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October 16, 2009

Anti-Dobbs Ad Money Raised Online Won't Go to CNN

Last month, I reported on a campaign targeting Capitol Hill staffers, CNN employees, and staff members of other media companies on Facebook. An immigration advocacy group called America's Voices aimed to vilify CNN host Lou Dobbs. People listed on Facebook as employees of media firms including CNN, The New York Times, Politico, and AOL were served ads featuring images of the CNN anchor accompanied by text like, "Hey, Anderson Cooper, What's it like to work with a racist at CNN? Time to drop Dobbs."

Sounds like a publicity stunt? Sure. Part of the goal was to spawn earned media coverage of the campaign. The organization, however, also aimed to raise money for anti-Dobbs TV spots. They wanted - in partnership with progressive media watchdog Media Matters for America -- to run an ad implying that Dobbs is an anti-immigrant hatemonger during the network's upcoming "Latino in America" special.

"All of the advertising so far has been digital and whatever we raise will go to traditional media," Jackie Mahendra, director of online communications for America's Voices, told me last month.

Yesterday, the group announced it had raised "nearly $16,000" towards that goal, and would run the ads during the series. Now, America's Voices - and HuffingtonPost - report that CNN has refused to run the ad. According to HuffPo, CNN stated, "Contrary to reports, CNN has not accepted these spots and they will not air on the network."

An America's Voice press release from yesterday says they play to run the ad "on a competing network in the next week."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 2:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

FTC Responds to IAB Letter on Blogger Guidelines

Yesterday the Interactive Advertising Bureau took a jab at the Federal Trade Commission's revised guidelines on online endorsements. Put simply, the guidelines call for online reviewers to disclose payment or affiliation with marketing campaigns or advertisers.

The way the IAB sees it, the FTC is unfairly favoring traditional media over digital media. In a letter sent to the FTC chairman, IAB prez Randy Rothenberg contended the FTC's call for disclosure of "material connections" between advertisers and endorsers in social media platforms will "shackle online media while exempting our offline cousins and competitors from equivalent constraint."

"I don't think that there is any favoritism based on the type of media," Rich Cleland, assistant director of the FTC's division of advertising practices told ClickZ News this morning. "The core here is do consumers understand the relationship that exists between the speaker and the seller." "Offline, if those lines are blurred, then there's a problem," he continued. "These are not new issues."

As iterated throughout his lengthy letter, Rothenberg and others fear that the FTC will now be on the hunt for bloggers reviewing and endorsing products, which he argues will squelch social media.

"In terms of bloggers and other endorsers...I don't think that there is any reason for concern," said Cleland, stressing, "We have explained on a number of occasions that we do not have civil penalty authority." In other words, he told me, the FTC is not planning an enforcement sweep against bloggers. Also, he confirmed, the FTC has no authority to fine anybody (despite countless erroneous reports to the contrary).

The IAB also suggested that the FTC guidelines are "perverse" and "constitutionally dubious," stating they imply "individuals writing in social media bear greater liability than do those writing for offline, one-way media."

"It's not clear what exactly the IAB thinks the constitutional issue is here," Cleland said. "The guidelines are in fact just guidelines and to the extent that they focus on [misleading] commercial activity and practices that are essentially promoting products in exchange for payments or free merchandise...we don't think that there's a constitutional issue."

As for the public hearing the IAB wants the FTC to hold to hash out the concerns, Cleland said, "We haven't made any determination on that.... We've already taken comments on this issue." Still, he added, "We don't want to preclude that we might do something in addition to [the comment period]."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 9, 2009

YouTube to Partner with U.K.'s Channel 4 for long-form Video?

YouTube is close to agreeing to a landmark deal with U.K. broadcaster Channel 4, according to a report from the Telegraph. The partnership would see Channel 4 itself selling ad inventory around its long-form content, splitting a portion of that revenue with the Google-owned video site, the Telegraph says.

A Google spokesperson told me today the firm "does not comment on speculation," but Google and Channel 4 have been ramping up their partnership over the past year or so, so this seems a logical progression. Channel 4 and YouTube began trialing pre-roll ads together in May, and video syndication and rights management company Myvideorights signed its own similar revenue sharing agreement with YouTube in June.

According to the Telegraph, however, the new deal would see the majority of Channel 4's content available through the site, potentially opening up a range of high-value inventory for the broadcaster, and effectively snatching a large portion of the U.K.'s commercial video content from under the nose of rival Hulu which is yet to launch its product there.

According the Telegraph, the contract, which has been in negotiation for around six months, is due to be signed "imminently."

Posted by Jack Marshall at 3:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 15, 2009

Google Plays Nice with Publishers in Trials of Ad-supported "Fast Flip"

Google has faced criticism from a range of publishers over its Google News aggregation product, but it looks like the search giant is at least trying to play nice with trials of a new ad supported -- but revenue sharing -- news aggregation product.

Fast Flip collates news content from a range of third party publishers in an interface it describes as "combining the best elements of print and online articles." Essentially, this means a series of screen grabs of news stories from publisher sites, on which users can click to view original content if they wish.

Each story is accompanied by contextual display ads from Google's network, and the resulting revenue is shared with publishers. Ads on publisher sites are omitted from the screen grabs themselves.

Writing on the Google News Blog today, Krishna Bharat, the creator of Google News, said "The publishing industry faces many challenges today, and there is no magic bullet. However, we believe that encouraging readers to read more news is a necessary part of the solution. We think Fast Flip could be one way to help, and we're looking to find other ways to help as well in the near future."

Publishers have openly criticized Google's news product for monetizing their content through ads without passing on a share of that revenue. However, Google maintains that publishers can opt-out of having their sites indexed by the product -- and waive the benefits of the traffic it may drive to their sites -- if they so wish.

Last month, Italian competition authorities even launched an investigation into allegations Google was abusing its dominant position through its News products, and strangling publishers' ad revenue as a result.

Publishers taking part in trials of the new Fast Flip product include the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Salon, Fast Company, Newsweek, and BBC Worldwide. A mobile version for Android-powered devices and the iPhone is also available.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

July 14, 2009

BBC Worldwide's Digital Sales Up Over 56 Percent

BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm responsible for the monetization of the British broadcaster's international assets, has announced a 56.2 percent increase in digital sales for the year ending March 2009.

According to BBCW's annual review, all areas of its digital business grew throughout the year, with BBC.com itself performing especially well. As a result, a total of £34.2 million was billed for the 2008/2009 period, up from £21.9 million for the previous 12 months. Other BBCW properties include Lonelyplanet.com, TopGear.com and GardenersWorld.com.

BBCW says the BBC.com site now attracts an average of 50 million uniques a month, and has serviced more than 400 advertiser clients including Rolex, Microsoft, Nokia, and British Airways since it launched in November 2007.

However, losses over the course of the year also doubled from £10.9 million to £22.8 million as a result of fruitless investment in project Kangaroo -- the proposed commercial online video tie-up between the BBC, ITV, and Channel 4. The deal was ultimately blocked by the U.K. Competition Commission. Also, the company decided to invest more money into the BBC.com site than the partnership.

The report also references current video content partnerships, such as the one it extended with YouTube earlier this year.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 1, 2009

The Year the Media Died

When investment banker Terence Kawaja, managing director, GCA Savvian Advisors, decides to leave his day job, he'll have something to fall back on: creating spoof music videos.

At Federated Media's Conversational Marketing Summit (#cmsummit) Monday in NYC, Kawaja showed off his music video, "The Day the Media Died," written to the tune of the 1971 hit, "American Pie."

So far, his video has not popped up on YouTube. When it does, we'll post the link here.

The remake goes something like this:

So bye, bye, those big upfront buys.
Pitched my client who was pliant
But the pitch didn't fly.
And the old ad boys were drinking martinis dry.
Technology has taken us for a ride.
Algorithms got me crossed eye...

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 10:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 23, 2009

The Daily Beast Tries Sponsored Article Format with 'Benjamin Button'

The entertainment world is abuzz with talk of Oscar nominations and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" earned 13 nods including one for Best Supporting Actress Taraji P. Henson. Perhaps in a bid to generate early Oscar momentum for the film, Paramount has been running a sponsored interview with the star actress on The Daily Beast.

The feature has resided on the front page of The Daily Beast for some time. Caroline Marks, general manager at The Daily Beast, said the sponsored article format is part of the IAC-owned site's monetization efforts.

"We are committed to building new programs and advertising initiatives including integrated content opportunities," she said. "In this case, we agreed on the broad topic with Paramount (the movie), but the Daily Beast ran the editorial and wrote the piece, which is clearly identified as sponsored content. We are still defining the elements of our advertising and sponsorship programs."

Posted by Enid Burns at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 20, 2009

A Director of New Media for the White House!

I love this. The White House has a Director of New Media. How cool is that?

Macon Phillips, formerly Director, Strategy and Communications for Blue State Digital (or still? not sure) is filling the role. Blue State handled many of the Obama camp's digital media efforts -- things like Web site development and other organization and communication tools (not really the ads though).

Phillips's first post to the WhiteHouse.gov site notes that the revamped-site "will serve as a place for the President and his administration to connect with the rest of the nation and the world."

He expounded on three priorities of the administration's new media efforts: Communication, Transparency ("executive orders and proclamations will be published for everyone to review"), and Participation ("we will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it").

This last priority is pretty interesting. We'll have to wait and see what is deemed non-emergency legislation as so much of the stuff we can expect to come out of congress will be in the emergency column in the near future, one would imagine.

Of course, any citizen has been able to access any legislation online in the past by accessing the House and Senate sites. However, having such documents easily linked to on the WhiteHouse site could result in more citizen engagement. Plus, a promise to wait five days to get the country's reaction is a novel one.

Check it out here, and while you're at it, don't forget to read about former First Pets!

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 30, 2008

The Year in Online Newspaper Advertising: a Brief Overview

Which were the biggest online ad industry stories of '08? Readers can wait for my year-end roundup story tomorrow in ClickZ News to find out which we thought made the cut.

One that was certainly important but not necessarily of sweeping impact for the industry as a whole was the ongoing saga of online newspaper advertising. The launch of quadrantOne and Yahoo's APT platform were probably the most significant events.

In February, Gannett Co., Hearst Corporation, Tribune Company, and The New York Times Company launched quadrantOne. The goal was to grab more national ad dollars from large brands.

The network soon added several new Web sites and publishers to its network, all of which are also partnered with Yahoo.

Now, it's been two years since Yahoo began signing ad and search deals with newspaper publishers as part of its newspaper consortium project -- another one that's meant to save them through higher display ad revenue from brand advertisers, among other things. Though the partner group has grown significantly, there's much work to be done, including getting all of Yahoo's paper partners on its APT ad management platform, which finally launched in September.

The consortium in a way let go of the Yahoo apron strings in August when it appointed a Tribune man, Michael Silver, as its new executive director. The partners also formed deals with Zillowin '08, creating a real estate related ad network.

Adding another wrinkle to the drama, Centro's acquisition of McClatchy-owned newspaper ad network Real Cities ended an era begun by the now-defunct Knight Ridder. The buy ended the existence of Real Cities as an entity; Real Cities was a division of Knight Ridder until McClatchy acquired KR in 2006.

Despite the fact that the industry has joined hands in various network efforts, the outlook is grim as paper publishers grapple with falling online ad revenues -- the ones that were supposed to counteract the bleeding on the print side.
Indeed, after its first ever reported drop in online ad revenue in Q2 2008, the industry drifted another few notches in Q3. According to the Newspaper Association of America, online paper sites brought in $749.8 million in Q3, a drop of 3 percent from a year before.

Newspaper industry layoffs abound and will probably get worse in 2009. At this point, it's not clear whether those have affected online ad sales teams. But if digital media is truly a last hope for newspapers, they'd do well to keep their digital ad sales operations strong.

What did I forget?

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

December 2, 2008

Newspaper Web Revenues Drop Again in Q3

People who report news for a living don't like hearing about other news operations doing poorly. It just doesn't bode well. Until less than a year ago, though, newspapers seemed to have a glimmer of hope through their online businesses.

Not anymore -- at least for the time being.

After its first ever reported drop in online ad revenue in Q2 2008, the industry drifted another few notches in Q3. According to the Newspaper Association of America, online paper sites brought in $749.8 million in Q3, a drop of 3 percent from a year before.

At that time, Internet ad revenue reached $773 million, having risen a healthy 21 percent over Q3 2006.

Overall, combined print and online spending fell 18 percent in Q3 2008 to $8.9 billion.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 25, 2008

A Little Growth Is Better Than Zero Growth

Another downward trending forcast, this time from eMarketer. The research firm has removed a digit from its 2009 interactive advertising spend forecast.

eMarketer's predicting 8.9 percent growth in ad spend next year, as opposed to the double-digit call they (and most other firms) were making last summer - in their case, 14.5 percent.

Glum? You shouldn't be. Growth is growth. You'd rather be working in financial services or the auto industry and experience negative growth? Times are tough all over, but up is still up.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 3:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

November 17, 2008

Quote of the Day: P&G's Ted McConnell on Facebook

"Who said this is media? Media is something you can buy and sell. Media contains inventory. Media contains blank spaces. Consumers weren't trying to generate media. They were trying to talk to somebody. So it just seems a bit arrogant... We hijack their own conversations, their own thoughts and feelings, and try to monetize it."

-Ted McConnell, general manager-interactive marketing and innovation at Procter & Gamble Co., expressing doubts that marketers belong on Facebook. (AdAge)

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 3:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

October 9, 2008

Web Gets Obama (Chump) Change

Barack Obama's campaign spent over $3 million on TV ads in one state on Monday.

He's spent about double that on the Web since January.

Yep, according to my calculations based on FEC reports, his campaign spent around $5.45 million on paid online media on the Web, into August.

How's that for sharp contrast?

As I wrote in my recent Reuters commentary piece on Obama's online ads:

The fact is political advertisers typically don't use Internet ads to sway voters the way they do television ads. When it comes to the Web, they rely on things like video on YouTube and their official sites to have persuasive impact.

Not only is advertising on television a tough-to-break habit for political campaigns, they have yet to see online ads affect an election in an undeniable way.

Until there's proof that an online ad moved people to vote for or against a candidate, the first full-fledged Internet election may be far off.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 15, 2008

WSJ.com Redesign Triples Article Ad Inventory

At Ogilvy's powwow for their IBM clients today, WSJ.com General Manager Daniel Bernard stopped by to show off a sneak peak at the eagerly-anticipated site redesign, slated to launch tomorrow.

It's loaded with new features, including community functionalities that require users to log-in with their real names to network or comment on content. But what's most impressive is how WSJ.com has combined usability and interface with monetization.

Beginning tomorrow, each article page will contain two additional tabs, one for video and one for user comments. This not only enables readers to find and participate in additional content faster with no need to navigate off the page, but benefits the publication as well. Because two tabs on each article page means effectively three time the ad inventory, right?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 4, 2008

Indispensible (Free) Tool for Media Buyers, Sellers and Planners

Do you buy, sell, or plan media? Then you owe it to yourself to download the incredibly nifty Swiss Army knife of calculators the Laredo Group is giving away...for free.

It slices. It dices. It calculates Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)...and so much more. This nifty JavaScript tool also can figure out reverse ROAS, compare scenarios, total campaign impressions, CPM, effective CPM and media cost.

Interactive advertising sure requires a lot of figgerin'. This nifty tool takes a lot of work out of that brain-busting chore. You can download it here.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 8:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 2, 2008

Sadly, Michael Palin's Wiki Entry Left Untouched

So, over the past few days everybody's been abuzz about Sarah Palin, and more specifically alterations made to a wikipedia entry on the new GOP vice presidential nominee. A whole bunch of changes were made to the page by a user with probable connections to the campaign right before the announcement that the Alaskan Governor would be John McCain's choice for running mate. Or, maybe it was Palin herself.

Then again, maybe it was Tina Fey....

TechPresident lamented the lack of speed with which the McCain camp got search ads up and links to pages with relevant biographical info on the candidate. Quite possibly, the news may not have been made privy to McCain's search ad folks soon enough to make that happen as rapidly as it could have. Now a search on "Sarah Palin" or "Palin" brings up an ad reading, "Get The Facts on Governor Sarah Palin. John McCain's VP Choice!" It goes to a Palin-centric page.

Stories in the Washington Post and NY Times also analyze the wiki situation. The Times report notes, "In modern politics, where the struggle is to 'define' yourself before your opponent 'defines' you, Wikipedia has become an important part of political strategy. When news breaks, and people plug a name into a search engine to find out more, invariably Wikipedia is the first result they click through to; it is where first impressions are made."

That pretty much hits the nail on the head; there's not a heck of a lot more to say than that, really. But now that political observers will be watching wiki entries of all likely VP nominees for changes, in four years campaigns may have to alter all of them to the same degree just to throw the bloodhounds off the trail.

As for the coverage this seemingly insignificant online occurrence is getting, I guess we can expect every single use of every single Web application (candidates on Facebook, Obama's VP text announcement, Palin twittering, etc.) to be over-analyzed by just about everybody – except the majority of voters.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 13, 2008

New Media Evangelists Combine Forces

Peter Krasilovsky at Kelsey Group reports that Chris Jennewein -- former VP of Internet operations at Union-Tribune Publishing Co., where he led Web projects like its SignOn San Diego-associated radio site -- will be joining another online local media guru, Rob Curley at Greenspun Media Group. Greenspun publishes the Las Vegas Sun.

Jennewein was laid off from his San Diego gig in May, along with two close interactive colleagues, Ron James and Jim Drummond.

Curley is president and executive editor at Greenspun Interactive. Peter K. didn't report what Jennewein's new position will be.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 3:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 5, 2008

Ford and Microsoft Sync Up for Viral Roadtripping

Microsoft has teamed with Ford for a highly experiential, super soft-sell microsite around Microsoft SYNC.

SYNC is a voice-actived gizmo for your car that's kind of like an iPod crossed with a Blackberry: it does music, text, and telephone. Cool, but it's a sell with a high educational curve.

Sync My Music, which lives on MSN, features a game, tons of content and a number of video webisodes about Kim and Seana, two music-obsessed girls, who road-trip across America in a SYNC equipped Ford in their respective quests to become a singer/songwriter (Kim DiVine is the real thing, actually), or to hook up with hot male indie band members.

The game unlocks additional content such as wallpaper and MP3s; the Explore section of the site is a region-by-region guide to the myriad cities the girls visit in their travels. It contains info on local clubs and bands and planning your own road trip. Which may prove difficult, as most of the links are crosswired. Select NYC's hippest bands, for example, and you land on Atlanta's arenas, clubs and cafes.

Oh, well. Given current gas prices, you probably weren't really going to do the roadtrip thing this summer, anyway.

Microsoft wants users to digg, blog and forward the site to a friend. Given the chicks meet popular local indie bands from time to time, the viral has got some real potential. Not just from the fans, but from the bands, who are promoting the heck out of the site on MySpace already.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

June 3, 2008

MSN Jumps on Celebrity Dirt Pile in Pairing with BermanBraun

BermanBraun, the studio launched by former Yahoo entertainment chief Lloyd Braun and film industry vet Gail Berman, has entered a deal with Microsoft to create an MSN-branded celebrity gossip and entertainment site. Kara Swisher first reported the launch yesterday, along with the tidbit that BermanBraun will also produce a daily "Lunacy Report" roundup up weird news appearing on Yahoo. Sounds very similar to Yahoo's recently-folded "the 9," which ran for two years but now redirects to Yahoo Entertainment.

MSN is the last of the traditional portals to do the gossip destination thing, having previously taking the approach of integrating its coverage of such stories as Bill Murray's infidelities with harder news content. The new site will join a congested field that also includes AOL's TMZ, PerezHilton.com and Yahoo's OMG. BermanBraun will share ad representation with Microsoft, Swisher also reported.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 2, 2008

At IAB Social Media Conference: All Media Are Emerging

The best moment of the Future is Now panel at the IAB's UGC and Social Media conference had more to do with the past than the future. Deep Focus CEO Ian Schafer noted television isn't purchased the same way today that it was a year ago. "All media is emerging in one form or another... It's all up for grabs."

Organic's Chad Stoller chimed in: "Look at outdoor. For years you'd buy billboards with one constant impression. Now you can have 30 [creatives] up in an hour. We're talking about outdoor in terms of the daypart."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 27, 2008

Making Sense of Gen Y Media Consumption

Forrester Research put out a report on media consumption among Gen-Yers (18-27 year-olds). The big takeaways aren't surprising. This group spends more time online than watching TV (Indeed, according to the report, they "Spend less time watching television today than they did in 2004."). They spend more time playing video games, watching DVDs and checking out Web and mobile video content than the general population.

To make sense of it all, Forrester offers a few tips for marketers:

Find consumers in their preferred media channels. Are your consumers online or offline? How are they spending their time online? What channels do they prefer? This media profile will answer those questions with a view of today and a trend line showing how behavior has changed in the past four years.

....Prioritize media channels and brands for advertising....One simple way to start is to compare your advertising spend against the time that your target customers spend with each channel and brand. For example, Gen Yers generally are more likely to be found on MySpace than Facebook, but perhaps your target market is more likely to use Facebook. Or it may be that your multichannel sports fanatic customer actually spends more time online than watching television!

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 19, 2008

Media Buyers Take Aim

Intergi created "Media Buyer's Revenge, a first-person shooter that understands why your heart pounds every time the phone rings, and every time Outlook alerts you to new e-mail.

Of course, while the game is played from the perspective of a media buyer, and has sales people in the crosshairs, Intergi itself wants you media buyers to advertise on game sites on its network. But happy shooting!

