Google on Display Ad Future

Looking forward, Google believes that what we today know as “display” advertising will just be “advertising,” a single platform that can coordinate an advertiser’s campaign across streaming audio ads in car stereos, interactive mobile experiences on smartphones, and high-definition video ads on set-top boxes, for example.

Of course, Google expects it will be well positioned to be the manager of campaigns using such diverse channels. Google expects it will provide a single platform to optimize such campaigns, automatically delivering the best-performing ads, best returns and best mix, across all those platforms.

Display advertising is about much more than ads in web browsers, Google now believes.

People are watching video, reading newspapers, magazines, books and listening to digital music at an ever-increasing rate, on a wider range of devices.

So Google intends to give publishers a single base that can deliver ads into this expanding world, including streaming video and mobile ad delivery.

Official Google Blog: Online publishers: growing the display advertising pie

The Value of a "Liker"

Newspapers and other content organizations can use social mechanisms, such as the Facebook "Like" mechanism, to drive traffic, engagement and clickthrough rates, Facebook argues. Do get those results, content publishers should use social plugins, beginning with the Like button.

When a person clicks "Like," it publishes  a story to their friends with a link back to a site, adds the article to the reader’s profile, and makes the article discoverable through search on Facebook.

Publishers also should optimize their "Like" buttons, perhaps  showing friends’ faces and placing the button near engaging content, but avoiding visual clutter with plenty of white space. That can increase clickthrough rates by three to five times.

Publishing engaging stories or status updates (things that are emotional, provocative, related to sporting events or even simple questions) increase on-page engagement by 1.3 to three times, Facebook says.

Highlighting the most-popular content on a site leads people to view more articles. Those who click on the "Activity Feed" plugin in particular generate four times as many page views as the average media site viewer. Place it above the fold on a home page and at the bottom of each article for maximum engagement.

Publishers should use the "Live Stream" to engage users during live events, as well. The live stream box can serve as a way to reach an  audience, facilitate sharing of content, and get them involved in what is streaming, be it an interview, conference, or other type of event.
People who click the Facebook "Like" button are more engaged, active and connected than the average Facebook user, Facebook says. The average “liker” has 2.4 times the amount of friends than that of a typical Facebook user. They are also more interested in exploring content they discover on Facebook. They click on 5.3 times more links to external sites than the typical Facebook user.

Many publishers are reporting increases in traffic since adding social plugins, including ABC News (+190 percent), Gawker (+200 percent),  TypePad (+200 percent), Sporting News (+500 percent), and  NBA.com (number-two referral source). Publishers have also told Facebook that people on their sites are more engaged and stay longer when their real identity and real friends are driving the experience through social plugins. For example, on NHL.com, visitors are reading 92 percent more articles, spending 85 percent more time on-site, viewing 86 percent more videos, and generating 36 percent more visits.

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Globe to offer two websites: one free, one pay

Experimentation is the watchword throughout most of the media. So the Boston Globe next year will split its digital news brands into two distinct websites, keeping Boston.com free while establishing a subscription-only pay site, BostonGlobe.com, which will feature all the content produced by the newspaper's journalists.

That will set up a clear test of end user preference for online local news.

The change, scheduled to take place during the second half of 2011, is aimed at building an audience of paid subscribers online, a strategy that newspapers across the country increasingly are moving towards. With this approach, the company also aims to maintain high traffic to Boston.com, one of the nation’s largest regional news sites and a site that generates revenue from advertising.

In the video arena, attention is focused on experiments with on-demand and online-delivered entertainment video. But one change already has occurred: cable networks are vastly more profitable than the old broadcast TV networks.

Bravo, for instance, is valued at $3.2 billion, according to research firm SNL Kagan. In contrast, Wunderlich Securities says the NBC network is worth a negative $600 million.

ABC Family is worth $3.3 billion, while ABC's value is just $1.2 billion, according to Kagan and Wunderlich estimates.

Just about everything happens faster when the Internet is involved, it is worth noting, but the vast growth of cable programming value, and the decline of broadcast networks, took decades. Few of us would suggest it will take decades for online video to have significant impact on the multichannel video entertainment business. But it wouldn't take much insight to predict a decade as a reasonable expectation for online channels to have displaced a significant percentage of today's "cable-delivered" programming.

Globe to offer two websites: one free, one pay

YouTube Leads, But Facebook 2nd-Largest Video Site

Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property with 146.3 million unique viewers in September 2010.

But Facebook.com jumped one position to capture the number-two spot with 58.6 million viewers, for a total of 243 million viewing sessions. Yahoo! Sites ranked third with 53.9 million viewers, followed by VEVO with45.4 million.

Google Sites had the highest number of overall viewing sessions with 1.9 billion and average time spent per viewer at 270 minutes, or 4.5 hours.

The duration of the average online content video was 4.8 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.

comScore Releases August 2010 U.S. Online Video Rankings

20% of AMericans Have Reduced Spending on Cable?

In a short piece on how Americans are economizing during the recession, sponsored by the Harris Poll, brief mention was made of the fact that 20 percent of Americans have cut back someplace on their "cable" spending. If so, that would presumably include cutting back on HBO subscriptions, disconnecting an outlet and therefore saving a monthly cable decoder rental, or other actions that keep the basic cable subscription in place.

If true, though, such data would show the important role the economy, housing crisis and joblessness are having on fixed-line service providers. Significant percentages of people also claim they cut off a mobile phone subscription or fixed-line voice subscription as well.

What Americans say they gave up in 2009

Google Android OS Has Momentum

Among consumers planning to buy a smartphone in the next 90 days, 37 percent say they prefer to have the Android OS on their new phone. That is a seven percentage point jump since the previous survey and a new all-time high for the Google operating system.

Over a year, preference for Android has grown about 600 percent.

While the Apple iOS remains the number one OS preference for future buyers, it dropped as expected in the aftermath of the huge spike we saw during June’s iPhone 4 release.

ChangeWave Consumer Smartphone Survey - Google Android OS Momentum

Sprint Board Members Depart Clearwire

Sprint Nextel Corp. executives serving on the Clearwire Corp. board of directors have left the board, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Sprint Chief Executive Dan Hesse and fellow executives Keith Cowan and Steven Elfman have resigned from the Clearwire board. A spokeswoman for Sprint said the company plans to appoint independent successor directors in the next few months. In the meantime, Sprint has named its general counsel, Charles Wunsch, as an independent observer to the Clearwire board.

Clearwire said that the resignations were prompted by recent changes in antitrust laws, but the move could also could provide Clearwire added flexibility to pursue a deal of some sort that might bring T-Mobile USA into Clearwire as an equity owner, for example.

On the other hand, some speculate that Sprint might also have an opportunity to increase its stake, as other shareholders such as Comcast Corp. have signaled they are unwilling to provide additional funding Clearwire requires. A move of that sort might not require a greater arms length relationship with Clearwire, though.

Clearwire said the move came "out of an abundance of caution to address questions raised by Clearwire

Clearwire's board structure allows for 13 members, seven of which Sprint has the right to appoint. The remaining four independent Sprint appointees to the Clearwire board remain.

Since Clearwire and Sprint compete at the retail level, the current board membership has proven awkward, observers note.

In some ways, it is hard to see any long-term solution that does not have Sprint acquiring a larger stake in Clearwire. Whether a firm the size of Sprint can live, long term, with buying its crucial 4G services from a firm it also competes with is open to question.

Sprint Nextel also faces the complexity of operating several different air interface networks (iDEN, CDMA and WiMAX). Those problems are not directly related to the size or control of the Clearwire network, but could become even more complicated if Sprint adds Long Term Evolution services at some point.