it, Zach Rodgers gathered some really interesting opinions about what the coming year holds for online marketing/advertising. We'd love to hear your thoughts (comments, please!). Agree? Disagree? Have other ideas? I know a lot of people are already checked out for the holidays today, but hope you'll weigh in whenever you're back online.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 22, 2005

High Fashion, Low Marketing

Interesting piece in the NYT Style section (of all places) today on the utter failure of top designers, and top design houses, to embrace the Web as a marketing medium. (Click quick to read it before it goes behind the wall.)

Caryn Horn praises the ability of most fahion houses to get up what she calls "very good" Web sites. I beg to differ, in most cases. But she calls them out for dropping the ball when it comes to relationship marketing, particularly in terms of promoting the celebrity designers so critical to moving the merch that bears their name.

What Horn neglects to mention is how institutionalized neglect-the-Web is across the rag trade as a whole, particularly fashion media. From a lackluster Vogue to the mid-90s style Women's Wear Daily, there's no real strategy or innovation or style from the publications whose mission is to cover, well, innovation and style.

I'm beginnng to realize why I don't have a thing to wear....

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 21, 2005

RSS Newsletters? Not So Fast...

This morning Steve Rubel points to a new service, Mailfeed.org, that purports to easily convert e-mail newsletters into RSS feeds.

Steve, a smart guy about Web 2.0 but not as marinated in e-mail best practices as most legitimate marketers and publishers, recommends not only converting all your subs into feeds, but also urges newsletter publishers to use the service to generate feeds from their newsletters.

This totally misses the best practices boat.

Double confirmed opt-in is the e-mail subscription gold standard (and what ClickZ practices, btw). Subscribers must first reply to an e-mail confirming they're intentionally subscribing to the publication before they'll receive it. MailFeed.org cannot accomodate this method.

And besides, most publishers concerned enough about honoring their subscribers' intentions already offer them the option of reading feeds.

Publications such as the one Steve cites in his post (and many others, unfortunately) sign hapless subscribers up for all sorts of stuff they didn't subscribe to, once they have that e-mail address. MailFeed would convert all this e-mail to feeds, sure. But at what cost?

I love the concept, but MailFeed in its current incarnation won't work for teh white-hat mailers. Instead, it would swap out your e-mail spam problem for an RSS spam problem.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 20, 2005

Skype: The Latest Promotions Channel?

VoIP provider Skype and EMI just announced a Coldplay fan will win a chance to chat with the band members -- via Skype. The contest launches today to promote their new single, aptly named "Talk."

To enter, fans leave a voicemail message for Coldplay on Skype, accessible through the contest Web site (wherever that is -- no URL was provided, nor could I find a link on the official Coldplay Web site). Contestants have 20 seconds to tell the band why they like the new song.

And if you can find that elusive site, you can buy the song as a download in various formats, including mobile.

Really interesting use of VoIP as a marketing medium. If only they'd tell you where the site is...

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 1:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

December 19, 2005

DMA's $5 Do-Not-Mail List

This has enraged me for years: the DMA charges consumers $5.00 to register online for its little-publicized do-not-snail-mail list (MPS).

Mailing your regrets to the DMA is free, however. What, some charity organization does all that data entry for them? Unlikely. They're just trying to make it more difficult to get off those lists.

My memory was jogged by a program on NPR this weekend on the staggering costs of junk mail -- not just environmental and financial, but also in terms of time wasted. One stat I recall from the show is the average American spends 8 months of their life opening and dealing with junk mail.

Want off for the New Year? Pony up $5 here, or part with a stamp and mail your deets to:

Mail Preference Service
Direct Marketing Association
PO Box 643
Carmel, NY 10512

There's a mail-in registration form on the page cited above.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 4:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

TRUSTe Trusts Yesmail

TRUSTe just named e-mail service provider Yesmail as the first company authorized to resell TRUSTe's Web privacy seals.

Yesmail can now review and certify their clients' Web privacy practices. According to TRUSTe, this eliminates duplication of efforts, as well as the number of relationships a Web site must manage.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Video Content to Go From blinx

blinkx just announced blinkx.tv To Go. It enables users to search for video content on the Web, then one-click sync it with iTunes or personal video player software, regardless of the video's original format.

