I was recently reading a Mediapost article in their Online Video Insider Publication where they addressed the question: "Can we reach television-sized audiences using online video?" And they continued to say "The answer is, unequivocally, yes.". That means a lot for the monetization efforts for online video. In my recent article: Online Video - Q2 Tells All, According to ComScore, Internet users in the U.S. watched 11.5 billion online videos in March 2008, up 13% over February 2008 and 64% year-over-year. And I continued to point out that the IAB is attempting to standardize the monetization of online video. Until that "standard happens" I like to keep myself up to date on what big video networks are doing now, pro and user-gen alike. I have to admit, each company has made their own attempts. For the purposes of entertainment, I chose YouTube and Hulu and covered some of the efforts made to "monetize" their constantly growing database of video:
AND
...BUT, before I go ahead and explain why, I have to point out a very entertaining and new way to monetize online video: As covered in the NYTimes article "Coming Soon To YouTube: My Face-Lift", they have taken online advertising to a new and rather nauseating level. Plastic surgeons are offering patients free/discounted services in return for posting their operations on YouTube. The catch: They have to write a GOOD REVIEW and post a link to the surgeon's web-site.
According to the New York Times, more than 6,400 videos of Botox, breast augmentation and Lasik appear on YouTube alone. (Article Here)
And that completes my User-Gen Coverage. Now, if you're a hungry online video addict, I suggest Hulu. I recently started "Arrested Development" on Hulu and it has been an eye opening experience comparing their "monetization" methods.
The site itself has been out of Beta for 3 months now, and in terms of ranking, they ahve already made their way to Nielsen's top-10 video sites. In terms of turning advertising, they've served more videos in May than ABC.com.
AlleyInsider.com, one of my favorite online industry blogs out there (besides this one, of course), They "estimate Hulu will sell between $45 million and $90 million of advertising during its first 12 months -- April 2008 through March 2009. By the time it pays off its content partners, it will book between $12.5 million and $25 million in net revenue. (Which isn't bad for a start-up, actually.)" They have painted a map of how Hulu will get there in their posting, "Hulu: A Consumer Success But Still A Small Business" One quote I particularly enjoyed...
On the low end, we estimate that Hulu.com will generate close to the revenue generated by, say NBC.com, which is said to generate "tens of millions" in revenue this year. On the high end, Hulu would net $90 million in gross ad sales -- in the same league as some estimates for YouTube.
It seems to me that both YouTube and Hulu have their challenges set up for them, both of which are worlds apart. I'll follow them closely as we reach an IAB "standard", but until that happens, just keep up to date and if you see anything out of the ordinary, let me know. E-mail me anytime at Red@aclion.com Now if you'll excuse me, it's my lunch break and I'm almost done with Season 1 of Arrested Development :)
Article By: Joshua 'The Red' Russak (Red@aclion.com) NY Tech Meetup may be my favorite event of all time. Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration, but it is definitely an amazing event. I'm using a lot of adjectives so let me explain...For one, you should know what Meetup.com is and if you don't, take the Meetup.com Tour here. [I would have hosted the video explanation, but apparently, the minute I embedded it here, it was no longer on Vimeo.]
So there you go. That was easy. Now, the CEO and Co-Founder's is Scott Heiferman. Scott focuses the team on the goal of a Meetup Everywhere About Most Everything.
BUT WHAT'S IMPORTANT FOR THE SAKE OF THIS BLOG IS... He's the Organizer of NY Tech Meetup. You can find Scott's blog at scott.heiferman.com. I had the pleasure of not knowing knowing he was the CEO of Meetup when I first met him at the June '08 NY-Tech Meetup during InternetWeek. (*Which probably explains why he made sure to announce who he was during the July '08 meetup, last night...so yea, I'm giving myself credit there).
