“The BBC is the only European brand that could take on Google and AOL,” says BBC director-general Mark Thompson.
Following the announcement of Share Find Play, and given their strong, respected brand, an expanding international commercial operation, and the pile of cash they get from the TV licence fee, Thompson might be right. It is also nice to know that Yahoo and MSN didn't make his list.
The BBC wants to expand its international commercial activities through BBC Worldwide, explore various acquisitions, such as video-on-demand services and expansion of magazine publishing overseas, and launch BBC.com, an advertising-supported website accessible outside the UK, by the end of the year.
All this while asking the government to have UK households give them more money to run the business.
In the UK, households pay an annual TV licence fee of £126.50 per year, which funds much of the BBC's operations. The licence fee for the next ten years is currently in negotiation, and the BBC is seeking a rise of inflation plus 2.3 percent.
While the cash will certainly help the BBC compete with the likes of Google and AOL, what is the impact on local competition?
ITV, already faced with an 11% decline in ad revenue predicted at the channel for the end of the year cannot be very happy.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) today announced that Internet advertising revenues reached a new record of $3.9 billion for the first quarter of 2006. The 2006 first quarter revenues represent a 38 percent increase over Q1 2005 at $2.8 billion and a 6 percent increase over Q4 2005 total at $3.6 billion.
Internet ad revenue is set to overtake UK national newspaper ad revenue by the end of 2007, according to a report by WPP's pooled buying operation Group M.
The FT said the projection would make web ad revenue the third biggest revenue generator globally behind regional newspapers, currently in second place, with television still way out in front.
Estimates that internet ads would account for 13.3% of the £12bn a year media ad market by December 2007, with national newspapers marginally behind on 13.2%.
Forecasts a 39% rise in internet ads, compared with a 9% decline for national newspaper ad revenue.
Predicts that by the end of 2007, national newspapers' share of the market will drop to almost two-thirds of the levels in 2000.
Claims that analysts have continually underestimated the growth of internet ads, partly due to the perception that the popularity could not be maintained.
Adds that search ads accounted for more than half of online ads in 2005, with further growth predicted this year.
Predicts TV advertising will drop by 2% this year, and said TV was experiencing "its worst year since 2001" -- largely attributable to the global media downturn post September 11. (However, TV still has a 28.8% share of worldwide advertising revenue.)
Brand Republic suggests that the TV ad downturn would be felt acutely by ITV1, the UK's biggest ad-funded channel, with an 11% decline in ad revenue predicted at the channel for the end of the year.
The GroupM report concludes that newspaper ads were experiencing a decline in popularity for failing to engage with younger audiences. (The IAB already predicted that online ad revenues will surpass national newspapers by as early as November this year.)
That should give Paul Hayes some more dross to trawl through.
Forty-eight million American adults have contributed some form of user-generated content on the Internet, according to the "Home Broadband Adoption 2006," a report published by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. That's 35 percent of Internet users. Of those adults who have posted content on the Web, 73 percent, or 31 million, have a broadband connection at home.
Paul Hayes, Managing Director of Times Publications, really knows how to win friends and influence the blogosphere.
"Some blogs are conversations among people you'd frankly prefer not to meet, others are cries for help and their writers are clearly in need of therapy," quotes the PressGazette. Others are just people expressing themselves, which is an entirely honourable pursuit, but would you like to meet this geek on a dark night?"
Hayes continues, "As information overload really kicks in, the consumer will want to go straight to the brand that they trust. So with all due respect to the hundreds of thousands of information sources out there, you can't beat a big brand name to re-assure you that what you're reading is high-quality content worth spending time with, and frankly, true. People don't have time to trawl through dross."
When it comes to news (and other information gathering online), I don't think people "go striaght to the brand" as Hayes suggests. Increasingly, I think people go straight to the story. Search, RSS, smart aggregation and yes, blogs, make the discovery process much more efficient.
What makes news from The Times any more valueable than The New York Times, Wash Post, or a trusted blog? These days, not much. On the internet, content is a conversation, and if Hayes and other old-school media types want their brands to survive in the digital era, they had better learn fast, adjust, and stop insulting their readers along the way.
Aren't visits to The Times homepage followed by browsing for interesting/relevant content as close to "trawling through dross" as it gets? Jarvis sums it up well, "And some big media will disappear noticed but frankly unmissed as well. Especially the snotty ones."
NYTimes.com reports on Stonehenge in the City. "On May 28 and on July 13, the sun will fully illuminate every Manhattan cross street (not the curved or angled ones) on the street grid during the last 15 minutes of daylight, and it will set on each street's center line. The sight is breathtaking."
Photo by Robert Caplin for The New York Times. Lyrics are by Billy Joel.