That should help get adoption of video iPods and similar devices rolling -- if blinkx can create consumer awareness that such a service exists.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Firefox Brands RSS - It's Official

The next version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer will adopt Firefox's little orange RSS feed icon. That, effectively, is what will visually brand RSS feeds in consumers' minds.

Chalk one up to the power of consumer and word-of-mouth marketing. Firefox afficionados have beaten the Redmond marketing machine!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 16, 2005

AOL to Yank its Own Classifieds

After an "experiment" of more than a year, America Online has decided to quit letting individuals post classified listings on its Classifieds MarketPlace. Instead, it'll aggregate offerings from vertical partners like AutoTrader, eBay Motors, CareerBuilder, etc. (These players already have partnerships with AOL to provide content in various sections of AOL.com and presumably on the AOL service.) This due to "a strategic shift in direction pertaining to our Search & Directional Media plans," a spokesperson said.

Could it be it's more lucrative to simply take in the big bucks from a classifieds player that pays to be the "exclusive jobs provider," or whatever, for AOL? Makes sense to me. Though it's already stopped taking new listings from individuals, AOL says people will soon be able to buy ads from partners via the AOL site. Continuing categories will include "autos, jobs, tickets, real estate and more," according to the AOL site.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 4:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google Preserves Status Quo with AOL? Yes and No

The Wall Street Journal has it today (sub req.) that AOL is now in "exclusive talks" with Google, apparently bringing down the curtain on Microsoft's aspiration to own the portal/ISP's search traffic. Base line, that means Google will preserve its distribution relationship with AOL -- essentially a status quo development -- but it also means a good bit more.

In addition to acquiring a five percent stake in the company for $1 billion, Google will promote AOL's content in its sponsored links and include AOL videos in its organic results. Even more curious is that AOL will reportedly sell display ads across the AdSense network, building on the branded CPM units Google started rolling out earlier this year.

I'm curious to see how other video content owners react to the news that Google will give special play to AOL videos. As the video content and advertising space gets hotter, this could deal a serious blow to some of them, while powerfully increasing AOL's saleable video inventory.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SBC Yahoo! DSL Customers Get $100 to Shop Online

It's a broadband Christmas.

AT&T is offering new SBC Yahoo! DSL customers a $100 Visa gift card to shop online at sbc.com.

The incentive is "designed especially for those last-minute holiday shoppers looking to avoid crowded shopping malls," says the company.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 15, 2005

New JibJab Spot, Ads Courtesy of MSN

JibJab's got a new animation out tomorrow, on Bush's bad year. It'll run on JibJab.com and MSN Video, with monetization coming from video pre-rolls with adjacent Flash units.

I spoke to Greg Spiridellis, one of the creators, and he said there's no product placement. I was curious about that, since the studio (Or is it an agency?) has done commercial work for Budweiser, making animated spots in the style (and with the cache) of earlier JibJab movies. The JibJab thing has gotten a bit tired for some people, but the approach is interesting in light of today's merging of entertainment and advertising. Of course, film directors have done ads on the side for decades, but these have always suppressed the creators' identities. JibJab's Budweiser spots exploit them.

"It's a tricky thing to do well," he said of product placement. "There are interesting opportunities, as long as it doesn't degrade the integrity of the content. It's a brave new world, trying to find the balance. When we do ad work, the creative is as challenging, if not more so, than when we're doing original work. We're trying to balance that, and trying to make ads that we'd want to watch."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Zipcar Nails Relevant, Timely Customer Relations

With a NYC transit stike potentially looming, online short-tem car rental service Zipcar just e-mailed members. The company is offering free shuttle service from designated Manhattan locations tomorrow. The four spots will be festooned with uniformed Zipcar employees and banners.

Heck, they're even offering the service if there isn't a strike.

What could be truer to the company's slogan, "wheels when you want them," than that?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 7:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 14, 2005

BBC Offers Video CGM Tools

Too cool!

Under the motto, "Don't just consume, create!" the BBC has opened its news archives to consumers and invited them to create their own video mash-ups of historic news footage of the past 50 years.

(more...)

