Patricio Robles

Six easy ways to boost your AdSense revenue

Google AdSense is a popular monetization tool for many online publishers. And for good reason: it's quick and easy to set up. If you have a website, AdSense gives you the opportunity to start earning money almost immediately.

But many publishers don't maximize their AdSense earning potential. Here are six easy ways to make sure that you're getting the most out of AdSense.

by Patricio Robles 26 August 2009 10:35am 6 comments

A video ad unlike any other

If you happen to be an Entertainment Weekly subscriber living in New York or Los Angeles, pay close attention to the September 18 issue you'll be receiving. There's something special in it: a video ad.

That's right. A video player as thin as paper will activate when a reader opens up an ad page and a video sponsored by Pepsi will promote upcoming television shows on CBS.

by Patricio Robles 25 August 2009 09:40am 1 comment

Five swinish ways publishers put pageviews above people

For online publishers dependent on advertising, few things are as important as pageviews because more pageviews tends to equal more dollars. There's nothing inherently wrong with attempting to boost these numbers; it's to be expected.

But not all pageviews are generated equally. There are a number of swinish techniques online publishers use to inflate the number of views.

by Patricio Robles 28 August 2009 11:34am 13 comments

Smart or foolish? McDonald's builds sites for different ethnic groups

Many brands engage in ethnic marketing and for good reason: it can be an effective marketing strategy. But can ethnic marketing go too far? That's a question that could be asked when it comes to something McDonald's is doing: building websites for different ethnic groups.

The fast food giant has built two websites, one targeting African-Americans and another targeting Asian-Americans. Both seek to highlight the ways in which McDonald's is working to serve the African-American and Asian-American communities.

by Patricio Robles 25 August 2009 09:06am 2 comments

What are the most important SEO factors today?

When engaging in efforts to boost your search engine rankings, there is a seemingly unlimited number of things you can do. What's worth focusing on? What provides the most bang for the buck?

Every two years, SEOmoz publishes a Search Engine Ranking Factors report based on a survey of 100 prominent SEOs. Yesterday, the 2009 report was released. Here's a summary of the results.

by Patricio Robles 24 August 2009 18:52pm 16 comments

Are brand advertisers dwelling on the wrong metric?

Most brand advertisers accept that the click-through rate is far from the perfect metric. But it's easy to understand and easy to measure, which offers some comfort. And that means that the low click-through rates (CTRs) associated with display ads aren't always so comforting.

Even though it's logical that there's more to display advertising efficacy than CTRs, the absence of widely-accepted alternative metrics is a problem.

by Patricio Robles 24 August 2009 09:36am 8 comments

Q&A: Rex Hammock, Founder & CEO of Hammock Inc.

There's a lot of talk about the future of magazines, and print media in general, because there's a lot to talk about. When it comes to discussing what the future holds, Rex Hammock is one of the guys you want to speak to.

He's a veteran "magazine guy" who co-founded the Custom Publishing Council, served as a director of the American Business Media trade association and is today the CEO of custom media firm Hammock Inc. His recent guest column in Publishing Executive entitled "9 Things I've Learned About Magazines by Blogging" piqued my interest so I decided to ask Rex about the state of the magazine industry, what the internet means to print publishers today, the pay walls that are coming up and what blogging might look like a decade from now.

by Patricio Robles 24 August 2009 12:04pm 0 comments

Is the cloud a weakling?

The cloud is all the rage today. For online business owners and startup entreprenurs, the cloud is often pitched as a low entry cost solution to many scalability challenges. Just throw your web application into the cloud and pay as you grow.

But does the cloud deliver? According to researchers at the University of New South Wales, the cloud may not be all that it's cracked up to be. When put to stress tests, cloud computing solutions offered by Amazon, Google and Microsoft showed some weaknesses.

by Patricio Robles 21 August 2009 11:17am 4 comments

There's nothing wrong with liquidity

Are Facebook employees who took advantage of the ability to cash out some of their stock holdings as part of a tender offer from investor Digital Sky Technologies "mercenaries"?

Controversial BusinessWeek tech reporter Sarah Lacy thinks they are. The reason: they're giving up too soon. Lacy believes the $100m tender offer, which is giving some employees the ability to sell up to 25% of their Facebook stock at a $6.5bn valuation, will prove to be a steal for Digital Sky Technologies.

by Patricio Robles 21 August 2009 11:58am 0 comments

MySpace acquires iLike

After days of chatter, MySpace made its acquisition of social music discovery startup iLike official today. The company, which is best known for its popular Facebook music app, will see its social discovery technology applied in new areas such as gaming, according to MySpace CEO Owen van Natta. To that end, iLike was acquired by MySpace Inc., not MySpace's digital music joint venture.

According to the acquisition announcement, the current iLike experience that users have come to love will be "unaffected by the acquisition" and iLike will continue to be headquarted in Seattle.

by Patricio Robles 19 August 2009 22:06pm 1 comment