So now you're wondering, what's NY-Tech Meetup? If you're not asking that, then I'm assuming you're either socially retarded or well informed and probably met me at one time or another. Either way, for you soci-tards, check out the NY Tech Meetup Site here. Simply: "On the 1st Tuesday each month at 7PM, 6 people get 5 minutes each to demo something cool to New York's tech community (geeks, investors, entrepreneurs, hackers, etc)." It also happens to be the first and only one run by Scott. It's a great event and Scott puts a lot of care into making sure it runs well. What's the catch? $10.00 and required RSVP/limited attendance.
So why am I talking about this event? BECAUSE YOU SHOULD BE THERE! It hosts 400 people and the venue is spectacular. Hosted in the ballroom/entry hall of The IAC (*a perfect venue for online tech community, no?) in front of a the Largest Video Wall In The World:
"The world’s largest high resolution, edge-blended video wall resides inside the lobby of InterActiveCorp’s (IAC) global headquarters in the Chelsea District of New York City. The venue is renowned architect Frank Gehry’s first building in New York City, featuring a 10-story glass façade with contours reminiscent of the unfurled, wind-tossed sails of a ship. The audio visual design and build was accomplished by Edison NJ based McCann Systems. There are two video walls in the lobby. The larger, the West Wall, is the largest, 120’ x 11’, permanently installed, edge-blended video wall in the world, which is clearly visible from the West Side Highway."
It's a spectacular sight to see, and an even more effective presentation tool. I had the pleasure of getting a tour of how-it-works last night. To protect my sources, I'll just refer to him as "SH the AV Guru". It's amazing, he works full time to keep that among other display (both audio and visual) systems up and running throughout the entire IAC building. Thank you "AV Guru" and I look forward to meeting you again.
As for the content, LAST NIGHT WAS AMAZING! Every time I go, I have a great and make great contacts. It's perfect for entrepreneurs of all ages and somehow related to the interactive/new-media industry. The way it works is simple: You get 5 minutes to pitch your company followed up by a Q&A while the next presenter sets up. Are you up to the challenge?
Unfortunately, not all presentations are full of "Oooohh's" and "Ahhhh's", but for the most part everything you see is impressive and innovative. Here are a few examples of companies that presented last night: Wakozi, Pluribo, DailyLit, TransClick, Cause Caller, Cloudsmith & iYear. Some of the technology was worthy of a standing ovation, but for my sake, I stay seated.
I had the change meat the CEO's and founders of these companies and they are very down-to-earth and willing to open up about their products and I find that to be a very personable experience you rarely find anywhere else. Definitely one of the major benefits in attending this event.
Oh...one more thing: I got 2 free drinks last night. Not sure if that will be a regular thing, but it's definitely worth going again. JUST DON'T TAKE MY SPOT! The next one is in August, so try and make it!
For your viewing pleasure, here's the viral video of the day. Listen closely to the soundtrack, because according to an AlleyInsider article, the singer is 17-year old Palbasha Siddique, and besides the 4 million+ views this video has, she now ranks as part of the top 10 music downloads on Amazon.com (above Mariah Carey and Madonna):
I'm usually very protective about just copying and pasting articles verbatim, but considering the nature of this blog, it makes sense in this case. "Search Month is a monthly newsletter that recaps stories covered on Search Engine Land over the past monthly." (Read the main article here) Search Engine Land is a great source of information for the world of Online Search. It's a great blog and I would suggest you subscribe to them by clicking this link, but feel free to read to your hearts content...below :)
I recently attended NYTechMeetup and had the pleasure of meeting Mike Davis, co-founder of a rather interesting and noteworthy mobile social network, MeetNowLive. Hands down, one of the coolest and most attractive mobile based social network I've seen so far. Leave it to Mike to make something this Hot!
Check out their "Free Beer Friday's" promotions on their site, among some basic about and contact information...but that's it! They'll have some account features and bar listings pretty soon, but it's strictly for mobile devices. "Meet Now Live is a real-time, location based, mobile social network in and around New York City. Our members use their mobile phones to broadcast their current location as they party in the city." Mike Davis took the time to write up a little blurb about who they are and what they do...read it below. Let us know what you think!