Some folks like to get away Take a holiday from the neighborhood Hop a flight to Miami Beach Or to Hollywood But I'm taking a Greyhound On the Hudson River Line I'm in a New York state of mind
I've seen all the movie stars In their fancy cars and their limousines Been high in the Rockies under the evergreens But I know what I'm needing And I don't want to waste more time I'm in a New York state of mind
It was so easy living day by day Out of touch with the rhythm and blues But now I need a little give and take The New York Times, The Daily News
It comes down to reality And it's fine with me 'cause I've let it slide Don't care if it's Chinatown or on Riverside I don't have any reasons I've left them all behind I'm in a New York state of mind
It was so easy living day by day Out of touch with the rhythm and blues But now I need a little give and take The New York Times, The Daily News
It comes down to reality And it's fine with me 'cause I've let it slide Don't care if it's Chinatown or on Riverside I don't have any reasons I've left them all behind I'm in a New York state of mind
I'm just taking a Greyhound on the Hudson River Line 'Cause I'm in a New York state of mind.
Nico Flores, BBC blogger, has updated a very interesting content-related post called "Aggregates go mainstream" and he links to several new contributions that relate to his original post. One post Nico mentions is Jeff Jarvis' follow-up called Context is Content.
Both are worth a read.
Quoted: Content is nothing on its own. It only exists as part of conversations -- understood not in the usual 'blogsphere' sense of deliberation, but as shared concerns (not my term), concerns that we must partake in to be part of communities. When I buy a novel I choose it not just because I think I might enjoy it, but also because it is also being read by other people, because it's part of a larger movement that I'm interested in, or because it is relevant to something else I read. Reading is satisfactory only if I bring with me a certain baggage; and reading will add to my baggage, allowing me to appreciate other works and, crucially, to have more of a shared background with people around me. My point is that content--or, more precisely, the transaction of consuming content--is only meaningful as part of a wider conversation that is made up of countless related transactions.
A few months ago Terry Heaton wrote an influential essay on 'unbundling', in which he used the term 'smart aggregators' to refer to something like my aggregates. At some point last year, Umair Haque published his New Economics of Media presentation, and recently he wrote, in connection to ABC's ad-supported hit-show trial, that "rebuilding is where value creation will happen...where branding will be reborn".
In a recent post, John Hagel argues that "in addition to unbundling and rebundling of content, media companies face a choice: do they want to remain product businesses or do they want to become audience relationship businesses?" And in a related note, Jeff Jarvis reflects that "the future of media is not distribution, it's aggregation" -- it having been previously established, of course, that content is not the thing either.
My first "real" job was as a junior PM for Kenner/Parker Tonka in Paris. I managed Ghostbusters and other boys toy lines. I had met Tom Hanks filming the movie "Big" at Rye Playland the previous summer, and I always felt a bit like his character Josh while working at KPT. We played a lot of Risk and aso used to try all the games that the inventors would send in and judge la valeur ludique - the play value - of the games. Priceless.
Come to think of it, I played a lot of Risk in Vienna, too.
A good post on folksonomy over on Bocardo including the argument that even within social networks, personal value precedes network value. "What this means is that if we are to build networks of value, then each person on the network needs to find value for themselves before they can contribute value to the network. In the case of Del.icio.us, people find value saving their personal bookmarks first and foremost. All other usage is secondary."
That's the quesion that Scott Karp and Guy Kawasaki are asking. Karp's article is based on his reading the comments made on a Flickr photostream taken when Guy Kawasaki arranged a panel of 14-18 year olds to address that question for an audience of investors.
Karp's two key points are that: 1. When a fad becomes overhyped, teens will eventually retreat 2. Most teens know that MySpace isn’t entirely safe
After reading this, Karp checked out MySpace’s latest Alexa chart:
In the comments, reader David Krug disagrees, calls Karp a dork, and suggests seasonality as a better reason for the dip. Gotta lovit. Karp disagrees s bit, "I forgot how conformist teenagers are — of course they will continue to embrace MySpace now that’s gone totally mainstream. It’s totally hip to do what everyone else is doing."
Those interested in the subject might want to check out For Teens, MySpace.com Is Just So Last Year in which Amanda Lenhart, a senior researcher for the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
Nice job here by Pepsi to play on the stereotypes and reputations of both the players and hosts without going overboard. With the World Cup days away, stay tuned for more.
This is a case study in how to engender the wrath of the blogosphere:
CMP is trying to trademark the term "Web 2.0" and is sending cease-and-desist letters to conference organizers who are using the term, including IT@Cork, who work with Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle to put on the Web 2.0 Conference each fall.