Posted by Enid Burns at 6:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

24/7 Real Media, 368 Days Later

What's life for David Moore, chief executive of 24/7 Real Media, one year
and two years to the day after WPP agreed to acquire the company? (If you're
counting days, 2008 was a Leap Year.)

When 24/7 was a stand alone publicly-held company -- before the WPP
acquisition -- Moore estimates he spent about 35 to 40 percent of his time
on activities related to investor relations.

Now, he says he devotes the extra time collaborating with his WPP
colleagues and meeting with clients. When I met with him today in NYC,
he had just returned from a quick trip to Korea where had played golf with a
client. (OK, so he's suffers from a little jet lag today, but nothing that caffeine can't fix.)

Last year at this time, Real Media generated 50 percent of its quarterly
revenue from its search solution, 36 percent from its media operations, and
8 percent from its technology solutions.

Since the acquisition, 24/7's search consultancy was moved to WPP's GroupM
subsidiary, while the 24/7 unit licenses its search technology to GroupM and
Dentsu.

While Moore said he cannot divulge specific revenue projections, he
anticipates 24/7's media operations business will see healthy growth. While
it currently has clients in the U.K. and France, Moore has his eye on
expanding to at least five to 10 other European markets in the next three to
five years. It also sees opportunities for growth in Asia and Australia.

What does he think of the latest reports that Microsoft wants to acquire a
part of Yahoo's business? Microsoft, he points out, is one of WPP's top 10
clients. Plus, Nicolle Pangis, 24/7's VP, product manager, pointed out
that WPP last week announced plans to develop a trading platform that will
link to Yahoo's ad exchange, and integrate targeting technology from 24/7
Real Media.

And has any of DoubleClick's customers defected to 24/7 after the Google
acquisition? Moore said he hasn't seen anyone jump ship -- but isn't
surprised because technology contracts typically last three years unless
they include a change of ownership clause.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 3:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

May 15, 2008

Curley to Leave WPNI

Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive's VP Product Development Rob Curley is leaving the firm. I've confirmed this with a source close to Curley, but no more info is available.

Classified Intelligence reported that Curley is taking on a gig with the Las Vegas Sun. Here's what they had earlier this afternoon:

Curley is attending the Editor&Publisher and MediaWeek Interactive Media Conference in Las Vegas, wearing his Post polo. But folks here are saying he's soon to join the Las Vegas Sun and its online properties. The Sun is owned by the Greenspun Media Group and has always been known for racy and edgy publications.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 25, 2008

Still Need to Make a Call to Buy on AOL's Spot Market

What exactly is AOL’s Platform-A Spot Marketplace? I couldn't tell from the company's press release what's different from what Advertising.com's offered all along. Well, a Platform-A spokesman told me what's significant is the ability for advertisers to bid on AOL's non-guaranteed CPM inventory. That includes stuff like Moviefone, AOL Sports and e-mail pages.

Apparently, non-guaranteed AOL inventory has been sold only on a performance basis until now. The main difference is it's available now on a CPM basis. Chandler was unable to tell me how much inventory is represented in this so-called spot market, since it's constantly in flux.

Don't go jumping to conclusions, though. Terms like "marketplace" in the online world have come to connote some sort of Web-based buying and selling system. Not so here. "You have to work with a sales rep on this," according to Chandler.

And, since AOL is all about hyping Platform A these days, it's given the new division a cool new logo. I admit, the design major in me digs it.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 7, 2008

Clinton Raising Cash for PA Web Ads

Hillary Clinton's campaign site has a giant homepage image dedicated to fundraising for specific types of ads targeted to Pennsylvanians, including online ads. "Help us recruit supporters and get out the vote in Pennsylvania with targeted online ads," reads the plea. The goal is $2.5 million for TV and $100K for Web.

So far, they've collected about $28.5 K for online ads and about $285K for TV. The numbers were each at around $27K and $270K this morning, which would indicate the campaign is attributing a specific portion of the total donations towards Web and TV to each medium, rather than showing what people are actually donating for each medium.

Then again, it could be a coincidence....

The camp is also collecting cash for radio, and signs, and has reached its goals for door hangers and get-out-the-vote vans.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 24, 2008

Collective Media Is Powering quadrantOne

It's official. As reported here, Collective Media's AMP is indeed the platform quadrantOne is using to run ads across its network of newspaper sites.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 12, 2008

Is Google a Threat to Disney?

Robert A. Iger, chief executive of The Walt Disney Company, said he doesn't see Google as a threat to the media and entertainment company.

"They typically need our stuff in some form. They want an association [with us]," Iger said, responding to a question posed to him today at the McGraw-Hill Media Summit.

He said Google delivers value to Disney. "When they provide consumers with great search, search gives consumer access to Disney," he said. That includes access to buying a Disney vacation package or learning more about Hannah Montana. "The [Google] platform being strong is good for us. Not bad," he said, while speaking in a one-on-one interview with John Byrne, BusinessWeek executive editor.

Byrne asked Iger whether Disney has considered acquiring AOL. "No," Iger said. "We don’t want to comment on specific acquisitions, even though I just did."

Disney expects its revenue from digital media to reach $1 billion in 2008, up from $750 million last year. While he declined to disclose growth projections, Iger anticipates the increase will come from two places: "cannibalization" from other Disney businesses as well as new business, especially on the international front. The company is rolling out Disney.com in the U.K. and Japan, and has plans for China, Australia, Germany, France, and Italy.

Iger anticipates computers connected to high-speed Internet access will become youth's primary source of entertainment in coming years. Disney expects revenue will come from multiple sources: subscription services, direct sales, video on demand, and advertising.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 8, 2008

How to Profit from Online Publishing? Start Here

Okay, so you don't know what an Underwood is. Even if you don't -- and you're in publishing -- you're still probably trying to figure out how to make money from online publishing.

Today, we welcome back interactive media strategist Vin Crosbie as a ClickZ Experts columnist.

Vin's one of two pros writing for ClickZ about online publishing. They'll guide traditional and online publishers on how to navigate the difficult terrain.

Next week, look for digital strategist Lee Huang's new online publishing column here. Now a consultant, Lee previously was director, digital strategy and product R&D, at Nielsen Business Media, which includes Billboard and Adweek.

BTW, long-time ClickZ readers should remember Vin. He offered his insights about online publishing in a ClickZ column from 2002 to 2004.

These days, Vin's been very busy. He's a professor and consultant at Syracuse University and is managing partner of consutancy Digital Deliverance. And

Welcome Vin and Lee!

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 9, 2008

Don't Call Them Readers

Magazine publishers are pursuing 33.5 percent more online initiatives in 2007 compared to the same time last year, according to research released by the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) today.

The trade association for the consumer magazine industry kept tabs on its members and found they had announced 207 digital initiatives compared to 155 in 2006. Those included video for Web sites, social network tools, user-generated content efforts and integrated marketing initiatives. MPA members include Businessweek, Forbes Media, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Playboy, Time, Wired and a host of others.

Howard Polskin, MPA's senior vice president/communications & events, told me he started a file some year ago to save and monitor digital initiatives which grew into the results he announced today, and that the move for magazines into digital video, blog, podcasts and other content is to be expected in 2008.

"[Magazines] are using whatever platform they can to touch their… and I'm not going to use the word 'readers'… to touch their users 24-7," he said. "The people that used to consume magazine content used to be readers and now there is the subtle shift that it's more important to call them users."

Posted by MatthewNelson at 7:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 3, 2008

E.W. Scripps Rings Out the Old (Newspapers)

E.W. Scripps Co. closed out 2007 by shuttering two afternoon newspapers, "The Cincinnati Post" and "The Kentucky Post." And, it started the new year with the launch of KYPost.com, a Web site that promises local news, sports, and entertainment information about northern Kentucky.

Traffic from "The Cincinnati Post" Web site is being redirected to KYPost.com. The Web site will also include relevant content from Scripps-owned Cincinnati TV station WCPO.

Beth Lawton, manager, digital media at the Newspaper Association of America, said newspapers might have some challenges selling online to advertisers who are more comfortable with print products. "However, it's really about selling the newspaper's audience, and newspaper Web site users are a very desirable audience. They tend to be more educated, more affluent and more savvy in technologically and online shopping than non-newspaper Web site users," she wrote today in an e-mail to ClickZ News.

Scripps has been wearing its interactive intentions like a heart on its sleeve.

Last year, E.W. Scripps said it planned to divide the company: cable and interactive elements will be operated by Scripps Networks Interactive and its traditional print and TV businesses will remain under the E. W. Scripps Company.

The shuttering of "The Cincinnati Post" and "The Kentucky Post" is no surprise.

As readership habits changed, afternoon daily newspapers struggled, many switching to morning distribution or folding.

The Scripps papers in Covington, KY, and Cincinnati had been operating under a 30-year joint operating agreement with Gannett, owner of "The Cincinnati Enquirer." Back in 2004, Gannett informed Scripps it didn't intend to renew the agreement, which expired Dec. 31, 2007.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 12, 2007

WSJ's Discordant Holiday Promotion

Actually, it probably is too late.

With Murdoch dropping hint after hint that his newly-acquired "Wall Street Journal" is likely to become free, why is the marketing department sending these e-mail promotions? This is the second one I've received this week.

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

December 10, 2007

IHT and Reuters Partner on New IHT Biz Section, Will Sell Ads Jointly

The International Herald Tribune has entered a deal with Reuters to create an "enhanced financial news offering" on its print and Web properties. Under the collaboration, Reuters and IHT will jointly offer print and online sponsorship and ad opportunities.

The fruits of the Web collaboration will appear at www.iht.com/business and will include multimedia and regular content from Reuters and IHT. With the new daily business report, IHT plans to cease publication of two Bloomberg-created editorial products: Marketplace by Bloomberg and Business Asia by Bloomberg.

One thing that's ambiguous in the news release is whether IHT and Reuters will be able to cross-sell inventory on one another's Web platforms. Certainly there's an opportunity to create value for both parties without competing... sort of a two-way ad network. I'm trying to learn more and will post again as I hear back.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 28, 2007

MediaNews Group Socializes with Topix

Yesterday local news aggregator and community Topix announced a partnership with MediaNews Group to enable Web forums and comments for the newspaper publisher's sites, including San Jose Mercury News and Denver Post. Other sites including GoErie.com, Zap2It.com, KOB.com, and CapitalTimes.com are also using Topix's social platform.

Topix has shifted gears over the past year or so, switching its domain from .net to .com, and adding its own social news features in the hopes of becoming a hub for local citizen journalism.

For MediaNews Group and other paper publishers, enabling social features like forums, comments, photo uploads (for high school sports especially), is a great way to build ad inventory. And newspaper publishers need all the ad revenue they can get.

For the record, Topix is partly-owned by paper publishing giants Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 3:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Major U.K. Broadcasters Team up for Landmark Partnership

Three of the U.K.'s largest broadcasters are to join forces in launching an On-Demand entertainment service, potentially presenting marketers with new online advertising opportunities.

Subject to approval from their respective board members, BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4 will launch a three-way on-demand TV content service in 2008.

The project, temporarily titled "Kangaroo," will initially be launched as an online-only service, before rolling out to other platforms. An official name and brand for the service will be unveiled at a later date.

The joint venture will be equally owned by all three broadcasters, with each taking a share of revenue.

Although specific details of the revenue model are not detailed in the press release, it states that viewers will have access to free content, as well as having the option to rent or buy.

Presumably, therefore, the free content will be supported by advertising.

Quoted in the press release, Andy Duncan, Channel 4 chief executive described the deal as "good news" for advertisers and viewers alike.

Lesley MacKenzie, previously director of Channels and Operations at BSkyB, has been appointed as launch CEO.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 26, 2007

Because It's Friday...and Beacuse It's Technically Worksafe

It's a longstanding editorial policy that we do not -- ever -- reprint press releases. Herewith, the single exception to that rule in our 10+ years of publishing.

A new media opportunity. Enjoy.

Businesses Flock to Buy Woman's Pubic Hair

A unique and highly creative website owned by an anonymous UK based female has rapidly become one the most talked about sites on the Internet.
Milliondollarpubes.com has been set up to finance the costly treatment of laser hair removal from the bikini area of the lady in question. Having tried every treatment available to retain her silky smoothness including waxing, shaving and creams, she concluded that the only way to achieve her dream of ultimate smoothness was by laser treatment, hence Milliondollarpubes.com was launched.

Each pubic hair is offered for sale at $200, but it’s not just a hair that you get for your money. Along with the sale of each and every hair is a 10 x 10 pixel advertisement on the homepage of Milliondollarpubes.com, a website that has already attracted nearly 50,000 visitors in a matter of days.

Each advertisement is also accompanied by a short description and a direct link to the advertisers’ website.

Businesses can instantly purchase one or more pubic hairs by visiting the site at www.milliondollarpubes.com and simply clicking on the ‘BUY PUBIC HAIR’ link. You can then select exactly where on her body you would like your advertisement and link to appear. Upon checking out you also have the option to have the pubic hair posted to you. The owner of the site said “I hope that as many people as possible would like to receive my hair, but if you would prefer to just place your advert then that is fine too!”

The site has already attracted a number of serious businesses who have seen the initiative as a fun way to achieve effective advertising and a great return on investment. Cost-per-click has never been so much fun!

5,000 pubic hairs are on offer to raise the owner’s magical $1,000,000 goal.

With nearly 200 hairs already purchased interested businesses who want to gain great exposure at a low cost are advised to act quickly, and take advantage of this unique ‘hair today-gone tomorrow’ opportunity.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 23, 2007

GuardianAmerica.com Launches Today

The Guardian today launched its new U.S. website, which will offer Guardian U.K. and international content tailored to an American audience.

Following the lead of the FT’s online operation, and more recently BBC.com, it’s unsurprising to see yet another U.K. publisher attempting to tap the international online market with an ad supported model.

According to the Media Guardian website, the growing U.S. audience now accounts for nearly a third of Guardian Unlimited’s readership, and attracts in the region of 5.5 million unique visitors from the U.S. every month. The potential for monetization therefore is clear.

The Guardian site states that “over time the site will introduce reader services such as holidays and dating, and will eventually include opportunities for recruitment advertising.”

The Guardian's U.K. editor Alan Rusbridger stated that the aim of the site was to “provide a discerning US audience with quality multimedia journalism, and the very best comment and analysis."

The site kicked things off today with an exclusive interview with presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 2, 2007

FT.com to Trade Most Access Fees for Ad Revenue

FT.com will launch a new charging system in mid-October as it prepares to revamp its entire site over the next several months. The new system will enable users to access up to 30 stories a month completely free of charge, and should create new opportunities for marketers.

Typically, newspapers have opted either to monetize free content with ads or to charge on a subscription or ‘pay-per-view’ basis. The new model from the FT boasts the best of both worlds, with visitors only needing to pay for subscription if they wish to view more than 30 articles or data in a month.

Ien Cheng, publisher of FT.com, told the International Herald Tribune, "To get caught between all this 'free' or 'paid' is too simplistic. We see this as a third way."

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 27, 2007

Sugar Buys Shopping Site, Trashes Competitor's Artificial Sweetener

Female-focused publishers are really good at co-opting each other's ideas. It wasn't long after Glam Media became the first notable smaller publisher to represent an extended network of sites that iVillage began doing the same. And this week, with the acquisition of "social shopping" site ShopStyle, Sugar Publishing has obtained new e-commerce and product discovery capabilities of the sort both iVillage and Glam offer.

In a video interview with AllThingsDigital's Kara Shwisher, publisher Brian Sugar describes the structure and strategy of the business, which has been renamed Sugar Inc. Along the way he takes a bunch of subtle and not-so-subtle swipes at rivals Gawker Media and Glam.

"Snarky's just sort of a trendy thing that eventually goes away," he tells Swisher, dissing Gawker without mentioning it by name (though Swisher had earlier referred to him as the "sweet Nick Denton"). "People magazine has a style we like. We model after them."

And in a blatant attack on Glam Media, Sugar tells Swisher he "really hates" sites that roll up comScore data from an extended ad network to "say they're bigger than they really are." Call it artificial sweetener.

Sugar is now hiring for a number of new and upcoming Sugar properties, including sites focused on pets, babies, finance and politics -- all bearing the Sugar name. Brian Sugar told Swisher the company's social network offering, TeamSugar, launched in February and has grown to 125,000 members. Every day Sugar writers produce about 150 posts and its extended community generates 15,000 pieces of content, some of which are promoted to positions of prominence on the network.

This summer NBC Universal Digital Media took a minority stake in Sugar. Part of that deal stipulates NBCU Digital Media will sell premium advertising on Sugar sites.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 15, 2007

Adify Gets Gayified

Adify, an ad management provider for small sites and networks started out in the niche vertical network world by introducing a network of blog sites associated with Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States (VFW). It was one of their first networks. Now they've gone from old-school military inner circle to, well, out. The growing company's latest is the Gay Ad Network.

They've also recently added networks for sports blogs and educational resources. Essentially, what Adify does is provide the ad management platform to sites and networks, and assists some with sales and other ad related services a small publisher would need.

The more than 200 sites in the network include Out in America Network, TheLWordOnline.com, GayWeddings.com and ProudParenting.com.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 10, 2007

NBC in Full-on Deal Mode, NewCo Scores Cash

The still to launch NewCo, the unnamed video content network from News Corporation and NBC Universal has already landed private investment cash -- $100 million from Providence Equity Partners, and it's rumored more are interested. Remember, this thing is still 'in the works,' but with the big-time content and distribution partners it has, the potential YouTube threat seems like a good bet.

NBC's DotComedy.com just signed with Israeli startup HIRO Media, which provides ad-supported video distribution technologies that work in multiple channels, including through P2P networks. The technology will allow NBC to dynamically personalize and alter ads every time a user views a video. It would make sense for NBC to employ the HIRO technology for NewCo.

This Web 2.0-style relationship reminds me of multiple deals CBS announced in May with a variety of blogging software, widget and instant messaging platform providers like Clearspring, MeeVee and meebo.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 24, 2007

YouTubification of Primary Debates Doesn't Translate

Anybody catch the much-hyped CNN/YouTube debates last night? I did. On AM 820, our local NPR station -- WNYC.

It seems as though many "Rah! Rah! YouTube!" "Horray for Bloggers!" types have agreed -- as it seems they agreed to do before they even experienced this new debating form -- that these debates finally gave the average American a voice. Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation, seems to sum it up in a post to the lefty publication's blog: "What's heartening and hopeful is that tonight marked the end of debates as we've known them. Let the peoples' voices be heard."

Well, I have a lot of thoughts about how insipid some of the voter-generated video questions were (39 chosen from 3,000 submitted clips), and how flippantly the entire production treated an event that deserves more dignity. But I'll stick to the media side of things.

If the promise of amateur Web video is that it will eventually translate to other media, or perhaps supplant professionally-produced content, this YouTubification of a Democratic Primary debate proved it shouldn't or won't, at least successfully. Anybody who's watched Current TV for more than two minutes knows what I mean.

Not only were viewers and listeners subjected to talking snowmen and egregious southern stereotypes and other inappropriately light-hearted fare, they had to put up with downright poor production quality. The video clips probably didn't sound quite as bad on TV as they did on AM radio, but the fact that the sound quality was as muddled and scratchy as it was made for an extremely dissatisfying experience.

And, hey, I'm the first to admit the typical debate formats aren't exactly exhilarating, but do they need to be? Do we need a talking snowman to convince us to pay attention to a discussion about global warming? Do we need loud obnoxious music with indecipherable lyrics to serve as a debate question? In other words, does the YouTubification of a primary debate truly serve the intent of a debate?

The outcome seemed more muddled, confused and exhibitionist than substantive. Kinda like most amateur Web video content. I'm not knocking amateur Web video, but it has its place and the notion that it belongs in every venue (including McDonald's TV spots) is misguided.

Who knows? Maybe the next time 'round they'll do it better. We'll have a chance to find out during the YouTube Republican Debate September 17th.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 4, 2007

YouTube Signs Hearst for Local TV Video

So, YouTube has added another full-fledged media partner to its roster. This time it's a local media deal with Hearst-Argyle, which will offer content from TV stations in Boston, Sacramento, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Manchester, New Hampshire. More stations could sign on in the future.

This is a rev-share deal, though as usual, who gets what wasn't disclosed. And, it looks as though this is just a display ad deal for now, though according to an AdWeek report, YouTube "has begun inserting text-ad invitations to view long-form content into some clips."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

AdSense Goes Glam

Glam Media has let it be known they've inked a multi-year deal with Google. The deal feels so glamorous, in fact, that announcement dominates the home page of the women's lifestyle site. Could this mean Google's now a fashion accessory in addition to everything else?

Google will become Glam's exclusive Web search provider, as well as deliver contextual AdSense ads to the property.

“Our strategy is to provide our audiences and advertisers with the most integrated and contextual entertainment experience possible, and our collaboration with Google provides additional and different contextual ad opportunities for advertisers," said Glam Media Chairman and CEO Samir Arora in a statement.

The #2 women's property after iVillage, Glam claims 12 million unique monthly visitors.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 31, 2007

NewsCorp/NBC Network Adds Media Partners

News Corporation and NBC Universal have tacked on a handful of additional media partners for their yet-to-be-named online distribution venture. FUEL TV, SPEED and TV Guide Broadband will add their short-form content for dissemination across the new network, as well as hosting their own stuff on the new network's destination hub. (Fuel is a Fox property, and Speed is, at least, in part owned by Fox, so no surprise, there).

