Is online video destined to look like television programming?
Terrestrial television has been gutted by commercial fast-forwarding, but online that is not an option. And as much as people complain about pre-roll ads, they are increasingly watch them. As Brian Stelter notes in The New York Times today: "News Web sites are starting to look a lot less like newspapers and a lot more like television."
Can the networks reproduce the success of their old business model online by creating a limited quantity of quality video programming? Yes and no.
What customers want: a benevolent Big Brother?
In the movie What Women Want, Nick Marshall (played by Mel Gibson) has an accident and finds himself able to hear what the women around him are really thinking. At first he uses it to his advantage selfishly before he falls in love.
Chances are you're not going to suffer from an accident that gives you Nick Marshall-like abilities, but fortunately when it comes to finding out what customers want, market research can tackle the challenge.
Razorfish: Social media is helping established brands. But what about everyone else?
Razorfish has released its annual study into consumer behavior online and this year's results have a lot to do with social media. According to Feed: The Razorfish Digital Brand Experience Report, many consumers are engaging with brands online to receive exclusive promotions or discounts.
The study also found that people who actively engage with a brand digitally — from participating in a contest to downloading a mobile application — are substantially more inclined to purchase and recommend that brand to others.
The question for brands is how to create digital events that impress consumers. Because negative experiences online have a bad influence on the bottom line for brands.
FOX plants its digital flag with Strategy Room
The cable companies may be hard at work planning their transition to online video with TV Everywhere, but Fox News has another method of bridging the gap between television and online — developing talent and shows in real time.
Every week day, over eight hours of programming are streamed online from Strategy Room, Fox News' web video "network." The online-only program operates out of a small corner of News Corp.'s New York office, and may not be getting insane traffic, but it's been a proving ground for Fox talent. And it appears to be working.
A book with a view: Andrew Sullivan's crowdsourced book pricing scheme
Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish blog may be best known for political content, but its most popular feature is party agnostic and user generated. Over the last three years, readers have submitted photos of scenes snapped from their windows, for a weekly featured titled "The View From Your Window."
Amid hundreds of photos and growing interest, The Atlantic has now chosen 200 of those images and produced a coffee table book. The front and back images have been crowd sourced. But that's not as interesting as the price tag, which depends on how many people purchase the book.
Google acquires AdMob: solidifies place in the mobile ad market
Google may have its fingers in a lot of pots when it comes to digital advertising, but to date, it has not replicated its runaway success in search. While the company may be late to market with its online display advertising play, Google is not risking the same fate in mobile.
From the Android to mobile search, Google has been making plays there for months. And with today's acquisition of AdMob, the search giant will have more of its bases covered in that market.
Outlook for online retail is bright this Christmas: survey
According to a new survey, 93% of consumers are planning to do at least some of their shopping online this Christmas, with 71% planning to buy more than half of their gifts on the web.
The survey by eDigitalResearch and IMRG reveals that more people are planning to shop online this year, and now that the threat of Royal Mail strike action has receded, there is some cause for optimism for online retailers.
Gamers coming clean on scam ads: Is contrition enough?
The social gaming lead-gen controversy sparked by TechCrunch's Michael Arrington came to an end this week when OfferPal, the company he singled out for scamming users and advertisers, replaced its CEO and posted a mea culpa for its past and current practices.
Beyond that, Facebook, MySpace and mega gamer Zynga have made moves this week to better regulate gaming offers. Will the move decimate the social gaming industry?
Brand tweets sends twitterers searching
Twitter's traffic may be flatlining at the moment, but Performics and ROI Research have come out with good news for marketers: Twitter users pay attention to brands on the service.
That may seem obvious to anyone who's ever promoted a product on Twitter. But the new study, announced today at Ad:Tech new York by Performics Marketing senior vice president Michael Kahn, also found that almost half of twitterers who have been introduced to a brand on Twitter have subsequently gone on to search for more information about it. If true, that's a big deal.
Ad:Tech: How do you market to cellphone users who don't want marketing?
For marketers working in mobile, talk about cellphones being on the verge of breaking out can feel more than a bit repetitive. At least that's the way Brian Levin of Useful Networks put it at the Location Awareness panel at Ad:Tech today.
"I feel a little like Bill Murray in 'Groundhog's Day.' I was on this panel last year."
Despite all the technological progress and increased user adoption that mobile phones have experience in the past few years, they still occupy only a small percentage of most marketing budgets.
Amid all of the promise held out in the future of mobile, how is the market actually going to break out? The panelists at Ad:Tech's panel on location werein agreement on a few things (besides the Corona's that were served on stage to celebrate impending happy hour).
A lot of it will rely on users self-reporting their data.
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
Email marketing: six steps to improving customer engagement in 2010
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