Meet Now Live (MNL) is a pioneering location-based, mobile social-networking service connecting young professional urbanites in their quest for real-time bar, event, and nightlife information in New York City and surrounding areas. Launched in April 2008, the service is available on any cell phone or mobile device with internet access.
With 2,000 bars, clubs, lounges, and restaurants in its network, MNL is the only service of its kind to allow users to broadcast their location from their favorite place of interest and invite other users to join. MNL is a free, “device agnostic,” mobile service where users can create profiles, send messages, friend one another, upload pictures, create personalized location-specific events, and plan their night on-the-fly, based on the location of their friends. Now anyone can view real pictures of real people at bars, clubs, lounges, parties, and restaurants without ever stepping foot inside.
Beta Launch: During this launch period which lasts until Labor Day weekend, MNL has joined forces with The Town Tavern, Whistling Dixies Texas Tavern, and Porky’s NYC to offer “Free Beer Fridays!”. When users “broadcast” their location from these bars, encouraging friends and other MNL users to join them, the MNL system delivers an on-screen mobile ticket that grants them the right to unlimited free draft beers.
It's Friday and there's a lot going on in the world today, but I feel it's necessary to forget everything and do what 85% of internet users do and watch a video. My fellow AC Lion executive, Dan Goldsmith, took the liberty of sending me this video. Take a moment to sit back and relax. This one is for all the gamers in the house!!
Quick Synopsis:Tech Support Humor at it's finest! Sales guy complains of web-site failure as TechSupport is completely immersed in Halo-3!
Well, it's no surprise that my attention has been diverted from Video to Social Networks this week...well, sort of. This weeks article was inspired by me literally stumbling on Mashable.com...
"Bubble Comment"! No it's not XXX...nor is it a Bazooka Gum rating site! Bubble Comment is fully owned and operated by kShermanStudios LLC., a privately held group located in Sausalito, CA.,
and is part of the Bubble suite of video services which include:
Bubble Guru
A subscription based video service that enables you to directly engage your web site visitors and improve web-based communications.
Bubble Testimonial
A subscription based testimonial service that eliminates all the time-consuming aspects of gathering, organizing, and posting of customer testimonials.
Bubble Joy
A free service that allows you to send richly interactive video greeting cards to all your friends and family.
A free service that enables you to share personal video comments with others on virtually any web page.
You won't find BubbleComment advertised on kShermanStudio's main site just yet. Simply put, it does the simple but effective task of allowing you distribute a page to a circle of contacts along with personal video recording. It's an easy 3-step process and can't get any easier than plugging in a VCR (unless you're a tech-tard...
...anyways, what is attractive about this product? Why would anyone take the time to do all of this when the old way of commenting works just fine for the amount of time it takes (less than 30 seconds)? Well, for one there's no sign-in requirements No sign-in is required. Just two basic steps, and you’re done. It's for video enthusiasts who really want to get their point across.
Give it a shot...you have nothing to lose except for your self dignity!
I was chatting with my long time friend Sara Holoubek, Aspiring Luminary (www.SaraHoloubek.com), about the role of search engine marketing and its respective piece of the pie. She and I sensed late last year that search marketing was lagging a bit maybe hitting a plateau. Companies were not displaying an acuity or clarity to their deliverables and value prop. Mind you, we had no empirical data to go on what so ever. Sara was going on conversations with colleagues in the space and I was going on my never fail leading indicator, “What are the sales pp saying”. If the sales people love what they are doing and have no interest in leaving a company then clearly that company is paying well and on time and there is continued confidence in the company’s future. If however sales people are chomping at the bit to go on interviews then its curtains! Late last year sales people in search marketing were calling me with resumes in hand as they were all feeling marginalized. Simple feedback was that the typical compositions of SEM agencies were becoming more and greyer. They were drifting away from SEARCH and trying to be FULL SERVICE and the sales guys were having a hard time differentiating themselves from the rest. There was less SEARCH in Search Engine Marketing Agencies.