Women's network Oxygen will contribute clips shows including "The Bad Girls Club," "Fight Girls," "50 Funniest Women" and "Our Bodies, Myself." Full-length and short-form content from Sundance Channel shows, webisodes and flicks, such as "One Punk Under God," and "Ecoists" will satisfy indie tastes.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Clinton Gets the Techie Site Connection

As part of ClickZ's ongoing Election '08 coverage, we reported recently that people who visited the official campaign Web sites of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Dennis Kucinich had high likelihoods of visiting tech-related content elsewhere on the Web.

Specifically, as tracked by Tacoda for a report provided exclusively to ClickZ News, visitors to Clinton's, Obama's and Kucinich's sites were more likely to go to tech sites covering UNIX and Linux software information than any other content category. Visitors to Kucinich's site were 136 times more likely than the rest of the Web population to do so, while visitors to Clinton's were 31 times more likely and those on Obama's site were 21 times more likely.

On the other hand, these niche software sites were off the radar for Rudy Giuliani site visitors, though that audience was slightly more likely to visit computer software sites than others online.

The reason I make note of this is there's an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal today about Hillary's efforts to woo Silicon Valley techies through a trip to California. According to the story, "The New York senator's 'innovation agenda,' as her campaign calls it, packages familiar and new initiatives that are sure to be popular with her audience at Applied Global University in Santa Clara, as well as the broader high-tech community, which favors Democrats with its votes and money."

Anyone who thought it made no sense that visitors to Dem campaign sites also spent a lot of time on UNIX and Linux software sites may want to take a second look. Hillary obviously recognizes the connection.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 24, 2007

Distribution's Brand Effect Neglected at Media Event

Yesterday I sat in on an Argyle Executive Forum event, "2007 Market Trends in Media," featuring folks from TBS, MySpace, Hearst, Reuters and others, and led by Rafat Ali of PaidContent.

TBS to Google: Work Harder
Towards the tail end of a discussion with Phil Kent, CEO of Turner Broadcasting Systems, he said the firm is trying to find a way to work with search firms, particularly Google, in order to protect TBS copyrights and monetize its content. It's infeasible to charge cable companies for its content and then give it away to Google, he said.

"[Google] needs to come up with better technological tools to help media companies clear and filter out their content," he added.

MySpace to Google: We'll Fight YouTube
MySpace founder and COO Josh Berman was on the next unnamed panel, during which he told the crowd about MySpace's news content plans, noting, "We're cutting deals with major content holders." Deals with sports content providers for video and articles are also on the horizon, he said.

Displaying the co-opetition that seems to be the norm among online media partners, Berman praised Google as a great search companion for MySpace (making a point to say the deal, officially signed, is for three years). Later, however, Berman mentioned MySpace's goal is to launch a video product that will be better than YouTube. Ahhh…consolidation.

News Media to Distribution Deals: You're Our Hero
On the newspaper front, Lincoln Millstein, SVP digital media for Hearst Newspapers discussed the Yahoo newspaper consortium, of which Hearst Newspapers is a founding member. The partnership represents the early stages of recognition by paper publishers that their "old silo-ed mentality," requiring people to come to their sites to read their content doesn't work anymor, he said.

That statement served as a launch pad for a question I asked during the Q&A segment, regarding whether the growth of distribution deals among media firms could dilute their brands. "If people are viewing their content on various sites across the Web rather than their own, how will media firms prove the value of their brands to advertisers?" I wondered.

Well, the response was surprisingly dismissive.

"I don’t think we're changing our brand," said Millstein.

Christopher Ahearn, president of media for Reuters "took exception" with my premise, noting that media businesses have to keep up with the way users consume their products, and get past their tendencies toward maintaining control. Hence, the very basis for my question was faulty. But was it? Lots of people have asked this very question.

Of course, Reuters obviously has a different perspective here, considering the content it produces is, by nature, distributed.

As for Hearst or other publishers' brands, I don't think it's illegitimate to inquire how they'll convince advertisers of the value of their branded properties once their content is distributed all over the Web. Couldn't the Yahoo deal, even if The San Francisco Chronicle gets its logo slapped on every story, alter the way people perceive the paper's brand?

I realize distribution deals among strange bedfellows are in vogue, and they certainly could be part of the survival solution. But to blow off this brand question (and not even raise any questions regarding advertising during the session proper) seems like ostrich-like behavior.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 21, 2007

More Local Site Additions at MediaSpan

Radio station site-heavy local media network MediaSpan has added more than 75 newspaper and TV sites to its roster of over 1,300 local sites. New partners include newspaper and TV firm Freedom Communications, alt-weekly publisher Select Alternatives and local media firm Jones Media. MediaSpan offers integrated display, streaming audio, pre-roll video and e-mail ads.

MediaSpan in January partnered with TV site-centric Broadcast Interactive Media to sell targeted display and video ads to national advertisers across their expanded networks. The network also added a handful of local sites later that month following the Broadcast Interactive Media deal.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 18, 2007

A Spade Is a Spade, An Ad Is an Ad

I don't know about you, but I feel vaguely insulted every time I click on a Forbes.com link and land on their full-page rich media ad.

It's not that they're serving the ad, mind you, even if the format is intrusive. It's the message in the upper right hand corner providing users with the option to "skip this welcome screen."

Forbes appeals to an educated and sophisticated business audience. The overwhelming majority of Forbes readers are certainly smart enough to recognize an ad when they see one. What Forbes is serving up here is an ad. Nothing remotely "welcoming" about it.

Forbes is not only doing their readers a disservice by running this message, but their advertisers as well.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 9, 2007

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft in NAA Cage Match

It's not often you get the chance to see representatives from Google, Microsoft and Yahoo sitting in close proximity on the same stage. At yesterday's Newspaper Association of American conference here in NYC, I was among the few to experience just that. The main goal of the "Partnerships in Transition" panel was to help newspaper publisher execs understand just what these Web behemoths want with them already. I'm not sure they got their answer, but things were sure interesting in the meantime.

I'll start by describing the limited contributions made by Harry Patz, GM communications sector for North America at Microsoft. Since the company hasn't done a whole lot with newspaper publishers, he seemed to be there simply to help foster future relationships (and to round out the Yahoo/Google representation). When he did mention what Microsoft has to offer those publishers, he stressed the huge number of users of Microsoft products, and all the opportunities for them to serve content in those applications. For instance, Patz more than once said newspaper headlines could scroll alongside a game interface while users play their Xbox.

Wha?

Microsoft got a little ribbing from Tom Phillips, director of print ads at Google, who when discussing Google's product development process and fast-moving corporate culture, said, "It's not about packaged software." Google doesn't take years to launch a new product, he continued. Ouch.

As for the countless products Google releases, the question was raised as to what good all these products are if partners (like newspaper publishers) aren't aware of them or how they could benefit their businesses. Phillips admitted intra-company communication among departments is lacking at Google. "Frankly we have some work to do to make that better." He added, "Hilary has done a good job of that at Yahoo," referring to the woman sitting beside him, Hilary Schneider, SVP marketplace at Yahoo.

That was a pleasant thing to say, but Phillips also had a little jab for Schneider, who had a long history with the newspaper industry, most recently at Knight Ridder before it was sold off to McClatchy. At one point someone suggested that Yahoo has more relationships with paper publishers (through its newspaper consortium, now 15 publishers-strong) than Google does through its print program. (Google has 40 newspaper publisher partners in its print program, according to Phillips.)

Phillips commented, "Hilary's done a fabulous job with the press." Uncomfortable laughter ensued. Yikes.

Of course, the elephant in the room throughout the conversation was the fact that, now that Google owns DoubleClick, it's in direct competition with Yahoo (Panama) for newspaper publisher ad serving clients.

"We want to be your ad server on your digital domain," said Phillips. And speaking of the to-be-integrated DoubleGoo ad serving platform, he stopped himself from saying anything too brazen. Instead, he settled on, "It'll be the world's best ad server."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

May 7, 2007

About Pays $33m for Another Review Site

The New York Times Company's About.com continues along the acquisition path. For $33 million, the firm has snapped up ConsumerSearch.com, a company that hires freelance writers to distill user reviews to determine the most recommended products and write catch-all reviews.

For instance, the site recommends Webroot's Spy Sweeper as the best anti-spyware software overall since it's "considered the best all-around anti-spyware program in the greatest number of reviews because of its high detection rates and superior ease of use." It also says Kayak.com is the best travel search engine.

First off, maybe I'm clueless, but $33 million sounds a bit high to me. I've honestly never heard of ConsumerSearch and don't think I've ever stumbled across it in the countless searches I've done when conducting product research. The firm has six employees including the founder.

Though it seems like a very helpful site and I'll try to remember to check it out in the future, at this point I'm not so sure how well optimized for search it is. For instance, a Google search on "travel sites" doesn't turn up the site in the first page of organic or paid results. A search for "travel site reviews" only shows it as a sponsored link on the first page of results. The site fared better when it came to "mountain bike reviews," which turned up a link in the fourth spot in the organic listings.

I see ad network-served ads on the ConsumerSearch site, but it doesn’t seem to have any ads sold direct, which means there probably are few relationships with advertisers. Still, you never know what the valuation was based on. The site's content and meta-review process is something that could fit in very nicely at About, and possibly other New York Times properties. About in April bought health ratings and info site UCompareHealthCare.com.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 3:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

May 1, 2007

Will Too Many Exchanges Defeat the Exchange Promise?

The online ad industry is known for innovation, but like most industries, innovation often spurs replication. The ad exchange bandwagon is loading up with wannabes and hangers on, some with big names and big parents. Contextual ad network ContextWeb is the latest to hoist itself on, announcing plans to launch an exchange this summer.

The exchange apparently will feature some differentiation. According to the firm's press release, "This exchange provides pricing control - the ability to set a firm 'Bid' or 'Ask' price - to all traders (publishers and advertisers)….In other exchange and network businesses, publishers are not permitted to set an 'Ask' price but receive a revenue share of the 'Bid' price from the advertiser. This model only allows for a remnant inventory pool and inhibits market volume and liquidity."

I'm not sure whether this is actually the case, but as ClickZ delves more deeply into the exchange world, we'll find out. I'm pretty sure most exchanges allow publishers to set a minimum amount they'll accept.

The ContextWeb exchange is dubbed ADSDAQ, which leads me to wonder when NASDAQ will align with ADSDAQ to form….oh geez.

The emergence of the exchanges does make sense as ad networks mature and auction-based systems continue popularity. Still, the exchange concept was developed to reduce the amount of work advertisers need to go through to buy network inventory. If more and more exchanges are created, the promise of the exchanges will be lost.

Advertisers will want to go to the hub or hubs that allow them access to the most inventory spokes. I expect the bigger exchanges with the most connections (Google's DoubleClick, Yahoo's Right Media, or whatever 24/7 or Microsoft end up launching) will be the most successful simply because the exchange model is based on efficiency.

I'm just waiting for the rumors about who will buy AdECN to start…

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reuters, Hyundai Smart-Thinking Campaign Could Be Smarter

Reuters and Hyundai rolled out their "smart thinking" campaign, which links ads for the carmaker to stories pegged as featuring "innovation, forward thinking and intelligence."

If today's story choices are an indicator, the methods used to pick the so-called smart stories may need some fine tuning.

One Reuters story with the carmaker's ads, "Telefonica deal to challenge Slim on own turf," dissects the Mexican billionaire's failure to enter the European phone market, which seems to imply an example of not-so-smart thinking.

Another piece with the Hyundai ads, "British motorists face spy in sky monitoring," outlines plans in the UK to charge drivers to use roads. Some 1.8 million people in the UK have signed petitions against the scheme, aimed at cutting traffic in congested areas. The "smart" thinking in this story is elusive for a car company that presumably wants people to drive more, not less.

News stories about the ad campaign stressed the "separation of church and state" between ad sales and editors at the news service. That's a good thing journalistically, though Reuters and Hyundai may well benefit from having a wise editor or two to review the "smart" story choices.

Posted by Bill McGuire at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 24, 2007

Infiniti Sponsors Forbes.com's New Style Section

Infiniti is sponsoring the just-launched Forbes.com lifestyle sub-section, aptly named, "Style."

Similar to newspaper style sections, there's a lot of fashion and beauty content, articles about overpriced stuff to buy or wear on your wrist. One article is on "luxe" sunglasses "for less," while another offers a "Men's Guide to Power Dressing."

There's also a roadblock spot for Emerson that runs before the lifestyle section loads.

Infiniti, in its sponsorship, is touting the 2007 Infiniti G through display ads that appear as though they're supposed to enable some kind of interactivity (there are prompts to "mouse over" the ad). However, in trials in Firefox and IE, I can't get anything special to happen.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 17, 2007

Dow Jones Wants More Digital Media Properties

Consolidation. Consolidation. Consolidation. Continuing what just might be the trend of '07, Dow Jones just might be snapping up more digital media properties in the near future, according to today's Q1 2007 earnings report. The company had a nice quarter for online ad sales, too. U.S. online ad revenue was up 30 percent and international revenue rose 9.6 percent. Paid subscriptions for WSJ.com and Barron's Online each rose, making for a 22 percent total increase in subs.

Here's a little more from the investor call (thanks to SeekingAlpha's transcript). As noted by CEO Richard Zannino, "We are most focused in looking at acquisitions in the digital arena, as well as the B2B arena." In terms of digital media properties, he added, "I think it would be more likely that you would see us play in this area with companies like eFN, where they have a strong component of online, but the multiple is much more reasonable and realistic." Dow Jones just bought UK financial media company eFinancial News Holdings for about $51.6 million, announced Friday.

Company execs also discussed online ad yield, which was up 16 percent in Q1 for display ads, apparently driven in part by behavioral targeting, "which takes advantage of the added scale that we have across the entire network, MarketWatch, plus the online Journal, plus Barron's Online," said Gordon Crovitz, EVP, president, Consumer Media Group, and publisher of The Wall Street Journal. (Read more about the company's behavioral targeting.)

Though Dow Jones apparently has added new remnant programs, including search and text ads, the company seems to be pushing to sell more of that inventory to display advertisers, and bt is facilitating that. Continuing on remnant inventory, Zannino said, "When we talk about remnant space, we're basically selling space that heretofore went unsold. So even though it's sold at a relatively low yield, it's generating revenue dollars for us and we're selling inventory that we haven't been selling in the past. So...when you look at apples-to-apples comparisons of our display inventory, yield is up nicely there and then we're generating additional revenue dollars by selling some of this other inventory on a remnant basis."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 8:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 16, 2007

CondeNet Launches Portfolio.com

Both the print and online versions of Condé Nast's splashy new business and personal finance title, Portfolio, launched today.

The Web site's launch sponsors include Vanguard, British Air, and IBM. What remains to be seen is how -- and more importantly, if -- the new property can carve out a niche for itself in the crowded, crowded business and finance field.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 13, 2007

McClatchy to Bolt from GMT Network to Yahoo

Just when you thought the newspaper industry lines were divided, somebody crosses one of them. This time, it's McClatchy, which according to the Wall Street Journal and affirmed by an insider source of mine, is planning to join Yahoo's newspaper consortium. This not only gives Yahoo more clout, it doesn't look good for the would-be GMT network (the Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune ad triad).

According to the story, Yahoo's Panama ad platform factored prominently into McClatchy's decision to join the consortium.

While the story points to distribution of Yahoo's search and use of its ad platform by the paper partners, some believe Yahoo is really after the newspaper site content to beef up its own site's ad inventory.

Questions abound as to the future of the GMT relationship. The three publishers are co-owners of Yahoo HotJobs competitor CareerBuilder, Apartments.com and other classifieds operations. Though the McClatchy drop out doesn't bode well for the future of a GT ad network, my industry source said the GMT CareerBuilder connection will probably remain intact.

Of course, Yahoo's future hangs in the balance now that Google has snapped up DoubleClick for a cool $3.1 bil. Even with its new critically-acclaimed ad platform and potential to manage all the ads across all its newspaper partners' sites, competing with the Google powerhouse, now bolstered by DoubleClick's new ad exchange, powerful ad management platform and longtime publisher and agency relationships will be tough.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 5, 2007

Cable Guys Leave Ebay Hanging

So, I just got off the phone with The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau (CAB), and apparently the group's news about its choice to leave Ebay's Online Media Exchange was deemed too juicy to wait until Monday (originally, it was embargoed till then). So, the organization decided to put it out, and has been on the phone with press all day.

I was unable to get much detail today, but here are the basics. The CAB will no longer participate in the exchange trial, effective immediately. The statement from CAB President and CEO Sean Cunningham is pretty damning, too: “We appreciated the opportunity to test the system – throughout our review it became apparent that the Media Exchange was too narrow an application, had clear connectivity issues related to cable’s emerging end-to-end e-business platforms and lacked the provisions necessary for capturing critical strategic and idea-driven intelligence during a buy….Additionally, the refusal by major members of the agency community to consider this interface reinforced our conclusion that ending our participation was the correct decision for our members and their advertising clients.”

You've got to wonder why agencies weren't interested in this, but with the CAB leaving, it probably won't help attract more.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 27, 2007

About Snags Health Service Comparison Site

Big pharma ad dollars anyone? About.com is
all about health content in the past year or so, and the firm's latest symptom is its purchase of health ratings and info site UCompareHealthCare.com. The New York Times Company stands to add more original health content to its site through the acquisition. I'm sure the site will enhance About's search optimization prowess, considering it's a warehouse for ratings on hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, mammography centers, and docs. The site also has a "Decision Assistant" that helps people measure quality of care provided by hospitals. According to Paid Content, About will make the newly-added content free to users.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 26, 2007

Nike to Wieden: Just Do Digital

Nike is ditching Wieden + Kennedy for some of its running shoe business, and the Wall Street Journal knows why: the agency has been dissing digital.

"What really unnerved Madison Avenue was that one of the main reasons for Nike's move was dissatisfaction with the agency's digital expertise, according to people close to the account," notes today's story.

One W+K insider went so far as to say digital is "afterthought" at the agency.

Another interesting wrinkle in the story is the tale of a would-be alignment between the traditional agency and AKQA to co-pitch business and collaborate on shared accounts:

"On paper, the two made a good fit. Both are at the top of their respective areas, and they share major clients such as Coca-Cola and Nike. But after several meetings to discuss the idea, [Wieden principal Dan Wieden] couldn't be persuaded. People familiar with his thinking say the executive has long been fearful of tying up with other firms for fear of spoiling Wieden's culture. Instead, he believes in broadening the agency's skill set by hiring people with different types of expertise -- as he did with Mr. Gleeson."

(Earlier this year, according to the story, Wieden + Kennedy hired "digital expert" Renny Gleeson, previously from Carat Fusion.)

Tribal DDB CEO Matt Freeman has a great quote in the piece: "The thing is all these things look good on paper but so did communism….At the end of the day it's all about who is in charge….Traditional ad people are in favor of integration as long as they are in control. It still comes down to who reports to who and egos."

To make a reference to another top creative shop with digital chops, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, I guess this is the subservient chickens coming home to roost for Wieden.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 23, 2007

Spotzer and SpotRunner Should Align with YP, Local Media

More and more yellow pages firms are offering search services to local advertisers, but the types of ads normally associated with big brand advertisers could be made available through YP publishers or other firms with close local sales ties (newspapers!). I think so, anyway. I spoke with Spotzer, an Amsterdam-based firm that's just moved into the U.S. market earlier today. I think there's a good chance we'll hear about this firm aligning with YP companies or local broadcast companies in the future.

Essentially, the firm works with film production crews to create templated spots that can be customized for use by local businesses and targeted to specific audiences in specific locations both TV and online. SpotRunner, according to my research, only does TV. Spotzer CEO Andy Klein told me the firm has relationships with Yahoo, Google, Advertising.com and other sites and networks for running video ads.

If companies like SpotRunner and Spotzer (what ever happened to originality, by the way?) aren't already talking to YP and local media firms about either partnering to resell their services to local advertisers, or perhaps even being acquired, no doubt they will be. (Actually, Klein said they are talking to YP firms). The fact is, these old-school companies have entrenched local salespeople with connections companies like SpotRunner and Spotzer (or Yahoo or Google for that matter) want. It makes way more sense to partner with those guys than to try to compete with well-networked sales forces.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

John Edwards on Twitter Actually Makes Marketing Sense

Since this Twitter thing has been all some tech bloggers can talk about these days, we've been wondering if there is -- or ever will be -- a marketing angle for the technology. Besides ego-driven bloggers looking for industry notoriety or more consulting gigs, perhaps the first marketing- or promotionally-related usage thus far by a full-fledged advertiser is The John Edwards campaign's use of the one-to-many text-messaging service.

The last time he used Twitter to send a message, or as we like to say here at ClickZ, "twitted," was a few days ago -- March 19th. ("Great event at Benedict College, Columbia SC today. Lots of energy. Headed to Iowa tonight.") I'll bet he'll be back soon though.

I have to say that since this service fell under my radar, I haven't altered my initial reaction, which was, essentially, "Who cares where you are or what you're doing at this exact minute, you self-absorbed dork?"

The Edwards case, however, has me rethinking this. People do care where political candidates are at any given moment. For the campaign to be experimenting with this makes sense. In a way, by displaying the candidate in more of a real-time sense, it feels more casual, and almost seems like it makes him more accessible. It's all nuanced, feely stuff, but for many people, the feeling we get from a candidate is what drives our opinion of that individual as opposed to the actual issues.

Update: Looks like Woot's doing it, too. See Rebecca's post below.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

March 14, 2007

DC Shopping Newsletter Great Fit for WashPost's Express Site

So, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive recently bought ShopDC, a sort of D.C.-centric Daily Candy newsletter (A DCDC?). My guess is the publisher aims to integrate this into its Express site, the online component of the Post's free daily commuter paper by the same name. The site was designed to appeal to residents in the D.C. metro area, offering hyper-local neighborhood content. Express also has a heavy classifieds component, provided by Oodle.

