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  • Facebook Creeps Up the Charts as 178 Million Americans Watch Online Video

    comScore released its Video Metrix data for July today. According to this, 178 million people in the U.S. watched online video content during the month, watching an average of 14.7 hours per user.

    During the month, Facebook moved up from the fourth position to the third position behind Yahoo properties, and of course Google properties at number 1. Facebook accounted for 46.6 million viewers.

    Hulu generated the highest number of video ad impressions at 783 million in July. Americans viewed nearly 3.6 billion video ads in all. NewTeeVee notes that four out of five Hulu videos are ads.

    Top Video Properties in July

    Ranked by Video Ads - Online Video Properties

    84.9% of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video during the month. The average video duration was 4.8 minutes. The average duration of online video ads was 0.4 minutes.

    Video ads accounted for 9.8% of all videos viewed and 0.9% of all minutes spent viewing video online.

  • Yahoo Japan Acquires Cirius Technologies

    Yahoo Japan Acquires Cirius Technologies

    An organization that bears Yahoo’s name – even though Yahoo just holds a 35 percent stake in it – has acquired another company.  Cirius Technologies, which deals in location-based advertising tech, is now part of Yahoo Japan.

    Cirius’s primary business is a service called AdLocal.  It acts as a location-based mobile advertising network, allowing marketers to pick where and when consumers will see an appeal to buy something, along with who (in terms of demographics) the consumers will be.

    What’s more, Cirius operates in the U.S. in addition to Asia, signaling that although it only has around 30 employees, it’s not too small or unsuccessful a venture.

    Serkan Toto reported, however, "Following the acquisition, Cirius will close the office in the US and move its HQ to that of Yahoo Japan’s," so it doesn’t look like Yahoo Japan is trying to expand its reach right now.

    Otherwise, details are scarce.  Yahoo Japan and Cirius haven’t disclosed the purchase price or how to the AdLocal tech might be integrated into other properties, for example.

    SoftBank, which is a Japanese telecommunications giant, owns a 40 percent stake in Yahoo Japan, by the way.

  • Facebook Driving Social Media Ad Spending

    Facebook Driving Social Media Ad Spending

    U.S. advertisers will spend $1.68 billion on social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter in 2010, according to a new report from eMarketer.

    The $1.68 billion figure represents a 20 percent increase over 2009 on social network advertising spending and is set to climb to more than  $2 billion in 2011.

     

    Social-Media-Ads

     

    In December 2009, eMarketer estimated $1.3 billion in social network ad spending in 2010. Healthy online ad spending in general, and Facebook in particular, has resulted in the increased forecast.

    Facebook will pull in half of all social network ad spending in the U.S. while "MySpace continues to diminish in importance." Spending on Twitter will be low in 2010 but the "potential for 2011 and beyond could be dramatic."

    Spending on social network advertising will grow even more quickly globally. eMarketer forecasts just over half of social network ad spending globally will come from the U.S., but 2011 will see a reversal.

    Social gaming companies such as Zynga and Playdom are expected to attract $293 million in spending worldwide in 2011, up from $220 million in 2010.
     

     

  • Facebook Forecast To Earn $1.29B In Ad Revenue This Year

    Facebook’s raking in the money and crushing the competition, according to a new report from eMarketer.  eMarketer believes advertisers will pay Facebook $1.29 billion this year, which is about 3.7 times the amount it expects MySpace to receive.

    You can read a Facebook-specific chart for yourself below.  As for its traditional rival, eMarketer said in a statement, "MySpace is diminishing in importance, with an expected $297 million in ad revenues worldwide next year, down 14% from $347 million this year."

    MySpace isn’t the only company that’s not doing so well in comparison to Facebook, either.  Remember AOL and the revival that was/is supposed to take place due to former Googler Tim Armstrong’s leadership?  Well, eMarketer thinks AOL will see just $890 million in U.S. ad revenues this year, which is pretty close to Facebook’s $835 million.

    That puts Facebook in an impressive position, considering that the company doesn’t even seem to be trying hard to attract advertisers at this point.  We’re all familiar enough with its growth rate to know users aren’t exactly jumping ship, either.

