CBS-related: YouTube Adds a Layer of Filtering to Be a Little Nicer

from: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/technology/11youtube.html?ei=5065&en=5e0a2cd2f836a07f&ex=1166504400&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print

 

YouTube Adds a Layer of Filtering to Be a Little Nicer

By MARIA ASPAN

When the video-sharing site YouTube.com was sold to Google, many of its users worried that corporate ownership would restrict the content of its videos. But now one of YouTube's corporate partners is changing the ways that users comment on those videos instead.

YouTube, which is host to many official CBS video clips under an October licensing agreement with the network, has changed its layout for some of the Web pages with CBS videos. Most YouTube videos are embedded on Web pages that allow viewers to read user comments, with some of them listed directly below the video. These comments can range from the coherent ("That was hilarious.") to the, er, less-so ("omg lol!") to the profane.

The comments on many of the videos posted by CBS have now been moved to a separate page; instead of sample comments underneath the videos, a link to "view all comments" takes users to a separate Web page where they can read comments without watching the video at the same time.

CBS began moving and filtering comments on some videos in mid-October, shortly after announcing its licensing agreement with YouTube, in order to remove "profane, unconstructive criticism," and off-topic political vitriol, said Quincy Smith, the president of CBS Interactive.

To many users of sites like YouTube, of course, being profane, unconstructive, off-topic and vitriolic is the point.

"We just want to make sure the front page is a little bit cleaner," Mr. Smith said, adding that comments containing certain profanities are caught by an automatic filter, while the remaining comments are then vetted by someone who works at CBS or YouTube and moved to the separate page. "We thought it was a better user experience, and it gives us a second to weed out the completely unuseful comments."

CBS is not the only content provider on YouTube to filter out "spam" messages from the user comments; representatives from YouTube confirmed that the Web site will often use such filters if complaints are raised.

"CBS continues to be one of YouTube's most important partners, but our community remains what's most important above all," said Suzie Reider, the chief marketing officer of YouTube, in an e-mail statement. "We work with all our partners, CBS included, to provide insight in what content will foster an environment that our community will be most responsive to."

The CBS deal with YouTube, part of many media companies' attempts to exploit the video site that distributed their copyrighted content, has so far yielded positive results for the network. According to an announcement the companies made on Nov. 21, CBS videos were among some of the most-viewed content on the site during the first month of partnership.

Mr. Smith said that CBS was trying to provide the best possible interactive experience for the viewers, noting that many YouTube users' critical comments are passed around the network. "We've got to encourage more feedback," he said. "I don't want to mess with the YouTube experience." MARIA ASPAN

Yahoo's Millard Cautious About User-Generated Content

From: http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=113628

 

At UBS: Few Good at Monetizing Those Pages

By Andrew Hampp

Published: December 05, 2006

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Not everyone is excited about the marketing possibilities of user-generated content -- least of all Wenda Harris Millard, chief sales officer at Yahoo, who defined the success of YouTube as "a lot of page views. What was their revenue this year?"

 

Yahoo's chief sales officer, Wenda Harris Millard, says sites like YouTube generate a lot of page views but not a lot of revenue.

Photo Credit: Yahoo

Online inventory has skyrocketed since the explosion of user-generated content, but, Ms. Millard said, "the reality is that there are very few companies -- if any -- that are doing what you would call a good job of monetizing it."

UBS conference
Marketers have been genuinely interested in harnessing this phenomenon for the past two years; it's Yahoo's job to show them how, she told analysts at the UBS media conference.

"All of a sudden, technology has facilitated the rise of the consumer voice in a way that is startling to many of us. But the reality is nobody's doing a great job helping a marketer understand how to leverage this stuff."

Ms. Millard was also none too impressed by the move to viral campaigns, having seen results on her own "test lab" at home.

"I have a 19-year-old and a 17-year-old, and they don't want to be [MySpace] friends with the Burger King king," she said.

Leading the social-media charge
Yahoo has long led the social-media charge with its e-mail, instant messaging and gaming services, tripling MySpace and quintupling YouTube in size.

"Social media is hard to monetize because that age group is so fickle," she said. "Think of all the failed magazines in this world. Nobody's ever been able to put their arms around it at the time. To hold them, you have to be very, very careful not only about the content but about the advertising."

"The question from a business standpoint is: How do you make money at this? It's fun, it's a blast, trying to figure this out, but I don't think anyone is doing it particularly well," she said.

'Peanut butter' memo
The panel's candid vibe continued when an audience member broached the topic of Yahoo Senior VP Brad Garlinghouse's now-infamous "peanut butter" memo from two weeks ago (the internal memo criticized the lack of focus at the company, comparing Yahoo's efforts across all its properties to peanut butter spread too thin).

"I had a really hard time deciding whether I wanted fluff or jelly with that," Ms. Millard quipped. "The reality is, if you really look at that, you could take Yahoo's name off of that and put on almost any company you've ever worked for. This company has grown from $720 million five years to nearly $6 billion today. Is it challenging to grow with that accelerated pace? Is everything perfect? Can we make decisions as fast as a company with 100 people? No. So I looked at it as pretty silly in terms of the noise that was made of it.

"But the reality is," she continued, "we are a company that has grown at an extraordinary rate, and that doesn't come without questions about your ability to move with competitive speed."

