Google lays out world domination plans

Filed under: Online

OK, so that might not technically be true, but that's the gist of this New York Times article on Google. Among the tidbits:

• Analysts expect Google will sell over $6 billion (not a type, that's "billion") in ads this year. That surpasses any print publisher or television network. That could grow to almost $10 billion in 2006.
• Google says because of their sophisticated ad targeting users click on their ads 50 to 100% more than they do ads on Yahoo!.
• Ads incorporating graphics are definitely on the horizon.
• The boys are seriously looking at applying the same cold-hard look at ads to television, saying if increased relevance means more revenue for everyone, then why not.
• Google Base will be a "frontal assault" on all online classfieds providers.

Beyond the interesting points of discussion the article also contains a pretty good look into the history and philosophy of both Google and those who use it as an advertising medium. Staci at PaidContent has a great commentary on the article the potential implications of moves into other media.

 

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Infomercials on your iPod

Filed under: Online

The National Association of Photoshop Professionals has released "Photoshop TV", a video podcast that is, in essence, an infomercial for the popular photo-manipulation software. The videocast (or, if you prefer, vlog, v-log, vidcast, advercast, videoad or any of the other NewSpeak terms) is quickly becoming a favorite via Apple's iTunes software that now supports video and the iPods that compliment it. People are making the consious choice to download and veiw long form commercials in what can only be termed a huge win for Photoshop. 

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For NPR, 4 Million Podcast Downloads and Acura as Sponsor

National Public Radio podcasts have been downloaded 4 million times in the two months since it launched the service, reports paidContent. All 17 NPR offerings have ranked among iTunes' Top 100...

Blackberry 8700c Cingular Ad Leaked

Uh oh. Looks like the Cingular ad for the new 8700c Blackberry got leaked onto PinStack. Now don't get me wrong, it could be photoshopped, could be altered. But has that ever stopped Gizmodo from writing about something before? Didn't think so.

As you can see, the deets include a $299 pricetag with a 1-year agreement, GSM quad-band, EDGE connectivity, and bluetooth. Not bad—then again, aside from the EDGE, it's the same damn thing as the 7290. Keep on the lookout for the real ad soon.

BlackBerry 8700c Cingular ad leaks [Mobiletracker]

Adman John Elliott Jr. dies

John Elliott Jr. has died at 84.

He landed his first job in advertising in 1945 as a copywriter at what was then Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn, now the BBDO Worldwide division of the Omnicom Group. He joined Ogilvy in 1960 to run the newly acquired Shell Oil Company account and quickly began his ascent at the agency. He retired as chairman of Ogilvy & Mather International in 1982. "Big ideas are so hard to recognize, so fragile, so easy to kill," Mr. Elliott said in announcing his retirement at the agency's annual meeting in December 1981. "Don't forget that, all of you who don't have them." Mr. Elliott's dry wit and self-deprecating sense of humor were staples of the many speeches he delivered at advertising industry events. Looking back on his early days as a copywriter, he once said: "I was pretty good, but not good enough. I could execute campaigns, but never came up with the big ideas, so I went into a less demanding kind of work. I became an account man."

A peek at how Google will crash into classifieds

A look at Google and classified, and links to other screenshots of new Yahoo and Google features

The Missing Piece in the RSS Puzzle

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the future of RSS. There's certainly a lot right with it, but something very big is missing - RSS expression - and this spells opportunity.

Right now, if you think about it, RSS is mostly a passive “receive medium.” First you opt-in to receive the feeds that interest you. Then you wait for new content to be published and later you “consume” it in your news aggregator. Sure, RSS is open for anyone to publish, but in the end we're all shooting at the same hoop - to get individuals passively consuming our content.

What's missing from this equation is the means for an individual to express themselves around a common want or need and then see it aggregated via RSS. For example, automotive companies should be able to subscribe to a feed of all the people who expressed interest in buying a hybrid car from their brand (assuming they don't already offer one). Politicians should be able to easily find an RSS feed of all individuals who support a particular bill. And Dell should be able to subscribe to a feed that aggregates all of the people who are voicing complaints about their computers.