    Meanwhile, these stats make it look even more unlikely that Google will be able to create a successful social product.  After all, failures like Google Lively and Google Wave have shown that it has trouble appealing to consumers; now it appears Facebook can imitate Google’s renowned ability to appeal to advertisers.

    eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson concluded, "Brand advertisers are making Facebook a core buy.  Ad spending is building quickly and the mass audience is one that marketers cannot ignore any longer."

  • Ad Spending On Social Games Predicted To Rise

    The stock market crashed again today, with the Dow falling 2.49 percent and the Nasdaq losing an even more worrisome 3.01 percent.  But a new report predicts that lots of money will still be spent on ads in social games, with marketers pumping in bigger sums this year and in 2011.

    eMarketer’s Clark Fredricksen wrote earlier, "eMarketer expects that marketers will spend $220 million worldwide to advertise in social games and social applications in 2010, rising to $293 million in 2011.  These figures do not include ads within mobile applications."

    That works out to a 20 percent increase between 2009 and 2010, and a 33 percent increase between 2010 and 2011.  Which isn’t at all bad.

    What’s more, Fredricksen added, "eMarketer’s estimates may end up being conservative as the social game business increases its footprint. . . .  [T]he large audience of games such as Zynga’s Farmville is attracting advertiser attention."

    So however everyone’s 401(k)s are doing, it looks like folks in the social gaming industry have something to look forward to, at least.  And by extension, that’s probably good news for both Facebook and Google (since all signs point to Google trying to enter this field).

    On that note, Google did beat the Dow by a little bit today, dropping just 2.38 percent.

  • Google In Ad Deal with DirecTV

    DirecTV and Google have entered into an ad sales partnership involving Google TV ads, the companies said today.

    Under the deal, Google will become the sales representative for a broad selection of advertising inventory on several networks carried on DirecTV.

    DriecTV national satellite inventory on Bloomberg, Fox Business, Centric, Fuel, G4, Current, Ovation, Fit, Sleuth, Chiller and TV Guide will be available via the Google TV Ads system across all dayparts, including primetime. Google TV Ads customers will be able to reach up to 30 million satellite households through both DirecTV and exisiting partnerships.

    Bob-Riordan "We are delighted to partner with Google and embark on this initiative together," said Bob Riordan, Senior Vice President, DirecTV Advertising Sales.

    "Google TV Ads is an excellent advertising tool and will be a tremendous complement to DIRECTV’s existing suite of innovative assets."

    DirecTV reaches 18.7 million TV households, which will allow Google TV advertisers to reach a variety of TV viewers.
     

  • Facebook And AOL Consider Online Ad Deal

    Facebook And AOL Consider Online Ad Deal

    Facebook and AOL are reportedly in discussions about a strategic alliance to improve their online advertising business.

    The two companies have been in talks for a number of months that would allow Facebook to team with AOL in selling online advertisements, the New York Post said, citing three separate sources.

    Facebook-AOL-Ad-Deal "Think of Tim Armstrong’s former role running ad sales for Google and think of where Facebook needs help," said one source.

    One option is AOL being named a "preferred media partner" to Facebook, a source said. "AOL brings a lot of content," said another source. "Facebook may not need it, but it won’t hurt them to do a deal."

    "We don’t comment on market rumors," an AOL spokesman told the Post. Facebook also would not comment about a potential ad deal with AOL.

    Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said recently that advertisers wanting to reach the site’s 500 million users have increased spending by at least 10-fold in the past years.
     
     

  • Twitter Lures Sales Execs Away From Facebook, Yelp

    Whatever company handles Twitter’s business cards should soon be tasked with printing a lot more batches.  Twitter’s hired two people away from Facebook and Yelp, and these individuals will act as sales execs, establishing teams and presumably "meeting and greeting" lots of potential advertisers.

    Dan Coughlin, who spent more than a couple years at Facebook, will be responsible for handling the east half of the U.S., and Amanda Levy, who was Yelp’s first salesperson, will take care of the west.  Both will then report to Twitter COO Dick Costolo, according to Michael Learmonth.

