Wikipedia is the Next Google

Fear. You can just feel it in the air, can't you? There is fear everywhere that Google has become too powerful. As John Battelle notes, the tide of public opinion is starting to turn from loving Google to fearing them. Perhaps. But I have news for you. Google's not the only monarch to watch - or fear - anymore. Despite the media's fascination with all things search, Wikipedia is waiting in the wings as the next Google. They (or maybe that's “we”) are the emerging king disruptor; the one entity that we will soon fear most, if not already.

Let's take a walk through history. King Disruptor I was Microsoft. For years this king attracted legions of fans for providing access to information; for making getting on the Internet easy. However, soon the once-loved king saw its popularity erode once Microsoft invaded one too many industries.

At its peak, Microsoft ruled the technology kingdom like a tyrant, leaving fear everywhere in its wake. This reached a climax when it slayed the emerging prince with so much promise, Netscape. Later, as Microsoft invaded the nations of telecommunications, cable, gaming and media, it began to attract more ire. Eventually, the fear rose to a fever pitch and it was determined that Microsoft crossed the line. It went too far.The people - the people's government that is - rose up to dethrone the king, or at least slow it.

In Microsoft's wake a new ruler emerged - King Disruptor II, commonly known as Google. With its lightning quick search technology, friendly face and “do no evil” motto, Google won fans around the world. But eventually they too, like Microsoft, began to face enemies when they went too far. Now, for all of Google's contributions to society, King Disruptor II is viewed as a scary king. This will surely continue as Google grows, moving its tentacles in to areas like books, classifieds, email, news, shopping, advertising, entertainment and more. It will only become a bigger target.

History is about to repeat itself. A successor to Google's throne is waiting in the wings - it's Wikipedia, King Disruptor III. Like its predecessors, Wikipedia is powerful because it provides access to largely accurate information that can be hard to find. This king, however, is unlike any other because it operates in a completely democratic way. It's run by the people, without any grand financial ambitions. This doesn't mean its rule will be perceived solely as a benevolent one, however.

Already, Wikipedia instills a deeper fear than either Google or Microsoft did when they were at such a young age. It's the emerging king. Will it face the same scrutiny and fate as its predecessors as it expands? Certainly. But this time it will be far more difficult to slow. Yes, King Disruptor III - Wikipedia - might rule for years. And perhaps this may just be the way it was meant to be.

Technorati Tags: Google, microsoft, Wikipedia

Pesco's Salon article on big ideas in technology

David Pescovitz: As part of their Big Idea series, Salon asked me to describe several tech developments that I find intriguing. I had a lot of fun writing the article, but of course the real credit goes to the amazing people who are actually doing the research! The Big Ideas I cover include:

1. Robugs: Swarms of tiny robotic insects.

2. Hacking DNA: Creating life one BioBrick at a time

3. Location, location, location: The GeoWeb

4. Maker mindset: DIY technology

5. Biology as art: Genetic creativity

6. Desktop manufacturing: 3D printing and inkjet electronics

Link (Thanks, Jeanne Carstensen!)

Welcome to the hobby economy

Economists don't know what to do about it.

It's hard to measure, hard to quantify and a little odd to explain.

More and more people are spending more and more time (and money) on pursuits that have no pay off other than satisfaction.

"Why should you have a blog?" they ask. "How are you going to make any money?"

"Why post your photos on flickr?" they wonder. "You don't get compensated by people who see them." Or your garage band's songs on an MP3 site. Or spending time and money on projects like: The Basket Book: Over 30 Magnificent Baskets To Make and Enjoy.

Of course, economists don't really worry about this. They understand perfectly well that economics is able to easily explain that human beings pursue things that satsify them.

What the web is doing, though, is exposing lots of avenues for people to use to find satisfaction (but not necessarily cash). Make magazine is page after page of geek projects that are fun, but not profitable. Other sites make it easy for you to build a tube amplifier or splice your own DNA.

Now that white-collar workers regularly spend 75 hours a week at work (did you know the CEO of GE has been spending more than 100 hours a week--for twenty years?!) there's plenty of time to surf the web and get paid for it.

Advice for freelancers

Web design freelancer Cameron Moll has posted some great tips and lessons learned about freelancing. A few of the tips are industry specific, but most will apply to almost any freelance gig.

If you're a freelancer now, or are considering making the leap, it's well worth checking out.

Michael Robertson launches Oboe "music locker" service

Xeni Jardin: MP3Tunes, Michael Robertson's post-MP3.com venture, today launched a music locker service called Oboe. Michael tells Boing Boing:

You can store all of your own music, making your entire music collection playable from any browser in the world. Plus you can also sync that entire music collection and playlists to multiple computers with a single mouse click. Oboe is the jukebox in the sky that can store all library for safety, playback and move your music to any location for offline playback as well.

Here's some things which I think make Oboe interesting.

- Oboe is the only online music locker. There are photo lockers, email lockers, general purpose storage, even video lockers but no music lockers and music is ideal for lockers because it's used repeatedly from multiple locations.
- $39.95 per year for unlimited storage and unlimited bandwidth. No per gb billing for either storage or bandwidth.
- Works on Mac/Win/Lin with MP3, AAC, WMA and Ogg files.
- First of its kind iTunes plug-in so iTunes users will be able to sync their entire music collection from within iTunes with one mouse click. This makes it ideal if the user just wants a simple backup of their music. When they realize they can now access their music from any website or zap it to other computers they will be amazed.
- Last time I launched a locker system called my.mp3 it triggered a hailstorm of lawsuits. Hopefully we can avoid them this time, but you just can never tell with the music industry.
- I'm personally a big advocate of open formats and open APIs which Oboe has. So today we're announcing syncing to PCs of all flavors, but tomorrow those same APIs will let you sync your music collection to any phone, PDA, car, tablet, etc.

HP Marketing Re-org Pits Omnicom against Publicis

Hewlett-Packard has begun to devolve marketing responsibility from a centralized solution to individual business units, starting an ongoing evaluation of agencies - giving Omnicom Group a chance to...

From the mail bag

Peter asks: Sometimes not all the ads display in each ad unit – for example there will only be 2 ads in the medium rectangle ad unit instead of 4. Is this normal?

We say: Yes, this is normal. With expanded text ads, AdSense technology automatically displays fewer ads when we determine that larger ads will perform better on a particular page. This should improve monetization for you.


Wayne asks: The Inside Adsense blog says that publishers can maximize their income by having multiple ad units on their web pages. Is this new? Last year I got an email from Google telling me that I wasn't allowed to have more than one ad unit per page.

We say: Yes, on each page of your site AdSense is now able to support up to:

• 3 ad units
  
• 2 AdSense for search boxes
  
• 1 link unit
  
• 1 referral button per product (i.e., 1 AdSense referral button and 1 Firefox plus Google Toolbar referral button).
  

How does AdSense treat websites using frames?