We can't do any of these right now because no such vehicle exists. Technorati tags, structured blogging and 43 Things come close. However, these are mostly the domain of geeks. The key to making RSS expression happen on a mass scale is to seamlessly embed the tools right inside the platforms that people use already - e.g. eBay, Windows, Amazon, etc. This is what I hope we'll see happen over the next 18 - 24 months.

Technorati Tags: 43things, Structured Blogging, Tagging, Tags, Technorati

Rest in Peace

An executive who led the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency in the mid-'70s, succeeding founder David Ogilvy, died Saturday. John Elliott Jr. started work in advertising in 1945 and retired in 1981. Notable quote: "Big ideas are so hard to...

New ad agency makes self-promotional viral

Two creatives, writer Tom Camp and AD Jason Smith, have left Carmichael Lynch to start Pocket Hercules. They have made a little film where the advertising conglomerates get taken on by, yup, Pocket Hercules.

120 short films advertise new 2006 VW Passat features

One of the last advertising campaigns for VW to come out of Arnold Worldwide before the account goes to CP+B (in December) is for the 2006 VW Passat. A micro site has been created that will eventually feature 120 short films touting the new features of the Passat - currently there are 46 . None of the films show the car but use related/unrelated type vignettes, such as a girl smiling for a school photo with braces for the chrome front grille and a man investigating if the light stays on in the fridge for luggage compartment light.

Put DVD Content onto TiVo

Website Adverse Realms offers a step-by-step guide to putting ripped DVD content onto your TiVo for on-demand viewing.

Once transfered you can view the video just like you would any other TiVo program. Thanks to Joshua Garnett.

RFID tags: fear or party?

In a controversial recent book (Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID) Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre try to make the case that corporations and government agencies are in collusion to put tiny radio transmitters on nearly everything we buy. More practically, RFID (radio frequency identification) cells are radio tag replacements for barcode...

Apple Reports 1 Million-plus Video Downloads Since Oct. 12

: Maybe, just maybe, there's a business in portable video after all. If Steve Jobs had listened to, well, last year's Steve Jobs, he wouldn't be able to announce that Apple's U.S. iTunes store has delivered more than 1 million video downloads since the Oct. 12 debut of the video iPod. Jobs via press release: "Selling one million videos in less than 20 days strongly suggests there is a market for legal video downloads. Our next challenge is to broaden our content offerings, so that customers can enjoy watching more videos on their computers and new iPods."

Vespa Leverages High Gas Prices In Campaign

New York's Ad Store has launched a new campaign for Piaggio USA's Vespa scooters. The campaign consists six outdoor ads which explain the merits of owning a Vespa when gas prices are sky high. Ad headlines include "Relieves Gas...

Liberating Content From Behind The Registration Gate

BugMeNot.com was created as a mechanism to quickly bypass the login of web sites that require compulsory registration and/or the collection of personal/demographic information (such as the New York Times).

I had never used this tool until moments ago. I'm impressed.

On their site, they point to the anti-registration reasoning behind the service.

-It's a breach of privacy.

-Sites don't have a great track record with the whole spam thing.

-It's contrary to the fundamental spirit of the net. Just ask Google.

-It's pointless due to the significant percentage of users who enter fake demographic details anyway.

-It's a waste of time.

-It's annoying as hell.

-Imagine if every site required registration to access content.

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Google May Try TV Ad Sales; 'Dream On,' Say Media Buyers

Google, having recently ventured into print advertising, is considering yet another way to extend its advertising program, this time to TV, according to the New York Post (via MediaBuyerPlanner). TV...

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Do ads in the Ukraine reflect its culture?

A BBC Magazine reader shares some of the reasons she dislikes Ukrainian television commercials.

Where I live, the advert breaks in programmes are so long I once walked away from the TV, had a shower, washed my hair, made a cup of tea and still made it back to the couch before the show started again. Welcome to commercial breaks, Ukraine-style. [...snip...] It's been exceedingly difficult for me not to judge Ukrainian culture by its advertising. If nothing else, I think it reflects the culture's stage of development in regard to gender equality. For example, I have yet to see a single advert where a man does any kind of domestic activity.

Yahoo! Social Media Tools

Matt McAllister has done more real work at Yahoo in three months than many corporate dweebs do in an entire lifetime. Matt first went to Yahoo (from IDG) back in July and I ran into him there - while schmoozing at the cafeteria scene - one fine summer day.