Fast forward to summer ’08 and where are we? The financial markets resemble Elaine’s dance in Seinfeld otherwise known as “….a full body dry heave set to music”. This morning the WSJ reported that America’s 4th largest advertiser, General Motors, is announcing advertising cut backs primarily in Local TV, Print, and Radio. Through it all sales people are now excited about the next 2 years and SEM hiring spec’s say something like “get me the very best sales talent and I will pay whatever it takes”. What gives, all the sudden Search is sexy again.
Here is my .02. The diversification of SEM services and product lines came at the behest of general market confidence and measured risk. A narrowing of services or a “commitment” back to original core competencies would seem to indicate a re-trenching. Combine that with recent data suggesting ’08 to show 26% net growth of ad spend. Or, another way saying it, “As goes GM goes the nation” and as such more and more major advertisers will pull TV/RADIO/PRINT dollars and place them online (how much of that pull back goes online remains to be seen). That said, the first door that NEW interactive dollars stand in line before? That’s right Search – and we all know the laundry list why.
So we have a bit of perfect storm on our hands that is bringing the sexy back to search. Search agencies are narrowing their deliverables as reaction to general market conditions at the same time that major advertisers are shifting BIG dollars away from traditional medium and into interactive which invariable means SEARCH. Proof (as far as this blogger is concerned), search sales pp are hard to find and Search agencies will pay whatever it takes to get the best of the best.
That's right...AC Lion's very own Dan Goldsmith has officially made search "SEXY" for job seekers. And just to confirm your suspicions, he has the support of Sara Holoubek the contributing editor of the DM News' SearchBuzz newsletter and a regular author of the DM News Optimized column. And I quote Sarah from her DMNews article below.:
"Search has returned as a must-have for Fall 2008."
In 2008 Ms. Holoubek was elected to the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization (SEMPO) board of directors for a third term and co-founded the SEMPO NY Working Group. She is also an active board member of CampInteractive, a non profit dedicated to bridging the digital and leadership divide among inner city youth From 2003-2005, Ms. Holoubek served as iCrossing's Chief Strategy Officer, building the firm's New York office, repositioning the iCrossing brand as it raised an early VC round of $13 million.
...so if Sara thinks search "sexy", then Dan can't be wrong! Feel free to check out the article for yourself below (or simply click here:
I am the Managing Partner at AC Lion and I bring over 12 years of investment banking, venture capital and sales experience to AC Lion. I recently received a newsletter from Rutberg & Company that so perfectly laid out a concise summary and perspective on the key digital media industry events relevant to private equity firms and companies. The newsletter implications included Rutberg & Company's perspectives, adding their own observations, hypotheses, and investment theses. A lot of that information should be respected as exclusive Business Intelligence of which they have requested to remain confidential. Below, I've included some of the more relevant info to our space and leave room for you to formulate your own hypothesis:
During the one month period from June 1 through June 30, 62 private digital media companies announced $416.7 million in venture capital financings.
Investments were primarily in the Applications, Content Publishers, and Advertising Infrastructure sectors.
There were also 37 M&A transactions announced during the period, including Verizon Wireless' acquisition of Alltel, Bain Capital's acquisition of D&M Holdings, and Microsoft's acquisition of Navic Networks.
Here are a few graphs that depict and analyze venture capital and M&A activity for digital media during the first half of 2008....
It's time to take this blog public with Technorati. The first and simplest step for publicizing any blog is to set up Technorati Profile and to post that exact link for the spiders to crawl and index this site.
After which it's just a matter of time before we make the TopBlog 150. So here it is, the true beginning and now you can say "I was there..."