Sara Winge (VP of Corporate Communications) asked Tim O'Rielly to post the following message on his blog: Controversy about our "Web 2.0" service mark. The first comment, from JP, is priceless and indicative of things to come. Another comment, from Andy, points out the irony of Tim's having a Creative Commons badge on his blog. Classic.
This will not turn out well for Tim O'Rielly or CMP, and I agree with Michael Arrington that a lynching is going to take place, and Sara Winge has put Tim O'Rielly's head in the noose. "They are going to shoot first and ask questions later - Shel Israel, for example, wrote “O’Reilly has just put himself on the fast track to reputation implosion” and he may be right."
CrunchNotes: Tom Raftery received a cease and desist letter from the General Counsel of CMP Media, who work with Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle to put on the Web 2.0 Conference each fall. The letter demands that Tom stop his use of the term “Web 2.0? in a conference he’s putting on. The letter states that the use of the term is under a trademark application in connection with live events, conferences, etc. My favorite line of the letter: “…the public have come to associate the mark Web 2.0 and the Web 2.0 Conference with CMP and MediaLive.” I have to say that when I think of web 2.0, CMP is not the first name that pops into my head. O’Reilly and Battelle sure. CMP, no.
Surely a headline to get the merger rumors started up again, Yahoo and eBay announced a web advertising alliance. Under the deal, Yahoo will be the exclusive third-party provider of all graphic ads throughout eBay's auction site. Yahoo has also chosen EBay's online payment system PayPal to allow its own customers to pay for Yahoo Web services.
Om Malik and Michael Copeland have written a good primer. Check out their 16 step guide.
Quoted from Om's blog: New technologies are creating new business opportunities on the Internet, on mobile phones, in consumer products, and in information services. At the same time, many of these technologies have radically reduced the costs associated with launching a new venture. While birthing a company is easier, succeeding is as difficult as ever.
I teamed up with my long time colleague and comrade-in-arms Michael Copeland and talked to seasoned entrepreneurs, early-stage investors, venture capitalists, and first-time CEOs—to understand what they’ve learned about the art of getting a new company off the ground. This is a 16-step guide for building a start-up, and what are the things to avoid. Read this month’s Business 2.0 cover story, How To Build A Bullet Proof Start-Up.
The Metropolitan Opera needs your support to continue funding its live radio broadcast program. Well worth a few bucks, if you like opera and the arts, as I do.
Technorati's partnership spree continues, this time with the Associated Press. On the heels of their deal with Edelmen for international development, Technorati has partnered witht the AP to deliver blog headlines to 440 news organizations that carry AP's news module.
The news organizations that run the AP's module will display a box highlighting the 5 most bloggged about news items of the day and inbound links will be displayed on pages for unique articles.
Technorati Weblog: Technorati Teams With The Associated Press to Connect Bloggers To More Than 440 Newspapers Nationwide. Several months ago we and The Associated Press began to talk about about how citizen-generated media could enhance the AP in their mission to be "the essential global news network." Increasingly, what the blogosphere says about a news story becomes part of a more complete story, lending diverse perspectives and often expert commentary. The AP believed it was increasingly important to deliver the living blogosphere as a compliment to their their core professional news product. Social Software Weblog: This may also give a real boost to local blogs when these publications run local stories - something the WaPo deal and Sphere's new parntership with Time.com won't do.
Trends in Living Networks: The collaborative space of blogs and newspapers: Technorati’s initiatives – and their uptake by mainstream media – are making the system into a tightly enmeshed collaborative space for identifying and disseminating news through society.
A Weinstein Will Invest in Exclusivity - New York Times Most popular Internet communities, like Facebook.com or MySpace .com, measure their success by their ability to attract new members. A notable exception to this rule is aSmallWorld.net, an exclusive online community that is about to get bigger.
The Weinstein Company, the production business started by Bob and Harvey Weinstein after they left Miramax, has invested in aSmallWorld, the company will announce today. The Weinsteins, whose multimedia portfolio includes Miramax Books and a magazine publishing company, Niche Media, head a team of investors including Robert W. Pittman, former chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner. The company declined to put a dollar figure on its investment, describing it only as "significant." The Weinstein Company was attracted to aSmallWorld by the community's social networking and advertising opportunities, Harvey Weinstein said in an interview. This is the company's first investment in an online venture.
Edelman and Technorati Partner on International Project
The Edelman Technorati Deal; Why This Matters for Companies. Although Technorati is best known as the most comprehensive service for searching blogs — they currently index over 40 million of them — the company also provides the best analytic tools for tracking over time and in depth what the blogosphere is talking about.
Technorati and Edelman Partner on International Blogosphere. If there was one big take-away to Technorati's most recent State of the Blogosphere, its that the Blogosphere is going international in a Big Way. Only a third of blog posts are in English; today more people post in Japanese than in any other language.