Follow-Up: Cookie-scented bus shelters killed in San Francisco

From Engadget: http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/05/city-officials-remove-new-cookie-scented-ads-from-san-francisco/

 

We love the smell of freshly baked cookies as much as the next guy, but smelling cookies at a bus stop is probably unlikely to get us to buy more milk (especially those of us who dig the soy variety). Still, that didn't stop Arcade Marketing, (employed by the California Milk Processor Board), to take the "Got Milk?" ads to a new level with an automated whiff of cookies inside bus shelters in San Francisco. However, the ads, which debuted Monday in SF's Union Square, Financial District, and Nob Hill neighborhoods, were ordered to be taken down by city officials on Tuesday. The city's Municipal Transportation Agency, which presides over the bus shelters, cited public complaints with regard to asthma and respiratory diseases by local activists (namely, the Environmental Health Network of California). That's it EHNC, we're not sending you any holiday cookies this year.

 

Yahoo! to reorganize...

From: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117955163.html?categoryid=18&cs=1

 

Braun leaves post at Yahoo

Company to be split into three new operating units

By BEN FRITZ

After two embattled years on the job, Lloyd Braun has ankled his post as head of Yahoo's Media Group amid a massive reorg at the world's biggest Internet company.

CEO Terry Semel announced the changes Tuesday, near the end of a tough year that has seen Yahoo face intense public criticism and a 31% drop in its stock price.

Starting in the first quarter of 2007, company will divide into three groups focused on audience segments in an attempt to streamline and better compete with fast-growing rivals like Google and News Corp.'s MySpace.

Chief operating officer Dan Rosensweig is also leaving, effective in March.

New operating structure would have diminished Braun's standing in the company, apparently prompting him to resign.

Previously, Braun reported directly to Rosensweig.

But Santa Monica-based YMG, which encompasses all of the Netco's content sites, such as Movies, TV, Music and News, is now part of the Yahoo Network division of the Yahoo Audience Group. Yahoo Network, which also encompasses search, user-generated media, and the Yahoo front page, will be led by Jeff Weiner, previously the head of search.

Netco is looking for an exec to lead the Audience Group, overseeing Weiner and several other execs and reporting directly to Semel.

Braun likely wanted the job atop the Audience Group and didn't like the idea of having additional layers added between him and Semel. His departure wasn't included in Yahoo's reorg announcement, indicating that he resigned in response to the changes, rather than as part of them.

Remaining senior management at YMG, such as head of entertainment and games Vince Broady, music topper Dave Goldberg and head of news and information Scott Moore, will now report directly to Weiner.

David Katz, who previously headed sports and the Yahoo Studios original content group, ankled late last week in a move that now looks like it was connected to the internal shake-up (Daily Variety, Dec. 4).

Rumors of Braun's imminent departure started circling the former ABC prexy within months of joining Yahoo two years ago. His appointment was surprising, as he had no experience in online media.

His initial efforts to bring TV-style event programming to the Netco, such as a failed attempt to develop ABC project "The Runner" for the Web, were ultimately stymied.

After what seemed like more than a year of inaction, Braun recently settled on a more conservative strategy, bringing on a senior management team recruited from other Netcos and focusing on redesigns for existing sites, launching sites focused on food and technology, and low-cost, low-risk original programming such as viral video roundup "The 9."

Tuesday's changes strengthen the position of chief financial officer Susan Decker, who many believe is being positioned to take over for Semel. She is leaving her job as CFO to head the new Advertiser & Publisher group, which will oversee all advertising and business partnerships. Netco has had particular troubles this year with delays in a new advertising technology that caused it to lower its financial guidance.

Yahoo plans to create a new advertising network that joins all its sites with its thousands of distribution partners in an effort to better appeal to marketers, who have been increasingly turning to sites like Google, YouTube, and MySpace.

Third division in the new structure will be the Technology Group, headed by chief technology officer Farazad Nazem, which will oversee engineering and tech development.

Yahoo was previously divided by product group, rather than by audience segment. That led to some some frustrating internal divisions for execs. Many at YMG, for instance, wanted to work more closely with Yahoo Video (user-generated videos) and Flickr (for photos), but those sites were previously in a different product group. They are now joined together in the Network division of the Audience Group.

Semel seemed to acknowledge that Yahoo has in recent years fallen from its leadership position and described the changes as a way to seize that mantle from younger competitors.

"The Internet is continuing to grow and evolve at a rapid pace, and we're reshaping Yahoo to be a leader in this transformation, just as we did successfully five years ago," he said, referring to the time when he first joined the company after having co-led Warner Bros. for many years. "Our strategy capitalizes on big emerging trends and leverages our core strengths in search, media, communities and communications. We believe having a more customer-focused organization, supported by robust technology, will speed the development of leading-edge experiences for our most valuable audience segments."

Company emphasized that its new primary goals will be to create social media environments that encourage users to participate, rather than just consume; to take the lead in next-generation advertising platforms; and to better compete for top talent.

In a statement, Braun said YMG "has developed and launched a groundbreaking template for the next generation of media experiences on the Internet" and noted that "I am proud to have led this team of extraordinary professionals." He told the Los Angeles Times that he is "really ready for another challenge, perhaps one that combines old media and new media."