"You are welcome to download the clips, watch them, and use them to create something unique. This is a pilot and we want to understand your creative needs. We'd like to see your productions and showcase some of the most interesting ones we receive."

Along with how-to guides, there's a feedback form inviting fledgling video editors to "tell us what your doing."

OK, the Beeb is a public, taxpayer and government-supported institution. Which brand will be the first one brave enough to proffer itself to the masher-uppers?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 5:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At the Googleplex

Google's bold-faced names and press-relations folks mingled with the media last night in Mountain View at the 'plex. I took in the scene -- and copious amounts of sushi and hors d'oeuvres -- with JupiterResearch's Gary Stein and Sapna Satagopan. Since the evening's event was to be strictly off the record, I can't go into detail about the future plans Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt revealed to me. Suffice it to say the company plans to do something along the lines of organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful. (Kidding here, of course. The cocktail-party chatter I participated in was mostly of the "how are your kids?" and "I read your blog entry" variety.)

What I can report is that the evening was classic Google. A huge whiteboard along one wall displayed computer-geek humor. A crackling fire, providing a wintry atmosphere to mild Silicon Valley, shone from a plasma screen TV. Primary-colored plastic ice cubes (complete with light bulbs inside) adorned cocktail glasses. Security guards posted around the party's perimeter prevented industrial espionage. The visual focal point was a wall-projection of Google Earth, which took viewers on a virtual tour of all sorts of places I didn't recognize. And of course, the food was amazing. Well worth the trip.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 2:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Squidoo in public beta

Seth Godin's latest project, Squidoo, has entered public beta. The premise behind the site is that certain people know a lot about a niche topic, and other people are interested in finding out all they need to know about a topic in one place.

When Godin started talking about the project in October, he described it as a way for people to find out "not everything, but just what they need" about a given topic.

Some of the first "lenses" to be built include one on the Long Tail by Chris Anderson; Moleskine Resources by designer Mike Rohde, and Moleskinerie by Armando Frasco; and Understanding RSS by Godin.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 1:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 13, 2005

MSNBC's Big Week for Online Ads

MSNBC has been pretty busy this week announcing online ad buys. Today, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive (WPNI) said it would show nothing but MSNBC ads all day tomorrow on washingtonpost.com, newsweek.com and Slate. All the units will promote MSNBC's prime time programming.

The WPNI ads are part of a larger buy that includes 800 blogs on the BlogAds network. As was widely reported, this is the largest buy on BlogAds, easily topping a 286-blog buy by Audi last spring.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 5:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Syndicate: A Chat with YPN

I had a chance to sit down with Cody Simms, product marketing manager of Yahoo! Publisher Network, here at Syndicate. Some interesting tidbits about the philosophy and future of the network (currently in beta).

• On Volume. Currently YPN has signed 2,000 beta publishers and has recently issued another 1,000 invitations. The beta will expand further in the new year.
  
• On Consumer-Generated Content on Yahoo! Regarding the newly-launched Yahoo! Answers, Cody said, "We are looking at ways we can create incentives for people to participate within the question and answer format." Terry Semel talked a little bit at Web 2.0 about letting Yahoo! users display ads (and share revenues) on content they create on the portal's own pages.
  
• On Search. YPN will soon begin syndicating Yahoo! Search to smaller publishers. Like in the Google model, publishers will get a cut of ad revenue generated via the searches they help initiate. More Yahoo! Web services -- like maps, for example -- will also be distributed through YPN.
  
• On del.icio.us. "We always keep our users central to what we're doing, so if we find that it benefits our users to have their tags bring advertisements that are relevant to them, that's a possibility but not something we've looked into yet."
  

Posted by Pamela Parker at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why Don't Half of E-mail Marketers Authenticate?

Nothing like myth-busting.

Today, Skylist published the top eight reasons half of e-mail marketers give for not authenticating their messages. If you're one of them, give the list a read. Your lame excuse is surely on it.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 3:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Return of Maxell's 'Blow-Away Guy'

Maxell will bring back its memorable "blow-away guy" image as part of an integrated marketing campaign. The effort includes an online game that aims to show how music has changed over the years since the campaign first launched in 1979...