Technorati is accelerating the development of fully localized versions of our service in Chinese, Korean, German, Italian and French. These will be moving through development and testing over the coming months and will be complete, public products in early 2007. (Technorati today can show posts in 20 languages, but so far we've only done completely localized versions in English and Japanese).
Working with Technorati to Listen to the Global Conversation: The me2revolution team at Edelman, which I am part of, has formed a relationship with Technorati to fast-track the development of localized versions of their offering in German, Korean, Italian, French and Chinese. Our PR teams worldwide will retain exclusive use of these sites as they are being developed, beginning with French this summer. These localized versions - which will include keyword/tag search and more - will evolve into more robust public-facing sites that everyone will be able to access beginning in the first quarter of next year.
Date: Thursday 25th May 2006 Time: 6.30pm Venue: New Theatre, East Building, LSE (directions) Will Web 2.0, and its promise to turn the internet into the ultimate, social and collaborative repository, bring us into an online golden age or will it simply create an orderless sprawl of content created by amateurs? Speakers: Tom Coates, Yahoo; Susan Greenberg, Roehampton University; Robert Loch, Soflow Chair: Chris Vallance, BBC
Silicon Valley is about an accumulation of people, not geography - get the right 10,000 people and you could recreate it
To create an environment which is conducive to start-ups you need two groups of people - rich people who are prepared to invest and lots of nerds
Government is not a good replacement for rich people / angel investors as they're slow, invest inappropriately and don't have the contacts or experience to support the right activity
For rich people and nerds to mix you need a location where lots of rich people who care about technology and lots of nerds want to be - New York has lots of rich people but no nerds, other places lots of nerds but no rich people
Places that attract nerds and rich people tend to be cosmopolitan, liberal, happy places like San Francisco where people walk around looking happy and with high levels of students going to high-class universities
Other features of good places potentially conducive to this kind of activity are: personality, good transport hubs and connections to the existing Silicon Valley, quietness, good weather, not about excitement
The Guardian mentioned them in March: Show and tell online Social networking sites have gone from being the next big thing to the thing itself. But, asks Sean Dodson, can they continue to hold the fickle attention of today's teens?
Tango does a parody of Sony Bravia's colour like no other spot. This is a real viral done by Clemmow Hornby Inge, as compared to the BF II parody or some others. It has caused a bit of controversy in Swansea. I wouldn't want my street turned into a fruit salad, either.
Project name Bravo Client Richard Collins, Director of Brand Marketing, Britvic Brief "Entertaining fruity refreshment" Creative agency Clemmow Hornby Inge Art director Micky Tudor Writer Micky Tudor Planner Ben Southgate, Oliver Egan Media agency MindShare Media planner Mark Holden Media spend £180,000 Production company Thomas Thomas Films Director Jim Gilchrist Editor Amanda Perry @ Peep Show Post-production The Mill Music 'Heartbeats' by Jose Gonzalez - laid at The Mill Exposure UK Supporting website Hall Moore CHI
First, an introduction: 80-20 (aka Pareto), I'd like you to meet 99-1.
A must read article and follow-up from the Church of the Customer Blog on "The 1% Rule." Using ad-hoc research and quotes from good sources, they chart citizen participation and the value of the small yet very influential group of people driving communities and content creation online.
I'm spending a lot of time thinking of how advertisers can use social networks and consumer generated media to engage in a meaningful and profitable dialogue with the 1% and find new pathways to the other 99%. More to come ...
Comscore/Media Metrix says that Wikipedia was the 18th most popular destination website on the web in March 2006, with some 25 million visitors that month alone. But the number of people who actually contribute content to Wikipedia is about 1-2 percent of total site visitors.
Quoted: It would appear that small groups of people often turn out to be the principal value creators of a democratized community. Over time, their work fuels widespread interaction that engages the non-participating community and attracts new ones. If continually nurtured, the community can become a self-sustaining generator of content and value. Quoted: The overriding lesson: Avoid marginalizing the 1 Percenters as statistically insignificant, unrepresentative of the total audience or simply the lunatic fringe. If anything, the 1 Percenters may represent the leading indicators of how well your brand is being adopted, synthesized and vocalized.
Eight articles and five podcasts. I'm a bit late finding/posting this (it was published in late April/early May), but it is worth checking out. The first two (overview and on blogging) are particularly good.
If you are too lazy to click each link individually, you can buy a PDF of the entire survey, though I am not sure what a podcast sounds like in an Adobe Reader.
No plans to go yet, but it looks ok. Plus, Amsterdam in July is very nice.