Bus Shelters get cookie scent

From: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061205/us_nm/cookies_ads_dc_1

 

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hoping to stir up thirst for milk, officials installed advertisements in several San Francisco bus shelters on Monday that give off the scent of freshly baked cookies.

The technology that creates the scent is very similar to that used in magazine ads. Scented adhesives are placed throughout the interior of the bus shelters, including under the benches.

"As long as they are not harmful chemicals, it's OK," one somewhat confused elderly woman said as she pondered the cookie smell in one of the shelters. "They are trying to sell milk? Is that it?"

The effort at five bus shelters is part of a campaign cooked up by the California Milk Processor Board, whose iconic "Got Milk?" campaign has adorned famous figures from around the world with milk mustaches for 13 years.

While olfactory marketing has long been a staple of perfume companies in magazines, Jeff Goodby, chairman of the San Francisco-based ad firm Goodby, Silverstein & Partners that created the campaign, said he knew of no other completely outdoor campaign.

 

#1 (business?) website in CZ

from http://www.lupa.cz/clanky/kristalova-lupa-svatek-ceskeho-internetu/

 

Ceny Křišťálové Lupy 2006 uděleny

David Antoš, Martin Vyleťal – 24. 11. 6:00

Anketa Křišťálová Lupa 2006 - Cena českého Internetu dospěla do svého finále. Slavnostní vyhlášení výsledků a předání cen se uskutečnilo včera večer v restauraci Mánes na pražském Masarykově nábřeží. Který vyhledávač je podle čtenářů nejlepší? Kdo má nejzajímavější blog? Kdo dělá českému Internetu největší ostudu? Jak proběhlo samotné vyhlášení a kdo se jej zúčastnil?

Reklama

>

Až do vzniku ankety Křišťálová Lupa 2006 na českém Internetu citelně chybělo podobné ocenění zajímavých projektů. Spolu se snahou o zviditelnění celého odvětví a uspořádání akce, na které se budou moci setkat všichni v tomto segmentu důležití lidé, bylo hlavním cílem akce Křišťálová Lupa poukázat na nejzajímavější projekty a osobnosti, které na českém Internetu existují. Tato myšlenky není samozřejmě zcela originální. Od předchozích anket se však Křišťálová Lupa přesto odlišuje. Volbu totiž převzali do svých rukou sami uživatelé, a to jak v případě nominace jednotlivých subjektů, tak i následného hlasování. Tento způsob byl zvolen proto, že právě odborná veřejnost čtenářů Lupy mohla do hlasování nejlépe a nejobjektivněji promítnout své vlastní zkušenosti a porovnat klady, či naopak zápory konkurenčních projektů.

Průběh hlasování

Nominační fáze byla spuštěna v září a každý uživatel měl až do 22. září možnost nominovat své favority v celkem 13 kategoriích. Od 1. října následovalo hlasování, do kterého postoupilo v každé kategorii pět nejúspěšnějších. Své nominace získala i řada poměrně neznámých projektů, což je potěšující ukázka toho, že uživatelé dokáží najít kvalitní a zajímavé služby bez ohledu na míru jejich propagace.

Uživatelé z řad odborné i širší veřejnosti měli možnost podpořit z jejich pohledu nejzajímavější a nejlepší projekty, instituce, služby a osobnosti českého Internetu do 31. října. Hlasování se zúčastnilo téměř 11 tisíc čtenářů a na základě jejich rozhodnutí byli zvoleni vítězové jednotlivých kategorií. Tomuto postupu se vymykaly pouze dvě kategorie: Projekt roku a Anticena, u kterých o pořadí rozhodovala odborná porota. Ta měla na výběr ze třiceti projektů nominovaných v předchozí fázi samotnými čtenáři. Hlasování poroty se zúčastnilo 57 internetových odborníků, od manažerů IT společností po publicisty a akademiky. Podívejme se rovnou na výsledky Křišťálové Lupy 2006.

Vítězové

Firemní web

1. Vodafone.cz
2. T-mobile.cz
3. Škoda-auto.cz
4. Cz.o2.com
5. Symbio.cz

 

Verizon Wireless to Offer YouTube on cell phones

From Reuters (http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2006-11-28T113911Z_01_N27190861_RTRUKOC_0_US-YOUTUBE-VERIZON.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-C2-NextArticle-1):

By Sinead Carew and Yinka Adegoke

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Verizon Wireless said on Tuesday it would deliver selected video clips from YouTube to cell phones starting in December in a bid to increase subscriptions to its mobile media service.

YouTube, the leading online video sharing site which was bought by Internet search leader Google Inc. this month, said it hopes to expand beyond computers to phones. It did not reveal the financial terms of the deal.

Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group Plc, has been betting increasingly on text messaging and advanced services like music and video for growth as phone call prices keep falling.

But so far only a small minority of U.S. consumers use features like video on their cell phones. Verizon Wireless hopes the huge popularity of many home videos shown on YouTube could help boost use of its Vcast wireless media service.

"The user-generated content space is a very important sector in media," said Robin Chan, marketing director at Verizon Wireless, who believes the deal could help increase its service revenue.