The campaign, developed by Manhattan Marketing Ensemble, will include an online ad buy and a game based on the original creative on the Maxell site. The game will span the three decades of music; the lifetime of the campaign. With an interactive element, the game will flow from rock-and-roll to disco to hair bands; new wave to grunge to boy bands among other popular music genres.

"The game will fully integrate the 'blow-away guy' in what we think is a meaningful way," Manhattan Marketing Ensemble senior partner Maury Maniff told ClickZ News. "We are trying to integrate the way Maxell has worked with music over the decades."

Online components are set to go live after the first of the year. Manhattan Media Partners confirmed that a separate agency will handle the media buy but was not able to name the specific firm

"We've decided to leverage the image that tens-of-millions of people associate with Maxell by putting more energy and investment behind it," said Don Patrican, executive vice president of Maxell in a company statement. Patrican was at Maxell when the original campaign was implemented in print and then on TV.

Posted by Enid Burns at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Feedburner Blazing New Trails

A couple of interesting tidbits from Feedburner today. First, the feed management company has signed Reuters as a client, meaning the news company will be able to better track readership of its feeds in the U.S., U.K., and Japan. Reuters will also be able to sell ads into its feeds, which will be trafficked and tracked through Feedburner's system. Needless to say it's a big client win for Feedburner, and it shows Reuters is taking RSS distribution seriously.

Feedburner is also releasing new functionality called "FeedFlare," a sort of module that allows publishers to add Web services -- from del.icio.us, Technorati, etc. -- to their feed items. It's starting with the two services I mentioned above, but Feedburner is releasing an open API for FeedFlare, to encourage developers to build applications that work with it.

BTW, these announcements come in conjunction with the Syndicate conference, which I'll be attending. Hope to see some readers there.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 12:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 12, 2005

Burn the Spam!

I love how Yahoo!'s beta e-mail interface denotes spam. The icon shows a mail message aflame. Meanwhile "delete" is symbolized by a trash can. Some messages you just want to throw away... others you want to burn. The alpha version probably had an icon of little person -- representing a spammer -- on fire.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 7:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Who Knew Santa Uses VoIP?

VoIP phone provider Vonage is calling on the red-suited, white-bearded jolly one to help it with CRM this holiday season. It's sending out e-mails to tell customers there's no need to go to the mall and wait in line to speak with Santa. "Now, from your Vonage line, you can have your little ones dial *101 and leave a message for good ol' Saint Nick!," the e-mail missive reads.

Calls are free on Vonage phones from December 8 up until Christmas day. Clever e-mail copy assures readers they can leave a message whether they've been naughty or nice. (Naughty message-leavers might find a lump of coal in their voicemail inbox, however.)

Here's a landing page for the effort.

UPDATE: I would be remiss if I didn't say how lame it is that Vonage is only letting kids leave a message, rather than talk, to Santa Claus. How interactive is that?

UPDATE2: Ok, so there is some interaction, it turns out. Vonage has just announced it is choosing 10 callers randomly and giving them the toy they asked for.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 6:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Cable/Internet Convergence

Comcast is forming an Internet division and has named Amy Banse, who had been EVP of content development, to run the show. There's no word yet as to whether the new unit will develop ad-supported content -- Comcast officials I spoke with said it's too early to say.

The company has been doing a lot of interesting things with on-demand programming/advertising. It'll be interesting to see if any of it will be mirrored online.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 6:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chitika faces criticism from publishers

Chitika, a new contextual ad network that launched in May, has come under fire from publishers in its network -- mostly bloggers -- who once sang its praises.

Their eMiniMalls ads had been gaining steam among bloggers, with many reports of Chitika's ads performing better than AdSense on some sites. But once Chitika began auditing its results in October, revenues began dropping -- by anywhere from 15 percent to as much as 90 percent, according to reports on blogs like JenSense and ThreadWatch.

And if that was not enough of a problem for publishers, Chitika is also being criticized for not telling publishers of the drastic drops until early December, so most publishers ended up keeping the lower-performing ads on their site for over a month before they knew the extent of the reductions caused by the audits.

