Thursday, June 19, 2008

Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim

Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim

Pilgrim’s Picks for June 19 - Back Home Edition

Posted: 19 Jun 2008 09:36 AM CDT

If you travel (and blog) you know that returning to the office is a dreaded event. Not only has the email backed-up, but so have the blog posts.

Rather than keep you all hanging–while I dig out–here’s what’s buzzing today.

P.S. I did an interview with the legendary Susan Bratton. You can listen to the podcast or read the transcript–either way, you’ll learn some valuable online reputation management tips. ;-)

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Watchout Netflix & iTunes, YouTube Might Offer Movies for Free!

Posted: 19 Jun 2008 09:06 AM CDT

Just when it looked like services such as iTunes and Netflix were going to define the online video rental business, along comes YouTube. With the Google-owned video site announcing a new, larger 1GB file size limit for its content partners, YouTube is pushing closer to offering feature-length films.

From the YouTube memo, posted on Silicon Alley Insider:

Long Form Content
You now will be able to upload and monetize videos in your account that are longer than 10 minutes. This feature is exclusively for partners. Independent Film makers that partner with us will now be able to upload their feature films on our site. Please note that for long form content, the maximum file size is 1GB.

1GB is not enough for a two-hour HD-quality movie, but plenty for a 60-90 minute standard definition video.

When first learning of the new limit, my reaction was "great, now we’ll have 60 minutes of bad karaoke, compared to the current 10 minute versions." Then, I made the connection.

Would you rather pay $2-5 to rent the latest blockbuster movie online, or would you rather put up with a few ads and get to watch it for free?

As long as YouTube chose ad formats that didn’t look like commercial-breaks–maybe "smoke" overlays or 90 seconds of ads before the movie–it could quite easily make enough money to keep movie producers happy, and YouTube users supplied with free films.

What do you think? Does YouTube have a different plan? Would you watch the latest blockbuster with ads, if it meant you watched for free?

Linky Goodness, June 18

Posted: 18 Jun 2008 03:51 PM CDT

Oh, geez, is it Wednesday already?

And, conversely, is the week over yet?

Pilgrim’s Update: Save 34% off Andy’s new book - Radically Transparent: Monitoring and Managing Reputations Online

Ask Takes Google to Task on Privacy

Posted: 18 Jun 2008 03:36 PM CDT

Forget the fact that privacy watchdogs are all over Google threatening legal action for not linking prominently to their privacy policy—now other search companies are out to steal their bacon. Ask.com is circulating news that they’re now prominently linking to their privacy policy.

From the email:

At Ask, we take our commitment to user privacy and data protection very seriously. We’ve demonstrated this not just through words, but through deeds and actions. We were the first major search company to announce that we would be placing privacy tools directly in the hands of our users, as we said we would do in July 2007. Then, we did it: we launched AskEraser in December 2007. Ask remains the only major search company to develop and deploy a privacy protection tool that that empowers web users to make decisions as to data retention by Ask. The AskEraser tool is right there on our homepage, a one-step mechanism to deleting a users' search data from Ask.com servers.

Now, we're going several steps further.

As of today, Ask.com has added a direct link to our privacy policy via a “Privacy” link prominently placed right on our homepage. It is only one of four non-search related weblinks on our homepage. We've also made sure that the “Privacy” link appears on the landing pages across most of Ask's verticals as well, which cover almost all of Ask's search traffic.

In addition to this important and timely step, Ask has also added a conspicuous link to our privacy policy right on our Ask “About” page, which is one click off our homepage.

Ask also says they’re working on “Smart Answers” pages for search queries [ask privacy] and [privacy].

My favorite part of the letter: “No one required that we take any of these steps. We took a look at our webpages, and realized we could make some key improvements when it came to privacy links on our service. It’s simply the right thing to do for the information and awareness of our users.” (Jab, jab, jab, Google.)

Will it be enough to spur Google to action? Their precious “clean” home page would apparently be so marred by the addition of a single link (to a page with more than a dozen links already), adding at most nine characters, that it seems doubtful. I mean, isn’t it obvious that “Privacy” just ruins the whole “white space” feel to the page? (Sorry, guys, I’m sure you’re getting nauseated from all the eyerolling here. </snark>)

Ahem. While Ask’s move is certainly admirable, I don’t think the still-5%-share search engine has quite enough clout to truly pressure Google into doing “the right thing,” even if now Google is the only one of the big four to lack a privacy link on its main page.

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Updated: Microsoft Extends Advertising Reach by Partnering with YuMe

Posted: 18 Jun 2008 03:25 PM CDT

UPDATE: YuMe tells us that the deal is a partnership, not an acquisition.