Quoted: On July 7, 2006 The Next Web conference will take place in Amsterdam, the Netherlands at the Barbizon Palace St. Olofskapel. The Next Web conference is a one day event with the best speakers from all around the world who wil give their view on how new web-technology will influence the way we surf, the way we do business and the way we live.
By the way, on Monday Michael is organizing an open event in London at the Pitcher & Piano. I'll be there. Details here.
Quote: Dozens of (mostly) European companies showcased their new consumer web applications at Innovate 2006 in Zaragoza, Spain this week. As usual with conferences like these, the companies were young, rough and hungry. And I see a lot of potential with at least a few of them.
Bill Tancer from Hitwise US breaks down Google's traffic by service. First time I've seen something like this, and it shows just how incredibly dominant search is to the rest of their products and services.
Four years after launch, and Google News is hardly making waves. Froogle, the shopping service, is barely in business. Google Local gets a pathetic 0.05% of their market share. There are many other examples.
Such fine products with no real traction.
The sparse nature of thir homepage is only partly to blame for this. The Google Personalized Homepage may help this as it allows many services to be surfaced. Google never wanted to be a portal, and their traffic shows that despite the launch of many new products and services (everything from Finance to a Calendar) they are succeeding in not becoming one.
Another factor is the "Nimoy Syndrome."
Google is so well known for doing one thing that when they try to branch out and play other roles, people continue to see them as the old character. Sure, when Google does something like GMail or Maps, people understand why - much the same way I understood why Nimoy would do In Search Of. However, it was really hard not to see Nimoy as Spock when he played Paris in Mission Impossible.
The same can be said of Google: If it doesn't involve search, then why should consumers choose Google? In this respect, Yahoo! has the edge. Yahoo! is a portal. That's what it is by nature, and that's what consumers expect.
Quote: Leveraging the custom category capability of Hitwise, I've created a category of the top 20 Google domains in order to understand the popularity of Google's varied services. The table below details the percentage market share that each property accounts for in relation to all visits to the top 20 Google Domains.
I had the chance to listen to an advance copy of Zero 7's new release, The Garden, and it is worth checking out. If you don't want to rush out and buy a copy, it s streaming (in prety good quality) on the band's web site.
When Matt Wells asked me if I could pull together some thoughts and links about starting a blog, I thought I would blog them. Seems appropriate, right? This series of posts will be in no specific order. Just links. I'll post a summary at some point.
The first RHCP release in 4 years. Just in time for summer. Yummy. Stadium Arcadium has a great sound, and I have a feeling it will work its way up my LastFM rankings.
Nielson/NetRatings has issued a study showing that the top 10 social networking sites saw traffic grow 47% over the last year, with MySpace seeing the biggest growth (367% increase) and MSN Spaces (286%) seeing the biggest growth. Hosted blogging systems were included in the study.
The full Nielson/NetRatings report (in .pdf) is here.
Greg Sterling takes a fresh look at the once-mightly and often overlooked Citysearch and likes a lot of what he sees.
SearchEngineWatch: For all its ups and downs over the past couple years, Citysearch retains a strong local brand and, according to Scott Morrow, Citysearch executive vice president of search and products, is delivering better click-throughs and a better ROI for local advertisers than general search engines could. To drive traffic Citysearch optimizes its content at the profile page level for search engines and also buys paid-clicks. Citysearch sells clicks and calls on the site to local businesses but also offers broader distribution on Google, Yahoo and beyond through a relationship with MatchCraft.
Citysearch had 41,000 local advertisers and about 500,000 user reviews on the site. The company has an ambitious program to boost reviews by 1 million in the next few months.
To that end, Citysearch has started to create ego-based incentives for people to write more about their favorite local businesses and local experiences. Insider Lists is a set of recommendations and reviews that feature collected writings of individuals. These are not user profiles per se (a la MySpace or Yelp), but it starts to approach that. How far Citysearch will go in the direction of “social networking,” to acquire more content, remains to be seen.
Yet the strength of the site is the mix of user-generated reviews and editorial content (i.e., “Citysearch lists” and “Best of Citysearch”). The company also has a local sales force, an asset many of its competitors lack.
Another question is what will be the relationship between Ask Local and Citysearch within IAC going forward. Ask Local’s content is from Citysearch and the two sites could be seen as somewhat redundant but there's also no reason the two sites couldn't co-exist as distinct doorways into local. We'll see which brand has more local traction over time.
My friend Juri arrived at the Rockstar Vienna office the other day to find that Take-Two had closed it effective immediately, "due to the challenging environment facing the video game business and our Company during this platform transition".