"Vcast subscribers tend to be higher-value customers in terms of ARPU (average revenue per user) versus traditional voice subscribers," Chan said.

Under the YouTube agreement, consumers who pay a $15 monthly fee for Vcast will be able to use their cell phones to view consumer-generated content posted on YouTube's Web site.

Chan also said customers would also be able to post videos from their phones to YouTube more easily than before by using a five-digit short code instead of an e-mail address.  

Verizon said about 20 million of its customers have phones that could support Vcast. But only about 10 percent of these phone users have subscribed to Vcast, according to estimates from Ovum analyst Roger Entner.

YouTube said the pact with Verizon was exclusive for a short period. It did not say when it would be free to pursue additional deals with other wireless providers.

YouTube, which gets more than 100 million views of its videos a day, is exploring whether it can integrate YouTube into a variety of handheld devices with Internet connections.

"Mobile is just one of the things we're looking at," said YouTube's co-founder, Steve Chen. He did not give details.

 

 

AND

 

From San Jose Mercury News:

(http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/16110496.htm)

 

YouTube in deal with Verizon

By Sarah Jane Tribble

Mercury News

YouTube plans to announce a deal with Verizon Wireless today to bring user-submitted videos from the Web to mobile phone customers nationwide, marking the biggest marriage yet between a video Web service and mobile phone carrier.

The deal, in which no financial details were released, means customers who use Verizon Wireless' V Cast video and music service will be able to access some of the popular Web site's videos from their mobile phones, starting next month.

YouTube cofounder Steve Chen called this the company's ``first move into the mobile space'' and said his goal is to make sure all mobile phone users have access to the videos. He declined to say how long an exclusivity arrangement with Verizon would last.

``The great thing about the emerging new phones, they all come with the ability to take pictures and video at the same time,'' Chen said. ``Now everybody with a cell phone in their pocket will be able to upload it without going back to their computers.''

Only pre-selected high-quality videos will be available for viewing on Verizon's YouTube channel. Users are also be able to upload to the YouTube Web site after shooting video on a Verizon phone. YouTube, which was founded in February 2005, reports 100 million video views a day.

Industry analysts said other carriers are expected to quickly follow suit by pairing with YouTube or finding other partners to create content for the nation's 219 million mobile customers.

``This area has a whole lot of potential, if you think beyond ...voice and text messaging,'' said Kanishka Agarwal, vice president of new products for research firm Telephia. ``All the major service providers who cater to the consumer household are trying to capitalize on extending their content.''

So far, mobile companies have found success with voice and text messaging services but struggled to find people willing to pay for video services. Verizon's deal with YouTube -- which is so popular that Google agreed to buy it for $1.65 billion earlier this year -- bolsters the growing belief that mobile video will both find a market as well as begin making profits, Agarwal said.

Mobile video services like Emeryville-based MobiTV and other television services for Web have reached 5.1 million subscribers in the third quarter of 2006, which is about double the number who used the services during the first quarter, Agarwal said. In addition, he said, revenues for mobile video caught up with revenues from mobile gaming in the third quarter, bringing in $140 million.

Mobile phone users are asking for more content and YouTube fits what they want, said John Harrobin, vice president of digital media and advertising for Verizon Wireless.

``We absolutely believe in the YouTube dream and recognize that among the content that performs best on our entertainment network is really that water cooler, snacking content that YouTube is famous for producing,'' Harrobin said. ``People get lost in YouTube.''

To be sure, YouTube and Verizon have something to offer each other, said Mike Goodman, program manager for digital entertainment with Yankee Group.

``It provides Verizon with significant new content experience and there's an advantage for YouTube as well as it increases their audience,'' Goodman said.

It's no accident that YouTube seems ideal for mobile, Chen said. The company talked about it within months of launching.

``Other than the desk top there are few other places content is being viewed. The mobile handset is ideal,'' Chen said. ``There are a lot of times where you just want to be entertained for a few minutes.''

BloggerSnap

BloggerSnap would be a good tool for Web 2.0 integration on client websites to allow members of communities to easily upload their photos…might pose problems with moderation, but worth considering…

 

More info on www.bloggersnap.com

 

From their website:

„BloggerSnap is a little tool which allows your visitors to easily post on your blog or website a snapshot taken with their webcam! Different gallery options are available, in order to store the snapshots posted and to display them nicely. BloggerSnap offers smooth integration with major blog engines such as Blogger, WordPress, DotClear, etc. It's fun and completely customizable!“

3 Big Brands Reinvent Themselves with Blogs

Text is on multiple pages. This article is worth a look as it includes some relevant examples and good advice... This is only first few paragraphs...

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/12540.asp

Published: November 27, 2006

By Tom Hespos
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Introduction

It would be easy to look at your latest online display ad report and come to the conclusion that many people simply don't want a deeper relationship with your company. However, the opposite is usually true. In the age of big box stores and marketing strategies that keep customers at a polite distance, people crave the type of business relationships of yesteryear, where they had special relationships with the companies from which they bought things. We crave "Mom and Pop-ness," but find few successful marketers that have the time or inclination to celebrate our enthusiasm for brands and products.

We want to hack the ivory tower, deliberately avoiding the mechanisms companies set up to keep us at arm's length. We feel special when our enthusiasm, criticism and importance to a company's business is acknowledged and celebrated. Some companies are realizing this, and they're setting up scalable ways of speaking directly to the market through the internet.