There could be some interesting opportunities, for instance, to move DC Scout beyond its girlie fashion finds and into other categories to appeal to other demographics, or to create neighborhood-specific newsletters.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 13, 2007

Bravo to Snatch Up TV Snark Site

NBC Universal's Bravo Networks is to buy snarky television recapping site Television Without Pity, the companies announced today. There were several questions about conflicts of interest during the company's call announcing the deal. Will the site still bash NBC shows? Will other networks spend their ad dollars there? Assurances all around, of course.

NBCU execs said short term changes include an increase in the number of shows covered on the site. Bravo's other Web properties include gay/lesbian site OUTzoneTV.com and BrilliantButCancelled.com, an ode to discontinued shows.Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 3:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 10, 2007

NAA Campaign Misses Political Consultant Target

I'm doin' the Sunday morning politics thing early this weekend, browsing all the beltway insider sites to see who's tracking what for the '08 races. And don't start with the stuff about how "the election's more than a year and a half away," 'cause that lament's more tired than John Edwards's blow-dryer.

Anyway, a small ad caught my eye on the homepage of Campaigns & Elections Magazine. It's a Newspaper Association of America ad, touting paper sites as a good place to reach voters.

OK, so far, so good.

The thing is, the NAA is totally missing the point from there. The ad links to a brochure-ware style landing page with blurbs about how the trade group is helping newspapers reach out to political consultants and media buyers. Here's a taste of the copy:

To a large degree, today's consultants are broadcast-oriented, and simply not familiar with the opportunities newspaper advertising can offer their clients.

The Newspaper Association of America is working hard to change that. NAA has undertaken a multi-faceted campaign to educate the political consulting community about the advantages of newspaper advertising.

The page also links to a "computer animated presentation" that can be used to "to help market your newspaper to political advertisers."

I don't get it. While the ad is obviously targeting political consultants, and the info linked from the landing page is intended for that audience, the page itself is obviously aimed at newspaper publishers, not the people visiting sites like Campaigns & Elections. It's as if Unilever created a detergent ad aimed at grocery store managers, but ran it during Oprah and Love Boat reruns on afternoon TV.

Compare the NAA ad to a banner on the same page promoting the Metro Iowa Newspaper Network. It links to a site offering specific data on the print and online audience demographics and reach of the publications in the network.

The NAA campaign should not only include a landing page offering similar information directly aimed at media buyers, it should be focused on how buyers can target key markets in Iowa and New Hampshire or other important caucus/primary states. Ads should link to a page explaining how buyers can easily purchase print and online newspaper media, especially focusing on the targeting capabilities of newspaper sites compared to wasteful radio and TV spends that hit audiences outside desired markets.

The irony here is that the NAA itself is not targeting its own campaign in an efficient manner. In an election that's ramping up earlier than ever, and where more money than ever will be spent, and where online media strategy is an integral component of every serious campaign, newspapers have an opportunity to score significant online dollars from political advertisers.

If the NAA is going to make the effort to run a campaign pushing newspaper media, it needs to fight as hard as Hillary and Obama, and this doesn't cut it.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

March 7, 2007

Ads on Coulter's Blog Spawn Anti-Brand Ire

Ann Coulter's blog was down for hours and hours today, likely the result of an attack. Calling presidential candidate John Edwards a "faggot" didn't go down too terribly well in many circles. Newspapers have dropped her column like a hot potato, and advertisers, including Verizon, Sallie Mae, and NetBank, hastened to abandon her blog.

Yet network ads are still running on her site. Once I finally reached it today (after trying intermittently for seven hours), Commission Junction was serving ads for major brands including Yahoo, Circuit City, and USA Today.

This sort of negative brand association will doubtless spawn discussion of the dangers of advertising on blogs and other forms of CGM. But Coulter, like her or not (if you're capable of pushing her contemptible comment aside for a moment), is a big gun.

Agency media buyers and ad networks work hard to further their clients' goals, but this sort of thing can, and obviously does, happen -- and no one can anticipate it. Advertisers really can't opt-out of sites like this one before the fact.

But what contingency plans are in place to prevent incidents like this one from occurring, or at least to stem the damage once something like this happens? A reader wrote in today, "Does Yahoo support extremist political messages like this? Is Yahoo prejudiced against gays?"

It's time ad networks developed a crisis-management plan, but defining the parameters won't be easy. Should they automatically pull ads from sites that generate too much negative controversy? Reach out to advertisers (or their agencies) offering an opt-out? After all, advertisers re likely unaware they're even associated with sites espousing high-profile, incendiary hate.

Definitely food for thought, although even on that topic Coulter and I differ, as usual. When I finally hit her homepage today, the headline (dated Feb. 28) was "LET THEM EAT TOFU!"

How on earth did she know what I was having for lunch at that precise moment?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 6, 2007

TurnHere Flicks on TripAdvisor

Local short Web film producer, TurnHere scored a nice distribution deal with TripAdvisor, allowing them to include 400 TurnHere films in a video gallery linked to particular destination, restaurant and hotel pages.

TurnHere's first big ad partner, Intercontinental Hotels, would probably appreciate some of the mini films created by TurnHere about each of its hotel locations being featured in this TripAdvisor gallery. According to my contact at TurnHere, all of the content provided to TripAdvisor initially will be editorial, but, "as TurnHere signs up hotels for sponsored videos, those films may also be featured on the site."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Broadcast Interactive Media Enables CGM for Local TV Sites

TV stations are lagging behind their local newspaper competitors online, and believe it or not, in some markets the newspapers have 'em beat when it comes to Web video. Now, some local station sites are employing a tactic many newspaper sites are also beginning to use: enabling user-generated content.

Broadcast Interactive Media today announced the launch of its YouNewsTV technology, which will allow broadcast site partners to let users submit news, weather and sports video and photos. At start, Fisher Communications, Journal Broadcast Group and Granite Broadcasting will be using the product, which will allow stations to target local and national pre-roll video spots to themed channels as well as using in-depth registration data.

Broadcast Interactive has access to half its partners' inventory, and handles sales of national advertising, while partner sites control the other half for local advertising.

The three initial partners each have over 10 stations, representing a total of over 30 markets, according to Broadcast Interactive CEO Timur Yarnall.

The video offering aims to attract users interested in showing off videos of their kids' soccer games or photos from a recent ice storm. Some newspaper sites are already offering social and video-sharing tools on their sites to keep users coming back, and help create cheap ad inventory.

People have plenty of other options to distribute photos and video online already, but if they offer the right combination of information and services, local sites affiliated with entrenched regional media brands could appeal to users where other nationwide sites can't.

"Otherwise users are going to go right to YouTube," said Yarnall.

In January, Broadcast Interactive partnered with radio station site network MediaSpan to sell targeted display and video ads to national advertisers across their expanded networks.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 27, 2007

Jarvis Praises Hillary's Web Video, Pans McCain's

It used to be the only place I'd hear media pundit Jeff Jarvis on the radio was when he'd call Howard Stern's show. Lately, though he seems to be all over the radiowaves. I'm pretty sure I heard him on Public Radio International's Marketplace the other night, and last night he appeared on a new PRI show called Fair Game with Faith Salie. There, he got a few plugs for his new PrezVid blog, and shared a few thoughts about how political campaigns have been using Web video.

As far as Jarvis is concerned: Hillary's got it and McCain don't.

Most likely referring to her early "Let the Conversation Begin" vids, Jarvis said Hillary appears to be speaking with the viewer one-on-one. "It's talking to one person at a time," he added. Also, he thinks the room she's in looks like the Oval office. (I guess Monica would know.)

On Obama, Jarvis said during Fair Game that he sounds almost like a preacher in his site's video, "but it's still kind of too big for the Internet," he continued, contrasting it with the homier, more intimate feeling evoked by Hillary's video.

Then there's McCain, whom Jarvis said, "doesn't get it yet…he tries to be too showbiz-y." Components of some of the videos on McCain's site present him against a completely white background.

"What is it with that bizarre, antiseptic all-white setting…you look like you're trying out for Star Wars," quipped Jarvis on his PresVid site. Back on the radio show, he did seem to give the McCain camp kudos for asking users to post questions for him to YouTube -- sort of. "What's cool about that is we'll be able to see the questions he doesn't answer," he commented.

Jarvis doesn't seem so sure about what the Hillary camp, other online campaigns and consultants (and himself) have been saying forever about the Web allowing for conversations between candidates and voters (or companies and consumers). He chided McCain for looking away from the camera as though he's being interviewed rather than speaking directly to the viewer; however, when Salie asked him whether online campaigns really are conversations, or whether it's all a "bunch of baloney," Jarvis cut the conversation rhetoric.

"Campaigns are never conversations; they're necessarily propaganda," he said. "Nonetheless, it's the chance to see the candidate in a new light…and I think that is more human and we get the chance to talk back, too."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 26, 2007

YouTube Traffic Surge After Viacom Take Down

A few days after Viacom requested the removal of thousands of YouTube video clips featuring its content, my contact at YouTube assured me the loss of that Viacom video (including clips from Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" and MTV's "Laguna Beach") had not resulted in less traffic to YouTube.

I remained skeptical, though, thinking of all the people who were in the habit of visiting YouTube to watch Viacom stuff they hadn't bothered to catch on TV the night before. Comments like one from a "South Park" fan also signaled less traffic for YouTube: "what are we suppossed [sic] to look at now, some dodgy footage of some friends filming themselves talk sh*t?"

Well, according to Hitwise, YouTube's visitor numbers have not gone down since the Viacom request early this month. In fact, the site traffic measurement firm found that YouTube's market share of US visits increased almost 14 percent in the two week period between weeks ending 2/3 and 2/17.

In addition, Hitwise said YouTube traffic surpassed that of the combined traffic to all the TV network sites, including CartoonNetwork.com, Disney Channel, ABC, NBC and Viacom properties MTV Online, VH1.com and Nickelodeon Online.

I guess, as others have purported, Viacom's demand may have served to publicize YouTube, driving traffic from new, curious visitors. It'll be interesting to watch to see if YouTube traffic is affected over the long term.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 3:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 23, 2007

Could Wiki Rob Traffic from Ad-Supported Info Sites?

Piper Jaffray's "User Revolution" report, just out today and covered here on ClickZ, mentions a slew of companies to watch in the next few years. Among them are Yahoo, News Corp., Facebook, Brightcove, Yelp, aQuantive, ValueClick, Digg, Netflix -- and -- Wikipedia?

That one struck me as the odd site out when first perusing the list. The report focuses on online advertising, and essentially predicts how advertisers and publishers will need to navigate the (here comes that cliché we all know and love) evolving media landscape. So, why is Wikipedia on the list? I realize there's an obvious social media connection, but where's the advertising connection?

I asked Piper analyst Safa Rashtchy. Wikipedia, he answered, "will potentially draw traffic away from other sites….It's akin to being in the middle of a mall and putting a library in there." Well, I'm not sure if the analogy is entirely appropriate, but I do love that image. The thing is, when people are online, they're not always in commerce mode, which is the main objective at the mall. Plus, though some people who stumble upon Wikipedia while searching online do actually stick around to read it, I can't picture your average mall shopaholic spending much time in the library. That is, unless it has a Starbucks inside.

Anyway, it's a really interesting concept. Rashtchy specifically mentioned About.com in his explanation. If people are seeking out information and find it on Wikipedia rather than the ad-supported info site, About.com "might be hurt."

About is very well optimized for search, but Wikipedia is, too. He may be on to something. However, I can't help but create my own analogy and compare About to, say, CNN, and Wiki to NPR or PBS. Offline the commercial channels always win. Honestly, I'm not so sure things will be the same online, but Wikipedia (or as the Brits here in our Incisive Media office say, "Wikerpedier") just might be a special case....

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 22, 2007

How'd You Two Meet? NYT Invites Video CGM

How did you meet your intended? Was the tape rolling when it happened?

None other than the venerable Gray Lady just announced couples who submit wedding announcements to the Weddings/Celebrations section are also invited to submit a "How We Met" homemade video. Never before has the Times asked its users for video (heck, a lot of folks out there are still reeling over the fact the Times now runs same sex partner pairings in the section).

NYT.com is asking for videos under three minutes, and they'll only select yours if they run your announcement -- a notoriously stringent process Gawker.com recently attempted to codify.

The Times unsurprisingly specified that video should be appropriate for a general audience. Considering the both subject matter and the selection process, this has to be a pretty safe way to dip a toe into CGM waters.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 7:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bloglines Founder Launches B2B Resource for Smallest Start-ups

Mark Fletcher, who founded Bloglines, the preferred feed reader of four out of five ClickZ reporters, has launched an online resource for start-ups and the entrepreneurs behind them. No ads yet, but Startupping.com would appear to hit a sweet spot for B2B marketers, judging from a recent Jupiter Research finding that owners of the tiniest businesses are extremely heavy Web users.

The site has forums, blogs, a wiki-driven start-up guide and special features, such as a "best decision/worst mistake" feature on the homepage right now with commentary from notorious Web entrepreneurs.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 21, 2007

Storming Heavy Duty Streaming Flash Barriers

In preparation for today's piece on streaming Flash-video grabbing software and its potential implications for media brands and marketers, I spoke with Macromedia awhile back. The goal was to familiarize myself with the capabilities of Flash when it comes to protecting copyrighted material and generally enabling more control.

In brief, though the story focuses on Applian's new stream-downloading app, several so-called stream ripping applications are already available. The difference with Applian's (or so they claim) is the new product lets users download RTMP streaming Flash streams, or files streamed through Macromedia's more secure proprietary platform. That platform, according to Macromedia, is meant to prevent users from ripping media files or grabbing digital media streams. At this point, though I've played around with the Applian app on a handful of sites, it remains unclear whether the software can really penetrate Flash's heavy duty barriers.

Chris Hock, Macromedia's Group Product Manager for Dynamic Media Organization told me the potential for grabbing video ads or content served through Flash is "definitely a concern for us." He added, "For us to be successful with content providers, we have to be successful with advertisers."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 20, 2007

Viacom to Monetize Archived TV/Film through Joost

Continuing its forceful push to boost its presence in the online video sphere, Viacom has announced a deal with the soon-to-launch video site Joost. Viacom hasn't shared much by way of detail; however, I did speak with VP Corporate Communications Jeremy Zweig who said "several hundred hours of [Viacom] TV and movie content" will be up on Joost when it goes live, possibly next month.

"It's not a trial; it's the real thing," Zweig told me earlier today. "It's another aspect to our digital strategy."

Unlike Viacom's own online properties, Joost will feature full-length television shows and flicks. "It's really designed for long-form content as opposed to clips," he added. "For us that means we can monetize a lot of our archive material that we haven't been able to do on an ad-supported basis."

As for the ads, the revenue share structure has not been disclosed. Viacom will most likely sell the ads seen on Joost, that way the firm "would be able to sell multiplatform" ad packages, said Zweig.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

JetBlue CEO's Mea Culpa on YouTube

YouTube, meet crisis communicatons.

JetBlue CEO David Neeleman has an impressive apology up on YouTube. In the video, which has an impressive degree of unrehearsed, true-blue spontaneity, he assumes full responsibility for the airline's operational problems over the past week, vows to fix them, and presents a customers' bill of rights.

The stream is getting a ton of blogosphere pick up. After a long and agonizing week, JetBlue has finally gotten something right.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 13, 2007

Viacom Still Would Love a YouTube Deal

As some industry watchers believe, Viacom's takedown order against YouTube earlier this month could simply be a negotiating tactic. Indeed, I spoke with Viacom VP Corporate Communications Jeremy Zweig last week, and he told me, "We were sort of hoping throughout the process that we could arrive at some sort of deal with YouTube…and realized lately they weren't moving particularly quickly."

The company was looking for YouTube to help protect its copyrighted material, as well as help monetize it. Though YouTube pretty much denied it when I spoke with them last week, I wouldn't be surprised if the removal of popular YouTube clips of Viacom shows like "The Daily Show," "Colbert Report," "South Park" and "Laguna Beach" cuts into YouTube's traffic numbers.

This isn't the first time Viacom has sent removal requests YouTube's way, Zweig said. "These are actions that we took before," he said. As reported in my piece today about Viacom's recent digital muscle-flexing, "Viacom has made similar requests of YouTube in the past involving deletion of 'several thousand' videos. This time, he said, Viacom sent YouTube 100,000 separate removal notices."

Evidently, Viacom had help doing it, working with other parties to identify copyrighted material on various sharing sites.

So, back to the negotiations. As Zweig added, "We would love to do a deal with [YouTube], but it became clear they weren't prepared to do one imminently."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The newspaper industry is in decline in the U.K., as it is in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Nevertheless, over here in London, the number of people reading a paper while waiting at the tube stop was really astonishing. At 8:00 a.m. yesterday, I was the only person waiting on the platform without my nose buried in a broadsheet (I did peruse "The Guardian" and "The Independent" over breakfast).

When I mentioned this to people here, they dismissed it, saying commuters are reading free papers. But these weren't free - they were the usual roundup of national dailies.

In New York, you're assaulted with free morning paper hander-outers at every morning subway approach. The stations are littered with discarded papers, yet actual rider readership (in the trains, at least) is relatively light.

Over here, it's different. And oddly reminiscent of a not-too-distant American past.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 6:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 8, 2007

Murdoch Jabs YouTube, Says Web Will Be Big Profit Driver

In between dissing Judith Regan, talking up Bloomberg as a great potential presidential candidate, and downplaying a fundraiser he threw for Hillary Clinton, Rupert Murdoch did say a few things about News Corp's online media business this morning. He was interviewed during a jam-packed morning keynote at McGraw-Hill's Media Summit in NYC.

MySpace, of course, was a hot topic. In terms of ad revenue, he said the site garners $2 million each month, and that's growing almost 30 percent each quarter. Oh, and that Google search ad revenue share cash isn't hurting either.

Speaking of Google, Murdoch noted MySpace decided it needed to compete with the search firm on video once Google "politely refused to share [YouTube] with us." Actually, that implied resentment feeds into the theme of a minor Google/MySpace clash floated yesterday by The Wall Street Journal.

Of course, Murdoch couldn't resist taking a little jab at the tube, comparing it to his firm's reigning social networking champ: "[YouTube is] not much of a community site. It's an experience, and it can be quite hypnotic," he said.

As for in-video ads on the video-sharing site, he continued, if YouTube interrupts video with ads, "[users] will be over to us quite quickly."

Murdoch also prognosticated about what percentage of the overall revenue pie News Corp's Web business might represent in five years. He pegged it at over 10 percent, adding it will be the "biggest profit driver that we'll have."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yahoo Prepares "Infront" Event to Upstage TV Upfront

This post has been updated.

Wenda Harris Millard sees her organization as warring with the media brokers at traditional companies like CBS, News Corp. and Viacom -- and with the simplistic models they're porting over to the Web.

"My concern is, as traditional companies continue to bundle their digital assets with the traditional assets and sell those to their [traditional TV advertisers], that the dialog is not substantial and is therefore reduced to price," she said yesterday during a session at the McGraw-Hill Media Summit yesterday. "And our precious industry is commoditized before it ever got born."

To prevent that outcome, Millard is planning an "Infront" event in New York to educate traditional media buyers and others on the complexities and possibilities of digital campaign planning.

"What I decided to do was get in front of the upfront. As long as people who have experience in other media are going to begin to buy digital, [they need] to understand what it is that they can buy and what it is that they do buy."

I'm still waiting on an invite to this thing, and will try to post more details when I get them.

Wenda promises the "very large" event will eschew Yahoo boosterism, and she's not necessarily trying to trash the TV upfront.

"The economic model that defines the television upfront is all about a scarcity of inventory that's desire d by 200 to 250 advertisers," she said. "For all its faults, there's a co-dependency that makes a certain amount of sense."

A Yahoo upfront, she said, wouldn't make sense because the same dynamics of scarcity aren't present. "We have hundreds of thousands of advertisers. There's no economic model that would justify it. What we're doing is not an upfront. It's not a Yahoo sales message. I mean, of course it is, because I'm sponsoring it, [but] education is a huge part of what we still need to do in digital."

Update: So this turns out to be the same event as Yahoo's Broadband on Broadway showcase next Tuesday, which I've already registered for. Nothing new to see here folks. In fact, the discussion of a new event being staged in response to the TV upfront seems a cynical attempt to drive news coverage of something that's not really new at all. In that case it was quite successful.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 8:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 2, 2007

Gannett Talks Ad Network, CareerBuilder, Social Sites Roll Out

Gannett did its Q4 '06 earnings call this morning. I listened in and caught a few interesting tidbits related to their online businesses. First off, the company said it earned over $400 million in online revenue in 2006, with strong interest from all advertiser verticals. USAToday.com's revenues were up 42 percent according to Gannett, the paper's owner.

Revenue for jobs classifieds network CareerBuilder, in which Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune are investor partners, rose 29 percent in Q4 over the same period last year, the company added. There are no plans for a CareerBuilder IPO, either.

Gannett chairman, president and CEO Craig Dubow did make reference to the online national ad network the publisher is forming with Tribune and McClatchy, noting it was a big discussion topic at meetings this week. As for the ever-present concern about a Yahoo consortium/GMT network industry split, Dubow said, "The key is the industry must get together… there were some very, very positive discussions that were had there."

Since I've been keeping track of newspaper publishers incorporating social media features on their sites, or launching separate social sites, I was interested to hear about Gannett's mommy-centric sites IndyMoms.com and cincyMOMS.com, as in Indianapolis and Cincinnati. The sites offer forums, calendars and photo sharing, and link to local paper affiliate classifieds. Dubow said the Indy site (the older of the two) is doing very well ad revenue-wise, and added, "We are expanding the number of mom sites across the country."