We say: In order to use AdSense on a frames-based page, you'll need to follow two steps. First, when generating your AdSense ad code, make sure to check the 'Framed page' checkbox. Next, you'll need to paste your AdSense code in the primary content frame of your site. Pasting the AdSense code in the same frame as your site content allows our crawlers to understand your page and serve relevant ads accordingly.

Posted by Suzie - AdSense Publisher Support

It's All About The Music: Part 2

What is a day in the life of the White Stripes like? Come, tumble down the rabbit hole and find out.

m>The White Stripes "The Denial Twist" Music Video

It would seem that V2 Music artist The White Stripes have taken Bjork's place as Michel Gondry's muse. "Denial Twist" marks the fourth video that the director and band have collaborated on. Leaving in their wake a pile of Legos and 20-some odd drum kits, they now tackle the Conan O'Brien Show. This may seem an odd setting for video- maybe even a bit like shameless plug for The Late Show- but in fact, Gondry is reconstructing a day out of a week in the White Stripe's life. Many readers may remember when their album 'Elephant' was released, the Stripes played Conan five consecutive nights to promote the record. (Description provided by content owner)

Read the entire review at http://mvwire.com

Artist: White Stripes
Song: The Denial Twist
Label: V2
Directory: Michel Gondry
Production Co.: Partizan

MVWire.com
3 min 31 sec

Marketing Services Blowing Up

According to Lewis Lazare, Draft/Chicago is looking to add 50 new jobs across all disciplines, including creative, account services, interactive, multicultural and health care.

The hiring spurt comes in the wake of several new business wins in 2005, including the Los Angeles Times, Johnson & Johnson, the American Marketing Association and S.C. Johnson.

"With clients shifting their advertising budgets from traditional media to more measurable marketing services, we've experienced incredible opportunity and growth," said Yvonne Furth, president and COO of Draft/Chicago.

Microsoft testing classfieds service

Filed under: Online

Microsoft is reportedly moving into the free online classifieds market. Unline the recently launched Google Base, the Microsoft service - internally referred to as Fremont - will most assuredly and unmistakably be a classifieds service and not just a general online database. The idea to start this was born out of an internal classifieds service Microsoft ran where employees could connect with items for sale and more. Listings will be integrated with Microsoft's map service so potential buyers can see where an item is coming from. Users listing products will be able to make those items/services viewable only by members of MSN's products like Hotmail, Messenger or MSN Spaces. Contextual ads will also appear next to listings found via search. 

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Mags Behaving Badly? B2.0 & Wired

With citizen journalism comes a greater scrutiny of not only the press but also the 'trade' press. The blog Alarm Clock this morning compains about Business 2.0 stealing a methodology for valuing blog networks without reference to their original thinking. Their post was originally entitled 'B2.0...

Six Flags’ Mr. Six to get deep-sixed

Mr. Six memorabilia flies off the shelves. The look-alike contests draw hundreds. He has his own roller coaster, Mr. Six’s Pandemonium. All in all, Mr. Six has been a huge, if annoying, success. Despite this, Dan Snyder, who took control...

Download of the Day, part II: foXpose for Firefox 1.5

Firefox 1.5 extension foXpose tiles web page tabs much like Mac OS X's fancy Expose feature.

After installing foXpose, hit Control-Shift-X to view a tiled preview of all your open Firefox tabs and easily switch from one to another. This extension only works with Firefox version 1.5, so it's a great consolation prize after losing half your extensions which don't yet work with the upgrade. foXpose is a free download, works everywhere Firefox does.

Storyboarding Rich Internet Applications with Visio

The recent rise in more powerful technologies that provide richer user experiences online has presented us with a challenge. As designers, we are moving from from designing for "PIAs" to designing for "RIAs." Does our documentation style change with the technology? Will our standard ways do the job?

Better visual working memory stems from ignoring stuff

Cory Doctorow: People who have better "visual working memory" (correlated with performing well on many cognitive tests) aren't better at remembering things -- they're better at ignoring unimportant things. Researchers at the University of Oregon used new brain-measurement techniques to determine that high scorers for visual working memory tests aren't cramming more material into their brains, but rather are ignoring lots of items.

Most of what I do from day to day is ignore stuff -- quickly deleting emails that I won't be able to answer or don't need to read, skipping through RSS to get at the good stuff, separating small quanta of wheat from mountains of chaff. I can totally believe that the key to survival in the information age is not paying attention to unimportant stuff.

The findings turn upside down the popular concept that a person's memory capacity, which is strongly related to intelligence, is solely dependent upon the amount of information you can cram into your head at one time. These results have broad implications and may lead to developing more effective ways to optimize memory as well as improved diagnosis and treatment of cognitive deficits associated with attention deficit disorder and schizophrenia...

"People differed systematically, and dramatically, in their ability to keep irrelevant items out of awareness," Vogel said. "This doesn't mean people with low capacity are cognitively impaired. There may be advantages to having a lot of seemingly irrelevant information coming to mind. Being a bit scattered tends to be a trait of highly imaginative people."

Collision Detection)

Earnings: TiVo Passes 4 Million Subs In 3Q05 But Reports Net Loss Of $14.2 million

: TiVo passed 4 million subs last quarter, netting 434,000 new subs; the bulk by far -- 379,000 -- came from DirecTV subs fueled by rebates that provided units essentially for free. The DirecTV wave stemmed in no small part from efforts to work through the stock of DirecTV-TiVo boxes before offering its own branded DVR. The number of TiVo-owned subs added actually shrank year over year, to 55,000 net from 103,000 last year. CEO Tom Rogers: "We are focused on growing our subscription base through three major efforts: by reinvigorating our sales and marketing efforts; differentiating ourselves from generic DVRs with unique features; and continuing to develop partnerships and alliances to further broaden TiVo's reach."
As for the financials, no profit for the third quarter after being in the black for 2Q05 but the numbers are improved year over year. Service and technology revenues were up 52 percent to $43.2 million from $28.4 million in 3Q04. The company reported a net loss of $14.2 million or 17 cents per share compared to a net loss of $26.4 million or 33 cents a share for 3Q04. Another net loss is anticipated for 4Q05.Earnings release | Webcast
TiVo also announced that TiVo-enabled DVRs will be retailed in Taiwan by partner TGC, Inc.

Personal Google Agent, Job of the Future?

There's so much information out there on any given person -- including, at times, false information -- it becomes hard to keep track. Let alone, act on the information when you see it's wrong. Say, someone posted a comment in a web forum saying, "John Doe is a fraudster who stole my identity." It takes time to react. You might need to subscribe to ... (Full post)

The Digital Living Room, Apple Style

My Jupiter colleague Michael Gartenberg is providing some great thinking about a rumor that Apple is going to spin its Mac Mini into a media-hub. I definitely agree with him when he says this could be a really significant, big deal. Interestingly, I was just considering buying a Mac Mini for the SteinHaus for just this purpose.