Along with these new programs comes the realization that this direct dialogue is critical. Customers expect it, and prospects are looking for it, too, particularly when they're in a business relationship they're unhappy with. When considering all the effort we put into database marketing -- looking in great detail at loyalists, switchers and other categories of customers -- such programs begin to look like no-brainers.

Here are some folks from the first wave, along with tips on how you can enter the marketing conversation the right way.

The End of Lazy Marketing

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3623635

 

Last week, WebSideStory hosted their Active Insights Conference in New York and kindly invited me to be the keynote speaker.

My talk addressed an important milestone in our industry, so I thought I'd share some highlights:

First some context:

• The Internet is quickly becoming the “can't live without” choice (Arbitron PDF download) over TV.
• Creation and connection rule as the social Web becomes the big story of 2006. There are more people on MySpace today (than were Internet users in the US in 1998. (Just for fun, google "addiction to MySpace," then "addiction to TV." Look at the number of hits. Interesting isn't it?)
• People are walking Tivos as they unconsciously and consciously filter out the 3,000+ messages we blitz them with every day.
• The Internet accounts for only 6 percent of marketing spend and 24 percent of consumers' media consumption. Very quickly, those figures will equalize at the expense of TV and print.

What's this mean for marketers? Simple. We're moving away from a world where you can create a juicy piece of advertising content, buy some media and broadcast a zillion impressions to over-saturated consumers. I call this Lazy-Man's Marketing. It is/was easy, but it's not necessarily effective. We're moving into an era of engagement. Winning brands will be those that give something of value in order to get attention and begin a dialog with consumers.

It's hard work—this engagement business. Things will be much more challenging, and big-brand CMOs know it.

I've recently had a few conversations that really brought the point home for me. A Fortune 500 CMO recently asked, "Mark, we've been increasing our budget for the Internet every year. And it hasn't been hard to justify. But the really big money has been locked up in TV. How can you make me feel comfortable moving that money to the Internet?"

With most CMO's tenure averaging just 21 months (one campaign cycle) smart marketing executives know three things. First, with roughly 6 percent of their budgets invested in the Internet and roughly a quarter (or more) of their customers engaged online, they know they need to move their money to where their customers are. Second, they're betting their jobs. And third, the Internet is inherently measureable and they want answers -— quantifiable ones. It's our duty to give them good ones, or we risk their jobs and our own.

Suppose a CMO came to you and said, "I'm thinking of tripling my spend on the Internet next year. How much should I spend and where? And how will I know if it works?" What would your answer be? If she asked if you're willing to bet your career on the outcome, what would your answer be?

These are tough questions to answer. Our picture of online consumer behavior is incomplete. Blind spots obscure the view.

The purchase path a consumer follows is actually quite complex, particularly for considered purchases. Consider the automotive category. Nearly three-quarters of people go online before visiting a dealership. They spend about five hours on 5-10 sites researching vehicle choices and prices. They don't follow a linear path, nor do they pass through a well-defined sales funnel.

People aren't sheep. They're not going to neatly follow the path you lay. In fact, they often research your product or service in areas on the Internet that are completely outside of your control and not easily measurable, like social networks. To add more challenges to the mix, even in the areas we create and manage, new technologies such as AJAX and RSS don't naturally lend themselves to measurement. While we know how consumers respond in search and what consumers do on some HTML pages, we have to work hard to address the blind spots so we can answer the tough questions being asked of us right now.

Measurement will be a key variable in the argument we make to shift spend from traditional media to online media. Its tougher in a world where consumer generated content (a good part of which is about your or your clients' products and services) is the fastest growing content area on the Web.

So what do you do?

• Think about what it means to be in the era of engagement. First, engage consumers in a dialogue. Be open. Listen. Respect their answers. Let them sample your brand. Let them comment and contribute. Give them space to create their personalized version of your brand experience and hope they badge themselves with it and become your advocate. You must set up a measurement dashboard that allows you to see how you perform in an open world.
• Remember that your brand is a distributed experience. Instead of thinking about upper funnel and lower funnel, think broadly about your consumers' experience. They look at more than your site. They hunt and peck across a wide variety of places you can't control. Consider the entire online experience, not just your site experience.
• Use a flexible measurement tool and think creatively. Flexible tools allow measurement, but not necessarily straight out of the box. If you think about emerging Web technologies such as AJAX and RSS as "events" (all analytics packages track events), you can begin to track anything so long as you can insert a touch of code the tool can recognize.
• Create experience and measurement briefs up front. After you launch, it's usually too late to come up with a measurement strategy. Plan ahead. It's important to build analytics into every experience, particularly at the beginning, so you're not left empty-handed when it comes to good answers around return on engagement.
• Don't do this alone. It really does take many people with diverse perspectives and skills (we call this approach getting "Three Minds" together) to arrive at the right answers quickly. When you plan a major campaign, make sure you have a diverse team at the table: strategists, creatives, technologists, and analysts. That way, you can figure out how to build an exceptional experience for consumers and measure it successfully.

I've waited five years for the big question. It's finally here. Let's work together to answer it.