One interesting side note: IndyMoms.com has ads running for AFC Championship Collectibles and Levitra. At first I thought, "Wow, talk about bad targeting!" But it actually makes perfect sense. Sports collectibles make good gifts for daddies, and I suppose it takes a little female prodding to get men to consider erectile dysfunction drugs. Not that I would know.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 31, 2007

Do Blogs Mix with Mass?

Last week it was Time Warner staffers. This week, it's blogs getting the AOL axe .

AdJab just e-mailed friends with a last goodbye. A slew of the Weblogs Inc. properties AOL acquired from Jason Calacanis in October 2005 are already, or rumored to be soon, on the chopping block. Calacanis even issued a plea, of sorts (complete with a stats chart), to save PVRWire.

Jason's gone from AOL, just as competitor Nick Denton, recently let his Gawker Media syndication partnership with Yahoo lapse barely seven months into the deal.

Ultra vertical content and mass media -- not such cosy bedfellows, it would appear.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 4:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 26, 2007

Dow Ads, Page Views Up

I've been meaning to post about the Dow Jones earnings. Here are some highlights from the call. In Q4 '06:

Dow Jones Online total revenue grew 21 percent, and online ad revenue was up 23 percent through strong MarketWatch growth.

Dow Jones Online monthly network page views were up 8 percent, but there was an 11 percent decline in unique visitors.

An increase in overall ad revenue for the company (including 12 percent boost for the Journal), was attributed to "the revitalization of the Journal’s ad sales efforts and team, combined with its uniquely attractive audience and market-leading collaboration between its print and online sales and marketing teams."

The new online Markets Data Center section has attracted 3 million page views since launch. L. Gordon Crovitz, EVP, president, Consumer Media Group, and publisher of The Wall Street Journal, told an analyst, "You can do the math on the value of that, given our CPM. So that’s been a nice boost to revenue and to unique visitors and to usage."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 19, 2007

Vertical Search Auctions on Portals Coming Soon?

Will keyword bidding on Yahoo and MSN -- the search players with portals -- soon be carved into optional, more expensive vertical niches? It appears so.

At a lunch Yahoo threw this week to announce its new personal finance section , I asked a number of Yahoo executives if they'd considered a marketplace in which, say, a financial advertiser could bid for two tiers of keywords: one on Yahoo Search, and another higher bid for contextual search ads appearing only on search results within the personal finance section.

"It's certainly something we looked at," said Tanya Singer, director of product development, who spearheaded the project.

That amounts almost to a confession. With the recent introduction of Panama on the Yahoo side, and upgrades scheduled for MSN's auctionplace interface, the content portals would have to be nuts not to consider enabling more vertical SEM buys.

Google's not a portal, but it could certainly play along with buys aimed at specific sections such as Book Search or local, though that's a mushier landscape given the precision to which a local buy can already be targeted.

The end effect would be more targeted advertising, to be sure. But also more complicated search advertising, which only the more sophisticated clients are ready for. SEMs would also have to rush to tweak their proprietary bid management and metrics applications.

Still, it seems the move is inevitable. The only question is, when? Yahoo's promised to get back to me on this.

I'll keep you posted.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 16, 2007

Quantcast Launches Keyword Research Tool

Web site ratings service Quantcast has introduced a keyword research feature to help media planners identify new marketing opportunities beginning with a single search term. Called "keyword profiles," the new tool uses panel-based data to link popular keywords to associated search terms and Web sites. Marketers can also see data on a keyword's volume, popularity and demographic characteristics.

The tool has other bells and whistles, including turning up the "most differentiated keywords" visitors to the same sites use when conducting searches, CEO Konrad Feldman told me. In a blog post, he offered the keyword profile for NASCAR as an example. Many keywords I tried turn up warnings about data too scarce to be reliable, so the feature clearly has a long way to go.

Quantcast launched three months ago to offer traffic and demographic data on millions of sites in a free, searchable interface. See ClickZ's earlier coverage here.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 3:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

January 11, 2007

Looks Like Scripps Could Use Help Online, Too

More newspaper industry rumors: Bloomberg reported this morning that E.W. Scripps Co. is considering selling off its newspaper properties. The firm's CFO was quoted as saying they might have a better chance of survival in different hands. He also noted the fact that the assets could generate less revenue next year than this year.

If, indeed, they do unload the papers, which of course have affiliated Web sites, it will be interesting to see if one of the recent online paper network players picks them up. It sure looks like they could use some help in the online ad sales department, too, considering the Rocky Mountain News site had a Tribal Fusion-served Classmates at placed in a prime homepage spot today.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gannett/McClatchy/Tribune: Everything Old Is New Again

Anyone out there been in this business long enough to remember New Century Network?

Born in 1997 1995, the company was a coalition of nine media monoliths: Advance Publications, Cox Newspapers, Gannett, Hearst, Knight Ridder, The New York Times, Times-Mirror, Tribune, and The Washington Post. They united over this whole Internet thing, which they feared would affect their bottom lines as advertisers cozied up to the Microsofts and AOLs of the world. The partners collectively invested over $25 million in the venture.

New Century Network lasted a year, then fizzled. Participating companies lacked a unified vision. Most were meanwhile striking their own deals with major online players, or launching their own online initiatives.

Gannett, McClatchy, Tribune -- are you listening?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 10, 2007

More Context on Gannett/McClatchy/Tribune Network

A front page Wall Street Journal story has had folks abuzz about a new ad network formed by Gannett, McClatchy and Tribune. The three aim to attract national advertisers to their sites through what they're calling the "Open Network."

There isn't much information available beyond the bare basics, and even those are nowhere near set in stone: If it all pans out, they'll each be making about 10 percent of their inventory available through the network, and it's open to other newspaper publishers as well. None of the three publishers would tell me anything more than was reported in the WSJ.

Apparently, though not reported in the WSJ story, this is premium, or high value inventory, i.e. homepage, main section pages (travel, business, etc.).

This network (most are calling it the GMT network) is making headlines on the heels of the deal formed between Yahoo and the so-called newspaper consortium of originally seven and now nine paper publishers.

Insiders tell me there's bad blood between those Yahoo-aligned publishers, also recently referred to as the "seven amigos," and GMT. In part, that stems from the fact that the Yahoo clan were excluded from GMT's CareerBuilder and Cars.com/Apartments.com classifieds club (a.k.a. Classified Ventures).

In order to compete in the cutthroat online classifieds space, the amigos aligned with Yahoo, owner of HotJobs. The plan is to roll out that classifieds integration in other categories as well.

Indeed, the WSJ story hints that Yahoo will also extend those relationships into the display ad arena, in the hopes of handling ad management and serving for the newspaper partners, and plugging its search functions/ad network onto their sites.

Don't count on it, some newspaper industry insiders say. Such an arrangement would most likely provide Yahoo access to each publisher's data. Historically, Yahoo has been a main competitor of the online newspaper publishers, so even though they're in the HotJobs club now, sharing data with Yahoo (which ad serving/management would most likely entail, especially when it comes to behavioral targeting) might be too much to swallow for the papers.

Though some think the potential GMT network is a good thing for paper publishers as a whole, others think if it comes to fruition it will only serve to divide the industry even more. The fact is, advertisers want a one-stop local media shop for prime space (not the remnant stuff they get through ad networks), and unless advertisers go through intermediaries (like Centro), a bunch of small networks won't give them that.

Oh, and one other thing. Let's not forget Tribune is on the auction block right now, which could throw a wrench into this whole process.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 3, 2007

Disney.com Re-Launch, Hyped

Next week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Disney's Bob Iger will offer details on the redesigned Disney.com in a keynote address. Disney declined to offer any sort of pre-briefing prior to the convention, but a pretty extensive outline of the new platform was reported yesterday in The Wall Street Journal.

The site is expected to showcase Disney content from other properties like movies, TV and music. It will also incorporate a social networking functionality to capitalize on the popularity of competitors like Club Penguin, Neopets and MySpace. If Disney succeeds, it could garner more time spent on the platform and become more attractive to advertising partners. One handicap noted in the WSJ story is a limitation to Disney assets for members building their profiles and other areas of personalization. The site is due to launch later in January.

Posted by Enid Burns at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Schwab not Exactly Footing Free WSJ Bill

I got an e-mail from my WSJ/Dow Jones contact yesterday providing a bit of clarification for our piece on the free, sponsored WSJ.com access yesterday. She noted, "While we hope to 'woo more readers' to the print and online Journal, it’s the Jan 2. redesign that’s driving this decision....Charles Schwab is the exclusive sponsor of the site’s 'Open House' today, leveraging the larger audience WSJ.com will attract during today’s debut of the print Journal redesign and the launch of new online features such as the Markets Data Center."

So, in other words, the print changes drove the free site access. However, it's important to recognize changes on the site go hand-in-hand with changes in the paper's print coverage and design. Those changes in print reflect the need for the publication to keep up with audience needs, and the continuing move towards treating Web as an integral component of the overall news product, rather than merely a place to paste up print stories.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 29, 2006

The City That Never Links?

So, Bloomberg and the gang are plunking down $15 million on an NYC tourism campaign intended to lure Londoners to visit the big apple while the dollar is so low in value. There's a Web site. Are there Web ads or marketing efforts?

No. At least not according to someone familiar with the campaign I spoke with yesterday. As far as she knows, ads will consist solely of signage in London Underground train stations. NYC & Company developed the campaign.

Not that it's my goal to promote online ads or anything (even though the industry's existence does allow me a paycheck), but I find the lack of a Web component surprising. To generalize, people interested in traveling for fun tend to be, let's say, more clued in than those who aren't. Those sorts of folks are probably online, maybe reading travel related content or a London paper site.

Wouldn't it make sense to reach them there, where they can readily click to the campaign site (rather than having to remember nycopenbook.com)?

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 27, 2006

What Kind of iPod Did Santa Bring You?

413 percent.

That's how high traffic to Apple's iTunes site spiked on Christmas Day compared to last Xmas, as new iPod owners clicked to the online store in droves to download audio and video. The Apple Store enjoyed an increase of 110 percent over the last time Santa left white boxes under the tree -- it was the fourth most visited Web site in the Hitwise's retail Index this past Christmas day.

In rival MP3 player visits, Microsoft's Zune.net site saw 1,030 percent more traffic on Christmas than it did on the prior Monday, but in that period, iPod traffic beat Zune's by a 30:1 margin.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 21, 2006

Shock Mag Shuttered, Site Lives On

After a 6-month run, Hachette Filipacchi just announced it's saving a few trees by shutting down "Shock" magazine.

The Web site lives on. “The Web site has shown real energy and connection with this young demographic and the 41 page-views-per-visitor-session is one of the highest for Web sites at Hachette,” said Hachette CEO Jack Kliger in a statement.

Going for a young demographic? Then why bother even testing print?

A relaunched site will launch in the spring.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 4:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 14, 2006

Google Signs with Yahoo Consortium Paper

Talk about a test run. Google's print newspaper classifieds network experiment may have managed to garner another publisher, The Journal Register Company; however, the firm is only offering up its flagship paper New Haven Register for a 90-day trial according to an Editor and Publisher story out today. Essentially, advertisers can bid through Google's platform for text ads to run in the Register's print classifieds section.

Coincidentally, The Journal Register Company is part of the big consortium of paper publishers signed on to run Yahoo's HotJobs ads on its sites. As part of the integration, publishers' job ads also will be featured in the HotJobs database. The new network's job classifieds sections will be co-branded by the individual papers and Yahoo HotJobs. There's a lot more potential here as well as you'll see from ClickZ's previous coverage.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

December 6, 2006

YouTube: Renegades to Digital Rights Brigade?

Call it reverse blackmail, call it a crafty business move, but whatever you call it, you can't be so sure YouTube's increasingly cozy relationship with the big broadcasting companies will be beneficial in the long run.

According to an interesting and quite speculative piece from Jon Fine in the latest issue of Business Week:

Google (GOOG ) and YouTube are dangling nine-figure sums in front of major programming and network players—that is, the Time Warners, News Corp (NWS )s, and NBC Universals of the world. Google calls these monies licensing fees, according to executives who've been involved in the discussions. But some of them characterize the subtext like this: Don't sue us over copyrights. Take this (substantial) payment, and trust us to figure out how we'll all make serious money once we get advertising and revenue sharing worked out.

Fine and his sources posit a couple possibilities here. One, if we're really talkin' a minimum $100 million "hey, lay off" pay-off, why not take it? That, however, only bolsters YouTube's legitimacy and dominance in the Web video world. Which leads to another scenario: the network heavies (pun intended? Hmmm….) working together to create one big online hub for their stuff in an effort to knock YouTube off its pedestal.

Yeah, right, that'll happen. Fine's pretty skeptical, too: "believing that 5 or 10 of them can grind through nightmarish cross-corporate decision-making and emerge with something as simple and compelling as YouTube is nuts," he writes. Of course it is. The newspaper industry is cracking under the pressure of shifting media consumption and can no longer rely upon strong print ad revenues like they used to. The closest they've gotten recently to banding together is aligning with Yahoo to distribute classifieds. Baby steps. These rivalries go way back.

But at the rate things are going, I can't help but wonder if YouTube could end up morphing into just such a place, now that it's in-bed with NBC, CBS, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and Warner, not to mention MTV and agency Deep Focus, which works with entertainment firms like HBO and Dimension Films.

And not only is the video powerhouse housing and helping distribute big entertainment company productions, it's supposedly giving them access to its content filtering system, enabling the DRM-obsessed content producers to nix YouTube videos featuring their TV shows, music, film clips, etc. if they're not happy with how they're used.

Fact is, what made YouTube cool is its rule-flouting attitude. Put whatever you want here, share it with whomever you want, we don't care! It took less than a year for them to go from affirming their street cred by pissing off NBC over the Lazy Sunday brouhaha to opening their Tubularms wide to embrace the stodgy old media suits when they finally came around, tails between legs.

How long will it take before YouTube becomes the DRM Gestapo? Sure, there's a chance that working together with the big entertainment firms will help to loosen their grips more than tighten YouTube's, but now that the company is beholden to advertisers (sometimes those very entertainment firms) and its newly-adoptive public parent, YouTube's easy-going 'tude is bound to change. That's when the wilier unchained guys swoop in.

Yes, YouTube is today's online video giant, but there are plenty of beaten Brobdingnagians cluttering up the Web graveyard, and most of 'em tumbled while looking upwards to the cash gods rather than watching their behinds.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 21, 2006

Online Recipes Have their Peak Moment for the Year

It's a good week to buy recipe sites, says Hitwise. Visits to properties in the measurement company's food & beverage category are expected to double this week, peaking certainly in the next 24 to 48 hours. A bit late to do much about it, of course, unless your nearest friendly ad network can hook you up. AllRecipes.com appears to be the best optimized of sites in the category, winning more than 35 percent of search traffic on the term "recipe." FoodNetwork.com, meanwhile, wins out in terms of brand strength and popularity, according to both Hitwise and comScore.

If you're interested in media strategies around food-focused sites, ClickZ recently covered a thoroughly integrated, cross-platform sponsorship cookware manufacturer Calphalon did with FoodNetwork.com. It's waaay too late to get started on something like this for the 2006 yule season, of course. Again, just something to keep in mind for coming food-centric holidays.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 20, 2006

Yahoo's Goober Peas

"A peanut sat on a railroad track, His heart was all a-flutter, Round the bend came number ten. Toot! Toot! Peanut butter!" –children's song

The industry's heart was all a'flutter over Yahoo's goober peas only a few short months ago. Then came the now-famous Semel/Decker guidance warning in September, closely followed by a NY Times smackdown about the company's lagging efforts in technology, media deals and talent retention.

And now it's come to this: A leaked internal memo, written by "Communities and Front Doors" SVP Brad Garlinghouse to top Yahoo management, comparing the company's sprawling services and revenue streams to thinly-spread peanut butter. And, in case the metaphor isn't clear, Garlinghouse writes, "I hate peanut butter." See Paul Kedrosky for the full memo.

Another day, another exhortative internal communiqué from a big-three Web giant. It was only last month that Sergey Brin issued his mandate that Google engineers should improve existing products before developing new ones. Yahoo's call to action hasn't been received as nicely as Brin's however.

There are a couple points missing the analysis I've seen this morning. One is that this memo is fully a month old, since it references "last Thursday's" NY Times article," actually published on October 11. So it should really be thought of as a self-inflicted lash added to the week long flogging the company took then, rather than a recent continuation of it. The other is that Garlinghouse is clearly not a top insider (e.g. "I imagine there's much discussion amongst the Company's senior most leadership around the challenges we face.") So why are we so eager to hear his plea, which was clearly directed skyward? Maybe because it's a memo, and memos are only written by top executives. The rest of us just send e-mail.

I'm not saying Garlinghouse doesn't make good points -- "sculpt the strategy" and "lose non-core and redundant assets" both seem sage pieces of advice -- or that Yahoo isn't struggling. There's clearly a consensus that the company has been blindsided by the sheer number of new sites and channels where automotive and financial advertisers can divvy up their ad spend. But those sectors are the only places where it's admittedly seen weakness, discounting its ongoing search woe. And the heavily critical response to the "peanut butter manifesto" seems to me out of proportion to the proof of crisis that spawned the memo. We shouldn't forget the company's successful acquisitions of many start-ups (take flickr, stewarded much more skillfully than Google's Blogger). The company's talent for acquisition was expressed well this morning on the blog of start-up Tabblo, in a post called "Screw all of this Yahoo bashing":

Yahoo is indeed facing a formidable set of challenges, but we should all take a moment to be clear on the fact that it would be a much worse world for all of us little startups if the big purple giant was to disappear.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 17, 2006

Jason Calaculates His Next Move

Perhaps this is already old news, considering media industry followers these days go through news items like Jason Calacanis goes through gigs. But if you haven't already heard, he's left AOL, where he's been in charge of Diggifying its Netscape division.

The rumor mill is speculating the serial entrepreneur is using the replacement of CEO Jonathan Miller with NBC Universal's Randy Falco as a mere excuse for ditching AOL.

As for his next move, who knows? Surely it will involve a good deal of ego, media hype and annoying industry buzzwords.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 14, 2006

Amanda Ungeeked

Amanda Congdon, the first online video star and sex idol to a million Web geeks, has gone all big media on you and signed separate agreements with ABC/Disney and HBO to develop online and boob-tube shows. For ABC, she'll be videoblogging for ABC News and occasionally appearing on other broadcast news and talk programs. For HBO, she'll be involved in the development of a new cross-platform comedy show that she says will have original programming for both the Web and TV components. She makes the announcement here.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 18, 2006

Jupiter's Alan Meckler Changes Tack, Again

Looks like ClickZ's former chieftain, Jupitermedia CEO Alan Meckler, may be returning to his roots as a B-to-B publisher.

As boom turned to bust in the early '00s, Meckler made his mark scooping up the shards littering the sidewalks of the charred new media landscape. He bought many pioneering sites including @NY, InternetNews, EarthWeb and marketing sites including ChannelSeven, TurboAds, and ClickZ. Many he got for a song, including a later acquisition of Jupiter Research.

After investing in the properties and building them into a singular publishing brand (JupiterWeb), he suddenly veered away from Internet publishing and began investing heavily in stock photography. He sold ClickZ and Search Engine Strategies. He sold JupiterResearch. And he acquired over a dozen stock photography businesses, merging them into one brand (JupiterImages) as he'd done with tech-oriented sites a few years earlier. He kept many sites in the JupiterWeb family, but to some, it seemed inevitable he'd sell off the rest of JupiterWeb to focus exclusively on his battle with Getty Images. His money was on clip art. Sealing that impression, longtime publisher Chris Elwell announced recently he's leaving the company.

Now it seems Meckler's returned to the online publishing fold. A post on his blog yesterday proclaims his renewed zest for JupiterWeb, heralding among other things new podcasts, and the launch of an as-yet-unnamed new site and conference:

I have analyzed JupiterWeb after staying "away" from growing it for well over two years. The analysis showed me that JupiterWeb is still one of the largest business to business online communities in the world with nearly 15 million unique visitors reading it every month. With very little effort and a rather small investment we can make JupterWeb a more significant property in a very short time….

BtoB communities are out of favor today compared to consumer online communities. We probably have seen the peak on consumer community valuations with the recent acquisition of YouTube. So perhaps our re-energizing JupiterWeb could be ahead of the next cycle?

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 17, 2006

MTV Networks Buys Another Teen Site

Gorilla Nation Media yesterday sold its Quizilla.com quiz and entertainment site to MTVN. The site, which reported 3.1 million mostly female visitors in September, joins a growing stable of MTV properties aimed at kids and teens. Others include TurboNick, Neopets and The-N.com.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 13, 2006

Who's Sick of GoogTube? Anyone?

All I can say is, please, please don't let this GoogTube thing catch on. Somehow I think it's too late. It seems like every RSS feed and blog post I've read in the past week that touches on either Google or YouTube has employed this dreaded conflation.

I recognize the temptation to condense things down to their essence, both for the sake of typing time and, more important, industry insider cred. But this one just leads my mind wandering in too many directions, none of which is in the realm of search engines or online video.

Instead, here's what I think the term GoogTube ought to define:

- An implement used to snort a designer drug

- Something employed by a proctologist

- A killer winter sport, as in "Dude, I totally jammed my skeez GoogTubin' at Shasta this weekend."

- The time warp an obsessed industry blogger falls into after over-analyzing an acquisition

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 11, 2006

Is Yahoo in Pain?

Saul Hansell at The Times issued a rather determined smackdown against Yahoo this morning, using Google's YouTube acquisition as a fulcrum on which to hang the argument that Semel & Co. are lagging severely behind the big search kahuna in technology, media deals and talent retention.

