S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

Subscribe
Get the next ClickZ Today newsletter delivered to your inbox!

July 5, 2009 - July 11, 2009

July 9, 2009

ClickZ to Host Social Media & Video Forum with YouTube and Google

Nowhere is the growing cross-pollination of search, video and social media more evident than at Search Engine Strategies, the mother of all search conferences and a sister event to ClickZ. In recent years the speaker line-up has steadily morphed to include experts and executives from production-savvy agencies, social networks and major video sites.

So ClickZ is very pleased to offer a forum dedicated to those subjects at SES in San Jose next month. The event, "Social Media & Video Strategies," will be offered with the sponsorship and participation of Google and YouTube.

The day will kick off with a keynote from "Here Comes Everybody" author Clay Shirky, followed by many sessions on social media and video advertising. As the day wraps up, Robert Scoble will interview with Coldwell Banker Real Estate SVP Michael Fischer on how the company has leveraged social media.

For more information, check out the forum line-up and YouTube's blog post on its involvement. We hope to see you in San Jose.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 8, 2009

Datacratic National Committee

The Obama campaign turned Democratic National Committee grassroots project, Organizing for America, is all about the data. They're advertising to fill a slew of jobs, some of which involve slicing and dicing voter file data.

The Senior Data Analyst, for example "Will work with the DNC Data Team to regularly update VoteBuilder, the DNC's national voter file. Will help support the DNC's targeting team and voter file prospecting program and collaborate with other team members to optimize data processes."

Sure, that data is used for targeting potential voters through all sorts of media, and good-ol-fashioned in-person canvassing. But it is also used for online ad targeting. I describe the process in detail in my recent piece on voter file-based ad targeting. The DNC and RNC have done it and we can expect them to do it again.

When I spoke in May with Natalie Foster, the DNC's New Media Director, she told me she planned to hire additional staff for her department. I'm not sure the data analytics positions are part of that unit, but it's pretty clear the "New Media Analytics Engineer" role is. That person will be "responsible for analyzing past and present user response to the organization's e-mails and web site, optimizing the organization's online presence, and helping to develop analytics reporting tools.

Would the DNC really need to develop its own analytics tools in-house? That would surprise me.

Anyway, one thing to consider is Catalist, the data firm serving progressive campaigns and organizations founded by Clinton White House Deputy Chief of Staff Harold Ickes. Currently, Catalist is essentially the Democratic Party's voter file warehouse. Will that relationship change if the DNC boosts its own data analytics capabilities?

Posted by Kate Kaye at 3:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Is Levick's Title the Key to Platform-A's Fate?

ClickZ isn't the only industry trade to notice the absence of Platform-A in today's AOL press release about the appointment of Kate Burns as head of its European Sales. But it's worth noting here.

This has some wondering what the future of Platform-A is. Here's my guess: AOL is phasing out the brand name, after only a couple years since its big unveiling. The biggest hint isn't today's press release. It's Jeff Levick's title. Levick replaced short-lived Platform-A President Greg Coleman earlier this year. Coleman had replaced Lynda Clarizio, who also shared the Platform-A Prez title.

Levick's title? It's AOL Global Advertising and Strategy President. What happened to the Platform-A?

If the company will indeed sweep the brand under the rug, you've gotta wonder why. Is it confusing to media buyers? Has the industry, which had grown accustomed to using the Advertising.com name, simply not embraced it? Does AOL have some sort of re-branding up its sleeve? All that may be made known after CEO Tim Armstrong's first 100 days...the clock is ticking.

All this has me curious about how much money will be down the drain if AOL does ditch the Platform-A brand. How much did the company spend developing the name and logo? That logo (I think it's kinda cool but my colleague Zach Rodgers disagrees.) was revealed not much more than a year ago.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Chrome OS: Validation for Interactive Ad Community

With the announcement last night that it will launch a lightweight OS optimized for Web apps that run on Netbooks, Google has set its sights on a future that's already become reality for many Web professionals. In that future, the browser is the de facto OS, running connected e-mail, productivity apps, and other chores while leaving only odd jobs (albeit important ones) such as security for the system software to handle.

"It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be," wrote Google exec Sundar Pichai in a blog post late yesterday.

For the interactive marketing community, the move is a validation of what they've always known. If Chrome OS finds traction with hardware makers, it will bring the universal digital ad platform -- the browser -- to the forefront of the user experience. Of course that shift has by and large already taken place, with the exception perhaps of e-mail, and in particular business-based e-mail. Indeed, one impact of the shift to lightweight, browser-driven computing hinted at by Google's new move is that B2B marketers could find it easier to run messaging campaigns.

But the company has a long road to walk before it can deliver on that promise.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 8:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 7, 2009

Will Amazon Patents Bring In-Book Ads to the Kindle?

02smoke.1-450.jpg

Will Amazon begin serving ads into book downloads on its Kindle device? Two recent patent applications seem to point in that direction.

Patent applications titled "On-Demand Generating E-Book Content with Advertising" and "Incorporating Advertising in On-Demand Generated Content" describe methods for displaying advertising or other content at a user's request. The practices described include serving ads on pages adjacent to "requested content" as well as serving ads on their own pages.

Not surprisingly, some are reading the worst intentions into these patent applications, assuming Amazon will shortly begin to plunk pitches for Viagra into their $9.99 e-book copies of Wuthering Heights and A-Rod. However, there are several more likely outcomes -- including inserting ads into newspaper content viewed on the device or reducing book prices in exchange for some ads at a user's discretion. Even more probable is that Amazon is merely covering its basis with the patent applications -- protecting a potential market well in advance of its arrival. It's all in the execution, and Amazon knows enough to tread carefully.

Of course, in-book ads have been tried before. Any reader of pulp science fiction and fantasy novels from the '50s through the '70s will recall finding ads for body building products and even packaged food (see above) inserted into books with titles like "Inside the Earth's Core." No doubt whatever Amazon comes up with will be a hundred times more subtle. (photo credit: NYTimes.com)

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 6, 2009

ZenithOptimedia Brightens Current Year Outlook for Web Ad Spending

ZenithOptimedia has upgraded its forecast for global Internet ad spending in 2009 as part of a revision to its overall advertising forecast.

The global media agency now believes Web ad expenditures will grow 10.1 percent this year, up slightly from the 8.6 percent growth rate it projected when it issued its last update in April. Most of that growth will come from paid search. In the U.S., spending on search media is expected to climb 20 percent in 2009, compared to just 3 percent for display media and 1.8 percent for classifieds.

Yet even the comparatively slow growth rates expected for display and classifieds are outstanding when compared to the motley crew of other media channels -- all of which are expected to shrink this year. Among those media, spending on cinema, television, and out of home will decline the least, atrophying by 4.8 percent, 7.1 percent, and 7 percent respectively. They're the only categories that will shrink at a slower rate than the market as a whole, which ZenithOptimedia now expects will fall by 8.5 percent this year (up from 6.9 percent in an April revision).

Read ZenithOptimedia's full release.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 1:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

See More Posts From:

Today | This Week | This Month