    Otherwise, Learmonth reported, "Both will be charged with building out a team to move what Twitter is calling its Promoted Suite, or Twitter ads that today consist of promoted tweets and promoted trends."

    The execs are sure to handle other advertising concepts, too, as soon as Twitter conceives and/or unveils them.

    Twitter LogoIt’s significant that Twitter was able to lure Coughlin and Levy away from their old employers, in any event.  Yelp’s sales department has perhaps had to endure some negative PR in recent months, but Levy predates that mess, and Facebook isn’t exactly a dying company.

    It should be interesting to see what Coughlin and Levy can achieve as they settle into their roles and expand their teams.

  • StumbleUpon’s Platform Getting Advertisers’ Attention

    Earlier this year, StumbleUpon launched its new advertising system, which it said helps cost-effectively deliver advertiser content to targeted audiences, while increasing the opportunity for content to go viral. Since then, the platform has experienced some pretty significant growth.

    The company announced today that it has experienced 20% growth since the launch in March, with about 2,000 active monthly customers running about 3,000 campaigns daily.

    "Brand marketers and advertisers have recognized that StumbleUpon Ads can attract highly targeted audiences to their web content quickly and cost-effectively," said CEO Garrett Camp. "We’re able to match each sponsored page to the users most likely to enjoy it by taking into account their expressed preferences as well as the interest-level relationships between them and other users. This personalized approach results in over 70 percent of paid placements receiving a positive endorsement – which we call a ‘thumb-up’- from viewers. No other interest-based ad platform so effectively connects advertisers to potential customers while delivering viral traffic to a like-minded audience."

    StumbleUpon advertisingThe company says that over 40,000 advertisers have used its ad platform, and year-over-year ad inclusion rate has doubled. Its number of daily active advertisers has increased by about 30%.

    Mint.com’s VP of Marketing said, "StumbleUpon Ads is the most cost-effective form of advertising that we have used, including pay-per-click advertising on a popular social networking site. We’ve been very pleased with the high quality of traffic and conversion rates StumbleUpon provides, and have seen more than half of that traffic appear organically."

    Back in May, StumbleUpon claimed to be the #1 social media traffic source for the U.S. This came a couple weeks after Statcounter called StumbleUpon the #2 traffic source on a global scale, just behind Facebook.

    In June, StumbleUpon reached its 10 million-user milestone. Imagine the kind of traffic it could drive if it had Facebook’s 500 million.

  • Yahoo’s Organic Results Will Be Bing-Powered By Late August

    Yahoo and Microsoft have provided an update on advertisers’ transition to adCenter as the Search Alliance gets underway.

    Yahoo advertisers will soon either have to create a new adCenter account or link their Yahoo account to an existing adCenter account. Later this month, Yahoo advertisers will see an "adCenter" tab in their Yahoo Search Marketing account. This will take advertisers to the beginning of the account transition process where they’ll be walked through the steps.

    "Once you create your adCenter account, it will be active and your ads will be eligible to serve on Bing right away," Yahoo says. "As a result, you’ll be managing both your new adCenter account and your existing Yahoo! Search Marketing account in parallel until ad serving for Yahoo! traffic transitions to adCenter, so plan to budget accordingly."

    Advertisers will need to download Silverlight to look at the differences between their Yahoo and adCenter accounts.

    As far as organic search results, Yahoo says Bing will start powering Yahoo results in late August. Yahoo will email a confirmation to advertisers once the adCenter tab becomes available and once the organic search transition is complete.

  • Judge Rules Google AdWords Do Not Infringe

    A federal judge has ruled that Google’s AdWords program does not infringe on trademarks owned by language learning company Rosetta Stone.

    Judge-Lee "No reasonable trier of fact could find that Google’s practice of auctioning Rosetta Stone’s trademarks as keyword triggers to third party advertisers creates a likelihood of confusion as to the source or origin of Rosetta Stone’s products," U.S. District court Judge Gerald Bruce Lee in Alexandria, Va. Wrote.