All I can say is, pity the marathoner who's in second place. He's always worse off than the one in third, tenth or 10,000th for that matter.

While a bunch of the allegations in the story are true – Yahoo's lost several lucrative distribution deals for its contextual network, the Panama search interface is behind schedule – others are not. For instance, the phenomenal success of Flickr clearly shows the company is not "losing its initiative" with regard to social networking, as the story says. Google getting YouTube is a black eye for Yahoo only in the narrow estimation of the investment community and neo-fetishists. Remember: Yahoo is a company with half a billion global users. It has only rarely been a great innovator; rather, it's strengths are in mass services.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 9, 2006

AOL's "Gold Rush" Struggling to Build Traffic, Buzz?

Post updated (see below)

While it's hard to put my finger on the reason, I’m not surprised to learn AOL online reality show "Gold Rush" may be having trouble putting together a large, engaged audience. MediaWeek reports buzz and traffic both appear to be low, though AOL says it's pleased with the results so far. Original video content online has proven hard for portals to get right, and it almost appears that the larger the undertaking, the slimmer its chances of success. People just don't want to commit that kind of time. ClickZ's original story on Gold Rush here.

Update: AOL reached out to me after I posted the above to let me know "audience for Gold Rush is solid." The company says the show recorded five million uniques in September, and people are "playing for 20 minutes at a stretch."

AOL said the show's five sponsors are happy..

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 28, 2006

What's most important to media buyers?

Microsoft and Google have polar opposite approaches to ad sales, according to Joanne Bradford, corporate VP of sales and marketing for Microsoft's Digital Advertising Solutions, and chief revenue officer.

Speaking on social responsibility at the Museum of Television and Radio Wednesday, Bradford joked about ad sales people suffering doubly, for being in the advertising business and being in sales. She suggested those in the industry should act socially responsible as a way to redeem themselves.

At the end of her talk, it was pointed out that Google's attitude toward sales people is to get rid of them, as Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said publicly that automation can replace ad sales people in many cases, improving the process and the experience for buyers.

Bradford said that when Microsoft surveyed advertisers, a relationship was at the top of the list of what they feel is important in a media company. In fact, price, which is what Google seems to be optimizing its business to deliver, came in last in order of importance:
1. A relationship -- advertisers want to know who they're buying from.
2. Quality of service must be high.
3. The ad product itself must be worth buying.
4. Price must be right.

What do you think? Where do you rank price, product, service and relationships when considering a media buy?

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

September 27, 2006

Yahoo's Millard: It's All About the Scale

The Journal had an interesting, top level Q&A with Yahoo's Wenda Harris Millard today. Asked how Yahoo will continue to differentiate in the face of competition from traditional media conglomerates, her basic answer is "scale." With close to 500 million global uniques, Yahoo has a larger audience than any other Internet player. She also fields questions on approprite video advertising formats and the dearth of digital talent, and evades a question on which industries are lagging in terms of online ad spending.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 5:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 25, 2006

No such thing as long-term media planning?

Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO of Denuo, said this morning there's no such thing as long-term media planning anymore. Instead, you need to approach it in a new way, that fosters faster thinking, streamlining organization, and fitting into the broader ecosystem

Important things to consider:
1. There's no way to think your way to the future, you have to do it. Don't let ideas "percolate" and keep going up and down in the organization.
2. Mind your organization. Don't let the people in your organization get in the way of what you want to do. While everyone's talking about Web 2.0, most businesses are still at version 1.0.
3. Mind your API. Learn how your product can work together with others in a network. Don't offer a "porcupine" API that isn't friendly.

How to enjoy the ride:
1. You have to have hard-core accountability. When your objective is to save money, use ROI. Otherwise, use "return on objective," and tailor that to what you're doing. Consider new metrics like engagement, interaction, consideration, and intent.
2. Iterate to metrics success through "jazziness." Improvise, and play off other people's music.
3. Be facilitative. If a company facilitates what people are trying to do, they'll end up working with them. If they try to aggressively market to people, they won't.
4. Be authentic. When Kate Moss went through her cocaine scandal, she didn't try to spin the situation, or apologize. She has a sense of self, a value system, she's true and transparent. That's why she's popular.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 13, 2006

ABC Cuts Affiliates Into the Broadband Sweetness

ABC reached a deal with its affiliate stations to let them feature its broadband player on their local sites and sell local ads to online viewers. The affiliates get to keep 100 percent of the revenue from those sales. Interestingly, ABC affiliates will promote the player on the air, as well as online.

Programs to be shown on the broadband player the day after their broadcast premiers include "Lost," "Desperate Housewives" and "Grey's Anatomy," which were included in last season's trial. Some new shows have been added, among them "Ugly Betty," "The Knights of Prosperity" and "The Nine."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 11, 2006

NBCU Puts iVillage Plans Into Action

Looks like NBC Universal is preparing to act on its plans for iVillage, which it acquired earlier this year.

Bob Wright told The Financial Times the women's site would be the "cornerstone" of NBCU's online development plans, including cross-media initiatives. “You’re going to see a lot more editorial combinations. It may be as common to see iVillage bringing material to the Today show as the Today show bringing material to iVillage,” he said. An online program called iVillage Live will launch this year, according to the story, and NBCU is pursuing "small acquisitions of marketing services companies."

ClickZ reported on NBCU's plans for iVillage video programming back in March.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

ESPN.com Launches Sports Video Gaming Section, GameTap Sponsors

ESPN has launched a special coverage area for sports-oriented video games, sponsored by subscription-based gaming portal GameTap. Most of the content will come through a partnership with Ziff Davis's Game Group, which includes sites like 1UP.com, GameVideos.com and FileFront.com, and magazines like Electronic Gaming Monthly and Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine.

GameTap's involvement is a "sponsor-plus" sort of arrangement. The company will offer site content and experiences around classic arcade games in addition to having a banner and a button on the front page. I just talked to an ESPN spokesperson, and it sounds like GameTap's role is pretty loosely defined for now, with plans for classic games to be made available to ESPN.com visitors "in some way." Other sponsors are in the works, he said. "GameTap is the only sponsor or advertiser, but we're close to signing several blue chip advertisers and there are other opportunities available as well."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 5, 2006

New Free UK Daily Site Launches with Four Sponsors

Even across the pond newspaper publishers are launching free metro commuter papers in an effort to fight for a shrinking pool of print ad dollars. The latest to take the plunge is News Corporation's UK division News International, publisher of The Times, The Sun and other British papers. An Editor and Publisher piece notes thelondonpaper, an afternoon daily, planned an initial run of over 400,000 copies.

Yes, there is a Web site, and according to an ad on the homepage, it launched with four sponsors: News Corp-owned Sky TV, DaimlerChrysler's puny eco-friendly Smart Car, mobile media firm 3 and travel site lastminute.com.

According to a letter from the editor, Stefano Hatfield, "thelondonpaper.com also launches (as a beta site) today. In addition to breaking news, competitions and opportunities to contribute and vote, our website takes a broadband look at life in London with daily video coverage of news and entertainment across the city."

Needless to say the site is laden with commercial-ready pap about Beyonce's new album, a sex survey, a hot London eatery, and other puffery. The proliferation of these fluff-filled papers is distressing to people who appreciate a good broadsheet (yours truly included). Still, if these papers can help introduce new readers to "real" newspapers (print and Web), and help make up for dwindling national print advertiser revenues in the old school titles, I suppose they're serving a worthwhile purpose.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 25, 2006

The Times' Rebirth as a Social Media Company

Business 2.0 chronicles The New York Times' digital makeover, highlighting the paper's dawning awareness of "the importance of the social Web - that the center of the universe is moving to our users, and that our users want to remix and use the content that we have in ways that are suitable to them."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 23, 2006

Yahoo to Stream CBS, NBC, Fox Fall Premiers

Updated: Three broadcast Nets are promoting their Fall lineups by streaming premiers on Yahoo. The site's fall TV preview has exclusive dibs on the first episodes of CBS' "Jericho," NBC's "Heroes," Fox's "Prison Break," plus the pilot of new Fox series "Vanished."

No ads will be sold against the shows Banner ads will be sold on the site, with a possible future expansion into other formats, a Yahoo! spokesperson told me. It's strictly mostly about getting the Fall programming in front of a large audience.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 11, 2006

Ripe Digital Launches Screen-Agnostic Car Culture Network

Ripe Digital Entertainment launched a multi-channel car culture video network called OctaneTV this week. Ripe calls the content – which will appear in mobile, Web and cable VOD formats -- "attention deficit-friendly," so expect lots of short-form video clips heavy on adrenaline and not-too-thoughtful.

Launch advertisers include Dodge, Craftsman and Cingular.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 7, 2006

Malware: Coming to a Banner Unit Near You

Ad network daisy chains –- the selliing and reselling of ad placements -- are sometimes efficient and necessary, but they have their downsides, as everyone in the space knows by now. Most often discussed are the multifarious adjacency issues we hear so much about (A respectable brand appears next to porn content, on spyware applications, or on "link farm" sites that offer no content at all.)

A lesser threat has been the distribution of spyware, viruses and other malicious software via ad units. I'm aware of only a small handful of such instances, including one nearly two years ago in which the Bofra virus was delivered via Falk's ad servers. However, banner-delivered mal-ware has evidently now become enough of a threat to warrant R&D resources, with the launch of a product called Media Guard from Right Media.

The company, which deployed Media Guard across its trafficking network, calls the add-on "the first in a series of… solutions from Right Media to significantly reduce the growing threat from dangerous applications and software transferred through online ads."

During a test last month, Media Guard found 17 types of hidden virus in 50,000 ad creatives.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 2, 2006

25-Year-Old MTV Makes Move on College Set

MTV keeps gettin' older, and they keep stayin' the same age….College kids, that is.

MTV’s college TV network, mtvU, just announced its acquisition of Youth Media and Marketing Networks, a network of 450 online campus paper sites. With MTV on their side, Y2M online college newspapers could have more clout when it comes to wooing advertisers.

Surely, MTV already has a foothold in the college market through its regular cable properties as well as the college network. This, however, gives MTV a quick way of reaching that same market through local online and print pubs.

It'll also facilitate enhancements on the sites, including community tools, music libraries, "and the means to create university-specific online networks," as noted in the press release. The focus here seems to be giving MTV's national advertisers easy access to college newspaper sites, and vice versa. Although I'm sure that Y2M appreciates national ad dollars, it's interesting to note a recent study the network conducted that found the following as reported by this very publication:

Of the more than 7,500 undergrads, grad students, alumnae, parents and faculty campus media readers who responded to the survey, 64 percent want to see more ads for local restaurants on their campus paper's site. Fifty-seven percent want more job recruiting ads, 51 percent more entertainment ads and 50 percent more ads for local retailers. Fifty-six percent of respondents were students or recent graduates, and 44 percent were older alumnae, parents and faculty.

Another tidbit worth mentioning: Y2M has had a deal with Knopf, a division of Random House, to market Knopf titles on its newspaper sites. The fact that MTV Books is a division of Simon and Schuster doesn't bode well for that relationship….

With the MTV oversight, one also wonders whether editorial staff will have less independence, or whether sites will lose any originality. If anything, though, the relationship indicates that college newspapers remain valuable media for advertisers

Posted by Kate Kaye at 3:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 31, 2006

About to Display Related Articles Listings

About.com will now feature related articles links on guide pages through a relationship with contextual matching tech firm Sphere and blog search company Clickability.

According to a press release, users will be able to access over 1.3 million pieces of original content through "Related Articles" listings on About.

The About site already features Google AdSense links throughout its guide-created content, in addition to links to other areas of the About site, making for what some might consider a relatively cluttered page (though not necessarily more busy than any other site). So, it'll be interesting to see how they integrate this new set of links.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 26, 2006

Teen People to Become Web-only

Time Inc. announced today that it will shutter the print edition of Teen People, continuing the title as an online-only publication.

In a memo to employees Tuesday, Time's CEO Ann Moore and John Huey, Teen People's editor-in-chief, promised, "We will continue to invest in the brand through TeenPeople.com, which shows promise and growth."

Magazine ad sales have been losing share to Internet ads in recent years. According to TNS Media Intelligence, consumer and Sunday magazines grew 3.6 percent last year, while B2B magazines declined by 0.3 percent. During that same time, Internet display advertising grew by 13.0 percent.

A similar move was made earlier this year by Hachette Filipacchi with its ElleGirl title, which ceased print publication in favor of an online-only presence.

The print magazine and Web site launched together in 1998. The last print magazine will be the September issue, which hits newsstands August 4. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, this is just the first of many titles that will lose their print editions in coming months.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 24, 2006

Newspaper Sites Could Use Teen Sections

As newspaper readership dwindles, publishers are trying all sorts of things to attract young -- and potentially lifelong -- readers. Not only do they need to replace the old with the young to keep up readership numbers, the youth can help bring in ad dollars that wouldn't be there otherwise.

A new Newspaper Association of America Foundation study by MORI Research, "Lifelong Readers: The Role of Youth Content," shows that running teen-oriented content can help keep young people interested in reading their local paper. The survey of 1,600 18-24 year-olds found that "75 percent of respondents who said they read newspaper content aimed at teens when they were 13 to 17 years old now read their local paper at least once a week, compared with 44 percent of those who said they did not read teen content."

Some other stats:

78 percent of respondents who said they read the local paper plus the teen content read their local paper in the past week; 50 percent read their local paper yesterday.

81 percent of this group said they read the local Sunday paper in the past four weeks and 66 percent said they read it last Sunday.

30 percent of young adults said teen content drew them to the paper

18 percent cited content that was written by someone they knew or content that featured an interview with someone they knew

16 percent cited entertainment news

10 percent said general interest news

8 percent said advice columns

4 percent said comics drove them to the paper.

At least in the press release, a distinction between print and online newspaper reading isn't made. However, there's no doubt that if they're reading news, many young people are doing it on the Web. Obviously, it makes sense for newspaper publishers to not only present teen-centric material, but to highlight it online, perhaps in a special section featuring forums or social networking tools.

My hometown paper, The Jersey Journal, includes a column called "Teen Scene" written by teens (high school or college students). I browsed the paper's corresponding site, NJ.com for the column, but rather than locating a Teen Scene section or one dedicated to youth-oriented content and features, I had to conduct a general site search. Surprisingly, a search on keyword "teen" brought up the most recent column early on in the results. (I expected to get a lot of links to crime beat headlines like "Teen Arrested with Gun, Coke" or "Teenage Wolf Pack Attacks Cop" -- a lot of the kids in J.C. ain't exactly tame.)

Anyway, it's clear that a few leaders in the online newspaper field are trying to appeal to younger readers, but the college-through-early-30s set seems to be the main target audience. This study indicates that crafting content for an even younger crowd might not be such a bad idea.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 13, 2006

From One Male-Interest Site to Another

Laddie mag Maxim's Web property has agreed to a content partnership with CBS SportsLine to exchange what each of them do best respectively. Maxim.com will get the straight talk as in sports scores and commentary for its Web property. In return, CBS SportsLine will add Maxim.com's humor and entertainment bits to its "SPiN" section.

The deal comes about a week too late for Maxim to get in on the World Cup's much talked about head butt incident. But there will no doubt be plenty of fodder taking place in the world of sports to come.

Posted by Enid Burns at 5:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 29, 2006

Fox Expects $500M in Internet Revs in 2007

Reuters reports that News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch is predicting Internet revenue at the company will rise to nearly $500 million in fiscal year 2007. The company, best known in the Internet space for last year's acquisition of MySpace for $580 million, is expected to bring in $350 million in Internet revenues in calendar year 2006. Not too shabby.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 4:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Comcast's Web Ambitions

The WSJ today has a big write-up (subscription) on Comcast and Time Warner's ambitions for Web video. The piece seemed sparked at least partly by Comcast's not-yet-announced (but confirmed by ClickZ) acquisition of thePlatform, a technology firm that helps media companies publish digital assets on multiple platforms. ThePlatform has already been running a channel, The Fan, for Comcast. That channel delivers nearly 2 million video streams a day to Comcast's customers. ThePlatform's system includes targeted advertising capabilities, according to the company. Details of the acquisition weren't disclosed.

It makes complete sense for cable players -- many of which have already invested big dollars into on-demand programming and technolgy -- to extend that model onto the Web. It's that media where ever and whenever philosophy that everyone's chasing (and trying to make profitable).

[via PaidContent.org]

Posted by Pamela Parker at 1:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 20, 2006

Newly-Promoted Marketer Leaves Microsoft

Martin Taylor, who was promoted to corporate vice president of Windows Live and MSN marketing in March, has unexpectedly left the software giant. He'd been with the company for 13 years and was said to be an advisor to CEO Steve Ballmer.

AP and Bloomberg reports quote a Microsoft e-mail as saying "We've made the difficult decision to part ways with Martin Taylor but we don't comment on personnel matters." A biography on Microsoft's corporate site simply says Taylor "is no longer with Microsoft." As recently as Monday, Taylor was quoted in a press release.

What does this mean for Microsoft as it works to build new ad-supported products and market them to build an online audience? The wording of the Microsoft statement seems to imply the company, and not Taylor, made "the difficult decision to part ways."

UPDATE: Microsoft says former Ask.com CEO Steve Berkowitz, who joined the company in April, "has already stepped in to assume Martin's MSN and Windows Live marketing responsibilities for the short-term, and we hope to be able to announce a permanent successor in the near future."

Posted by Pamela Parker at 8:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

June 19, 2006

Old vs. New Media at the World Cup

Baba Shetty of Hill, Holliday posts on Nike's online success in World Cup-related marketing, after being shut out from TV advertising by official WC sponsor Adidas. Though Shetty says Adidas is outspending Nike by 2 to 1, the latter is getting 2x the traffic to its Joga.com site, as compared with Adidas.com.

As Shetty puts it:Look, I know it’s early in the game, and business results are the only metrics that really matter – Adidas may yet be redeemed. But if this plays out that Nike outmaneuvered Adidas, the 2006 World Cup will be remembered as the cleanest "old marketing" vs. "new marketing" case study we've seen yet.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 3:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 15, 2006

What Vertical Commands the Highest CPMs and CPCs?

Well... who makes the biggest purchases? Think stealth aircraft and mobile homes for hurricane victims. Yes, I'll wager one of the biggest spending sectors, and therefore a target for B2B marketers (including Google), is the U.S. Government. That may be one reason (as well as the desire to suck up to folks in Washington D.C. for political purposes) behind Google's re-launch of U.S. Government search, a service Danny says has been offered since at least 1999. The vertical engine crawls a variety of .gov and other sites including the White House, Department of Defense, The Washington Post, and Google News. Google is trying to sell its enterprise products to government agencies and has recently hired a head of federal sales, Mike Bradshaw.

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

June 14, 2006

MSN to Stream Dixie Chicks Concert

This one was announced last month, but Microsoft just issued a news release about it with some new information…

MSN will stream a June 15 London performance by the Dixie Chicks, the most alienated country act since Graham Parsons. The deal is part of an existing two-year relationship with the band.

MSN has gone hard after a variety of live concert events, and I have it on good information this has been high on the priority list for well over a year. Looks like it's paying off. The portal has streamed live events including the New Orleans Jazz Fest and New Years Festivities in Times Square.

Lightningcast handles ad insertion for this content.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 12, 2006

CBS Digital Launches ShowBuzz

The internet today gave birth to a new celebrity and gossip site, courtesy of CBS Digital Media. ShowBuzz will offer a combination of original content and material produced by CBS properties, including CBSNews.com, CBS.com and 60 Minutes. Other media partners include The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, The Book Standard, MovieTickets.com and Broadway.com.

The site launch was pre-sold to two sponsors, CBS said. Judging from the banner units now on the site, those sponsors are Noxzema and the Season 1 DVD of Dharma & Greg.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 1:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 9, 2006

NHL Stanley Cup: Online Highlights and Sponsorship

Just called the National Hockey League to check on their digital plans for The Stanley Cup. I was told it would put video highlights of the games on its Web site and on iTunes, staggered a day after the NBC broadcasts. The iTunes footage costs $1.99 for 15 to 20 minutes of action from the previous night's game, and the stuff on NHL.com is sponsored by Sprint.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 3:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

World Cup Roundup #1

There's much digital excitement afoot today, the first day of the World Cup soccer tournament. A few tidbits to accompany my earlier story.

• Google is honoring the occasion with one of its signature front page "doodles." It's also using its front page to offer users the chance to add a World Cup module (by SI.com) on their Google personalized home pages. SEW blog covers what the search world is doing.
  
• After the earlier news story, someone from Univision.com pinged me to chide me for the "gaping hole" in our coverage. Yes, I'd focused on English-language offerings, but Univision.com claims it'll be home to the largest World Cup Spanish online audience. It'll stream near-live highlights and is working with Verizon VCAST to stream highlights to subscribers' mobile phones. Other mobile offerings will be distributed via T-Mobile.
  
• Lycos is taking a very different tack, offering "all of the craziness and none of the scores" -- basically focusing on the cultural aspect of the event, rather than the games -- on a video channel.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 1:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 6, 2006

WSJ: Web Industry Gossip or Real Deals?

The Wall Street Journal reported today that "NBC and YouTube are close to finalizing an agreement in which NBC will buy ads on YouTube while the site will post clips of coming NBC shows provided by the network."

Though the story offered no further detail, I did check in with Julie Supan, YouTube's senior director of marketing, who told me "we do not have a relationship (formal or informal) with NBC. While we have been 'in discussions' with them since February, there is no deal. We are in discussions with all the major networks, movie studios and record labels. But, there is no relationship without signed contracts."