InterActiveCorp (IAC) are the proud owners of such businesses as Ask.com, Match.com and today's topic: CollegeHumor.com. That and many more properties to boast. But what makes CollegeHumor stand out is the recent news of CollegeHumor/Connected Ventures guys finally moving from online to having a syndicated TV show on MTV. As written on the about page of CollegeHumor.com, it "was founded in 1999 by two high school friends from Baltimore, Maryland who went to different colleges as a way to share all of the pictures, videos, and links their friends would IM and e-mail each other. Now it's a lot bigger." AND NOW, according to the MediaPost article MTV Buys CollegeHumor.com Show,they have at least a six-episode commitment for this fall. According to MediaPost "No financial or content details were disclosed". So stay tuned for updates...
That's big news for the world of User-Gen Video!! According to Comscore in my article Online Video: Q2 Tells All: According to ComScore, Internet users in the U.S. watched 11.5 billion online videos in March 2008, up 13% over February 2008 and 64% year-over-year. This bridge of Online to Traditional-TV could mean one of 2 things: Either an increase of online fan-base migrating back to TV or...TV beginning to adopt online content and monetization and a slow migration from traditional TV to a new version of Online Integrated TV Platforms.
...these are just my thoughts, but considering nobody else has voiced them, I figured I'd be the first to say "THIS IS SIMPLY...HUGE!" Stay tuned for further updates loyal readers and fans...and while you're waiting check out one of my favorite videos from the site:
So my 1 year post-college in NYC is complete and guess what? I'M STAYING FOR ANOTHER YEAR+...but I have to stay true to my Seattle roots and pay homage. Well in truth I am making a vacation out of this while at the same time getting a "Septoplasty" (seriously....Wikipedia Septoplasty). So for this month I'll be checking out the Seattle Online Marketing Events scene (once I recover). I'll check out Meetup.com's offerings, maybe hit up a few tech groups, but I'm definitely locked in for the Online Marketing Summit which has been traveling the country as a go-to-conference for, well...you guessed it! ONLINE MARKETING! Check out the info below and also note "SCORE", another company hosting a very worthy event for budding entrepreneurs. Check it out:
…here are some other events, but due to my recent "Septoplasty" I’m not hitting them ALL up. Check them out at this link: Seattle24x7 Events. If you know of any other events, or you're considering heading out to OMS, let me know and drop me a line at Red@aclion.com.
PS: If you want to know how my surgery went, feel free to friend me and comment on my FaceBook wall. Facebook me!
Following the recent trend of CollegeHumor.com going fromOnline User-Gen to MTV, it seems FunnyOrDie.com falls into that same category. I think this is going to be a recurring theme and figured I'd bring readers up-to-speed on FunnyOrDie.com's progress:
Without a question, FunnyorDie.com is hilarious and has a future in the Online Video business. They even have a Wikipedia Page, Funny Or Die. "Funny or Die is a comedy video website founded by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay's production company, Gary Sanchez Productions with original and user generated content. Funny or Die is also unique in that it contains a good deal of exclusive material from a number of famous contributors (e.g. Judd Apatow, James Franco) and has its own Funny or Die Team (FOD Team) which creates original material for the site. Michael Kvamme, an aspiring young comedian, came up with a concept for a new kind of comedy site and the site was developed by Randy Adams. Videos are voted on by users of the site; those that are deemed funny stay, but those that are not "die" and are relegated to the site's "crypt"."
