Archive for June, 2007

Map of Youth Social Networking Culture

This is interesting…

This is interesting…

Well there’s something new

Adverblog had a story up which caught my eye on a bizzarre new in-theater marketing technique that NBC is trying out. It basically uses motion-sensors from within the theater to track the audience’s movement while they collectively play a game.

I tend to agree with the blog author in that I’m not sure this would [...]

Adverblog had a story up which caught my eye on a bizzarre new in-theater marketing technique that NBC is trying out. It basically uses motion-sensors from within the theater to track the audience’s movement while they collectively play a game.

I tend to agree with the blog author in that I’m not sure this would be a good idea for anything outside major blockbusters. But given the cost to install the motion-sensing systems, that’s probably not likely to happen anyway.

Yahoo consolidating search and display ad sales

This SHOULD have happened a couple years ago, but at least it’s now finally in the works. No doubt, Yahoo will also try to incorporate their purchase of Right Media into this system.Yahoo taking down wall separating search and display ads

This SHOULD have happened a couple years ago, but at least it’s now finally in the works. No doubt, Yahoo will also try to incorporate their purchase of Right Media into this system.

Yahoo taking down wall separating search and display ads

Yahoo’s definitely in the news this week

I guess Yahoo can’t complain about being in Google’s media shadow this week.
First there was the announcement that CEO Terry Semel will be replaced by one of Yahoo’s original founders, Jerry Yan.
Then there was the story that Yahoo and News Corp were in talks to sell MySpace to Yahoo in exchange for 25% ownership of [...]

I guess Yahoo can’t complain about being in Google’s media shadow this week.

First there was the announcement that CEO Terry Semel will be replaced by one of Yahoo’s original founders, Jerry Yan.

Then there was the story that Yahoo and News Corp were in talks to sell MySpace to Yahoo in exchange for 25% ownership of Yahoo (which would put MySpace’s current valuation at around $12 billion.) That story is still floating around. Yahoo has also repeatedly pursued the rising social networks Facebook and Bebo. But at this point its looking like Facebook isn’t going to sell to anyone (including Google) and is instead looking to go it alone with its own IPO.

And the latest Yahoo news (which is definitely more rumor than news right now) has talks of Yahoo and Ebay looking to merge. They do have Google as a common rival. And Yahoo has partnered with Ebay to use PayPal as its preferred payment system for Yahoo payments to publishers on its ad network. But I’d still be surprised if this actually happens.

Catching a viral campaign in its early stages

It’s not often we have a chance to see a viral campaign before it’s already (mostly) unfolded. I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts when the host started talking about this odd piece of snail mail he’d received. All it said was:
http://www.theendisthebeginning.org/
You can watch the animation for the cryptic announcement of [...]

It’s not often we have a chance to see a viral campaign before it’s already (mostly) unfolded. I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts when the host started talking about this odd piece of snail mail he’d received. All it said was:

http://www.theendisthebeginning.org/

You can watch the animation for the cryptic announcement of an apparent launch date (for either the product or the next phase of the campaign) which apparently is July 4. He also received another direct mail piece a short while later that created an origami llama. There’s also a couple links that apparently have gradually appeared over time within the flash file that are supposed to be clues.

Gauging by searches on Google, Yahoo and Technorati the buzz level appears to be either relatively low or so new that the spiders haven’t had a chance to crawl newer pages that might contain discussion of what the campaign might be about. The most likely answer is that the campaign (so far) hasn’t gained a lot of traction.

Given the host’s prominence within the tech community as well as the links to an RIAA-related article I’m assuming this is for a music-related product. Nullsoft’s Winamp software uses a llama as its icon. The fact that they have a poll on their home page asking about a paid P2P music service (sometimes anyway, they’re rotating several polls simultaneously) would definitely seem to tie-in with the article the viral site links to. So maybe an AOL-backed P2P paid music service with a new Winamp front end is in the offing? Guess we’ll know shortly.

eBay sends Google a message

eBay and Google got into an interesting catfight recently and Google actually flinched first.
ZDnet Between the Lines (good blog btw)
Ebay and Amazon are probably the only two advertisers big enough to get away with this. It’ll be interesting to see the longterm effects though. Google is increasingly competing on a number of fronts [...]

eBay and Google got into an interesting catfight recently and Google actually flinched first.

ZDnet Between the Lines (good blog btw)

Ebay and Amazon are probably the only two advertisers big enough to get away with this. It’ll be interesting to see the longterm effects though. Google is increasingly competing on a number of fronts with major companies outside the search field and it’s bound to start ruffling the feathers of those that advertise on Google.

Live Garmin Commercial to Air on ‘Tonight Show’

For a very different reason than it was done years ago, NBC will air a live commercial during Tuesday night’s broadcast of The Tonight Show for Garmin International - the folks who brought us that Godzilla-style Super Bowl commercial.
Tonight Show announcer John Melendez will perform the spot dressed in a white lab coat discussing [...]

For a very different reason than it was done years ago, NBC will air a live commercial during Tuesday night’s broadcast of The Tonight Show for Garmin International - the folks who brought us that Godzilla-style Super Bowl commercial.

Tonight Show announcer John Melendez will perform the spot dressed in a white lab coat discussing direction disorder which is an allegory to the company’s mobile direction devices. A “regular” spot will also air during the commercial break immediately following the live commercial .

With DVRs having a noticeable effect on commercial viewership, we may begin to see more and more of this as the nets continue to circumvent ad skippage.

Story from Adrants.com

Awaiting Real Sales From Virtual Shoppers

THE seven million or so inhabitants of Second Life, the three-dimensional online world, have spent millions of dollars on digital makeovers, clothing and other goods and services for their avatars. But will the game’s players buy anything for themselves?
Retailers and manufacturers like Reebok, Adidas, American Apparel and 1-800Flowers.com are setting up shop in Second Life, [...]

Ask unveils new look

I’m sure others will disagree, but I think the new home page looks fantastic. And I like the way the results page’s data for relevant searches pulls in other data such as images and maps as well. The results page is very similar to Google’s experimental (and constantly changing) engine Searchmash.
Prepare for a [...]

I’m sure others will disagree, but I think the new home page looks fantastic. And I like the way the results page’s data for relevant searches pulls in other data such as images and maps as well. The results page is very similar to Google’s experimental (and constantly changing) engine Searchmash.

Prepare for a heavy dosage of mainstream media too as Ask prepares to use CP&B’s creative in their $100 million campaign. The major TV push is set to begin tonight.

Package-Goods Marketers Finally Find Value in Search

Ad Age has a good write-up detailing how package goods marketers are finally seeing the possibilities when it comes to keyword marketing.

Ad Age has a good write-up detailing how package goods marketers are finally seeing the possibilities when it comes to keyword marketing.