"Yo - lets' schmooze RedirectThis!" he says.

I say "Right on - we renamed ReBlog.org and now we're trying to figure out how to deploy it. We need it for our DLAs - but there's no reason we all can't use it."

"Well I'm working on something similar - let's talk." So Matt and I get together and schmooze and now he's released the first version of the grand, chiclet strategy - Yahoo! Social Media Tools.

There's a mail list for those who wish to participate in moving this sort of stuff - forward. You can bet I'll be there.

OK - so what is it?

This first version of Yahoo! Social Media Tools features standard chiclet buttons for:

- Save to My Web (which is the Yahoo bookmarlet/delicious clone thinie)

- Blog This (Oh my God - just what we've been waiting for!)

- Print this (even cooler) - which will enable you (the software/page/content developer to enable folks to print your page to their local printer. Easily.

ut standardizing on chiclets?

Aren't you tired of all the DAM chiclets? Shouldn't we all standardize on them and set up web services to enable us to customize these chiclets to our OWN behavior, favorite tools or destinations. And god forbid - enable interop between each other?

Now let's see - now that we can Blog This to Y! 360 - where else might you wanna blog to?

HHHmmm - and if there was a web service that could enable me to DECIDE where I wanted to send my blog post (in other words - which tool) then that might be coolio to. And if this web service was open source, free, not controlled by Yahoo, but supported by Yahoo - well dam, that might even be coolio-icious. And the source was available so anyone could set one up and run it - or use the MIMEhandler or the Greasemonkey script to discover 'Blog This' compatible content.

Just think - folks could put little chiclets on their micro-content (or even just plain old blog posts) and folks could click and send these posts directly to their tool.

Dam - you mean like what Radio Userland was doing 3-4 years ago and nobody else has even done - since? Damm! That's cool.

:-)

It was originally called ReBlg.org - but we've renamed it - RedirectThis.com - but maybe we'll just call it 'Blog This'. Sounds good to me.

Oh - did I forget to tell you that RedirectThis supports microcontent structured blogging sites like this and maintains the integrity of the microcontent when you send it to new kidns of Structured Blogging tools?

Oooops sorry. And I did I forget to tell you that we're baking this into everything we do?

SBC Will Take AT&T Name After Buyout

: So it is official now after months of speculation: SBC, which is in the process of buying out AT&T, will take the name of the venerable telephone firm - the company from which it was broken off at regulator's behest more than 20 years ago.
SBC said AT&T's "proud and storied heritage, as well as unparalleled recognition around the globe among both businesses and consumers." The company added that "the transition to the new brand will be heavily promoted with the largest multimedia advertising and marketing campaign in either company's history."
Should be lotsa fun, if nothing else...and the media companies should see a bunch of ad money flowing in.

iPod Wide Screen Video Playback

According to Mac enthusiast website MacBidouille, the video iPod will play back 640x352 widescreen video through the TV out (although not on the built-in iPod screen).

Un simple mot pour confirmer que nous avons réencodé plusieurs films en 640 x 352 et que le résultat est plus que correct sur TV. Nous avons également testé l'iPod en connexion directe sur un rétroprojecteur Sony à la Fnac des Ternes aujourd'hui avec l'aide d'un vendeur Fnac et le résultat était très correct également. Plusieurs clients se sont arrêtés pour regarder de plus près l'iPod ...

A simple word of confirmation that a film encoded at 640x352 played back correctly on TV.

They also connected the iPod directly to a rear-projection Sony and the results were correctly proportioned. Another reason to love the iPod.

MSN IM ads not based on chat text

Filed under: Online

Earlier this week I passed on news that ads were appearing within MSN's Messenger instant messaging application. Speculation ran along the lines of ads appearing based on what the users were chatting about that instant. Well an executive from Microsoft has put those privacy fears to rest. According to David Jabubowski from Microsoft the ads are contextual based only on the demographic information the user shared when they signed up for their Passport account. The ads are seperate from MSN's newly launched adCenter advertising network but that may change in the future according to Jabubowski. 