Real Beauty, Real Breakthrough in Consumer-Fortified Media

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3623811

 Pete Blackshaw | October 31, 2006

Let me open with a curious confession. I've been a bit obsessed with the Dove brand's Evolution video spot. I'm watched it dozens of times, shared it with others, talked it up around the office, and tracked its progress with the intensity of monitoring the ups and downs of my own blog.

What gives? Yes, Unilever's a client in my day job, but it's miles off my beat. Plus, we're in the syndicated business and work with dozens of other consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands.

What makes this spot special and worthy of conversation is it brings a unique set of fresh new teachings about both consumer behavior and the future of digital marketing.

First, some background. As part of the already talk-worthy Dove Real Beauty campaign, the brand placed a highly provocative and well-produced 75-second video spot featuring an attractive woman sitting down for a rapid-fire beauty makeover against a backdrop of high-tempo music on both its Web site and YouTube. Ultimately, the transformation finds itself on a computer for a number of special effects and facial manipulations. When the overhauled face finally makes it onto a billboard, you practically have to squint to find a semblance of the original person. This leads to dramatic kicker tag line: "No wonder our perception of beauty is so distorted." Messaging around the Dove Self-Esteem Fund follows.

Ten Key Takeaways From Real Beauty

Needless to say, the spot has been a viral phenomenon. I've been monitoring online campaigns since my early days in interactive marketing at Procter & Gamble, and this still-unfolding campaign stands out for a host of reasons:

• Success by the numbers. The YouTube metrics along are quite impressive: nearly a million views, hundreds of comments, and about 2,400 "Favorites" rankings. Plus it made a host of YouTube honors. But, the YouTube metrics are only part of the story. The well-coordinated campaign deeply penetrated the blogosphere, crossed global boundaries, served as context for deeper textual discussion, and entered a host of social networks. For 10 days, it topped the charts of linked-to brand videos on both BlogPulse (owned by my firm and Technorati.
• Success by viewer engagement. In many respects, this spot perfectly puts the concept of viewer engagement in perspective. A key goal of the engagement initiative is to explore and qualify new metrics and measures that push well beyond the overly simplified reach and frequency metrics. In Dove's case, there were views, comments, blog entries, links to blog entries, forum entries, board mentions, video responses, tell a friend, and even video mashups and manipulation that took the message in different, yet mostly reinforcing, directions. Each of these metrics informs perspective on ad effectiveness.
• Evolution as consumer-fortified media (CFM). Unlike the vast majority of viral videos out there, this ad was 100 percent brand or agency created. But it was fortified by intense consumer commentary, conversation, and dialogue. Put another way, co-creation was an end results but not the starting point. Looking ahead, expect CFM to become a key success criteria for brands looking for tangible evidence of consumer appeal, involvement, and engagement. Every Super Bowl ad, for instance, has latent potential as CFM, but it's not a guarantee.
• Audience penetration. Far from the "Snakes on a Plane" phenomenon, where the folks who created the buzz were marketing bloggers, not the actual movie prospects, the Evolution ad resonates unusually well with the target audience. If you carefully analyze the buzz and conversation, it's clear this spot resonates with women quite deeply.
• Evolution as social currency. Part of what's fueled the virality and sustainability of this campaign are the thousands of consumers who have embedded the video into their own blogs. More important, the ad's content has social currency. This is also a driving force behind both YouTube's extraordinary growth. There's a huge misperception that most consumers find YouTube through the home page. What's powering the social media revolution right now is the notion of personalized content syndication, whereby we bake key features, utilities, or so-called widgets into our personal blogs and Web pages.
• Evolution and emotion. In reviewing hundreds of verbatims comments, what struck me was the sheer depth and intensity of emotion around this campaign. This is important because emotion is so central to brand loyalty; emotion also correlates with depth of word of mouth and consumer-generated media (CGM) creation. Evolution has succeeded in stirring emotions around notions of changing society and "I too am beautiful." If you put all the CGM related to this campaign in a blender, you'd see a unique set of emotions bubble to the top: empathy, compassion, rage, empowerment, excitement, and even cynicism and defeatism. Like it or not, all this feeds dialogue and conversation. The big caveat is all this is very difficult to repeat with consistency or precision; often it backfires.
• Search dividends. We won't really know for quite sometime whether this campaign truly sells cases, but one thing is very clear: the Dove brand will reap a massive dividend of targeted free advertising via search for years to come. This unprecedented volume of archived ad buzz for a beauty-care brand creates a wide long tail search funnel to the brand. Put another way, millions of new roads lead to Dove, even searches that may seem peripheral to personal care or beauty. This is the opposite of the damage Jeff Jarvis inflicted on Dell computer. This is a very big deal because women, especially influentials, increasingly use the Web to search for beauty solutions and answers. A joint study we just completed with AC Nielsen's Homescan Panel found nearly 70 percent of women actively use search to research products and services. Long term, this campaign may be a gift that keeps on giving.
• Synergy and consistency. What fortifies this campaign is a believability factor among consumers talking about it. They find the brand really cares and has compassion. This screams in the brand Web site's strong receptiveness to feedback. In contrast to most CPG brands, including many other Unilever brands, Dove steps up to the plate in a big way to invite consumers to provide candid feedback, participate in online communities, or exercise other-share-your-opinion venues. Put another way, there's harmony between the high-expression YouTube platform and the brand Web site. In digital marketing, everything must hang together, and consumers always value consistency.
• Freedom from :30 spots. At exactly 75 seconds, the video spot is two and a half times as long as a :30 spot. Had it been one second shorter, it just wouldn't have worked. Video production affords brands far greater flexibility and agility to take whatever time is needed to get the big idea across.. The only constraint is the consumer's attention and receptivity; ergo, it must be engaging.