I think this vision has a lot of traction, simply because it seems to bring together elements of interactive and broadcast content very seamlessly, which ultimately can spark a number of interesting advertising innovations.

Many of which will probably be more interesting than allowing TiVo owners the ability to search for commercials to skip.

Celebrity endorsers no longer a sure thing

Filed under: Gripes, Television

It should come as no surprise - at least no one who's been reading PR/advertising blogs for the last six months - that celebrity endorsers and spokespeople no longer are as effective as they once were. That's the lesson that The Gap learned. A long string of celebrities appearing in their commercials and ads has gone hand in hand with a slipping in same-store sales. There are, to me, three factors at play here:

1. Celebrities are under more scrutiny now than ever before. A wide variety of sensationalistic magazines and TV shows mean that the private lives of stars are aired for all to see constantly. It's very hard to assign credibility to someone you know has cheated on their wife/husband, whether it's a celebrity or your neighbor. They chose to focus on celebrity endorsers because it worked in the past. So did aquaducts but then someone discovered you could put the pipes below ground. Adapt.
2. Blogs and other social media have built a network of trust and reliability for their unfiltered and unadulturated opinions. Why should someone believe Sarah Jessica Parker - when she was paid to endorse a product - when an ordinary citizen and consumer gives you a more open and honest opinion.
3. As the article states, Gap's brand name doesn't stand for anything anymore. There are too many other stores in the mall, all angling for the same group of 13-25 year olds. The Gap may have been where your older sister shopped but she's, like, totally out of college already.

 

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Grand Central, Swivels

PaidContent says Halsey Minor, founder of C/Net has literally swiveled and turned his struggling web-services start-up Grand Central into Swivel, a company that in the hottest Web space: online advertising and e-commerce.

Blog Advice from the Masters

Harvard Business school chimes in with their obligatory article about the power of corporate blogging for public relations. What's notable about this piece, however, is the advice offered by experts on how to have a distinct focus, feature distinctive voices while remaining open to comments.

Create your own 404 page

Writer and web designer Ian LLoyd offers tips on creating a user friendly Error 404 page for your website.

You’ve requested a page — either by typing a URL directly into the address bar or clicking on an out-of-date link and you’ve found yourself in the middle of cyberspace nowhere. A user-friendly website will give you a helping hand while many others will simply do nothing, relying on the browser’s built-in ability to explain what the problem is. We can do better than that, can’t we?

With a friendly Error 404 page, readers won't feel quite so alienated if they reach a dead link. Instead, you can point them to the resources they need to find what they were looking for to begin with.

Loads O New Features

Google is accelerating the pace of change in both its results and its home page. Many readers have emailed me recently with tips, here are a few:

First, "Personalized Home" is now standard on the home page, up on the top right. This is an attempt to push more of us toward using its portal Fusion.

Also, many have noticed the new way Google is clustering results based on similar phrases. Try searches for President's Day Weekend, for example. And lastly, as I've noted before, Google continues to push adoption of its Toolbar, now with banner ads for it at the bottom of results (thanks Peter).

Jack Kornfield on mindfulness

FINDING MY RELIGION / Buddhist teacher and author Jack Kornfield on mindfulness, happiness and his own spiritual journey

SF Gate interviews Bay Area meditation teacher Jack Kornfield:

What is mindfulness and why is it important?

Mindfulness is an innate human capacity to deliberately pay full attention to where we are, to our actual experience, and to learn from it.

Much of our day we spend on automatic pilot. People know the experience of driving somewhere, pulling up to the curb and all of a sudden realizing, “Wow, I was hardly aware I was even driving. How did I get here?” When we pay attention, it is gracious, which means that there is space for our joys and sorrows, our pain and losses, all to be held in a peaceful way…

For many people, happiness is about chasing after something — a new car, a promotion, a trip to Bermuda. But when they get it they aren’t satisfied. They want more. Why do you think that happens?

I’ll tell you a story. A reporter was asking the Dalai Lama on his recent visit to Washington, “You have written this book, ‘The Art of Happiness,’ which was on the best-seller list for two years — could you please tell me and my readers about the happiest moment of your life?” And the Dalai Lama smiled and said, “I think now!”

Happiness isn’t about getting something in the future. Happiness is the capacity to open the heart and eyes and spirit and be where we are and find happiness in the midst of it. Even in the place of difficulty, there is a kind of happiness that comes if we’ve been compassionate, that can help us through it. So it’s different than pleasure, and it’s different than chasing after something.

Kornfield co-founded Spirit Rock and is the author of many books, including A Path with Heart — I haven’t read it yet, but it’s been recommended to me by several people as a sensible introduction to meditation and a spiritual path.

[ via Ms. Stiness ]

Tags: meditation, mindfulness, buddhism,

Akamai: Cyber Monday Traffic Spikes 35 Percent

Akamai Retail Net Usage Index - click to enlarge Traffic to online retailer sites in North America spiked 35 percent above normal levels on Cyber Monday, according to Akamai's Net Usage Index for...

Google Video Dead

The Google Video service seems to be completely dead -- it doesn't return any results when searching, there are no more random/ popular videos on the front-page, and older permanent links to videos fail to work as well. I've asked Google for a statement and will post updates here. [Thanks Francesco L.] (Full post)

Fairway Blog...so Close

The ups and the downs of a blog by a cheesemonger from Fairway, a local foodie store here in NYC.

CH Holiday 2005 Gift Guide

Last year we launched our first holiday gift guide. Those of you who have been with us for a while will remember that we asked you to pay for it. That was an interesting experiment, but we like free content so this year we decided not to charge you to get the guide. And this year it's even better!

We've got a few great exclusives. We've searched for the new and noteworthy. Added a few classics. And revisited some of our favorite gift ideas from the site. Almost everything is available online to make your holiday shopping as painless as possible. Check it out now and check back often as the guide will be updated daily.

So many blogs, so little time

Ok here's a thought. Most blogs are busy recycling the contents of other blogs (and news...), this one included. They are the filter feeders of the internet. For those of us that like our information recycled. Blog etiquette teaches us to always link to our sources. But what if the source is (almost inconceivably) not something you can hyper-link to?

Or perhaps thats the point? In this era of information overload, having someone else whose opinion you trust pre-chew your content just makes it more digestible. So much information, so little time.

I've read one blog too many this evening.

Microsoft Moves Beyond the PC

The Economist writes:

Microsoft has been trying for years to move beyond the PC, and into other devices such as mobile phones, television set-top boxes and games consoles. “The big über-strategy that this falls under relates to what's happening in the home,” says Robbie Bach, Microsoft's “chief Xbox officer” and head of a newly formed business unit that brings together Microsoft's gaming, mobile and TV divisions. “We identified many years ago that the digital revolution was going to have a big impact, and we see a big opportunity there,” he says. As all these other electronic devices increasingly resemble computers, they offer Microsoft new opportunities to sell software. Just as importantly, they offer new avenues for growth: sales of non-PC devices are growing much faster than sales of PCs. “Microsoft wants the next 30 years to be as successful as the last 30 years, so we have to continually find new market opportunities,” says Christine Heckart of Microsoft's TV division.