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AFK: Doctorow, Krucoff, Oxfeld, Wheaton, and Winer

Cory Doctorow reads from Themepunks at the Stanhope Centre.

Krucoff and Oxfeld bury the hatchet.

Jeffrey Rowland's Overcompensating stars Wil Wheaton. Someone's courting the blogebrities -- and you know I don't hold for that sort of thing.

You can hang out with Dave Winer Thursday mornings.

Google Jagger Devalues Homepages?

George McDaniels alerted me to the fact Google Blogoscoped can no longer be found when searching for [Google Blog], at least not among the first few results like it had been for a long time. Also, I noticed entering [Google Blogoscoped] I get a sub-page in the archive here as first Google result, and only the second is the homepage (entering just [ ... (Full post)

YaWhere?

Why do Yahoo's blog search results pile up in a column on the right where they look like advertising?

Here are the same first-pass search results at Feedster, IceRocket, Google Blogsearch and Technorati.

The results are so different that I don't see how anybody can call RSS (or Live Web) search "commoditized".

Attack of the Blogs

Sure, the name is a bit Lucasian....but the article in the current edition of Forbes makes some good points about the wrath of the blogosphere.

Attack of the Blogs [Forbes]

Online Offers Best Revenue Hope For Newspapers

: And newspapers face fierce competition, yadayada -- you know the drill. This AP story about a panel at the Associated Press Managing Editors annual conference going on this week in San Jose is chock full of the obvious from very earnest, bright people and precious little that advances the conversation.
Lynn Dickerson, publisher and president, The Modesto Bee: "The world is changing, and clearly the demand for our product is not as high as it once was. ... I still think we're the last collective effort for democracy. We've got to survive, and we've got to succeed."
Peter Appert, senior analyst, Goldman Sachs: "From an economic standpoint, there are two solutions: Grow revenues faster or shrink costs. ... Shrinking costs is not attractive, so it's all about growing revenue." Appert suggested -- here's the something sort of new and potentially dangerous -- rethinking business plans, including the relationship between the editorial and advertising departments.
Rich Skrenta, CEO, Topix.net: "The problem is some information is becoming commoditized. Do you need people repackaging press releases or rewriting the same information?"
One constant theme: use the difference between newspapers and the rest of the info world as a selling point.

On Google And TV Ads

It is inevitable, to my mind, that Google will get into brokering television ads. But the rumors running around the web (BB has a good round up) feel a bit premature. My guess is we'll see a test in the next few quarters...

TiVo is blogging

TiVo has launched a blog, written by a user/evangelist, to talk about the joys of using TiVo. Right now, it doesn't seem to consist of much more than a Welcome message. But at this point, it looks like the site is more intent on being a big sounding board for TiVo lovers, not so much a place to foster genuine discussion between TiVo and its users, to try and make the product better.

We're hoping (as longtime TiVo users) that this site will mature and attempt to make a more genuine connection (i.e. take some of the bad with the good, foster true feedback and discussion with their user base, etc.) with this new communication channel. While it's really cool to have a blog and all, using it to push fluffy content to your users isn't necessarily what it's all about. TiVo -- if you need good corporate blogging examples, GM is a pretty good place to start.

In the meantime, if you're looking for tips and tricks for your PVR, make sure to check out the excellent PVRblog.

TiVo Blog [TiVo.com]

Fuse and MySpace team up

Fuse TV (the music video channel that ACTUALLY plays music videos) has teamed up with MySpace on a campaign that invites unsigned artists to submit their videos via MySpace for playlist consideration on Fuse. The promotion solicits videos online, then on Nov. 7, Fuse and agency Deep Focus will select five finalists, from which MySpace members will pick the winner.

MySpace was recently acquired by Fox Interactive Media, and is about to celebrate its second anniversary.

Fuse's MySpace Promo Solicits Band Videos [Adweek]

Dodge, P&G feeling Ripe

RipeTV launches on Friday, and they've just announced that Dodge and P&G will be on board as advertisers for the first run of content. RipeTV is the Los Angeles-based interactive TV group that's got deals in place with Comcast to distribute its brand of interactive or "immersive" advertising, targeted at the young male demographic. More on this, as it develops.

Dodge, P&G Ads for RipeTV Web Launch [MarketingVOX]