There's clearly a strain of counterculture in this ad campaign, and it's just too early to tell if there will be any side effects from this approach. But clearly this campaign is pioneering a new genre of advertising that merits our closest attention and engagement.

Are you listening?

5 verticals making mobile work

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/12305.asp

Introduction

To market to consumers on their mobile phones effectively, you need to figure out how to convey your brand as a useful service. Brands that share common themes with cell phones -- mobility, convenience, instant gratification, timeliness, social connection -- have been quick to crack this code.

Let's take a look at a few verticals that are making it work.

Consumer packaged goods

Consumer packaged goods (CPGs) companies have long known that product packaging can be a powerful vehicle for a brand impression and consumer engagement. Mobile turns the package impression into an interactive exchange between the consumer and the brand. CPGs are using mobile marketing to increase sales with mobile coupons and contests by promoting text-in short codes on the package. They are even using mobile to deepen customer intimacy by inviting them to text in to share their thoughts, their secrets and even their perspectives on imponderables like beauty and aging.

Strategy: Pepsi, Xbox and World Cup
Beverage companies have been one of the first to use mobile with "on-pack promotions." On-pack promotions typically include a code that the consumer can see only after purchase and opening of the product (e.g., under a bottle cap) and invite the consumer to text a unique number to an SMS shortcode for an instant chance to win a prize. In April 2006, Pepsi launched one of the most high profile text-to-win campaigns to date around the World Cup with the "What's In Your Locker?" Xbox 360 promotion. The on-pack promotion -- promoted on hundreds of millions of Pepsi containers and backed by a major TV campaign featuring British soccer stars old and new -- gave customers the chance to win an Xbox 360 every 90 minutes of every day over a two-month period leading up to and during the World Cup.

Results
With millions of entries over the course of the contest period, Pepsi was able to highlight and heighten its sponsorship of soccer during a critical period-- the World Cup. A soccer promotion via the mobile channel enabled Pepsi to connect with its key youth demographics, get more mileage out of sponsorship properties and increase sales of its product. Consumers liked it because they got immediate gratification, something they couldn't have through other media while they were out and about. The theme of instant gratification reinforces a primary attribute of the beverage.

Support from product packaging and TV ads

Quick-serve restaurants

Possibly the perfect medium for driving traffic into fast food restaurants, the mobile phone brings, well, mobility, but also time and location targeting and high access to the youth demographic. It is no surprise that Burger King and McDonald's have pioneered a number of mobile marketing programs.

McDonald's mobile offers
McDonald's rolled out a direct response marketing campaign aimed at driving localized retail traffic during the traditionally slower late evenings with a series of weekly mobile coupons for late-night offers. Consumers could sign up for mobile coupons on the company's Late Nite Lounge website. The campaign was also supported by mobile advertising banners running across several popular mobile internet sites, where consumers are targeted by age and location and time of browsing.

Mobile coupons

Results
Click rates for the campaign -- launched exclusively in the New York metro area -- were more than double the industry average. The program received hundreds of opt-ins during the first week, and opt-in growth continued throughout the length of the program.

Mobile coupon and voucher programs can connect directly to the majority of retailers who measure marketing success in store visits and phone calls rather than internet clicks. Receiving a coupon on your phone is a time saver, and convenient compared to getting the scissors out with the Sunday paper.

Again, the medium reinforces the brand message: quick and convenient.

Entertainment

"American Idol" taught Americans how to text message. Now it seems that every reality show has a mobile voting mechanic as a means to reach beyond the screen and engage with viewers. Networks are also using mobile to drive "tune in" first by enticing viewers to interact, and then by reminding them to watch.

A&E's bountiful campaign
A&E tapped into the power of mobile to promote one of its most popular shows, "Dog the Bounty Hunter," and found that mobile programs drive short and long-term viewership, network loyalty and word-of-mouth exposure. "Dog the Bounty Hunter" is a series about the adventures of real-life bounty hunter, Duane "Dog" Chapman. Chapman is famous for bringing more than 6,000 fugitives to justice and also for his unique sayings, or "Dogisms." For example, according to Dog, "To be a winner, you have to know what losing feels like."

Viewers of "Dog the Bounty Hunter" were able sign up to receive weekly messages from Dog on their mobile phones and also send in their own shout outs or "Dogisms" by texting into a short code. Consumers benefited because they got time-targeted reminders that their show was about to begin. This is a great example of conveying your brand as a service.

Mobile messages

Results
Qualitative research conducted during the mobile campaign revealed that mobile marketing not only drove "tune in" for television programs but also increased brand perception of both the show and the network.