Search Engine Brands: Google is The Guide

There's been a bunch of buzz the last few days about the Search Engine Experiment. The live test lets you put in a search term: the results from MSN, Yahoo and Google are returned and you're asked to determine which set you think is the most relevant (and therefore best). Google wins, but not by a huge margin. And if you add up Yahoo and MSN, you can very reasonably say that more than half of all people (or, test-takers, if you want to be specific) say that they can find better results at "other than Google".

The question on everyone's mind (notably Seth and Guillaume) is "why?!". If you were to ask people (as Jupiter has) which search engine is best, you get around 70% saying Google. Clearly there is a delta of at least 20% of the audience between actual quality and perceived quality.

So, is the challenge figuring out a better search mousetrap? Nope. There are plenty of interesting experiments out there, and Google's reliance on links represents a significant challenge to keeping their index free and clean.

Comparisons to Coke vs. Pepsi or any other product fall flat as well, and don't really dive into the nature of the brand. The fact is, the Internet represents a great big mystery to nearly everyone. Some have basic needs, some more complex. But everyone needs a guide.

Various brands have taken this guide position over the last decade. Wired Magazine held it for a while. Apple was there (briefly, with the introduction of the iMac), as was Yahoo!

In some sense, the fight for this position is a zero-sum game: only one brand can occupy the guide position. Search engines need to not only look at their functionality, but rather whether or not this functionality gets them closer to the prized position of Guide. Google will continue to maintain this valuable position in the consumer's mind so long as their competitors focus on features, and not benefits.

Improve iTunes with iTunesKeys and idleTunes

The Download Squad offers a few tips for improving iTunes for Windows using free programs iTunesKeys and idleTunes.

I was a long, long, long time WinAmp user, and until... I could find a way to control iTunes with keyboard shortcuts, I wasn’t interested. Well, the first problem was dealt with a while ago, and for my second problem I found iTunesKeys, a program dedicated to solving iTunes’ woefully missing keyboard shortcut access.

The post also discusses idleTunes, which handles dead track removal and (very cool) makes iTunes compatible with other digital audio players.

Ten Rules for Web Startups

Ten Rules for Web Startups: good advice from Evan that the rest of the world seems to be linking to today as well

Worst Job Ever

Filed under: Funny, Viral

This is an absolute riot, but definitely not work safe. Ever wonder who the "can you hear me now?" guy in the Verizon Wireless commercials is talking to? Well someone has created a viral video titled "Worst Job Ever" that answers that very question. I have to say that the gentleman's eventual breakdown mirrors my own reaction to a campaign that has gone on waaaay too long. You have to stick around for the pay-off but it's completely worth it. 

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Jonathan Ive

Jonathan Ive, the man responsible for the iconic design of the iPod and iMac, has been interviewed by the UK's Daily Telegraph. Ive's aim at Apple is to make technology as useful as possible by making it simple to use. What you and I are left to deal with are the things we care about. All of the...

The Social Media League Scorecard

Here's a look at where the major US sports leagues stand in their adoption of social media. I've added a plugged-in symbol to the proper box if the league has adopted either blogs, podcasts or RSS. (Note: the NFL's blogs are not on NFL.com but on the player association site. Only the blogs have feeds so I didn't give the league a plug there.)

Technorati Tags: Baseball, Basketball, Football, Hockey, MLB, NASCAR, NBA, NFL, NHL, NHL, Sports

Google Video Redesign

Google Video comes along with a slight redesign, as Dan Neal alerts me. The front-page now contains two tabs below the search box -- popular videos (default), and random videos. Also, there will now be related videos shown for every video. (The video playback is disabled in Germany so I can't comment on that.) (Full post)

Google Dials-In The AdWords

Google is finally testing out its Click-to-Call system. (Greg Yardley first reported this news, but I have been slow in getting around to it.) It has been a long time coming. I have been waiting for this since I wrote this piece in September. I believe this is the right strategy for the company to extend its core competence: attaching ads to anything that can be served up as a web-page.

The text ad model had been getting a long in the tooth, and perhaps voice is the application that will help them attract local advertisers. It will also put them on equal footing with Microsoft, which recently showed off their click-to-call offering. Mind you, it lacks the ability to display locations on the maps with click-to-call features built in, at lease for now. (If anyone has seen map-based ads with click to call, do let me know!) The new ad-system also allows them to compete with eBay-Skype.

It seems to be a limited beta, and not working on a Mac. I am going to try it out on a PC and report back the results. Incase you folks were wondering who that third party supplying technology for this service, I will get that information to you tomorrow after I confirm the name of the company. I know which one it is, but still want to make sure before I get the word out!

Yes, Virginia, there is a secretsanta.com

We told you last week that a town in Idaho was thinking of changing its name from Santa to secretsanta.com to give publicity to the Web site of the same name. Well, it has gone ahead and done it, according...

Zomblog

Slang for zombie blog, a site...

Mashup Culture Goes Mainstream

Many MSM properties are stumbling their way towards Web 2.0. The Washington Post is not one of them. The Post is laying it down.

Welcome to washingtonpost.com's Post Remix site, affectionately known as mashingtonpost.com.

This site has two goals:

To spotlight the work of outside Web developers who've made cool and interesting projects ("mashups") using Post content.

To provide information about washingtonpost.com's various data offerings (APIs and RSS feeds).

Why are we doing this? Because we want to foster innovation, and because we want to see your ideas about new ways of displaying news and information on the Web. Here are a few examples of what people have made with washingtonpost.com content:

-Frank Wiles made News Cloud, which is a tag cloud of Post stories that lets you browse stories by keyword.

-Jacob Kaplan-Moss made Ripped from the Headlines!, a daily news quiz that's created automatically from our headline feeds.

-Adam DuVander made a world map interface to Post stories, plus a thumbnail quiz of Arts & Entertainment stories.

-Bryan Fordham made washingtonpost.com search results via RSS, which provides RSS feeds for search terms on our site.

These are the kinds of projects we'll be spotlighting on Post Remix.

If you've created something using washingtonpost.com content, or if you have an idea for somebody else to implement, let us know, and we'll include your project or idea here. Contact us by e-mailing Adrian Holovaty at adrian.holovaty (at) wpni.com.

p://www.randomculture.com/random_culture/2005/11/washington_post.html">Random Culture says, "the reader created applications aren't really that impressive right now. But the impressive part is that The Washington Post sees value in opening up their content to users."

Reporting from Deep Inside the Bubble: Geek Entertainment TV Cracks Me Up

I'm not sure if it's the amusing text overlays in the video, the fact that it's my friend Irina, or that the folks being interviewed know not to take it 100% seriously. But Geek Entertainment TV (GETV) really amuses me.