He is handling it very well, and between you and me, he's wanted out for quite some time. Juri is brilliant, and you should hire him. You can learn more about him on his blog, Intelligent Artifice or contact him via email. Jurie Horneman: jhorneman--at--mac.com
In tribute to his gaming background, here's the Sony Bravia spot done Battlefield II style ...
RSS advertising and metrics player FeedBurner is moving beyond feeds with its latest initiative. The company seeks to expand the volume and type of inventory it offers advertisers by enticing publishers, especially bloggers, to display its ads on their Web sites.
For the first time since 2004, Yahoo! will launch a redesign of their homepage. It is in beta release for now, and there is no clear date for an official launch yet. I find it quite good, as both the look-and-feel as well as the functionality have improved. I don't really use "portals"very much any more - when I get the urge Netvives and Live.com fill that need now - but if if I were, this would be the one.
You can find a working preview of the new page here. The navigation has been refined a bit, and the whole thing feels, well, updated.
Yang and Filo: If you visit the redesigned page while it is still playing, be sure to check out the video from co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo. The two sit on top of a desk and give a very wanna-be funny/friendly intro to the new page and re-introduction to the brand. Filo, characteristically, says nothing.
This part of the Yahoo! brand - the faces behind the name - has been missing for a long time. Whilst Brin and Page have made themselves internet icons and helped add personality to the Google brand, Yahoo! has never really accomplished this.
In the business community, Semel and Braun have fulfilled the role for Yahoo! for quite some time, but it has been absent from their consumer marketing strategy for years. I wonder if this was Semel's idea. Regardless, consumer trust is heightened when people associate faces to the brand, and I think they should do more of it.
Form & Function: The new page uses a lot more AJAX than the old (just check out the tour) and integrates much more information from aquired services like Flickr. The media box in the center feels like the recently launched NYT video box, and while a bit of a rip off, I think it works.
Roll over the six large boxes on the right of the page (mail, messenger, radio, local, weather, movies) to see some very nice functionality.
I'm surprised that given the fact that I can select from different colours and two distinct layouts (wide/thin) that I can't change things like the font size. Strange.
Yahoo! Search blog: The new home page reflects Yahoo!'s unique position at the intersection of people, media, and knowledge. It presents better access to information and the stuff of our lives, and more individual choice about the appearance of the page, thanks to Ajax, DHTML, and personalization technology. You'll find relevant and useful tools for searching, connecting, sharing, and communicating online as well as a bigger window onto the pulse of the Web.
We've been working on this major makeover for a while, gathering vast amounts of feedback from our audience of users. Since you all began noticing and documenting our tests of the new page back in February, we've tweaked and optimized the experience in response to input from all of you. People's expectations, goals, and information needs have changed over the years. The redesigned home page reflects these new interests and needs. You'll discover:
Personal Assistant - a preview area displaying recent messages from Yahoo! Mail, an online friends list from Yahoo! Messenger, and local weather forecasts, traffic, and events.
Yahoo! Pulse - a place to discover the most popular and interesting Yahoo! searches, as well as pop culture trends, music, videos, photos, and all the stuff people are looking for, reading, viewing, listening to, rating or sharing online. It's a window into the attention stream of our estimated half-billion users.
Simplified navigation, expanded content, an enhanced search box, increased personalization, and more.
Read/WriteWeb: New Yahoo! homepage — The world's most visited webpage, Yahoo.com, has just had a major re-design (available for now at yahoo.com/preview) and Read/WriteWeb has the inside story. As well as the first in-depth look at the new yahoo.com, I have for you an exclusive podcast interview with Yahoo! …
You've got ads in my search results! You've got search results in my ads!
Snap.com has relaunched with ads and results mixed together. Hasn't been a mix like this since Reeses peanut butter cups.
The interface is sluggish and very big. From what I can tell, the index is a bit limited and updates far less frequently than Google and the others. That said, Bill Gross is no dummy, so I wouldn't count this out. If iwon.com could work, there is no reason this cant.
plasticbag.org: Snap.com is a new, weird and quite interesting search engine One of the weirder interfaces I've seen in a while - large, almost full-size screencaps, heavy on Ajax and interesting interface technologies. Pretty interesting... And the blog has nice digg-like buttons which I might have to steal...
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Internet search engine Snap.com is hoping to expand its sparse audience by making Web surfing more like channel surfing on a TV, but the startup might attract more attention with another change that further blurs the lines separating ads from listings retrieved by objective formulas.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006 0 comments
Estimate Marks a Major Step Forward for Marketers and Media Properties around the World
694 Million People Currently Use the Internet :: Today, the online audience in the U.S. represents less than a quarter of Internet users across the globe, versus ten years ago when it accounted for two-thirds of the global audience,” said Peter Daboll, president and CEO of comScore Media Metrix. “This is a sea change of enormous proportion, and comScore is pleased to be able to provide measurement to aid the world’s largest marketers in understanding how the world uses the Internet.