So it seems there are at least two lessons to be learned from this:
1. Transparency is good. Hiding things is bad.
2. Don't mess with bloggers. When they get mad, they tell people, and some of them know a whole lot of people.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

HGTV launches vertical broadband video channel

HGTV.com has launched HGTVKitchenDesign.com as part of its vertical content strategy, which was outlined in May.

The site is launching with six charter advertisers: Kohler, Moen, Viking, Dupont, Whirlpool and Sherwin Williams. Ad formats include traditional :15 and :30 spots within the videos, banner ads and integration in an interactive kitchen planner which visitors can use to test kitchen design elements. Scripps is also talking to advertisers about creating long-form videos early next year in their content categories.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Microsoft to Share Ad Revs with Users?

A few have already noted Bill Gates' comments on an Indian TV to the effect that Microsoft may recompense people who use its search engine. Payment could take the form of cash, content or services.

UPDATE: Turns out this wasn't the first instance of a top brain at Microsoft suggesting users deserve a piece of ad revenues. This is Ray Ozzie, in a memo to senior staffers in October:

"And no one yet knows how much of the world's online advertising revenues should or will flow to large software and service providers, medium sized or tail providers, or even users themselves."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 9, 2005

MINI Names 'Brand Advocacy Partner'

MINI USA named Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners to be its new "brand advocacy partner." The assignment includes "traditional, non-traditional and viral." That's pretty vague, but it appears this is MINI's replacement for Crispin, which created two over-the-top virals for the client in 2003/2004, when viral was young.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 5:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

MySpace Launches a Music Video Star

Earlier this fall, we covered a promotion cable music network fuse ran on MySpace, to uncover a video star it could then promote via its VOD offering. Yesterday, the MySpace community voted a winner, Indianapolis-based Kids in the Way. From the release:

Thousands of young musicians had the opportunity to go on to www.myspace.com/fuse and upload 1 - 3 minute videos for consideration to a dedicated fuse group page on MySpace. Judges from fuse selected four finalist’s videos, posted them on the contest site for fans to vote on, and the MySpace community chose the winner.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 5:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tag It: Acquisition, Yahoo Acquires del.icio.us

From the SEW Blog: Tag It: Acquisition, Yahoo Acquires del.icio.us. We're looking into this and may have more later.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 4:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Chronicles of Narnia, a Family Affair

If you're going to see "Chronicles of Narnia" this weekend, it's going to be very crowded. Fandango reports ticket sales for the movie account for 82 percent of tickets sold on the site this week.

Audiences viewing "Narnia" are likely families or at least small groups, the average quantity of a ticket order on the site is four. A Fandango site poll finds 79 percent of moviegoers picked the film as the most anticipated family film of the holiday season.

Other cinematic picks are clearing a significantly smaller percentage of orders. Ticket buys for "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire are down to four percent. The movie has been in theaters since November 18. Other new and upcoming releases attract viewers. "King Kong" (December 14) , "Syriana"(December 9) and "Brokeback Mountain" (December 9) each account for two percent of sales on Fandango for the week.

Posted by Enid Burns at 1:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 8, 2005

E-Mail Consolidation Continues

E-mail service provider Quris, which was majority-owned by Charles Schwab Corp. (little did I know), has a new owner today. The company was bought by database marketer Merkle. Financial terms weren't disclosed. Quris, based in Denver, will continue as a standalone subsidiary with its 50 employees. Quris' clients include Charles Schwab (no surprise there), Blockbuster, Dex Media, Vail Resorts and Wynn Las Vegas.

The acquisition continues the trend of standalone e-mail shops being gobbled up by bigger entities. (See Rebecca's column: "Does Size Matter for ESPs?")

Posted by Pamela Parker at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 7, 2005

Speaking of Widening Beta Releases....

As the invitations to join the beta of the Yahoo! Publisher Network were wending their way to our staffers' inboxes, I received another invite. Yes, little old me was invited to beta test MSN's adCenter. If the marketer behind powerhouse e-commerce player Tinker Knitwear is invited into MSN's beta, the test pool is getting pretty wide indeed.

Separately, there's chatter about MSN building a distribution network of publishers. It's the first I've heard of it, but it totally makes sense.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ballmer on Online Ads

From a Reuters article:

"Online advertising is of keen interest to us and I have absolutely nothing to say about the AOL deal or no deal whatever," said [Steve] Ballmer [CEO of Microsoft].