Geek Entertainment TV is an emerging global media empire, reporting from deep inside the bubble as it re-inflates. GETV covers buzzword compliant topics such as web 2.0, tagging, AJAX, social software and the bubble juice known as VCs. We like robots, so you'll hear about that too.

Irina takes her microphone and puts some of the folks "deep inside the bubble" on camera to find out what's going on. The results are both funny and informative. She once commented that it's a like a Silicon Valley version of The Colbert Report.

The best part is that Geek Entertainment TV is the result of just two people: Irina and Eddie (he handles the video and post-processing work, etc).

Give it a watch.

She's threatened to interview me in December. I can't wait. :-)

Million Dollar Homepage Snags $623,000 in Ads

U.K. college student Alex Tew, creator of Million Dollar Homepage, has brought in $623,800 in ad revenue from selling pixel ads of various sizes, reports Adrants (via MediaBuyerPlanner); he will...

DMC ditches the Adidas

Run DMC was more or less the unofficial sponsor for Adidas for most of their career. At least, DMC (Darryl McDaniels) was. He was the one with the penchant for that particular brand, but he's kicked them to the curb to sponsor (for real this time) the Le Coq Sportif brand of shoes. Le Coq Sportif, like Adidas, was a popular shoe in the hip hop community in the 1980s. DMC will help choose colors for the product's US line. That's nice and all, but I would think that "Le Coq Sportif" doesn't lend itself as well to rap lyrics.

 

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Choosing ladies or chips

Filed under: Outdoor

There's an old saying, "I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers" which is usually spoken by men who would never have said lady in their bed in the first place. Adrants points to this street ad, found on Flickr, which asks kind of the same thing, which of the three lovely ladies would you boot for eating Hunky Dory chips? Apparently pedestrians can text their answers. It's a cool idea, but one Flickr user suggests the women look too manly, and that perhaps there's a subtle joke there against the men who are ogling the advertisement. I don't believe it, but it's an entertaining thought.

 

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Denton puts Oddjack to sleep

Oddjack is dead. Denton says, "A.J. Daulerio, the editor, is a trooper, and an amusing writer, but the audience was never there." The blog will be pulled down by the month's end.

As of publication, Oddjack posts no acknowledgement of kaputment. But the death is public. A.J. tells Aileen Gallagher, FishBowlNY contributor and (she forgot to mention) A.J.'s roommate:

I was told about a month ago that November was the month that would ultimately determine my fate. As much as I tried to spike traffic with random posts--most of which had a tenuous gambling angle at best--it was painfully obvious that flukey traffic surges I'd get every now and again were not going to make this blog successful. The site had a very small readership that was pretty much maxed-out for whatever reason. Then yesterday Lockhart asked if we could meet to discuss this. I told him it wasn't necessary to meet face-to-face because I had a feeling this would be the end. He IM-ed me the dire circumstances about 5 p.m. yesterday and that was that. That is how things are done in blog world, apparently. It's very comforting.

Roll a die, flip a coin in the memory of the first Gawker Media blog to die. Then stay up all night refreshing the comment threads, waiting for A.J. to move in with Jessica and raise the kids.

Download of the Day: TheOpenCD 3.1

Previously-mentioned TheOpenCD has released the newest version.

Core applications including OpenOffice, Firefox and Gaim have been upgraded to major new versions. The popular game Battle for Wesnoth has reached 1.0 and a range familiar programs appear in minor version updates.

If you're tired of paying for software, check out TheOpenCD. The software included on TheOpenCD covers almost anything you can do on your computer, from office work (OpenOffice) to photo editing (GIMP), and of course the obvious Mozilla suite of programs.

If you haven't checked it out yet, consider giving the new version a try.

Del.icio.us redesigns

increasing the emphasis on recently popular links is very smart  

Preloaded Video iPod

Don't feel like loading your own content on your Video iPod? Check out a company called TVMyPod, which will gladly sell you a brand new Video iPod with the DVD movies of your choice already preloaded. Not a bad deal if you don't have the movies, or the time to deal with ripping, converting and loading all that content. To those who've already purchased their hardware, the company also plans to let you send your iPod in for preloading, and is thinking about adding a subscription service to give you new video content as well.

Buy your video iPod... preloaded [Lost Remote]

Of Course GoogleBase is about Classifieds

If you have any doubts about Google's intention with Googlebase, you can either read today's NY Times article.

Or, you can browse the list of attributes you can use to structure your data-feed. Here's a sample:

- Number of bathrooms
- Actor featured in the video
- Imigration status required for the job
- Ethnicity for your personal
- Vehicle Identification Number (VIN)

I know there are recipes for Chicken Tikka Masala in there. But...I don't think that's the point of this application.

The hate/love of product placement

Filed under: Gripes, Product Placement

The BBC has a somewhat lengthy piece about advertisers and why they've been getting such a bad rap lately. It references the recent efforts of the Writers Guild of America to curb product placement, something Adbusters founder Kalle Lasn poetically describes as "a fart in the ocean." The article suggests that product placement doesn't have to be an absolute evil, that if done right it can ingrain itself in the story and not come across as intrusive or unnecessary. It's also not a new practice, as even vaudeville actors would sometimes wear items which they also wore in advertisements, at least according to one media PR person.

 

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Style Over Substance Pays Off Huge For Sidney Frank

Room 116 points to a great article in New York Magazine about Sidney Frank, CEO of the Sidney Frank Importing Co. The piece describes Frank's Gatsbyesque rise, and how he created Grey Goose vodka from thin air.

In this story, the name came first—as it so often does when image is the paramount concern. Frank recalled he’d once sold a Liebfraumilch named Grey Goose back in the seventies. These were German white wines that were briefly hip but faded into oblivion. “I remember there was always something in the name that had magic with the consumer,” says Frank. (It may also be that Frank liked the name because he already owned the worldwide rights to it.) Frank gathered his lieutenants at the company’s New Rochelle headquarters. “Go to France and come back with a vodka,” he said. So they met with cognac distillers, whose business had slowed. The stills were switched to vodka, and at last there was an actual product.

But why France? Doesn’t vodka come from Russia, or perhaps, in a pinch, Scandinavia? “People are always looking for something new,” says Frank. It’s all about brand differentiation. If you’re going to charge twice as much for a vodka, you need to give people a reason.

Frank could see that there was a product missing from the shelves. Here were all these vodkas, in the $15-to-$17 range, vying to be the premium brand (with Absolut mostly winning). Frank just sidestepped the fray altogether and charged an unheard-of $30 a bottle. The markup amount was pure profit. “He was the first person to see,” says an executive at rival Bacardi, “that there was a superpremium category above Absolut, if you had a good product story.”