Top 15 Worldwide Online Populations by Country, Among Visitors Age 15+
Unique Visitors (000)
Worldwide Total
694,260
United States
152,046
China
74,727
Japan
52,100
Germany
31,813
United Kingdom
30,190
South Korea
24,645
France
23,884
Canada
18,996
Italy
16,834
India
16,713
Brazil
13,186
Spain
12,452
Netherlands
10,969
Russia
10,833
Australia
9,735
Source: comScore World Metrix, March 2006
Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafe and, access from mobile phones or PDAs.
Top 15 Online Properties Worldwide (Visitors Age 15+ March 2006)
Unique Visitors (000)
Worldwide Total
694,260
MSN-Microsoft Sites
538,578
Google Sites
495,788
Yahoo! Sites
480,228
eBay
269,690
Time Warner Network
241,525
Amazon Sites
154,640
Wikipedia Sites
131,949
Ask Network
127,377
Adobe Sites
115,774
Lycos, Inc.
109,394
CNET Networks
107,589
Apple Computer, Inc.
98,622
Real.com Network
78,104
Monster Worldwide
74,152
Wanadoo Sites
73,446
Source: comScore World Metrix, March 2006
Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafe and, access from mobile phones or PDAs.
Fred and Jason have very different ideas as to why YouTube is so dominant. Worth reading.
Fred Wilson, A VC: How YouTube Kicked Google's Ass (and everyone else's too) ... YouTube launched last summer and is now the 23rd most trafficked site on the Internet (according to Alexa). Comscore Media Metrix has a slightly different picture, ranking YouTube as the 89th most trafficked site with 276 million page views in April.
The Jason Calacanis Weblog: How YouTube Won: Great SEO + Stolen Content ... or "the biggest hit and run in the history of the Internet." If someone buys YouTube they will not be rewarding entrepreneurship, they will be rewarding piracy and they should be ashamed of themselves. Everyone else in the video space played by the rules, YouTube gave content holders the finger while shrugging their shoulders pretending they didn't know. Please.... really.
Monday, May 15, 2006 0 comments
Three for my relaunch
Free code, tools, and/or software used in the redesign of my blog. Thanks!
I'm not sure what is more interesting: The interview or the fact that Jeff Jarvis demostrates how to scoop a room full of reporters.
Quotes:
What is Yahoo’s business, Auletta asks Yahoo CEO Terry Semel, “Our fundamental business is selling advertising… Our fundamental business is that we license content from around the world… and we sell advertising.”
Auletta asks him about his quote in The Economist saying that the internet is a “media exachange.” Semel replies: “The 20th Century media companies had great content… and they had great distribution. The 21st Century media companies also have great media companies and they either license it or aggregate it… They have global distribution, which is even more powerful… They also have technology and to drive and create an experience on the internet, content alone will fail, content and distribution will fail, you have to have technology.” He’s right that content and distribution are not kings.
But Jarvis disagrees about technology, which will come and go and be copied and bested along the way and will never distinguish you. It’s the relationships — trust — that matters. That’s what the internet really enables that old, one-way media only thought it enabled.
Asked about content, he talks about the importance of aggregation and then talks about video and broadband. “Please don’t make it look like television… This medium better look like something new…. If what we’re doing looks like television, that would be a huge mistake.” He says that in a year, video will be just as important as text and photos.
Much more here on Jeff's blog. Some additional here and here.
Jarvis scoops the room:
You gotta hand it to Jeff Jarvis ... While the other journalists ask the tough questions, it seems that Mr. BuzzMachine sat back and took notes for his blog. From what I can tell, he didn't really participate too much. So all Jeff really did was blog and scoop all the others in the room.
It was a Newhouse School/New Yorker event, btw, and Jeff spent countless years in the Newhouse organization. I'm betting that's how get the invite.
I've checked Auletta's blog and nothing is there. Not on Media Bistro either, and they were also mentioned as being at the interview.
I'm not writing this to be critical. I think it's cool.
Jeff knows the value of information and the value of being first to publish. He is demonstrating what it takes to be a journo/blogger: Newsworthy, timely, accurate, relevant ... and it doesn't hurt to be well-written.
Thursday, May 11, 2006 0 comments
AOL's new service is a social networking-based extention of AIM ... and it will be just as difficult to monetize. As noted earlier, for MySpace making friends was easy. Big profit is tougher.
Sure, there's a free phone line for incoming calls, but aren't Skype and others already dominating that business? This is a classic AOL late-to-the-game move, and like many other efforts, I just don't think it stands much of a chance.
