Archive for November, 2007
Kelli
News Corp’s online division, Fox Interactive Media (FIM) is gearing up to launch its own full-fledged ad network, FIM Serve. The service was originally designed for MySpace, to present ads based on user interest, but the online branch of Rupert Murdoch’s empire is preparing to unleash its service across the web.
FIM already has an ad deal with Google, but it claims that FIM Serve will not conflict with that. The Google deal involves search listings, and FIM Serve is supposed to be limited to graphic ads. But with Google’s acquisition of LinkedIn, competition could be inevitable.
Reuters has noted that the network is coming up just as other online companies, like Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo, are going on “a frenzied buying spree of privately held ad networks.” Techcrunch notes that News Corp has been making a steady stream of Web-wise moves, and predicts that “we are not that far away from waking up and possibly seeing a world online where the competition is no longer Google vs. Yahoo, but Google vs. News Corp.”
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Kelli
Techcrunch and Techcrunch UK have made the call: Rupert Murdoch’s media giant, News Corporation, may be looking to buy LinkedIn, a business-based social networking platform. The network, which is currently working on integrating with OpenSocial, is “on an upward growth path which makes it a good acquisition target. It has more than 16 million registered users globally, spanning 150 industries in more than 400 economic regions and in the last year it experienced 189% growth,” according to Techcrunch UK.
LinkedIn is a hot spot for creating networks and making connections in the business world, with all Fortune 500 companies having at least one high-ranking member with a profile page. People are using the site more and more to build their presence in the business world. There has been some competition in this area from Facebook, but LinkedIn is seen to have certain advantages (including a more professional impression).
LinkedIn is also seen as contributing to the decline in revenue for newspapers due to job-seekers establishing an online presence instead of placing classifieds. Businesses, too, are moving online to find employees. This, in concert with declining ad sales, is leaving the newspaper industry with a dilemma. Online ad sales are increasing, but not at a rate to match the decline in paper ad sales. This, among others, may be one reason why News Corporation may be interested in LinkedIn. Murdoch’s company owns several rank newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal (U.S.) and the Times (U.K.), so by getting in on online ad revenue, the company can potentially make up for what’s being lost on the street. Murdoch already has some experience with successful social networks – News Corp. purchased MySpace in 2005.
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Kelli
The week Google unveiled the API for OpenSocial, Plaxo had an estimated 200,000 in daily traffic. Three weeks later, after launching Pulse, their new social network based on OpenSocial, traffic jumped to over 1 million. “In a single day, the rate of wiring up the Pulse social graph jumped by an order-of-magnitude,” blogged Plaxo’s VP of Marketing, John McCrea.
Pulse allows you to import feeds from other networks, like Facebook, del.icio.us, Flickr, etc. It also allows you to sync your email and phonebook contacts, calendars, etc. “The idea was that we could play a role in the emergence of a social web that was as open as the Web itself,” McCrea stated. “We let users bring in content from the sites they were already using, and we let them take their data out through a variety of mechanisms, including RSS and a lifestreaming widget.”
If this is an early sign of what’s to come, OpenSocial could bank on its promise of changing the “face” of social networks (to start with) through open platforms. According to McCrea, “I’d have to say that our experience so far would strongly suggest that ‘open’ is good for business.”
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Kelli
Kevin Johnson, the president of Microsoft’s platforms and services division, laid out an ambitious plan on Thursday. Calling it the “10, 20, 30, 40” plan, Microsoft is looking to become one of the top two advertising companies within the next five years.
The plan involves four goals:
• 10 – Grow their share of online page views from 6% to 10%
• 20 – Boost the share of minutes spent on company websites from 17% to 20%
• 30 – Raise their share in online search from 10% to 30%
• 40 – Increase their share of advertising dollars from 6% to 40%
According to Reuters, “Johnson said Microsoft has worked to improve the relevance of its Web search results and how it presents that information.”
However, Microsoft is still lagging far behind Google and Yahoo. Microsoft plans to do a lot of investing in this plan (estimates range from $1.5 to $1.7 billion) but some are skeptical that that’s going to cut it. The only way it can happen, Henry Blodget argues, is if Microsoft buys Yahoo.
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Kelli
The European Union has launched an anti-trust investigation into Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick. The Commission has stated that the motive behind the investigation is concern over competition in the advertising market.
According to Google, the $3.1 billion deal is a legitimate and timely move to stay competitive with Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo!, and others: “We seek to avoid further delays that might put us at a disadvantage in competing fully against… others whose acquisitions in the highly competitive online advertising market have already been approved.”
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is also participating in the investigation. According to the BBC, Google and DoubleClick “have different roles” in the advertising industry:
“DoubleClick helps link up advertising agencies, marketers and web site publishers hoping to put ads online and track them.
“Google allows firms to target advertising at people using particular search terms and also stores information about users’ internet surfing habits.”
The EU Commission expects to reach a decision by April 2008.
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Kelli
Rupert Murdoch, the News Corporation Chairman, told Australian reporters on Tuesday that he intends to discontinue requiring a subscription to access articles on the Wall Street Journal online. The move comes in conjunction with News Corp.’s agreement to acquire Dow Jones & Co, the Journal’s publisher.
Murdoch’s rationale for this move is a simple one: he expects to increase the WSJ’s readers without losing any profit. The WSJ online currently has about 1 million subscribers. Without requiring a subscription, it has been estimated that the number of readers could increase to 10-15 million (it could be more than that since articles will be able to show up on searches and linked by blogs). Murdoch expects to offset the lack of subscription fees with advertising revenue.