If the race between the Soviet Union and the United States to get the first man in space was coined “the Space Race,” perhaps we should call Google and Microsoft’s race to plaster the digital frontier with ads “the AdSpace Race.”

This week, Microsoft purchased YuMe, the largest provider of online video ads on the web. YuMe represents more than 500 million streams each month and reaches more than 68% of the total US online population (more than 120M uniques). YuMe will now offer advertisers MSN inventory and was also selected as the video ad platform to serve and manage all of Microsoft's unsold and excess video inventory.

As part of the agreement Microsoft will also utilize NetworkMe, a capability of YuMe’s advertising platform that allows publishers to aggregate all of their video content into one private ad network, providing a consolidated view of available inventory. With NetworkMe a publisher gains unprecedented inventory liquidity and the ability to maximize CPMs and fill-rates across multiple properties.

Neither Microsoft nor YuMe published the financial terms of the deal.

Now that the Yahoo deal went south, the number of advertising networks Microsoft decides to buy out is anyone’s guess.

The Continuing Fallout from the Google/Yahoo/Microsoft Love Triangle

Posted: 18 Jun 2008 03:24 PM CDT

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are still getting plenty of attention, despite the apparent finality of recent decisions to end talks between Y&M and to start a search advertising deal with G&Y. Once again, we’ve herded together some of the best and most insightful stories to give you the big picture. Think of it as an extended Linky Goodness with editor’s commentary—you know, like a special feature on your daily DVD of marketing news. Moving right along. . . .

Curious to know what the rest of the industry thinks about it? Former Ask.com CEO Jim Lanzone weighs in, with coverage by MediaPost:

“I think I’m one of the few people who views this as a positive for Yahoo,” Lanzone said. “I don’t know the exact terms, of course, but it seems like all upside.” He acknowledged that his positive bias stemmed largely from having seen the benefits of a similar paid search partnership during his 7-year tenure with Ask.

Yes, but this is coming from the same company that has long maintained it’s not looking to beat Google, but to just steal and keep a small portion of the search market. I don’t think that was Yahoo’s goal (though it may be now.)

Lanzone also predicted tough times for Microsoft:

“Microsoft’s issues all stem from query volume–not the monetization side,” Lanzone said. “They don’t have a lot of ammo in this fight, beyond IE (Internet Explorer) and however they can leverage that. But I don’t see how this deal really changes that.”

The article also features insightful commentary from Didit’s Kevin Lee.

BoomTown/AllThingsD says things are looking pretty grim for Chief Yahoo Jerry Yang. With very vocal opposition to his continued leadership, the August 1 shareholder meeting may well end with Yang out of a job. Kara Swisher looks at all the possibilities for his replacement, from Susan Decker to Meg Whitman to Mark Cuban (seriously) to Marc Andreessen.

Finally, Google continues to maintain that their deal with Yahoo will face no opposition from regulators—and now they’ll even admit that the deal may be beneficial to Yahoo.

Let me see that logic again. You made a deal with a company that sees itself as your (struggling) archrival to provide a core money-making business and increase both of your profits, and you’re just now figuring out that it might help them, too? So Google made this deal on the assumption that cooperating with their next-largest-competitor-in-the-US would hurt them. Yeah, sounds like something the DOJ rubber stamps every day.

Reuters reports from South Korea:

“In the case of Yahoo, the company believes that it will be beneficial to assist Yahoo with its experiment,” [Vinton] Cerf [vice president and chief Internet evangelist at Google] told a press event on the sidelines of the OECD Ministerial Meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy.

Ah, benevolence. The driving force in all interactions, especially economic ones.

Wait, what? Self-interest? Nah. Not Google.

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Microsoft Acquires Navic for More TV Ads

Posted: 18 Jun 2008 03:05 PM CDT

Microsoft will give Google a run for its money in any arena they can—and the latest effort looks to be focused on television advertising, with Microsoft’s acquisition of Navic, a TV advertising company.

Google’s slow foray into television advertising began last March, with confirmation coming last April. By January of this year, they had only 200 advertisers. The biggest announcement we’ve seen in Google’s television advertising was the integration with Google Analytics this month.

But slow-and-easy ain’t Microsoft’s style. Navic will be joining Microsoft’s Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group, home of the company formerly known as aQuantive. While Microsoft has made attempts to break into television advertising before, this acquisition supposedly signals a new level of focus on the industry, especially with Navic’s emphasis on “addressable” (which sounds an awful lot like “targeted”) and, yes, interactive TV advertising.

And Microsoft has already indicated that television advertising will be integrated into their current adCenter offerings, providing what AdWeek describes as “wide-ranging ad platform that would allow advertisers to place, target and track ads on the Web, mobile, in video games and now TV” (via).

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