• 62 percent of participants said they are watching "Dog" more as a result of the text message campaign
• 65 percent said they would watch more "Dog" in the future due to the text message campaign
• 66 percent said they would watch A&E more in the future due to the text program
• 93 percent will recommend the network to their friends

Travel and hospitality

When it comes to the hotel industry, a little loyalty and a lot of convenience go a long way. Progressive hotel groups are building mobile programs that extend the power of the internet to the customer's pocket. It's easier for the mobile consumer to manage the craziness that often surrounds a travel experience. Indeed, hotels and mobile phones share the same core audience-- the mobile consumer.

Mobile possibilities
Imagine on the day of your reservation receiving a confirmation text message from your hotel providing you with the hotel's address and local phone number and a link to the hotel's mobile internet site where you might find directions, hours and an outline of the hotel's amenities. After your stay, you might even have the option to earn extra loyalty points by responding to a text message survey asking you to rate your stay.

Such a program fosters loyalty and also preempts calls into customer care centers by providing the traveler with the information he needs when he needs it. And the consumer views it as a unique value-added service from the brand.

Financial

European and Asian financial institutions are using mobile to send account balance and other alerts as a value-added service.

A leading retail bank recently charged a friend of mine $40 for two overdrawn checks (she didn't know that her husband had written a large check for a vacation rental). She was livid that her bank would stick it to her for this first time transgression after 10 years of loyal business. She asked me for banks that offer text alerts, and is seriously considering switching brands. Rather than charge consumers for such a service, savvy marketers are realizing that this is a perfect opportunity to convey their brand as a service and make their customers' lives better.

Banking on-the-go

Alert services typically are configured and managed on a website and, like packaged goods, often include room for the brand to upsell services like auto loans

Conclusion

More than traditional media, in mobile marketing what's good for the consumer is good for the brand. Consumers are ready for your brand to get with it and offer value rather than the same old brand bludgeoning job. Effective marketing on the personal device, and more generally to today's fickle consumer, requires nothing less.

Viral? You decide...

http://pics.livejournal.com/tongodeon/pic/0004xhys/

Web 2.0 Summit a tech schmoozefest

 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/09/BUGAEM8OA61.DTL

 

Thursday, November 9, 2006

All things Internet were the topic at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco this week, where technology luminaries including Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos and Netscape founder Marc Andreessen spoke Wednesday.

And while big names draw crowds, for most attendees this annual meeting of digital media entrepreneurs is an opportunity to keep up to date with the latest in the technology industry, schmooze and strike business deals.

What's hot is easy to find out. Just listen in on a few conversations and you're bound to hear ample discussion of Google and its pending acquisition of video-sharing Web site YouTube. MySpace, the popular social networking site, was also a big talker. Startups at the conference are focusing on a wide range of business models, including search, online video and social networking

Bezos' talk focused not on book-selling, Amazon's primary business, but the more technical and less known side of the company: offering its data and services to software developers.

Bruce Chizen, chief executive officer of Adobe Systems, the San Jose softwaremaker, talked about the encroaching ambitions of Microsoft in various fields of software, a development that he called flattering. He then thanked Google for releasing products that compete with Microsoft's software business, such as calendars and a word processor, because, he said, Microsoft is distracted by it.

"I'm thrilled that Google is there, because they are the heat shield," Chizen said.

Many of the same characters who populated the original dot-com boom are also in evidence at Web 2.0, some in prominent roles.

John Battelle, the program chair, engaged in some playful give-and-take with Morgan Stanley Internet analyst Mary Meeker before her presentation, recalling how he and Meeker had run "Internet Summit" conferences from 1998 to 2001, when Battelle ran the Industry Standard magazine and Meeker was "queen of the Net."

Tony Perkins, who wrote a book, "The Internet Bubble," in 1999, moderated a panel. Andreessen, the wunderkind behind the Netscape browser, flogged his new startup, Ning. Kim Polese, who adorned business magazine covers in what's now called Web 1.0, promoted her new company, SpikeSource, which packages a Web 2.0 software suite for businesses.

Author Kevin Kelly, a former Wired magazine editor, assessed the crowd. "It's young but not that young," he said. "All of these people have been through this once or twice. These are people who have been through Web 1.0 and succeeded, failed or something in between. They're lifers."

For that crowd, Kelly said, the dot-com crash was better than a master's degree in business. And now they're back. "Web 2.0 is the next season," he said. "They're entrepreneurial to the bone."

For all the "Bubble 2.0" cracks, however, Scott Meyer, CEO of About.com (a division of the New York Times Co.), said, "It's not Bubble 2.0 because you don't have companies going public on no revenue. It is all the same people, 10 years older and hopefully a little smarter."

He said that in Web 1.0, people bragged about how much money they raised and how many people they hired. "In Web 2.0, it's how little money you raise, how few employees you have and how virtual you can be," he said.

Mena Trott, president and co-founder of the San Francisco blogging software company Six Apart and a Web 2.0 stalwart, said she noticed a shift in the attendees this year.

"There are more suits here," she said.

The Web 2.0 Summit, organized by O'Reilly Media of Sebastopol and CMP Technology, ends today after a three-day run at the Sheraton Palace Hotel. The list of speakers also included Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, and Barry Diller, chief executive of IAC/InterActiveCorp. The conference ends with a rare public interview with David Filo, co-founder of Yahoo.