Frank recently sold Grey Goose to Bacardi for $2,000,000,000 in cash. According to Forbes, the sale--the largest in liquor-business history for a single brand--solidified his spot in the booze business pantheon. It also landed him on The Forbes 400. His personal proceeds from the deal, plus a 75% stake in Sidney Frank Importing, make him worth at least $1.6 billion.

Uh hum...I think I'll have a Smirnoff and Cran.

Mo Rocca sings for Best Buy

Filed under: Funny, Online, Television

Comedian Mo Rocca, former Daily Show correspondent and occasional host of shows about animals can be found here singing about all the great things you can purchase at Best Buy. The song is sung to the tune of "Angels We Have Heard on High" which, like most Christmas carols, is often sung loudly by people who can't sing. Rocca does okay, though, and even throws down some different rockin' versions of the song. It's actually quite funny.

[via Adrants]

 

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FeedBurner Reports: Feed for Thought

FeedBurner is kicking-off a series of Technorati-like special reports this week called “Feed for Thought” that will cover the state of the “feedosphere”:

With so much going on in the world of syndication, we thought it high time we stop bantering amongst ourselves, and start sharing some of the keen insight and commentary brewing inside FeedBurner headquarters. From where we sit atop more than a hundred thousand feeds, the air is thin but the view outstanding. We can’t help but see what’s on the horizon and identify ways in which we can continue to help publishers maximize the delivery channel.  With that, we offer Feed for Thought, an ongoing series of reports that cover the state of the feedosphere, emerging trends, our take on where subscription delivery is headed and the challenges and opportunities it will face.

The new series is aiming to cover a variety of topics with the first report focused on “RSS & Blogs.”  Now, fair warning, this first report is a lengthy read, but a good one nonetheless.  One of many nuggets of info that's worth pulling out from this report is how RSS adoption is quickly evolving from a stand-alone syndication method for blogs (circa 2003) to a broader publishing standard for all sorts of content, today (e.g., search results, commercial publishing, podcasts, etc.)  This graph nicely illustrates RSS adoption trends.

A full version of this report can be download here (PDF).  Additional reports are on the horizon, watch the FeedBurner Blog for details.

Technorati Tags: Research, RSS, Stats

J&J turns to media companies for help

Filed under: Print, Television

Johnson & Johnson took an interesting approach to their latest "Having a baby changes everything" campaign and Web site, Baby.com. They staged a "bake-off" in which three media companies were asked to create television spots. Time Warner won, beating out Viacom and NBC Universal. In the new spots, celebrities talk about how having a baby changed there lives. While this is a unique approach to creating ads, Johnson & Johnson assures that this is just another way of working with the changing "media landscape." The company's agency, Lowe Worldwide, was involved with the process of asking the media companies for their ideas.

 

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Technorati's catching up to Google's speed

Technorati has caught up to Google in blog search speed, and is also offering a mini window for obsessive bloggers to see who's linking to them

Feedster Top 500 Update

Feedster has updated their Top 500 List of Blogs. Scott Johnson, Feedster’s CTO, writes about it here.

The first list was published in August. The new list incorporates recent links and has changed substantially from the previous version. In particular, they’ve added user tagging and a tag cloud to assist in search/find. The tagging interface is in Ajax (with captcha to reduce spam).

I spoke with Scott Johnson last night about the new list. They’ve taken big steps to remove spam blogs and links, and will soon be tying authority to links to further refine the list.

The Feedster list is very focused on recent links in, looking back only two years and giving additional weight to more recent links.

The tagging feature is an interesting way to find blogs in the list. They’ve added a tag cloud on the right sidebar for easy navigation to specific types of blogs. For instance, click on “celebrity” and get that type of blog. Great way to drill down.

And finally, Feedster will be adding “Import into Excel for Analysis” and an OPML export of the feeds.

Tags: feedster, feedstertop500, search, blogs, blogging, techcrunch, web2.0, web+2.0, ajax, tags, tagging

Companies I’d like to Profile (but don’t exist)

There are companies I review every day that I don’t write about. Reasons vary - it’s been done already and the product isn’t even as good as what’s been done, its a highly or totally one-way application, or it isn’t consumer focused (or have implications for consumer focused applications). Even with this filtering, I get flame comments on some of the stuff I do choose to write about as “not worthy”.

But there are a number of companies and/or products that I would like to write about but don’t exist. I’ve been keeping a list over the last few months and I am posting the list now.

Some of these are big ideas, some small. Some could potentially receive venture backing, most wouldn’t. But I believe that a viable business could be built by an entrepreneur around any of these, and I will be happy to profile them if and when someone builds them. In a way, this is number 11 in my previously post “Top Ten Things You Can Do To Get Blogged“.

And let me know if and where these should fall in Nivi’s matrix.

1. Better and Cheaper Online File Storage

Photos, movies, music and important files take up a ton of hard drive space. I recently purchased a new desktop computer with a 250 GB hard drive, and the hard drive is full from recorded television shows that I haven’t watched yet. Yeah, I can buy a network drive for my house, but they are expensive and if the house burns down I’ve still lost everything.

It’s amazing to me that all of us aren’t backing up our important files online regularly. As far as I’m concerned, the only reason is because no product has emerged to fill this tremendous demand, with the right features and at the right price.

We need a good product. Something as easy to use as the Flickr uploader on the client side, and easy web access. These tools need to go a generation or two beyond what xdrive is offering.

Features I’d like to see: drag and drop file adding and removing, an rss feed for my files, tagging of every file for easy search later, easy sharing, and the ability to publish files to the web with permanent URLs. And off location backups in case your building burns down.

Pricing needs to be dramatically lower too. Find a way to make this cheap. Include ads or whatever, but this needs to be very low cost (remember that Google offers over 2 gb of mail storage for free). Xdrive is currently $10/month for 5 gigs. Even Godaddy, at $10/year for 1 gb, is way too costly.

I have no idea what the cost economics for a business like this are, but plan for scale and give some amount, at least a gig or two, permanently free. No 15 day free trials - we see right through that. Give me a lot for free and let me scale up to, say 500 GB for $20 per year.

2. Blog/website Email Lists

People can visit my site, and get the content via RSS, but I know of no quality service to allow people to subscribe to my site via email.

I hate to rip on Feedblitz, which is really the only choice right now, but it sucks. It’s orange. Really ORANGE. I want the look and feel to be TechCrunch, not theirs. I want people to have the option of getting an email every post, every day, or every week.

I also want to know that I and I alone control these email addresses so that they will not under any circumstances be misused. If I change services, I want to have an easy export feature to take these with me (OPML would be nice).

I also want access to real time stats. The number of emails, type of subscription, how often they are opened and what things are being clicked on.

And users need a very easy way to stop the emails.

I’m willing to pay for this. Probably as much as $20 per month. A free version should be offered too that’s add supported and maybe doesn’t have the analytics.

I’m frankly amazed that Feedburner chose to partner with Feedblitz to do this instead of building it themselves. It wouldn’t be that hard to build. And the Feedblitz interface disaster wouldn’t be detracting from the Feedburner brand.