Of course responses like this are standard until all the papers have been signed and both sides are cool with disclosure, however, The Journal seems to be making a habit of making news out of what may be non-deals (competing as a traditional pub in the immediate new media world is tough). Last month the paper reported that mobile marketing firm Third Screen Media was to be acquired by Microsoft. I spoke with more than one exec at Third Screen who told me they were in talks with several companies regarding acquisition and/or other opportunities and it really isn't as big as the Journal made it out to be.

But I guess you never know until the big announcement....

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Knot, WeddingChannel.com to Marry

Reaching those brides- and grooms-to-be might be about to get more convenient (and possibly more expensive). The Knot and WeddingChannel.com have declared their intention to merge in a deal valued at about $78.5 million. The Knot Chairman and CEO David Liu says it expects to merger to help it "become a more effective mareting resource for our advertisers."

PaidContent.org notes that the two have been engaged in a patent battle over gift registriesfor several years. Presumably, this deal puts an end to that litigation.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 2:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 22, 2006

MySpace Hooks Up With Nylon Magazine

Nylon Magazine's seventh annual "Music Issue" hopes to enhance interaction with its readers by incorporating URLs for the MySpace profiles of the bands and artists featured in the magazine.

Seems a total no-brainer, given every single one of those musicians and bands almost certainly already has a MySpace profile.

"We have created something very special and new. You can literally listen to the issue online," overstated Marvin Scott Jarrett, Nylon's editor-in-chief and co-founder. The issue will also include a map of MySpace sponsored summer events and a "DIY guide to creating a vivid MySpace profile."

Youth-oriented print mags are jumping onto the MySpace bandwagon. It's been reported "Seventeen" will include MySpace profiles for all its contributors begninng with the June issue.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 19, 2006

Hachette Launches "Shock"

Hachette will launch "Shock" on May 30, with mobile content available in late June.

Both the print and online versions of the publication invite users to submit digital photos of outrageous -- or shocking -- images and situations.

So far, it looks an awful lot like Sploid.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 1:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 18, 2006

ZenithOptimedia Gets Serious about Interactive

Interactive media just gained more clout at ZenithOptimedia. The media agency will be integrating the digital media operations of its regional offices and has hired on former SF Interactive Director of Interactive Marketing Services Andy Sims as senior VP-director of interactive. According to a MediaPost story, the move is part of the agency's aim to promote interactive, bring together traditional and interactive, and integrate media and creative within the Publicis network.

ZenithOptimedia works with clients including T-Mobile, HP and Toyota.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 17, 2006

Tacoda to Monitor Network Publisher Content

Behavioral targeting firm Tacoda announced today it will partner with ContentWatch to monitor the quality of content in its behavioral ad network. Content quality is a big concern for networks, especially as more and more publishers develop their own relationships with second-tier affiliates (see my Monday story to see how advertisers get stuck in the sub-affiliate swamp).

Through the relationship, ContentWatch will automatically scan all 3,500 sites in the Tacoda Audience Networks for inappropriate content.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 16, 2006

AOL's YouTube Move

AOL is getting into the YouTube business. A link to the company's open beta test of UnCut Video (tagline: See it. Shoot It. Share it.) has emerged. At first glance it seems to be near cookie-cutter clone of the popular YouTube. One interesting thing we spotted is that the terms of service require video uploaders to be 18 years old. (YouTube says you need to be 18 or have parental consent and be over 13.)

The company has a great opportunity to showcase user-generated video alongside its more professional video content, and to integrate it with the new AIM Pages. Coming, says AOL, are "Video search, Mobile uploading and New sharing features."

Will it catch on? Could be. No advertising is appearing on the site yet but one can imagine lots of YouTube-like possiblities. (Advertising as content and such.)

[Via TechCrunch]

Posted by Pamela Parker at 6:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lexus to Sponsor Slate "Textcasts"

Slate is going from audio to plain ol' text through its new "textcasts" offering which are meant for display in those ubiquitous Apple iPods. According to an AdWeek report, "Lexus, which advertises on Slate podcasts, is sponsoring the textcast, with its logo appearing where the album art is usually shown and in a text ad within the story." Slate will be promoting the new textcasts on its site next week.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 15, 2006

Fox Aims to Portal-ize MySpace

What could be more risqué than Subservient Chicken? Perhaps advertising on MySpace. Well, Burger King probably isn't running too many risks through its planned sponsorship of free downloads of Fox's "24" from MySpace pages that will branded with the burger joint's "Have It Your Way" tag.

According to a Wall Street Journal story, Fox, whose parent co. News Corp also owns MySpace, will also offer ad-free episodes of the popular show for $1.99 (the same cost of shows from Fox and its rival networks on iTunes).

Burger King also will sponsor free episodes of the Speed channel's drag-racing show "Pinks" and the Fuel channel's action-sports show "Firsthand."

Evidently MySpace hopes to compete more directly with entertainment portals like Yahoo and Apple's iTunes. Obviously it makes sense for Fox to use the huge MySpace audience as leverage in its online media experiments. Chances are it won't hurt when it comes to repositioning MySpace as a place for more than just CGM (or a hangout for bored teens and pedophiles).

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 12, 2006

IVillage Stockholders OK NBC Merger

Stockholders of women's site network IVillage have approved the proposed merger of IVillage into NBC Universal which is set to occur May 15. According to a related ClickZ News report, "The focus of iVillage will be as a showcase for NBC Universal's offline content, an important role for both visitors and advertisers."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 2:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 9, 2006

And Speaking of AOL

You know those 1,300 call center jobs AOL is eliminating (in Jacksonville, Tucson and Ogden, Utah)? The whole thing makes complete sense to me. The company is in the midst of shifting to an advertising model, moving away from its former subscription revenue stream (just in time as subscribers continue to go elsewhere anyway), so there's no need to handle so many incoming phone calls. In fact, volume to its call centers has been down 50 percent since 2004. But rather than say it's all part of a shift in strategy, AOL is painting this as a victory for customer service. According to an AOL spokesperson, the company's self-service tools like anti-spyware and Computer Check Up have been so successful, and its service software has become so robust, that it's dramatically lessened the need for calls from (what's left of) its subscribers. That's one way to look at it.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 8:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 8, 2006

Does NetShelter Brand Network Have What Network Advertisers Want?

Tech ad network firm NetShelter has just launched what it's calling its NetShelter Branded Network (NSBN). The company is the exclusive seller of all ad inventory on the network's 16 sites which reach a total of 1.9 million users. Twelve of the sites have been made public, including Geek.com and MobileBurn.com. According to NetShelter's co-CEO Peyman Nilforoush, advertisers can purchase banners, roadblocks, sponsorships and other placements, as well as choose to run ads on specific pages or alongside specific content. In about a month, NetShelter will make available pre-roll video spots in video content on some of the sites such as product reviews.

Advertisers on the network include Microsoft, Palm and Motorola. When I spoke with Nilforoush, he stressed "brand protection" as the primary value of the new network, which offers auditing of all content within the network through I/PRO.

"This is sort of more of an industry approach that we're taking," said Nilforoush. "This is more of an evolution of ad networks."

The main difference between the new branded network and the firm's content network is that advertisers can pick and choose which sites and which content they want to run ads in.

Here's the thing: Most networks have hundreds if not thousands of sites in them. While this certainly helps alleviate the common concern that advertisers have when it comes to what content their brands are seen with, it seems as though this could be seen as more of a sales representative relationship than a network. Sure, they get that "brand protection" they want, but what advertisers typically want out of a network is reach -- lots of eyeballs. Although NetShelter says its brand network sites get more unique visitors than CNET News.com or Ziff Davis Internet, if advertisers are picking and choosing sites or content, that reach factor won't necessarily be there. It's more a means of reaching a highly-targeted tech audience.

Yes, there is value there for an advertiser, but whether or not it's the same type of value they're looking for from a network buy remains to be seen.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 26, 2006

TBS Action/Animé Broadband Channel in the Works

A joint venture between TBS' Cartoon Network and VIZ Media, a publisher and licensor of Manga and Anime entertainment, will produce a broadband network called Toonami Jetstream. The channel draws its name from Cartoon Network's Toonami programming block. It will present five series, including some anime programming not currently available in the U.S.

It'll launch July 17. Ad units include banner and in-stream placements, and Turner will sell the inventory.

(link to press release)

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Strong Online View Rates for the Next Food Network Star

The Food Network just reported some impressive online viewing stats for its reality TV contest to invent the next celebrity chef. During the six-week run of The Next Food Network Star, visitors to FoodNetwork.com viewed nearly a million videos and generated millions of additional page views, the company said. During the show's voting phase, approximately 675,000 onilne and text message votes were cast.

The winner, Guy Fieri, will have his own six-episode series.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 19, 2006

Innovations In Media

No wonder newpaper Web sites are raking in the dough, even as their print counterparts go begging for ad dollars. Online, there's just so much more to sell -- if you're creative about it.

Spotted today on NYTimes.com: Fox Searchlight's film, Water, is sponsoring "Article Tools," that usually ignorable little box that allows you to print, save or e-mail an article.

The placement is so novel it got me to click...

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

April 18, 2006

iVillage Delves Deeper into Traditional Media

iVillage is extending its reach further into the world of print with two new mags set to launch this summer. iVillage Parenting Network already puts out Lamaze Parents, Lamaze Para Padres and BabySteps magazines, in addition to offering an in-hospital television network that delivers education programs to maternity wards.

The goal, from a revenue-generating perspective, is, of course, to offer advertisers an easy way to reach new moms through a variety of media. According to the iVillage press release:

"When Lamaze Pregnancy debuts in July, it will be hand-delivered by ob-gyns to newly pregnant women at their first prenatal visit. Starting in 2007, the magazine will be published twice annually with an expected total circulation of one million.

When BabySteps Toddler debuts in September, it will be distributed directly to parents in the pediatric office at their child's one- year well visit. Starting in 2007, the magazine will be published twice annually with an expected circulation of one million.

Self-help site publisher Waterfront Media is a competitor that also has mommy-centric sites, and plans on developing new health sites, according to a talk I had with them a couple weeks ago. Though they've had a baby/pregnancy content focus, it looks like they'll be developing educational sites devoted to specific illnesses, in the hopes of attracting pharma advertisers.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 13, 2006

Jann Wenner Ain't Sold on the Web for Everything

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal Advertising Report featured an interview with publishing vet, Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone fame. One Q&A in particular was especially interesting:

WSJ: Transforming magazines into digital properties seems to be all the rage, since advertisers are more interested in the niche audiences magazines deliver than the paper on which their articles are printed. In this vein, what's worth more -- the Rolling Stone brand that can be repurposed around different media formats or Rolling Stone magazine?

Wenner: Well, they are both worth a lot....I've always felt the trick is not to replicate the magazine on the Web, but to add to the magazine and do things on the Web site that the magazine itself can't do. There is a lot of information -- underlying stories, tour dates, more sets of record reviews. There are audio and visual components that we do that work on a Web site. The trick is to figure out what the Web does better, and let it do that, and then see what the role of the magazine is and what the magazine does better.

There is a lot that the magazine does better, particularly for certain kinds of advertisers who are interested in visual display. Cars are sold that way. Fashion is sold that way. Soft drinks are sold that way. Most of our key categories are sold with visual imagery. Those people who need to get a lot of data to a consumer -- like warranty information, or where it makes sense to offer an opportunity to choose different colors and styles of a particular product -- the Web does that great. We are kind of seeing a fad kind of reaction right now. It will all balance out, and those magazines that figure out how to make their Web product good and how to make it relate back to what's on that magazine page will be very successful.
It's not that difficult a trick....If you go back, you'll remember the first attempts for magazine companies on the Web were simply to replicate the magazine on the Web. Millions of dollars were poured into that by certain publishing companies who made a clear mistake.

A lot of Web video or Flash evangelists may disagree with Wenner when he implies that print sells certain categories like cars and fashion better than, say, video ads might. But I wholeheartedly agree with him that creating a complementary component to a print magazine, rather than simply replicating a print magazine online, is the way to go. I also appreciate that he realizes that people still appreciate print.

I, for one, read his interview in my print copy of The Journal, and wouldn't have it any other way. The Journal, along with other smart publications, is getting this crossover thing. For instance, the paper has been including a sponsored section listing the Online Journal's daily Web-only features.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 10, 2006

Disney Internet Channel Details

Disney is revealing details of the "My ABC" strategy we reported on last month.

• This is all "a two-month-long experiment," according to the press release.
  
• Ads won't be skippable, but users will be able to navigate between "chapters" within programming.
  
• AT&T, Cingular, Ford, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Unilever's Suave, Universal Pictures and Walt Disney Pictures have signed up as advertisers.
  
• ABC's launch will be April 30.
  
• The company is talking with affiliates about how to include them in the broadband distribution game. "Our ultimate goal is to find an effective online model, one in which our affiliates can take part," stated Alex Wallau, president, Operations and Administration, ABC Television Network.
  
• The Disney Channel, ABC Family and Disney's Soapnet will also offer ad-supported free downloads. [From WSJ report (subscription)]
  
• Shows will have 3 breaks lasting a minimum of one minute each, with the same advertiser highlighted throughout. Viewers will have a choice of whether they'd prefer a traditional video commercial or an interactive "game"-like ad.
  

That last bit, about being able to choose the type of advertising, is probably the most surprising part of the news. It makes complete sense, in that this is a completely new form for audiences and advertisers, and no one yet knows what'll work best. Generally we feel that interactive ads will work best in an interactive medium, but will that still be the case when viewers are engaged in a "lean back" experience like watching "Lost" or "Desperate Housewives"?

Unanswered is whether the videos will be available for download to video iPods. I'd imagine they'll be focusing on streaming initially, because it's more measurable for advertisers, but iPod (and PSP) functionality should be in the works if it's not already.

As an aside, we published a story about a report in January that found users preferred free ad-supported video to paying a subscription fee.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 1:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 5, 2006

Towering Media Pundits Devour Tower of Shellfish

Lowly ad grubs that we are, we can only claim a few run-ins a year with big-time media celebrities, so we have to boast when we get six in 90 minutes. At the whim of blog mogul Nick Denton, ClickZ was just corralled into a shellfish lunch at Balthazar with all-star media commentators Jeff Jarvis, Jay Rosen, Arianna Huffington, Lockhart Steele and David Carr. The pre-arranged topic was ads in blogs, but it was mostly about the three-tiered towers of iced shrimp and the splattering of AdRants' Steve Hall with oyster juice. NYT's Carr put little shrimp heads on his fingers and made them dance, and Arianna left her jacket behind. I have it here on my desk, in case anyone from HuffPo is reading. I am dead serious about both those things.

We did eventually talk advertising, but it was off-the-record, so all you get is this pathetic little name-dropping spree and a picture of Rosen, Denton and Jarvis preparing to pounce on the last remaining half-shell.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 29, 2006

Google/AOL Close in on Closing

Well, they're getting closer. After stating their intentions back in December, Google and AOL have signed definitive agreements outlining their new relationship. So says GOOG's latest SEC filing, which indicates the two expect to close the deal in the second quarter.

Included, of course, is Google's $1 billion investment to take a 5 percent equity stake in the Time Warner property. As a reminder, the other provisions call for Google to (I'm quoting from the annual report here):

• create an AOL Marketplace through white labeling of our advertising technology.
  
• expand display advertising throughout our network.
  
• collaborate in video search and showcase AOL's premium video service within Google Video.
  
• enable Google Talk and AIM instant messaging users to communicate with each other, provided certain conditions are met.
  
• provide AOL marketing credits for its Internet properties.
  

[tip o' the hat to SEW blog]

Posted by Pamela Parker at 4:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 14, 2006

Another day, another acquisition. Or 2. Or 3.

Here's today's media/tech acquisition round up. Oh, to be an M&A specialist these days...

• Blog software firm SixApart has reportedly bought mobile blogging player Splashblog. [Via Steve Rubel]
  
• RSS company NewsGator bought mobile podcasting company SmartFeed. [Also via Steve Rubel] (Are you picking up any themes here?)
  
• Google (yes, you knew we couldn't go a day without Google) has bought @Last Software, maker of the SketchUp 3D design software. [via Battelle]
  
• Fox Interactive Media is said to be snatching up unlaunched RSS aggregator firm NewRoo. [via TechCrunch]

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

Whither Knight-Ridder's Online Properties?

Knight-Ridder's pending acquisition by McClatchy brings up the question of what will happen to the various joint ventures that KR has with rivals Gannett and Tribune. On a conference call with investors, McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt said he'd very much like to keep the properties, which include Careerbuilder and ShopLocal, but it's up to the other two partners whether they want to allow McClatchy to assume KR's stake or buy out McClatchy.

When contacted by ClickZ News, Gannett and Tribune declined to comment other than to say it was too early to know what would happen, and that they'd be looking at their options.

John Blossom, president and senior analyst with Shore Communications, said that the most likely outcome is for Gannett and Tribune to allow McClatchy to take over Knight-Ridder's stake, for several reasons:
1. They want to stay on McClatchy's good side so they stay in the running for the K-R properties going on the block.
2. McClatchy brings to the table a good sense of how to control margins while creating a quality product for a growing market.
3. Buying out McClatchy would be counter-productive, since it would cut down on potential distribution alliances and infuse McClatchy with additional cash to consider other alternatives.

"There's something to be said for keeping your friends close and your enemies close, perhaps," Blossom said.

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 3:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

RealClearPolitics Relaunches, Gets Funding

All things political site, RealClearPolitics, has unveiled a site revamp, and accepted an investment of "an undisclosed sum" from Alan Warms, the man behind a new ad and CGM content management outfit, Participate Media.

One new site feature is the "Opinion BuzzTracker," (powered by Technorati) which presents the most popular news stories based on, of course, blog coverage. (Because, if it's big in the blogosphere, everybody must be talkin' about it, right? Sure....) Other new offerings include reader-submitted articles, topic-driven content browsing and RSS subscriptions, and links to audio/video of radio, TV, speeches and debates. So far it's populated mostly with links to transcripts.

A comment from right-leaning poli-pundit, David Brooks in the press announcement was so book-blurby and almost phony, it gave me a chuckle: "Some people wake up every morning with a raw egg and exercise. I wake up every morning with RealClearPolitics.com. It's the perfect one-stop shopping for the smartest commentary on politics and life."

Poor Sly Stallone! Just because he gulped raw eggs for breakfast as Rocky doesn't mean he's not an intellectual who's interested in politics! I mean give the guy a break!

Posted by Kate Kaye at 1:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 9, 2006

My Back Web Pages

Unlike some other citizen/consumer generated media* sites out there, BackFence.com seems aimed at an older demo, and it's got more of a homeTOWN feel than a hipster, Web junkie feel to it. The small site network has launched a new city-centric site, this time focusing on Arlington, VA. Consider it CGM-meets-CitySearch-meets-Craigslist-meets-local newspaper site forum. So far, the BackFence conglomerate of sites is focused on cities in Virginia and Maryland (think of them as the founding fathers or something…).

There doesn't seem to be much going on at the Arlington HQ just yet by way of CG-content. From the looks of things, BackFence is running ads served through Accipiter’s hosted ad management solution, AdBureau. They offer a 30-day homepage buy for $200 (not far from some of the more popular blogs when ya think about it). Like CitySearch, there's also a rate/reviews feature within the Yellow Pages section that enables visitors to…uh…rate and review companies listed there. Of course, enhanced listings are available as well. They also do free classifieds.

*Take your pick: Do you define yourself as a voter who gets duped by politicians, or a buyer who gets duped by sellers? Yeah, I'm feelin' extra cynical today….

Posted by Kate Kaye at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 6, 2006

DealBook Goes to the Web

NYTCo is taking the DealBook brand -- which currently exists as a Sunday column and an e-mail newsletter with 160,000+ subscribers -- and building a Web property at nytimes.com/dealbook.

The expansion comes at a time in which we're seeing a dramatic number of mergers and acquisitions, especially in the Internet space, so there's plenty to cover. DealBook will be edited by Andrew Ross Sorkin, the Times' chief mergers and acquisitions reporter.

It looks to me like a case of inventory-building for a successful product, in that they'd be able to offer advertisers more, and perhaps more innovative, ad space, in the Web property. Also, of course, a play to better compete with the Journal for audience.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 2, 2006

All the News That’s Fit to Search Is Kinda Stale

What if a news organization, employing professional journalists, wrote their news website like a wiki? Robert Niles over at the Online Journo Review wond’red aloud in a 2.26 story. Yeah, yeah, we know, The LA Times did it and failed miserably, but that’s not what Robert was getting at. He argues, or at least posits, that newspapers could use a wiki-style approach in some capacity in order to better optimize for search engines (‘cause, as he notes, many online news sites are a little behind the times when it comes to seo beyond the meta tag days).

"I'm not talking about turning over the page to readers," he writes. "I'm suggesting that -- instead of distinct daily takes -- news stories could be covered with encyclopedia-style articles that staffers would update with new information whenever available."

He goes on: "Online newspapers generally continue to follow a print-designed publishing model, shoveling piles of individual new ‘takes’ onto the Web each day, never to be updated or cross-linked to future articles on the same story. Inbound links don't do a newspaper much good if they take readers to an outdated story, with no clear way to guide users to the publication's most up-to-the-date content on that topic."

Robert offers an example that when a user searches for "Iraq war" on Google, a CNN listing ranks way up, but it’s a story from 2003! Yikes…. "What good is that to a reader in 2006?" asks Robert. "This CNN page isn't news … it's history.” It’s an old "special" section that features some pretty antiquated info and a top-left o’ the page "headlines" section with links to more way-old stories. That could have very easily been a section with dynamically-served links. Sure, the content may still be relevant, but you get his point.