I also wonder about the brand. Is AOL still young enough to court a MySpace demographic? Is their messenger powerful enough to drive adoption of AIM Pages? Plus, as Fred points out, AOL is shifting from a subscriber based business to an advertising based business. While that might be great for ad revenue in the short run as subscription revenue continues to decline, a shrinking subscriber base certainly won't help them introduce new products and services.
Kerry Parkins, director, key audiences product marketing, calls it "a very natural extension for AIM's existing social network. Instead of people joining a created community a la Classic AOL, they have their own with the buddy list they already use at the core."
Parkins' best quote, however is this one:
Advertisers themselves are trying to get a handle on how to monetize in this space. In general, it’s not a great advertising play.
My verdict: Unlike Screenwerk, I'm not convinced. In the long run, Yahoo! stands to gain the most from the failure. Given that over 40% of those leaving AOL pick up Yahoo!, they stand the most to gain. Compared to MySpace, they have a more complete package to offer AOL "defectors," and unlike MySpace, Yahoo! seems to know how to make some cash from what they are doing.
Try as it might, AOL is a lame duck. They have been for years. AIM is still a closed-loop network, and they are very late to the game in terms of switching from a subsciption model to an advertising-based business.
Paid Content: AOL wants to be the 24/7 home base for as many users as possible hence the AIM Page, a social networking site/home page/home base that stays active even when the buddy list is offline. Kerry Parkins, director, key audiences product marketing, calls it “a very natural extension” for AIM”s existing social network. Instead of people joining a created community a la Classic AOL, they have their own with the buddy list they already use at the core.
Steve Rubel: AOL will be successful in attracting advertisers to this new program. They have an active salesforce that already has relationships with the biggest online advertisers in the world. The question is will they be able to interest teens. On the upside, many teens already use AIM. On the downside, AOL isn't a cool brand to them.
Gabe Rivera's awesome blog aggregator just got a new name: Techmeme. Update your bookmarks, or check it out if you don't know it already.
Tuesday, May 09, 2006 0 comments
Panama: Are you ready?
Following Microsoft's announcement last week, Yahoo has given public details of a long-promised and overdue overhaul of its own online advertising system. CTR-based campaigns and the ability to geo-target are among the standout new features. The stage is now set for a real clash of the titans.
Saul Hansell has a great report in the Times, as does Richard Waters on MSNBC/FT. Here are a couple highlights:
The new system marks the first complete revamp since the platform was launched by internet start-up GoTo in the late-1990s and is designed to act as the foundation on which much of Yahoo's advertising business will run for at least the next five years, said Tim Cadogan, vice-president of search at Yahoo.
Cadogan also said that a new ranking formula will also take into account the click-through rate of an advert, along with a number of other factors – an approach that echoes the one followed by Google.
Jordan Rohan, an analyst for RBC Capital Markets, estimates that if the strategy works, Yahoo will increase search-advertising revenue at least 20 percent right away — about $125 million in the fourth quarter of this year and $600 million next year.
While designed initially to handle keyword advertising for Yahoo's search engine, the new platform has been built to deal with other types of targeting, using factors such as demographics or user behaviour, said Mr Cadogan.
As a result, it will eventually be able to handle adverts that can be "plugged into" a wide range of interactive services on different hardware devices, he added, such as video ads that can be inserted into an IPTV service viewed on a TV set.
Sharp site from Philips/Norelco to promote the new Philips Bodygroom. In addition to the LOL funny info, FAQ and other sections, I'm sure they've made the first music video for a shaver. Bravo.
Monday, May 08, 2006 0 comments
Innertube or Life Preserver?
CBS joins the online party started by Disney and then followed by Fox with the launch of their new streaming platform, Inntertube. The free broadband channel will offer short-form comedy, drama, talk and reality programming, along with clips of CBS shows like Survivor, The Amazing Race and The Late Show with David Letterman.
"Our company possesses some of the world's finest entertainment programming assets and brands, and we will continue on a strategic course to find as many distribution channels and new revenue streams for them as possible," CBS Corp. President and CEO Leslie Moonves said in a statement. "With this broadband channel, we've essentially bypassed cable and created a general entertainment outlet utilizing existing creative and content resources."
"Innertube represents CBS Corporation's latest effort to capitalize on advertising, programming and promotional opportunities within the emerging digital world," said Larry Kramer, President, CBS Digital Media. "With Internet programming destinations now in place for news (CBSnews.com), entertainment (CBS.com) and sports (CBSSportsLine.com), CBS is at the forefront of extending our programming brands to new audiences, delivering new forms of exciting content to the consumer and creating new platforms for advertisers."
Note to CBS: Next time, include the URL in the press release, and try buying the real domain as well.
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