The site's first video, The Landlord, has received over 55 million views and features Ferrell confronted by a swearing, beer-drinking two-year-old landlord.[1] In June 2007, they received venture capital funding from Sequoia Capital,[2] and in June 2008, they announced a partnership with HBO.[3]
I first knew about the Investment back in April when I came across a Mashable.com article FunnyorDie.com: Will Ferrell Takes Sequoia Investment. Then In June 2008, I read an article that insured my belief that they've made their place in the Online Video business, avoiding the User-Gen approch (in a way) and uploading professional content. As quoted from WikiPedia:
HBO and FunnyorDie announced that HBO had purchased a stake of less than 10% in Funny Or Die. With this, Funny or Die will be responsible for developing at least 10 half-hour episodes for HBO, and the companies may organize future comedy tours together. Regarding the agreement, Will Ferrell said, "I don't want to overstate the importance of this deal, but this is the missing link moment where TV and Internet finally merge. It will change the way we as human beings perceive and interact with reality. Okay, I overstated it. But it is an exciting deal."[4]
I'd keep a close eye on FunnyOrDie and see what Will Ferrell is fully capable of. Hats off to them! Now go and check out their latest footage (b/c most of it is not exactly censored for me to post on this blog): FunnyOrDie.com
I was looking for a healthy post and noticed the word FREE on one of my favorite blog's "AlleyInsider". Posted by Eric Krangel at 8am today, the article titled Free Pass To Web 2.0 Expo, Get It Here writes about how you can easily gain free access to the Web2.0 Expo/Conference in September (which, if you're reading this blog, you BETTER be going.) I'm still getting over my surgery and a bit loopy from the pain med's so I'll simply "quote" the blog-post and you can go ahead and get yourself some FREE passes:
We know: your company is a labor of love. But let’s be serious. It’s also a labor of capitalism. And at some point you’re going to want to turn that labor into wealth. Dividends? Sale? IPO? Henry Blodget and our expert panel will reveal the secrets to cashing out.
Want to hear this and other Web 2.0 speakers including Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post, Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com and Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media? We have a pass to the event, valued at $1095 a pop.
Leave a comment on this post, telling us you want in. (Be sure to register for a Silicon Alley Insider account with your email, which gives you an alleyinsider.com URL with all of your comments in one place, as well as more nifty things to come). At 5:00 pm EST on August 1, we'll pick a number between 1 and the total number of comments. If it's your number, you win.
Feel free to comment as many times as you like. But if you don't win, you can at least get $100 off your Web 2.0 Expo registration with code "webny08bm7."
So what are you waiting for? Head over to AlleyInsider now, and as they mentioned - "if you don't win, you can at least get $100 off your Web 2.0 Expo registration with code webny08bm7."
Who wants to take on the big boys? Microsoft and Yahoo have tried to partner up to challenge them – and there are many other really cool search engines who have a neat gimmick or logo that vertically target, horizontally target, industry target, subject matter target, Target, Walmart, and more. So what makes this Cuil (pronounced Cool) search engine think they can really be bigger and better than the biggest and baddest boys on the block? Well, they aren’t just upping the GPA requirement it takes to qualify to get an interview…
Cuil is a new search engine launched by ex-Googlers – that alone turns the heads of most internet savvy users. Mention Google, and it’s a good start. Add to that $33 million in two rounds of funding from Greylock & Tugboat Ventures and Madrone Capital Partners, and they look like there’s something good going on.
So how is Cuil different? Size - it boasts 120 Billion webpages indexed in their “world wide web” – about triple that of Google. So Cuil is in fact, bigger. Since Cuil does not rank based on popularity of clicks, but more heavily on relevant content, there is no need for them (at this point) to store personal usage history. So, Cuil is, it claims, safer.
Also there are neat tabs, drilldown menus to breakdown categories, and rollover definitions – so it may actually be “cooler.” Also, they have an awesome logo, black background on the homepage, and aesthetically pretty pages…but that’s just me. I did always like the pictures.
So my first few test searches have been a great experience, but it remains to be seen if the appeal of Cuil will hold with the public who somehow magnetically drew to Google faster that the Millenium Falcon got pulled toward the DeathStar by the tractor beam. In fact, once I was done surfing on Cuil – I went right back to my Google Toolbar to look for a restaurant for my wife and I to go to tonight.