3. Portable Reputations

eBay’s Feedback system is arguably their biggest asset. Even with its flaws, it is one the biggest drivers of trust between two people buying and selling who’ve never met and never will. But it’s a closed system, usable only within eBay and only for eBay transactions. We need an internet-wide identity and feedback system that any reputable application can tap into, both pulling and pushing data.

A couple of companies have taken tentative steps in this direction, but they have until now kept the data in their own silo, demanding people come to their site to provide feedback. I reviewed iKarma, one of these, in October and practically begged them to change their business model. So far they haven’t. Opinity is much the same, although they offer partners the opportunity to tap into the data. These centralized data plays have no chance on today’s internet. Why even bother.

Here’s what we need - a referee and a scorekeeper. Open (I didn’t say free, mind you) APIs in and out, not just links to feedback scores. Figure out the rules (keep it flexible) and let other applications feed the database. Somebody please build this. Or eBay, open up your Feedback API.

I’m not alone in pleading for this. See what Rob Hof and others have to say as well.

4. Tailored Local Offers (via RSS)

Build a website. Let users give as much or as little demographic and personal information as they wish. Partner with a big sales force that already has access to local businesses (citisearch, yellow pages, whoever). Offer me (via email, website and RSS) special offers from local merchants. $5 off a pizza. Free first time dry cleaning. A cup of coffee. Whatever. I’ll eat it up (and so will everyone else).

5. Facebook, in other countries

Somebody’s gonna do it. Why not you?

6. Free Music

Music will someday be legally free. There is just no other way. Artists, label and promoters will need to make money in other ways.

Limited edition cds and dvds. Concerts. Tshirts. Whatever. Face reality and do it sooner rather than later.

7. Open Source Yellow Pages

YellowWikis is sort of on the right path, but drop the wiki aspect (as I’ve said before, wiki’s are hammers, but not everything is a nail), add tagging and make it open source. Or at least open APIs in and out. Make money from local ads and premium listings.

8. Podcast Transcriptions

Podcasters need transciptions. Many people don’t have the time or inclination to listen to every podcast they want to. Search engines can’t index the content. Transctiptions fix both problems.

Hire transcribers in a low cost country. Offer podcasters reasonably priced transcriptions (bonus: in multiple languages). I’m thinking $10 per half hour. Partner with the podcast directories, search engines and tool providers. Mint money.

9. Decentralized Review Aggregation

There are millions of passionate reviews of every product and thing you can think of sitting out there in the blogosphere. Don’t try to get people to re-write all this stuff. Leverage tagging, RSS and, eventually, microformats to aggregate it and make it searchable/findable. Wonderfully, chaotically decentralized. Ad supported.

10. Build Something Cool with SSE

Figure out how to leverage this before everyone else does and build something beautiful and amazing.

Tags: techcrunch, web2.0, web+2.0

Portal 2.0

Michael Parekh writes:

there is a real problem as the big portal companies go into the Web 2.0 world, and it's a possibly intractable one.

icrosoft MSN/Live, AOL, (along with Amazon, eBay and Apple for a sub-set of the portal services) need to come to terms with the reality that most of their users WILL ALWAYS NEED TO have accounts at their competitors because they'll NEED TO CONNECT WITH PEOPLE AT ALL of those services.

In a Web 2.0 world, where by definition these services are about connecting with people across these services, these services are still competing on the traditional model of winner takes all.

The underlying assumption by each player is that if one service can offer the latest and best X.0 version of each of the services in question that they'll have that customer's TOTAL online business for the indefinite feature.

The reality is that as a user, I'm forced to have accounts at ALL of the services because in an oligopolistic world of online services, most of the people I need to connect with could be using any of the services on any of the portals.

Import your Blog into Google Base

Geek blogger Niall Kennedy has posted some instructions on adding your blog to Google Base.

Google Base launched last Tuesday as a new repository of information for distribution across Google's network of sites including Google search, Froogle, and Google Local. You can add your existing content to the Google Base for broad distribution with only a few easy steps. I'll show you how.

"Add to Google" Button

Dan Neal pointed me to this "+ Add to Google" button page. If you have this button on your blog, you allow Google Reader users to easily subscribe to your RSS or Atom feed. Note that the site which users are being referred to needs a second click for validation, and this second URL being clicked on is always unique (the "et" parameter seems ... (Full post)

Find your XBOX 360

The XBOX 360 could likely be this year's Cabbage Patch Doll (remember those?) and your chances of getting one are getting slimmer by the second.

Thank goodness for the XBox360 Inventory Locator! It an application that will tell you how many XBOX360s you're local Best Buy has. It even uses a neat Google Map to graphically show you the location of the stores!

Strange Google Ad

Very strange. Levkur noticed that when you search Google for xyz, there will be an ad to the right reading: "test flash video ad ... test flash video ad ... www.google.com". Clicking on it forwards you to a Google search for the term "adwords". I suppose this ad is not actually created by Google... (Full post)

Texas sues Sony over rootkits -- YEE-HAW!

Cory Doctorow: Yee-haw! Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has brought an anti-spyware lawsuit against Sony over its rootkit DRM:

"Sony has engaged in a technological version of cloak and dagger deceit against consumers by hiding secret files on their computers," said Attorney General Abbott. "Consumers who purchased a Sony CD thought they were buying music. Instead, they received spyware that can damage a computer, subject it to viruses and expose the consumer to possible identity crime..."

Because of alleged violations of the Consumer Protection Against Computer Spyware Act of 2005, the Attorney General is seeking civil penalties of $100,000 for each violation of the law, attorneys' fees and investigative costs.

="http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/14/sony_anticustomer_te.html">Sony Rootkit Roundup Part I, Sony Rootkit Roundup Part II (Thanks to everyone who submitted this!)

Breakthrough Budgets

Late last week in the Wall Street Journal, writer Kate Kelly considered Twentieth Century Fox's recipe for its recent successes with such projects as "Walk the Line" and "In Her Shoes." (Subscription required.) Apparently, leaders there pair two goals: low,...

GM FastLane Blog begins to reflect the troubles of the corporation?

Most corporate blogs are pretty cheery places, with their message almost perpetually positive and the tone reflecting some of the best copywriting on the entire network. General Motor's FastLane Blog has been an example of this, with interesting and engaging...

Courtship of Stewie's Father Podcast

"These podcasts would work a lot better if we drank beforehand."

For your listening pleasure. Will soon be available on iTunes and on the site.

Love
The Webmaster

G.M.’s Future Shock

All the major papers are leading today with GM’s stunning announcement that it will cut 30,000 jobs and close 12 factories.

Surely, news as devastating as this also warrants some honest company comment on it own Fastlane blog.

I’m not being glib here - the blog offers GM a direct voice to its customers and its employees without having to navigate mainstream media. It’s an opportunity for the company to talk honestly and frankly - exactly the sort of transparency that has won GM and its exec Bob Lutz much kudos in recent months.

