Hanging headlines...

Quite frequently, I will click on a headline on a news site like CNN.com and it will take me to a page where the said article is not yet posted. I'm assuming this is because they have made the correct updates in their CMS system but the cache servers have not caught up. Regardless of the technical issue, this is really an annoying user experience and would mystify many users who may not understand that content is being cached all over the Internet. I'm surprised they haven't solved this problem yet.

Interesting research on Facebook persuasion

Colleague today reminded me about BJ Fogg's research at Stanford on the persuasive psychology of Facebook. Check him out at http://bjfogg.com/. I ordered his book and am interested in learning more about his work.

Excited to share some of our own research on influence and change using online platforms in the coming months.

Another reason for ad revs to drop

Every time I quiz someone in traditional media about audience measurement, all I hear is how horrible and inaccurate the current measuring techniques are...Nielsens, Arbitron, etc. And yet, billions are spent based on the best "guesses". The web is better but there is still no clear standard. Because bigger numbers drive bigger deals, the tendency is of course to skew data upward. The marketplace will settle on standards and technology that will represent a more accurate representation of audience size and behaviors. We are getting better at this all the time. This is going to be the only way to make sense of the "infinite" inventory and separate the 'wheat from the tares' in terms of quality properties for marketers to spend money.

As this shakes out, only the obvious "prime time sites" will continue to enjoy the highest inventory sold rates with high CPM's, while everyone else will barely scrape by. And, the overall dollar spend will drop as dollars continue to shift from traditional media (where measurement is most ambiguous) to digital (where measurement is closer to reality).

UI dominance

Online application development is really now a commodity exercise. Its amazing how fast and how easy and how inexpensively one can develop a robust, database-driven application. So how to online companies win? You can create clever features but there is so much pressure to be open and collaborative in order to get attention that clever features don't stay proprietary for very long.

User Interface, which at one time was relegated as the very last thing to throw together, is rapidly becoming a key variable (and maybe the key variable) to win. Look at Yahoo's comment today where they said they have tested over 141 front page designs to see which one can be the most sticky. Ease of use is a big part of today's value proposition and can't be ignored.

Spiralfrog shuts down

Ad-supported music is a nice idea but the math simply doesn't work. The labels have cornered themselves into having the monetary value of music be relegated to be a loss leader.

CTR data

Interesting report on click through rates in Europe against 10 billion impressions. The rate range was from 0.11% to 0.19%, settling in at 0.12% after the holidays. What was interesting to me is that in 2004, click through rates were at 0.33%. The article also speculated that although online video click through rates were markedly higher, that they would also face a decline once the "novelty" wears off.

Publishers would be wise to pay attention. The more they can integrate an advertising experience that yields high click through rates that don't bastardize the user experience, the more likely they will be left standing as the market continues to mature.

Dynamic ad insertion in live stream - its about time?

ESPN360 announces dynamic ad insertion in its live simulcasts starting with March Madness. I'm kind of surprised it has taken this long to work this out. Cable still not there...