"If you ask, particularly our consumer-facing businesses, what will be the most rapidly growing revenue stream at Microsoft, it's absolutely going to be advertising."

This is, of course, in keeping with Microsoft's Windows Live strategy.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bulk Keyword Buyers' Worried Minds

For every new development in search, and there are many, there's an evergreen issue that never gets enough attention. Panelists in an SES session called "Big Site/Big Brand SEM" identified a few:

Bidding Against Your Affiliates. Large search marketers are constantly bidding against their affiliates and other channel partners, driving up keyword prices. One school of thought says it's better to lose an auction to an affiliate than a competitor.

Misspellings. There's a huge market for search term misspellings. Marshall Simmonds, chief search strategist for The New York Times Co., confirmed it in this panel.

Competitor Brands as Keywords. Should you bid on your competitors' brand and product names? IBM and Intel both said they have policies against it. They feel it lowers the brand, and if a consumer's searching by product, chances are they've made up their mind already about what to buy.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 2:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Filmloop Begins eBay Motors Pilot

As expected, Filmloop has launched a pilot program to stream eBay Motors listings to their desktop "photocasting" application. Users can subscribe to a particular make of classic car they're interested in, and then images from auctions in that category are streamed to a "loop" on their desktop. Images can be moused over for more information, or clicked on to go to the eBay listing.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More moves at Websourced

It appears the reports about Pat Martin leaving Websourced in September and October were not far off the mark, if a bit premature.

Think Partnership announced today that Martin has left the company, effective immediately.

"Pat Martin is an entrepreneur whose energy and sales ability, combined with the hard work and commitment of many other talented team members, built WebSourced into a worldwide leader in search engine marketing and a truly unique place to work. I wish Pat nothing but success in his future business endeavors," said Think Partnership's CEO Gerard Jacobs in a statement.

Sounds like a nice way to say they're bringing in more seasoned businesspeople to run the show. And of course, wishing someone success in future endeavors is like telling them not to let the door hit them on the way out.

They also named Xavier Hermosillo to SVP of corporate communications and investor relations for Think Partnership, a role he was basically serving anyway as a member of the board of directors.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 6, 2005

Zunch: Spy on Your Competitors' Keyword Bids

In an SES panel yesterday, an audience member asked MSN's Jed Nahum how he could prevent a competitor from observing and mimicking his keyword bids. The answer, of course: he couldn't. It's a common frustration for smart keyword bidders whose extensive work is thwarted by adversaries who sit back and watch their work, then bid $1 higher.

So I was interested to see Zunch today launched a product, dubbed Zunch Recon, to facilitate just that sort of mimicry. From the press release:

Does your business know what your competitors are up to? Ever want to know what search engine keywords your competitors are buying, what they’re spending or which affiliates are driving their business?

As part of a suite of competitive intelligence services, Zunch offers reports on Benchmarking Reconnaissance, Organic and Paid Search, Competitive Keyword Rankings and Affiliate/Linking activities. With one or all of the reports, marketers can evaluate their own strategies and budgets for search engine optimization and marketing campaigns or learn what keywords, affiliates or search engines are driving traffic to a competitor’s website. (press release)

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 8:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Homethinking Thoughts

Niki Scevak (a former colleague from when ClickZ was part of the same corporate family as JupiterResearch) has launched the mysterious project he's been working on for months. Not surprisingly, it involves local search -- specifically, search for real estate agents.

Called Homethinking, the site is meant as a resource for folks looking for an agent to help them sell their homes. In this still-very-warm real estate market, it's an important decision. Homethinking provides people with user reviews -- and objective data the company gets from home sale databases -- to help them make a determination.

Niki tells me the service will be supported by sponsored links, which will allow realtors and brokerages to get themselves noticed. Pay-per-call will be one pricing model.

Right now you can search by ZIP code or city name -- mostly in California -- but more variations are planned. Additionally, the focus is currently on selling homes, but the buy side will eventually be represented, as well.

More in a release here and Niki's blog post about it.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

AOL, Microsoft Close to a Deal?