Lutz has been candid before about GM’s business decisions. Now is the time for the company to have a conversation with the employees it is letting go, with the shareholders who are scared of seeing the company file bankruptcy and the customers who seen GM as a damaged brand.

GM has a voice through its blog - it should use it.

Cingular and AT&T: A lesson in brand confusion (and wasted money)

Cingular to be rebranded as AT&T? And this is after Cingular has spent tens of millions trying to erase the AT&T wireless brand from consumer’s memories. Very odd indeed. Get even more confused over at Engadget:

Anyway, we can get why they’re doing it — SBC, which was one of the Baby Bells spun off from AT&T during the big break up of 1984, is officially changing its name to AT&T and they want to unify all the branding — but man, are things getting confusing. As you’ll recall, last year Cingular snapped up AT&T Wireless, which had been spun off from AT&T in 2001 for the princely sum of $41 billion. They then spent the better part of the past year spending tons of time and money trying to eliminate the AT&T Wireless brand and integrate its network, subscribers, and services into Cingular. The integration is pretty much done (or close to it), but now they’re going to go through all that again, except in reverse, which means that some of you out there will go from being AT&T Wireless subcribers, to Cingular subscribers, only to become AT&T Wireless subscribers all over again.

And this is good for whom?

Put an “Add to Google Button” on Your Blog

Google has posted instructions on how to to promote your RSS feed by placing an “Add to Google” button to your RSS-enabled website or blog. This will make it easy for people to quickly add your feed right to their Google homepage or Google Reader. Here's what the landing page looks like for my feed. (Via Search Engine Watch)

Technorati Tags: Google

AtomShockwave Launches Game Ad Network

AtomShockwave has launched the Shockwave.com Immersive Network, which allows advertisers to dynamically insert ads within the company's popular games, writes AdAge (via MediaBuyerPlanner). A brand's...

Chrysler 'Person of the Year' Campaign Uses Web, Podcasts, Wireless

Click to enlarge CNN and Chrysler are expected to announce today a multimillion-dollar ad deal that includes not only TV and print but also online, broadband, wireless, podcast, video-on-demand and...

Cream - get on top........

There's a new player in town, Cream magazine. Cream is a quarterly media mag from C Squared which apart from updating readers on the ongoings in the advertising and media world, wants to show off innovative media thinking worldwide. Each issue has a directory of case studies of creative media campaigns, and features on media, creatives behind the campaigns and such. Sound like your cup of.. eh.. cream? ;) I got two issues here - and I'll be keeping them as they have a harder cover and will be useful to refer back to in the future. Neat feature that. ;)

Yahoo Will Provide Content For Clear Channel Digital Video Ad Kiosks In Malls

: Emphasizing how much Yahoo wants to be perceived not just as a portal but as a content distributor and creator, the company will be the content provider for a joint venture between Clear Channel Outdoor Malls and DAN Media that starts with large-format video screens ceiling mounted in major LA-metro NY malls this Friday. (aka the biggest shopping day in the U.S.) Plans call for similar installations in 200 malls in top 20 markets over the next 2-plus years; DAN already has a similar presence in malls across Canada. The Clear Channel Digital Mall Network will featue the Yahoo! Buzz Index, news headlines, sports, entertainment, and financial info wrapped around 30-second ads. Not quite the Times Square news ticker but potentially good exposure for Yahoo -- although a lot could depend on the mood of the shoppers confronted by the big screens. Press release.

Did Google save web advertising?

Filed under: Online

As much reporting on Google as we might do here at AdJab, the New York Times is doing just as much. The most recent of their full-length profiles of the internet giant plays on the idea that Google has revolutionized internet advertising not only through the ease of and communal nature of AdWords/AdSense but also by providing an alternative to the flashing pop-ups that announce we're a winner or ask us to harpoon a penguin for a free iPod. By saying to all advertisers - regardless of size or budget - that ads could only be text based and would appear in a box either on a website or alongside search results they made ads something that would be easily digestable. Viewers would no longer feel like putting their fists through their monitors to make the flashing signs stop and publishers did not have to completely disrupt their page layouts or get involved with pop-ups.

In terms of the future of online ads, there is talk of Google adding images to the search results. All that talk, though, is speculation from outside the company. Some believe that the data transfer involved in processing images based on the number of ads Google serves would, in the words of one person in the story, "break the internet." Google maintains that text allows for the best and fastest comprehension and has no plans to switch to image ads.

 

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D’Amp’D

For past few days I have been trying to nail down the details of the comings and goings at the much hyped, Amp’d MVNO. My sources last week had informed me that one of their most senior executives, Don McGuire, senior vice president of marketing had quit the company along with another senior executive. After some nagging, company’s PR folks said that, “Don McGuire has left Amp’d for personal reasons and is pursuing other endeavors.” This comes closely on the heels of a controversial ad campaign which well… in in poor taste.

These departures were only two of the “revolving door” of executives at the company that recently raised about $67 million. MocoNews says that a lot of resumes are flying out to executive recruiters. Amongst others who have departed include Stefanie Henning, former head of the Music and Entertainment Group who is now at Fox. Steve Stanford was one of the first to leave and is now the CEO of ultra-deluxe MVNO, Voce Wireless.

And if that was not enough, as per MoCoNews, Sue Swenson, who was the former COO at T-Mobile USA will have trouble joining the company, thanks to an injunction granted to T-Mobile by a Seattle judge. This cannot be good news for investors like Redpoint Ventures, Highland Capital Partners and Columbia Capital who pumped in the dollars into this company.

The trials and tribulations of Amp’d are symptomatic of the whole MVNO business. Some venture capitalists in private have been fretting about the rising number of MVNO business plans. It is hard to imagine how three MVNOs - Amp’d, Helio and ESPN - will actively (and profitably) compete for essentially the same demographic - the hip and rich young people. In a column earlier this year, Matt Maier of Business 2.0 wrote:

All successful MVNOs require one of two things: They need to serve a well-defined, unserved market — the youth demographic, in Virgin’s case — or they need to target riskier customers whom the national carriers refuse to serve because of poor credit or no credit history. When a carrier like Verizon Wireless or Sprint decides to lease its network to a third party to set up an MVNO, it’s doing so because it wants to reach markets it could not otherwise touch.

Many look at the success of Virgin Mobile (never mind the fact that they had to give up a stake in the company to Best Buy to get shelf space and Sprint to play nice) and Boost Mobile, and believe that lightening will strike, not twice but many times. Not quite possible, but then…I am just wondering how will the the MVNO market reach $10.7 billion by 2010 as predicted by The Yankee Group.

I also wonder if MVNOs take such a big portion of the pie out of the revenues of cellphone carriers, who are totally beholden to Wall Street, how long before the axe falls. A very smart man, whose infinite wisdom I tap when flum