We’ll see. A more user friendly, more relevant engine will be welcomed – but it will need to pull some great results from that 120 Billion index in order to sway the public’s habits. Exciting – let’s see what happens. Will we use it? Will Google just buy it? And another question that comes to mind: Why didn’t they just buy www.cool.com? Maybe making new words is part of the gig…
I was initially very very concerned about yesterday’s article in AdvertisingAge by Abbey Klaassen “$80 Billion? Online Display Market Is Being Overhyped”. The last time I read a headline to an article of similar tone was July 2000 when the WSJ was reporting (well back in section B) that Visa Card was scaling back its online banner ad spend due to poor ROI. That story was a leading indicator of what eventually became the dot.Com implosion (March Madness? Maul Street? Anybody? Bueller…..Bueller……..) So to say the least my heart skipped a beat as I wondered just what had happened to inspire such an alarmist headline. The answer………NOTHING! Operative word being – alarmist.
Ms. Klassen’s initially makes dramatic statements like...
• “The exuberance isn’t so rational this time, either”. She seems to suggest that the current state of online advertising is as unfounded as it was in’00-’01.
• “Its déjà vu all over again…” as she critiques Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick which most experts seem to agree was a great acquisition for Google and MSFT’s attempt at Yahoo which is based on MSFT’s desire to compete along a different vein of online spend (search – not banner as the article would eventual try addressing).
Ms. Klassen must have a personal issue with……well…..facts as she doesn’t really use them to make her points in this article. I'm not pointing fingers saying "this is a poorly written piece", but unless there's evidence to support her claims, I just see her post as an attempt to gain more readers. Oh, and the "simply fabulous" quotes continue...
• “….And we know by now that measured-media growth has pretty much ground to a halt as marketers continue to increase their dollars in unmeasured disciplines such as web development, public relations, and database marketing at the expense of paid advertising.” NO SOURCE! NO FACT! NO NUMBERS. This is one’s simple opinion.
• “…and digital is faring better than its more traditional counterparts, bit its impossible to say its growing at the rate it would have were the economy booming or even normal.” I don’t quite know what her point here was. She seems to suggest that internet growth is stumbling but doesn’t care to source 1 fact behind her opinion. As well, she seems to suggest that our inability to compare current growth rates and economic factors to economic factors that don’t exist as a valid reason to be concerned about the overall value impact and sustainability of the internet advertising space.
• “And jobs in the space? They declined last month too” Sure would love to see some numbers behind that too because we are wrapping up a fantastic July!
She wraps up this article by suggesting that in 5 and 10 yrs display advertising will be only one segment of a more diversified online pie, but that’s just a basic reality that anyone in the space understands, not really a point and certainly not a conclusion that Online Display is “overhyped”
I read an interesting article in the NYTimes today....
Joe Zawadzki’s traders spend their days in front of two computer screens, feeding their systems with data and trying to perfect their trading algorithms.
But they are not analyzing stocks. They are analyzing advertising.
What they are measuring is activity on advertising exchanges, where companies bid to place their online ads on space provided by publishers. As advertising exchanges gain popularity -- Yahoo, Google and Microsoft have all moved into this arena recently -- Madison Avenue is borrowing tactics from Wall Street. [...]For now, Mr. Zawadzki is using the exchanges to buy and sell ads instantaneously as opportunities arise — a spot market, in Wall Street lingo — but he is working on more complex trading strategies.
Of course they’re only about a year late on these developments; but the article does a nice job of explaining the exchange space, and more significantly, pointing out the future of internet advertising, namely Media Trading. Conceptually there’s no reason this won’t work. But, media trading will require a loosening of control that publishers have historically been loath to part with. And the exchanges are time consuming and still bulky. It's noteworthy to point out...
In 2007, exchanges sold about 15 percent of the remnant inventory, and about 5 percent of online display advertising overall, according to ThinkPanmure, a research and financial services company. Most of the other 85 percent was sold through networks.