According to a report in the New York Times today, Time Warner will most likely not sell a stake in AOL or sell the business outright, but will strike a partnership with either Microsoft or Google. A story in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) names Microsoft as the frontrunner, saying the two are close to a deal.

Google currently provides AOL with its organic and paid search results, and shares revenue generated by the ads with AOL. Microsoft is currently piloting its own paid search listings, and has its own organic search engine, which could replace Google on AOL. Google's current contract with AOL ends in 2006.

The Times said the deal with Microsoft could include creating a joint advertising sales force with MSN, but that Google would not be interested in such an arrangement.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo! Expands Publisher Network

Yahoo! is expanding its beta Publisher Network contextual ad program -- a few of us at ClickZ received invitations to sign up today. The program, a rival to Google's AdSense, allows publishers to add Yahoo! text ads to their sites.

We did sign up. Interestingly, the confirmation e-mail came from an Overture domain. Remember Overture?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 1:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Search Isn't Everything

Two notable quotes from yesterday's SES panel called "ClickZ Forum: Ads Beyond Search," moderated by our own Rebecca Lieb.

"Search for me personally is becoming a little less important. The way I'm accessing content I'm not yet aware of are blogs and RSS feeds, as well as directories. The directory format has been set aside because search has become so important. But I do think the directory format is going to come back." -Mark Kingdon, CEO of Organic

"There's a great deal of segregation of search and other online media planning. It creates a disconnect. I firmly believe search isn't entirely scientific. There' a real art to writing copy, for instance." -Tessa Wegert, Digital Media Strategist for Enlighten

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 5, 2005

New New Thing Not So New After All

I was mystified by the Reuters article on CNET that trumpeted the headline "Yahoo uses online behavior to target ads." Well... duh. Of course it does. Has for years.

I dropped a line to my peeps at Yahoo! to make sure I wasn't missing something. Indeed, I was assured it's "something we've been doing for over 5 years." Targeting is based on behavior and pages viewed on the Yahoo! network. Heck, Yahoo! can (and does) even target based upon offline behavior.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 7:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Craigslist for "The MySpace Generation"

Does this look familiar? To me, it's eerily reminiscent of Craigslist, and it also brings to mind all of the other classifieds plays in the works: Google Base, Microsoft's Fremont, etc. etc.

But because it's MySpace, and people of a certain age love MySpace, it's especially interesting.

[via Battelle]

Posted by Pamela Parker at 6:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

SEMs Discuss adCenter

Search marketing execs had mostly good things to say about MSN adCenter during an SES panel today on behavioral & demographic targeting.

It's clearly a thrill for them to be able to boost their keyword pricing to a certain geography, gender or age group. They've been able to do behavioral targeting on Yahoo! for several years. AdCenter is different, bringing very detailed registration data to search targeting. They're amped about it, and they're calling on the other engines to pony up more data.

"I think the writing is on the wall for the other engines to be capitalizing very soon," said one panelist, Danielle Leitch of MoreVisibility. She noted selecting for or against demographic traits is common in e-mail and direct marketing, and she said this is the direction search will move.

But demographic targeting of keywords is really hard from a data management perspective, requiring an affinity for numbers that verges on the autistic. You can boost your bid for a gender, age segment, geography, day-of-week and time-of-day, or for any combination of these. Panelist Kevin Lee estimated a single keyword can have as many as 7,500 demographic permutations… and therefore, price points.

Danny Sullivan, who moderated, had this advice for the arithmetically disadvantaged: Ease your way into it. Decide which demographic traits bring the highest conversions by analyzing your existing customers, and start with that trait. Establish two bid levels for each keyword. A base level for ad buys not targeted on behavior, and one for those that are. Add new factors bit by bit.

Targeting also raises big privacy issues, and the panel only brushed against them. Dana Todd, SiteLab's impish founding partner and ever a voice of dissent, put it nicely: "I find it particularly ironic that this session is not called adware/spyware buys," a name commonly given to behavioral panels two years ago. "Now that 'legitimate' companies are essentially spying on you and… serving ads, it's ok,"she said.

