Online advertising marketplace - 10/70 rule?

10% of advertising (usually sold directly) for publishers account for 70% of total revenue, the rest being low, low CPM stuff from an array of ad networks...I'd like to write more on this later but for now, here is the link.

Ad money will continue to be spent

Interesting comments from Rino Scanzoni of WPP yesterday.

Interestingly, Scanzoni said the ad recession of 2009 won't be nearly as severe as the ones that occurred either in the dot-com bust triggered recession of 2001, or the previous one that occurred in 1991, because he said advertising budgets had not been running up as quickly this time leading up to the overall economic crash.

"We're not coming off a huge growth uptick," he said, implying that 2009's comparisons with 2008 wouldn't be as severe as earlier recessions as a result.

He also said that the ad recovery would lag the overall recovery by 6-8 months. Marketers still need to get their message across to audiences and online still has great appeal to run a measured campaign despite it all.

Power of the inbox?

Strong numbers for email marketing ad dollars.

Digg toolbar quick thought

Reports today of a new Digg toolbar. Makes a lot of sense. Social media is maturing quickly and more and more would-be passive users are getting more comfortable engaging online. I think 2009 will bring a lot more neat innovations to allow people to share more easily and more comfortably. Big opportunities for companies who can also make this fun and entertaining. If the last few years has been the era of getting content published online, the next few years can be the era of great features and products to share and engage with it, the combination thereof may actually help online companies turn into actual businesses.

Is facilitating playable search copyright infringement?

This suit, although not without interesting a story line behind it, is important to watch because of the implications of the outcome. EMI is suing Seeqpod because it is a service that points users to music that is playable. Seeqpod does not host the files. From a technical breakdown, some judge is going to have to decide whether there is a distinction between indexing meta data (including where a file is hosted and what the file type is) and presenting that index to a user base and where does copyright infringement begin and end? Further grey area is how that presentation is packaged, which in Seeqpod's case where it has a player-like UI, does make it look like much more of a facilitator than say Google search results.

PubMatic's API - what specifically does it do?

Press release is too vague for me...can anyone tell me exactly what we can do with this API?

Live streams of Obama's speech

Hulu kept on freezing up although the audio kept up ok. I also watched part of the time on CNN but their Facebook feature was really annoying. I like the idea of interactivity of audience members but we have to figure out what is going to be the right user interface. I preferred NBC's commenting feature on their online player during the Olympics which did not seem to interfere with the passive quality of sitting back and enjoying the show.

iPhone - making mobile real

I just saw a note from a dev shop that has stopped taking contract work entirely in favor of dedicating all its resources to developing and selling iPhone apps. This type of momentum coupled with the rumors of a Verizon deal makes the mobile industry that much more attractive as a growth market with room to grow. With iPhone app store download numbers continuing to impress, mobile is one platform that has consistently shown that convenience and an easy UI can be enough for consumers to spend money. Now, if we can figure out how to convert purchasing power to a keyboard and a mouse, digital media could really become a business.

SAG and AMPTP - can't agree on predicting the future

Despite the progress of the availability of Hollywood produced content online in the past few years, we are still years away from a great user experience, one with reasonable windows of availability and a comprehensive library. One of the several key reasons is money and how unsure content rights holders are in valuing online distribution. The breakdown in negotiations between the AMPTP and SAG is indicative that no one is quite sure how big (or small) the money can be with online distribution. I think whatever the deal terms get settled on becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Does anyone have insight on what the proposed deal terms are? Has this been published or leaked online anywhere?

Jazz trumpet video channel using Aha.tv

Advertising or entertainment?

Interesting report from Piper Jaffray says that 12% of YouTube's top 100 videos during one week in February were actually branded promotional videos.

With production costs continuing to lower, advertisers can and should realistically consider more creative, branded content as part of their marketing message. Where, however, is the talent pool going to come from? Could be a boon for creative production houses and web development firms.

Celebrity generated video

The low key announcement today between People.com and Ideocracy collaborating on a new video channel called Vipwich describes a service where celebrities will produce 4-5 minute episodes. Reminds me of several fun celebrity videos with Will Ferrell and a handful of others who have started channels on YouTube and ibeatyou.com. Seeing celebrities in "user generated" videos has an immediate novelty factor but I think that only marginally makes that video more interesting than a non-celebrity low production video.

How does one assign a dollar value to a single online video? Production quality and marketing spend are the single biggest factors, both of which are almost non-existent with any 'person-generated' video. Sites like Hulu would not stand a chance to become a standalone business (even with their impressive growth numbers) without the production quality and marketing costs that the networks put behind the videos for television/cable distribution.

Efforts like Vipwich are a great step in learning what can work in the fast evolving video marketplace and it will be fun to watch which of these types of channels rise and fall.

Local advertising not looking bullish

Recent report does not paint a rosy picture for the local advertising market. Lots has been written about and plenty of startups have looked at local advertising as the Holy Grail of revenue growth (although keep in mind that no one has actual found the Holy Grail!).

It shouldn't be too hard to guess why local advertisers have not flocked to the web. They are local businesses after all, with limited growth abilities which inhibit how much they can justify resources for managing web marketing. Word of mouth and location and good service are always going to be the hallmarks of a local business' marketing backbone.

Successful online marketing services for local advertisers will be the ones that can save local business owners money and time and still yield the same target % of new local customers.

Not sure this is news...

Research reports that most people ignore ads...any check of typical click thru rates, or a simple review of one's own behavior would tell you that!

There are campaigns that can do very well whether virally or contextually and so better research would be to report on quantifying circumstances where ads do NOT get ignored.

Online video numbers getting impressive

Record 14.3 billion online videos viewed in the month of December according to ComScore. Most notably, Hulu was reported to have 241 million videos viewed. With the bulk of longer form, high quality network television on Hulu surely garnering premium CPM's, these growth numbers continues to make the case for a real business...or a real extension of a business for the networks. The real test for online video is whether it can find a model where online viewing alone can generate revenue to justify production costs. The long tail, poorly produced, user generated video is a volume business that hasn't demonstrated the scalability necessary to be a standalone business.