It seems to me that an internal system that allows editorial to tag stories with topic keywords would make a whole lotta sense. And cents – which is what this is really all about. Obviously, a link to a new story would drive more traffic than one to an old one. Maybe online papers are relying on search engine news search/portal areas to drive this traffic?

As one who still prefers the old-school print paper, but reads lots of news stories online, I have to say the idea of a wiki-style approach to the presentation of news doesn’t really appeal to me. And, I’m not sure we want journalists to start updating stories willy-nilly, as in – hey, just got a call from so-and-so and he says that quote from joe schmo is bunk….

However, incorporating tagging and other new media approaches to presentation/updating while maintaining the all-important editorial checks, seems to be a good, if not inevitable way to go about keeping up with the…uh…times.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 5:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Braun: Yahoo! Backing Off Original Content, Embracing Services

Remember the buzz around Yahoo!'s executive team of Hollywood all-stars? Well goodbye to all that.

In an interview with the Times, Lloyd Braun says he was all wrong about online video and is actually much more interested in partner- and user-generated pages than in doing TV-style shows.

Here's money quote #1: "I didn't fully appreciate what success in this medium is really going to look like. This is not about creating one-off hits like in my old business. That is not going to create a sustainable competitive advantage over the long term."

Here's money quote #2: "I now get excited about user-generated content the way I used to get excited about thinking about what television shows would work."

This is stunning, and a total about face for a company that less than a year ago was the most aggressive originator of sophisticated video content online. Here's the new scenario, apparently: The reigning champion (among portals anyway) of original Web video turns out to be longtime pariah AOL(!), while Yahoo! treads firmly down the services-and-partners path already embraced by Microsoft and Google.

Braun also took advantage of his interview with Saul Hansell to dispel widespread rumors that he'll soon leave the portal over differences with CEO Terry Semel.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

AOL's "Sweeps" Programming

While talking to AOL about the Dove campaign, Tina Sharkey, SVP of network and community programming, described the "Chief Everything Officer" microsite and contest as a "network special" and said it was the first of several that would be rolling out over the course of the next year. Now that AOL is accessible to the wider Web and not just to subscribers, the company will use special content like this periodically -- in a sweeps period-like approach -- to drive traffic. The hope is that such content, (Sharkey mentioned the Good Morning America partnership for "America Takes it Off" as another example) will give AOL cross-media exposure for its content.

"Now we're doing this one, and we have a whole slate of things rolling out over the year in our network specials line up," Sharkey told me. "It's very analagous to sweeps in television."

Posted by Pamela Parker at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 15, 2006

Daily Candy Sale in the Offing

The WSJ reports today that Daily Candy's dozen or so e-mail newsletters are on the block. The story's angle is AOL-pariah-makes-good, as the women's lifestyle publisher is majority-owned by Robert Pittman, who was at one time #2 at AOL.

Who will bite? The usual suspects would be News Corp., Yahoo! and maybe IAC. Yahoo! would seem the best cultural fit. But then MSN is reportedly waiting on a cash infusion from Microsoft, so that's another possibility. Silly speculation aside, perhaps most interesting to me about a Daily Candy sale would be what it's not: video. Just a little reminder e-mail's still got it going on.

Updated, July 10: Daily Candy is now off the block, according to this story in the Journal.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 3:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 14, 2006

AOL: After Burnett, Kutcher

Is it just me or is AOL quickly surpassing Yahoo! in its development of original video programming?

Two weeks after it announced it’s working with Mark Burnett on an online-only reality series, the portal comes out with another content development deal. This one will see the creation of short-form video programs from Katalyst Films, which is partly owned by Ashton Kutcher.

A minimum of five programs will have 20-plus “mini-episodes” each. I take that to mean we can expect two to three minute shows, which seems to be standard for most short-form content online these days. An AOL spokesperson said in-stream video ads will be sold against the programs.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 9:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 7, 2006

JibJab JokeBox

When I talked to JibJab Media's Gregg Spiridellis last May, he promised that interactive and community-based initiatives were in the animation company's future.

"The great thing about the Web is the fact that it's a two way communication channel," Gregg told me back then. "Most of our entertainment to date has been short form animated comedy and starting in the fall, we'll be launching some initiatives that involve the audience in the creation of the productions. We're just filing a patent on some of the technologies we're developing."

Could JibJab JokeBox, which the brothers Spiridellis discussed at the Entertainment Gathering conference, be what he was talking about?

If so, are we talking just text-based joke-sharing, or are they trying to get users to create and share animations themselves? Interesting prospect, but a big challenge, given all of the outlets currently available for users to share content.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

February 1, 2006

AOL's Michael Kelly Revisits WIN Deal

During a panel today at the SIIA Information Industry Summit, AOL Media Networks President Michael Kelly was grilled a bit by the moderator about how the company justified spending $25 million for Jason Calacanis' Weblogs Inc.

He started by doubting aloud that AOL had ever gone public with that figure, then made a joke about that being how much it cost to bring on Jason Calacanis. (who was in the audience, smirk)

When he got around to his real answer, it turned out to be that AOL wanted a piece of CGM, plain and simple:

"You have this incredible social phenomenon of self-expression. The definition of how you build traffic is changing. The definition of how you generate revenue from that traffic is changing... What we saw in Weblogs Inc. was an opportunity to… tap into that self-expression: with Weblogs, with blogging in general, with social networking sites. A lot of traffic is being generated by user interaction and we wanted to [enhance] our relationship with that marketplace."

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

January 9, 2006

Yahoo! Buys Webjay

First Flickr, then del.icio.us, now Webjay has joined the Yahoo! family. I wasn't previously familiar with Webjay, but checked it out and discovered it's a playlist-sharing service, which means it allows people to create multimedia playlists and publish them online. Then others -- as I found out -- can listen. There are some groovy mixes to be found on Webjay.

Ad/marketing implications? Any time users are telling you what they're interested in, there are opportunities to be found.

BTW, Yahoo! isn't spilling the beans about the financial aspects of the deal.

UPDATE: Tristan at TNL.net has an interview with Webjay's founder.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 6:59 PM | 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 9, 2005

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)

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)

November 21, 2005

Lime Media

Saul Hansell at the Times gives some ink to Lime, the eco-aware and personal growth-oriented multi-platform media play that's backed by Steve Case of AOL fame.

I tried to get in touch with these folks a couple weeks ago, but failed to get a reponse. It now appears they've moved into beta launch mode.

Worth watching. Its founder and CEO is C.J. Kettler, who led sales and marketing for Oxygen Media. The current site consists mainly of blogs, but may expand into MySpace-style networking, according to the story.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 1:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 16, 2005

Pajamas Becomes Open Source Media

The newest blog network on the block officially launches this morning. The working title of Pajamas Media has morphed into Open Source Media (OSM). And a splashy launch it is -- at New York's fabled Rainbow Room.

We'll have a story up later today once the launch is over. Before the event kicked off, I did manage to chat with CEO Roger L. Smith and Tom Troja, who is overseeing ad sales as VP of marketing and biz dev. Both told me the company considers ads on blogs to be very nascent. They company is considering any and all possiblities, including new formats. No promises that ads on the network's blogs will adhere to IAB standard formats (and no announced advertisers yet, either). Should be interesting to watch this develop -- and whether advertisers will bite if OSM goes its own way in that respect.

Still, this is a company that obviously knows how to prepare for a room full of bloggers. Not only is there the obligatory wi-fi, but extra power strips for one and all. Take note, you conference organizers out there.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 14, 2005

Sesame Street Goes Info Superhighway

PBS has announced a five-year initiative designed to bring the broadcaster's children's programming fully into the digital media age. Called PBS KIDS Next Generation Media, the effort includes a new multi-platform destination for preschoolers and a "multicast" service for elementary school kids.

"Having set the standard for high quality children's educational programming, on-air and online, PBS intends to lead the industry to the next phase for this new generation of children who consume and access media differently than previous generations," said Lesli Rotenberg, SVP of PBS Brand Management, in a statement.

I'm a little unsure what they mean by "multicast," but perhaps they mean a combo of a cable destination and an on-demand channel, like what they have created with PBS KIDS Sprout. Accompanying Web sites will expand to provide more educational online games for preschoolers and early elementary school students.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 8:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 7, 2005

Copeland: Old Media Will Be Dead Sooner Than People Think

Henry Copeland, founder of BlogAds, is ready to sound the death knell for traditional advertising. His premise, which he shared in the "Do-it-Yourself Advertising" session at Ad:tech Monday morning, is that online advertising is cheaper, faster to change, and gives advertisers more control.

"It's too late for old media. We're going to see the traditional model fail more quickly than expected," Copeland said.

The idea of disruptive innovation, which is also the subject of Clayton Christensen's best-seller "The Innovator's Dilemma," basically says that whenever an industry is faced with an effective and cheap new way of doing something that is not being adequately addressed now, there is going to be explosive growth, which is usually not beneficial to the top companies in the space before the innovation arrived.

In the case of the advertising industry, there's a new model (interactive) that has a radically different pricing structure, and a different value proposition. We also have the traditional model that is over-serving customer needs, providing more metrics than the average user wants or needs, and charging more based on the ability to provide those metrics, making it too expensive for some people, Copeland said.

An example of where old media companies have trouble and innovators excel is the iterative process of DIY advertising, instead of the traditional approach of advertising as a one-time event. An interactive, DIY campaign can be launched, adjusted, taken down, relaunched, and adjusted again. This iterative process is a strength of the medium that cannot be met by traditional ads, he said.

"It takes a big agency six months to plan a single utterance. You can't have a conversation that way," Copeland said. "This has nothing to do with ability or intelligence -- it has to do with the way agencies are hard-wired. They have a linear reporting hierarchy that allows them to scale; it's the old mass-production model."

Posted by Kevin Newcomb at 7:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 3, 2005

Death Reports Greatly Exaggerated?

"AOL has been discovered to be not dead" -- Time Warner's Richard Parsons, speaking at a New Yorker breakfast, as reported by Reuters.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 5:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 2, 2005

Hasta La Vista MSN?

I've gotta admit, I've been thinking along the same lines as Rafat. If Microsoft is a software company, and it's moving all its Web-based applications under the "Live" umbrella, doesn't MSN become one of those things that's not like the others? (a la Slate) But MSN does seem to be seeing a lot of success, especially in video advertising, and -- with Live an ad-supported service -- it doesn't hurt to have more inventory to cross-sell. How does this fit into the AOL partnership scenario? It seems to fit pretty darn well, given Microsoft's software focus and Time Warner's content chops. Hmmm...

Posted by Pamela Parker at 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 27, 2005

'Panic' on the Streets of London (Media Companies)

It's not news to readers of ClickZ that the Internet is bringing about seismic change in the media world, but here's more confirmation (via Reuters) from a talk by WPP Group's Sir Martin Sorrell at the UK Internet Advertising Bureau shindig.

"There are major changes and we don't understand the speed and scale at which they're taking place," Reuters quoted Sorrell as saying. "I think there's a certain amount of panic among media owners....Most of these companies, ours included I suppose, are run by 50- or 60-year-olds who have trouble getting it, and who really don't want to see change on their watch."

Posted by Pamela Parker at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 26, 2005

User-Generated Travel

This must be what Terry Semel was alluding to at Web 2.0 when he talked about travel as an area in which much of Yahoo!'s content would be user-generated. Do people want a professional travel writer's opinions about where to go, or are other users more important?

On the ad side, this is obviously a bid to generate more travel-related pageviews on Yahoo!. It might also generate more user reviews for Yahoo! Local businesses.

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

How Will You First Hear the News?

Like a lot of other Americans, we're waiting for indictments to be handed down in the Valerie Plame leak case. Who will be perp-walking by week's end? Libby? Rove? Maybe even Cheney?

Vin Crosbie and I were just chatting about the case. I confessed I'd been hitting 'refresh' all day on Google News. Meanwhile, friends are forwarding rumors on blogs. Vin's convinced he'll get the news via e-mail as soon as it breaks. Or maybe I'll see it on a feed?

What are the opportunities, and how do you leverage them, when everyone's waiting with a high level of anticipation for one imminent event?

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 20, 2005

The 50 Cent Media Buy

No, not that 50 Cent.

The $5 buy isn't your cup of tea? Perhaps you'd prefer to purchase pixels by the dozen -- at 50 cents a shot.

You can do just that on Pixels Buy the Dozen. The homepage is a grid of 10,292 squares, each measuring 12x12 pixels. You buy pixels for $.50 each to display an ad or logo. Mouse over, and those tiny little squares blow up to 144x144. The minimum buy is a 12x12 pixel square. Pick your own placement, first come, first served.

It's all kind of conceptual, I guess. Said creator Lee Dodd, "Once the homepage is 100 percent sold out, that's it. No more space. The page will be quite a site to see as it fills up, and that's the goal."

Current advertisers include Teens 4 Jesus; Zelda Universe; a mortgage lender; and EatMyFlames.com, which offers to turn your car's exhaust pipe into a flame thrower.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 11:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The $5 Media Buy

UK company Python Design has hatched a novel new media buy: the $5.00 campaign.

What do you get for your money? A text ad that appears on sites throughout their network -- which frankly is pretty small, judging from the category links I clicked on.

"Your link remains within our network for as long as this site exists," is their promise.

Got five bucks to wager? Check out 5dollarlink.com.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 18, 2005

Calling All SVP+ Media Buyers/Knicks Fans

How's this for prequalifying a lead? The following just dropped into the inbox:

ICON ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS is giving away tickets for the ***BEST SEATS in the house for 40 KNICKS home season games. These are ROW A,
behind the bench -- with personal contact with the players. (We are close to some of the players and trainers, but please don't rub their
heads) These are the REAL courtside seats, considered the best seats
in the house. Spike Lee has been trying to get these tickets for years, Woody Allen sits right next to us in almost every game. If you
are a KNICKs fan, these are worth writing home about.

The Catch? You must be a SVP+ of media buying at an agency (yes we love you CEOs) who would be interested in buying on our lists of branded sites, including MARVEL.com, SAVVY.com, Autoworld.com and many other sites. We won't pitch you the sites, you won't have to look over any media kits, but just have a great time watching the game.

If you don't mind sitting with Andrew Moskowitz, President of ICON ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS, give him a call at [deleted] or(201) 291-2618 and leave a message.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 10, 2005

"My First Place" on Web First

Following in the footsteps of a number of entertainment marketers, Scripps Networks' HGTV is betting on a Web premiere of its new series, "My First Place." The first episode of the series, which tells the stories of people moving into their first homes, will be online in its totality next Monday, five days before the TV show airs. In the meantime, the company is daily parceling out "sneak preview" segments of the show, preceded by pre-roll ads. (A recent view showed a Kraft Macaroni and Cheese spot.)

The company hopes to lure Web users to check out the series by sprinkling in a few extras. The site will feature videos of celebrity interviews, reader-submitted stories, and a "Plinko" game themed to the series. All of this content will appear on the HGTV.com Web site.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 7, 2005

RSS By Any Other Name...

Maybe it's because Bloglines has, in a very short time, become almost part of my DNA, but I'm not cottoning to Google's just-launched Reader.

It's the interface -- all clicking, no scrolling. Lots and lots and lots of clicking. If you subscribe to as many feeds as I do, it kind of makes RSS into work.

Interesting name, though, and interesting to watch the big guns groping to rename RSS to this utterly simple technology to a mass audience. Yahoo! doesn't really call it anything. You just edit "modules" on the My Yahoo! page.

I hear MSN is gunning for "Subscriptions" as a more consumer-friendly moniker. I have my doubts. Aren't subscriptions usually something you pay for -- or is that old school think? Not according to a few people I've had this discussion with. The other thing about that word is the implication you have to give up something: a name or an address. That might intimidate.

And "Reader"? The Web is a text-based medium. You read e-mail on Google, you read search results, heck, you read a lot of stuff. That name doesn't grab me, either.

All in all, I don't think RSS is really such a scary acronym. Do you? Got a better term? Reply in the comment section, please.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 5:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 6, 2005

Terry Semel at Web 2.0

Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel kicked off the show today.

• On Google."As a portal, it would probably be rated number four." Semel made much of the fact that Google is largely dependent on paid search/contextual ads, while Yahoo! additionally brings in brand advertising dough, as well as subscription revenue.
  
• On New Revenue Streams. "We will find more clever ways, in addition to branded advertising, to monetize those pageviews [on content]. There's no doubt in my mind that that will happen."
  
• On User-Generated Content. "Yahoo! more and more sees itself as an open platform to enable other people to publish. We'll see a lot of things like that going forward." Most interestingly, Semel suggested the company would encourage people to publish their own content -- even on Yahoo! itself -- by sharing advertising revenue with them. "[We want to] encourage and open up Yahoo! to enable people to do things like Flickr and to post their photos and give them all of the options in the world of what to do with their photos...." This includes, he said, people having the option to put advertising links on their photos, so they could, for example, "get paid for their trip to Italy."

• On Platforms. Semel said Yahoo! is committed to making its content available across the Web, on mobile devices (now) and IPTV in the future.
  
• On the Future. "As we go forward, it's all about one thing. Deeper engement. More time spent. More satisfactory experiences for both users and advertisers."

Posted by Pamela Parker at 12:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Barry Diller at Web 2.0

A few words from IAC media mogul Barry Diller at the conference last evening:

• On Google. "You mean the evil I would do to them?" he jokes. Later, Diller added, "It's a great service. Is it going to have 35 to 50 percent market share over time? Anything can happen."
  
• On Content Creation. I absolutely see my company getting involved in making product.... We all know that everything, of course, will be in digits."
  
• On User-Generated Content. "What is Match.com? We may provide the template but we don't, thank God, provide the product." For entertainment, Diller was dismissive of user-generated content, saying he didn't think there was a vast pool of untapped creative talent out there. "Talent will out," he said.
  
• On News Corp's buy of MySpace.com. "I suspect that it will either be that he [Rupert Murdoch] has bought these things very cheap, or they are worthless.... He is a great risk-taker."
  
• On Media Consumption Habits. "One thing we do know, the children are doing many more tasks then we did and somehow they are squeezing tem into waking hours."
  

Posted by Pamela Parker at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 4, 2005

Sorry so Slow. Techies are on the Case.

Ah, the vagaries of technology. We love it. We hate it. We're dependent on it to publish. Unfortunately, we're having major problems with our publishing system database today, so you may experience delays or difficulties in accessing ClickZ. So sorry. The techies are on the case, though, and we're hoping it's resolved very soon.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 3:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 27, 2005

The Content Rush

Two new developments in the push to develop more content (aka more spaces for ad inventory).

• NYTimes.com is hosting short films from the New York Film Festival in a move that will boost the site's video content. So far there don't appear to be pre-roll ads, but the offering begins to train users that the Gray Lady has more to offer than just text. Plenty of in-banner video graces the site's special section (free subscription) dedicated to the festival.

• Forbes.com has launched a new section going after entrepreneurs and small business owners. It's territory trod by BusinessWeek with its SmallBiz section and e-mail newsletter.

  
  

Posted by Pamela Parker at 3:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 26, 2005

From Portal to Publisher

As Google inches toward "portalhood," Yahoo! is becoming more and more like a publisher. Following its hiring of Kevin Sites to produce original multi-media content from "every armed conflict in the world," the company is hiring finance writers. Presumably, original exclusive-to-Yahoo! content would command a premium from advertisers. It'll be fascinating to watch what types of sponsorship deals emerge from these new content initiatives.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 6:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 21, 2005

A Really Fast, Nimble Online Publisher!

Actions really can speaker louder than words.

I'm just back from Buenos Aires, where I spoke at a conference on online journalism sponsored by the Argentine daily business newspaper Infobae.

The same day I gave my talk about RSS, Infobae made RSS available to its online readers. Here's the amazing part: until I gave my speech, Infobae was completely unaware of the technology. Yet they got RSS up and running in just one day!

Infobae's Patricia Santa Marina told me later the paper though RSS sounded like a good idea, so they just did it. No meetings. No strategy sessions. Just action.

I heard plenty of good ideas in Buenos Aires. But nothing impressed me more than Infobae's 'just do it' approach to a new online technology.

Update: Gave the same talk again to a class of NYU grad students. One just e-mailed to say she's building a business plan for a new ABCNews.com site section, and RSS is now part of that plan. The more people know about RSS, the more they want it. I'm beginning to feel like some sort of apostle.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 12:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 20, 2005

Online strong for NYT

The New York Times Company is making staff reductions in a "challenging" climate for traditional advertising. Meanwhile online, particularly About.com, is seeing double-digit growth. A few tidbits:

Internet ad revenues for the newspaper-related properties increased 28.3% for August 2005 due to strong growth in display advertising and in all classified advertising categories. Year-to-date Internet ad revenues grew 28.9%.

Advertising revenues for About.com increased approximately 41% in August and 34% year to date.

Strong categories at About.com include telecommunications, retail, consumer package goods, travel and technology. The unit also achieved gains in the entertainment, pharmaceuticals and financial advertising categories.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 8:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 19, 2005

MSNBC Shining Online

MSNBC.com vaulted to first place among news sites in August, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. A New York Times article (free subscription) makes note, then asks the inevitable question: "Why is MSNBC.com doing so well if its parent perennially trails other TV news channels?"

The answer? Multimedia features and Web-savvy reporting. From the article:

"They have a much savvier Web news staff than their competitors have," said Vin Crosbie, an online news consultant. MSNBC.com's content, he said, "is not a case of 'shovelware,' where you simply take something from one medium and put it almost unchanged on another."

I wonder if all that multimedia and Web-savvy are translating into online ad revenues for the site.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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