So far, it's just MSN and Yahoo! playing in behavioral and demographic targeting, and the panelists discussed both. So three guesses which engine was the elephant in this room.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 6:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Social Networks Recognized in the C-Suite

A survey conducted by 6FigureJobs.com finds that of its 400,000 senior-level members, about 57 percent use one or more online networking service.

Posted by Enid Burns at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Content Directions Completes Transformation

When we wrote about Content Directions adapting its library science technology for interactive advertising use, it was in the early stages, just dipping its toes in the waters. It seems that they've gotten a bit more interested in the space, since they've now changed the name of the company to LinkStorm, and focusing its efforts on online marketing.

They're pretty excited about the name, taking the opportunity to weave it into their press release clichés like "The Internet has become a perfect storm for advertising. This is technology that allows advertisers to own that storm."

They apparently were not aware of one of the basic tenets of online marketing, and picked a name where they didn't own the corresponding URL, so instead went with something close-but-not-quite.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Verizon Shopping SuperPages

Verizon said it is looking to sell or spin off its Verizon Information Services (VIS) directory publishing business, which includes SuperPages.com.

The company wants to focus on its wireless, broadband and enterprise businesses, especially in light of its acquisition of MCI, expected to close this month.

"Given the attractive opportunities developing in the local search and advertising markets for VIS, we believe a divestiture would provide VIS with more flexibility to maneuver in the fast-changing environment of content providers. VIS could then more easily seek partnerships, meet customer requirements and create its own growth opportunities," Ivan Seidenberg, Verizon's chairman and CEO, said in a statement.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At SES Chicago

I'm at Search Engine Strategies in Chicago, where the temperature is 5 degrees. Drop me a note if we should meet: zach(at)clickz.com.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 3, 2005

Big Mobile Games. Really, Really Big

Ever wanted to play pong on the side of an entire office building using your cell phone as the controller?

Now you can.

It's not exactly advertising, but it's not too hard to see how it could be.

Via WFMU's Beware of the Blog.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 3:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 2, 2005

TiVo and RFID

Heard about TiVo's new patent (actual patent link here)? The company's thinking about using RFID technology to personalize television viewing to the individual -- and not just the household -- level. (This sort of ties into Rebecca's column published today.) One scenario the company describes is a user being able to carry their preferences with them when they stay in a hotel out of town.

Needless to say, the ad possibilities are intriguing (while the privacy implications are a little creepy). An advertiser could potentially target TV ads to particular individuals -- wherever they are -- based upon behavioral and preference data. TiVo "Showcases" could be delivered only to those most likely to be interested in them. Hmm...

[via the MIT Advertising Lab blog]

Posted by Pamela Parker at 6:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Rule of E-Mail, Socially Networked

This week Microsoft introduced SNARF, an organization tool that groups e-mail by social networking conventions based on information available on your computer system. I expect there to be some backlash about Microsoft spidering desktops in the name of e-mail management, but there's another point that's more relevant to marketers. How will SNARF affect e-mail campaigns?

If the e-mail addresses you most correspond with get the highest placement, what does that do to the visibility of newsletters and e-mail campaigns that are typically one way communications? Will these e-mails be relegated to the folder above spam? If I visit Amazon.com often, will e-mails from them move higher up in my inbox and leave less frequently visited retailers drowning?

The advisory for newsletter recipients to add a newsletter's e-mail to their address book is already ignored not only by consumers, but many marketers who send these e-mails. New practices to get your e-mails noticed will become more important if SNARF becomes mainstream.

Posted by Enid Burns at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ads You Can Only See Online

You'll find these ads online not because they were created for the medium, but rather because they weren't. They're all executions TV, print, radio, outdoor, a client, or an agency put the kibbosh on.

Enjoy.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 1, 2005

MSN Promos Shopping With Boxers, Not Briefs

Run downstairs to do a quick lunchtime errand and what's outside ClickZ HQ? A gigantic, clear-sided truck promoing MSN Shopping.

"Shop In Your Undies!" is the value proposition. Illustrating the concept are two models (male and female), clad only in skivvies and Santa hats and waving signs at passers-by.

They're heading north on Park, if you're in Manhattan. And if you're stuck behind the truck in a taxi, you'll likely get a good, long look.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 1:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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