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Kelli
AOL has announced that it will be making another ad acquisition (the fourth this year). The new member of the AOL family is Quigo, a New York-and-Israel-based company that specializes in content-targeted advertising. According to the official press release, “Quigo’s AdSonar technology lets advertisers purchase ads on Websites based on specific pages, sections, topics or keywords.” The technology allows for cost per click (CPC), cost per impression (CPM), and cost per time (CPT) bases, and incorporates text, display, and video ads.
This is the latest step in AOL’s launching of Platform-A, an ambitious ad platform estimated to reach over 91% of the online audience. AdSonar distributes ads to such sites as FoxNews.com, ESPN.com, LonelyPlanet.com, and tons of other well-trafficked sites. The ability to place ads on specific sites and pages or around key words gives AdSonar a strong appeal to businesses looking to be more efficient at reaching potential customers.
AOL’s other acquisitions this year include Third Screen Media (for mobile advertising), ADTECH AG (a German-based ad serving platform), and TACODA (specializing in behavioral ads). AOL also purchased another Israel-based company this week – Yedda, a Yahoo Answers-type service. These latest moves have been seen as AOL’s attempt to stay competitive with Yahoo and Google. AOL’s advertising platform has been praised as better than Google’s for offering advertisers more options and information.
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Kelli
What was once known as “site targeting” has now become “placement targeting” for users of Google AdWords. The announcement was made yesterday on the Inside AdWords official blog. What’s the difference?
First, advertisers can now choose specific pages of sites to put their ads on, and even specific ad units (e.g. a Google Ad block). For example, an advertiser can choose to place an ad on a news site in general or only on the sports page.
Second, advertisers can choose between cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-impression (CPM) bidding. With CPC you pay a minimum of $0.01 (or local currency equivalent) each time your ad is clicked on. With CPM you pay a minimum of $0.25 (or local currency equivalent) per 1000 impressions.
These aren’t bold, radical moves on Google’s part, but they do give advertisers more control over where and how their ads are placed.
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Kelli
Facebook has officially announced the launching of its new advertising system, the oh-so-cleverly-named Facebook Ads. This system is the beginning of what is being dubbed “social advertising” – targeted ads based on social network users’ personal information, activities, and interests. This doesn’t apply solely to Facebook activity, though. Facebook Ads has partnered with several companies to track users’ on- and off-site activity.
Here are the three divisions of Facebook Ads:
1. Social Ads – Ads will be targeted at users using their personal information, including gender, location, work history, political views, stated interests and activities, etc.
2. Beacon – Companies allow users the option to include activity on their sites in their Facebook news feed. For example, if a user is selling or bidding on an item on eBay, or puts a movie in his/her Blockbuster.com queue, that user has the option of including this information on his/her Facebook news feed. This effectively makes users product endorsers, and provides companies with personal, word-of-mouth-style recommendations for their products, but on a much broader scale.
3. Insight – Facebook will share data with companies about what kind of demographic their ads are reaching. This step supposedly doesn’t include personally identifiable information, just broad statistics (e.g. – more people of a certain age group tend to click on Coca Cola ads, so they will adjust their ad strategy to compensate).
Companies will also be able to set up their own profile pages on Facebook, allowing users to join groups, install viral apps, etc. All of this activity will of course be included in news feeds.
So what are the risks in this venture? On the one hand, users may see this as a great way to include their non-Facebook activity in their Facebook news feeds. Essentially, it allows them to use Facebook to provide even more information about what’s going on with them, what their interests are (a la “John rented Star Wars from Blockbuster.com – ‘Marathon at my house!’” or “Jane bought a ticket to Chicago from Travelocity – ‘I’m going home for Thanksgiving’”).
On the other hand, if news feed ads start reaching out-of-control spam status, the whole thing could blow up in Facebook’s – well, face. “Friends” who overuse the system or companies that overproduce viral apps could drive users away.
Facebook has promised in its blog to keep it clean and that users won’t see any more ads than they already do, they’ll just be more “relevant.” They’ve also claimed that this is the way of the future for advertising, stating that the mass media had their run but will eventually be outdated.
Check out what Facebook is offering advertisers here.
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Kelli
People have been waiting anxiously for the announcement of Google’s latest and arguably most ambitious project to date – the Gphone. When the announcement came, however, it was not what people were expecting. There is no Gphone. Instead, the information gurus announced something a little different – Android.
In collaboration with the Open Handset Alliance (which includes Qualcomm, Motorola, HTC, and about 30 others), Google has developed a Linux-based open source system for mobile devices, not just a new piece of hardware like the iPhone. Android will allow companies to develop software for mobile phones on any participating service provider, including Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile. AT&T and Verizon Wireless aren’t in on the deal yet, but consumer demand for Android-based service may drive them to it. Google hasn’t announced any intentions to build their own hardware; instead, they’re letting their OHA partners (e.g. Samsung, Motorola, etc.) take care of that for them.
The goal of Android is to deliver on Google’s mission of “providing access to information to users wherever they are.” Users will be able to download a myriad of programs and gadgets onto their phones, some created by Google, but an unlimited number created by third-party developers. Of course, this includes targeted ads. Google cites this as an opportunity for developers to get their names and products out there to the mobile community.
Android’s Software Development Kit (SDK) is expected to be available here on November 12, and the first Android-based phones should be on the market in the second half of 2008.
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