    In its lawsuit, filed in July 2009, Rosetta Stone alleged that Google allowed third parties including individuals involved in software piracy to purchase the right to use Rosetta Stone trademarks or other terms confusingly similar in Google’s AdWords advertising program.

    Lee wrote consumers awareness of Rosetta Stone’s brand ""has only increased since Google changed its trademark policy to permit the use of trademarked terms as keyword triggers and as words within sponsored link titles and advertisement text."

    " In simplified terms, Google’s popular search engine aggregates information and provides advertising space. This is akin to a newspaper or magazine selling advertising space," he wrote.

    "To attract advertisers, Google created a system for displaying advertisements that would be economically profitable for its company and paid advertisers."
     

  • AdWords Campaign Experiments and Trademark Policy Changes

    Google has announced that it is rolling out AdWords Campaign Experiments to all U.S. advertisers. This is a free tool that the company says makes it easier to test and measure the impact of changes to keywords, bids, ad groups, and placements.

    "Over the last two months, advertisers in our beta have reported that ACE has helped them feel more confident in the impact of their campaign changes, making it easier and less risky to try different strategies and optimize more frequently," says Helen Schindler of Google’s Inside AdWords Crew. "Without ACE, you might evaluate optimizations by comparing key metrics before and 2-4 weeks after making campaign changes. Differences in those key metrics are assumed to be the result of the changes. But fluctuations in demand, shifts in competitor tactics, and even changes in the weather can complicate things."

    "With ACE, experimental campaigns run side-by-side with the original campaign in a simultaneous split test," she continues. "This approach lets you run shorter tests that start and stop whenever you like, with less concern about your results being affected by seasonality or other factors. You get more precise impact estimates and more chances throughout the year to test and improve performance."

    More on AdWords Campaign Experiments can be found here.

    Updated Policy

    In Canada, the UK, and Ireland, Google will extend The changes let some advertisers use third party trademarks in their ad text even if they don’t own them or have explicit approval from the trademark owners to use them. This applies to resellers and sellers of component, replacement, or compatible parts corresponding to the trademarks displayed. The changes also apply to informational sites.

    Google is also updating its policy to enable advertisers across Europe to select trademarks as keywords. These policy changes will go into effect starting September 14.

  • Facebook Sees Huge Increase In Advertiser Spending

    Advertisers have begun to divert – or even throw – much more money Facebook’s way, according to one of the company’s top execs.  COO Sheryl Sandberg indicated in an interview that some large organizations have increased their spending ten- or twentyfold in the last year.

    To be more precise, Sandberg actually told Brian Womack just how much things have changed in the past 24 or so months.  "Two years ago the big brands were experimenting with us," she said.  "They started buying with us a year ago.  Now, they’re going big."

    That’s obviously good news for the social network.  Plus, considering that the economy is still less than stable, the improvement’s even more impressive than it would have been under other circumstances, and may speak to bigger gains in the future.

    Anyway, Facebook doesn’t intend to let all that cash collect dust.  Vaughan Smith, its director of business and corporate development, said, "As we get bigger and our platform gets more stable, I fully expect that we will be doing more significant acquisitions.  This is working for us, and it’s working for the people that we’re acquiring."

    Unfortunately, Smith didn’t name any acquisition targets, and Sandberg didn’t say exactly which advertisers have started to cut Facebook huge checks.

    Still, it looks like a whole lot more money will be making its way through the social network, and that should make Facebook much more attractive to investors if and when it finally makes an initial public offering.

  • Amazon Calls On Customers To Create Kindle Commercial

    Amazon.com said today it is launching a "Your Kindle Commercial Contest" that invites people in the United States to create a 30-second or less Kindle advertisement for the chance to win $15,000 in Amazon gift cards.

    "We’re constantly impressed with our customers’ ideas and creativity," said Rich Williams, director of advertising.

    "Last year’s ‘Your Amazon Ad Contest’ was so successful that we ended up running the winning commercial as a part of our holiday TV campaign and it was seen by over 100 million people across the United States. We’re excited to see what our customers come up with for the Your Kindle Commercial Contest."

     

     

    Beginning today, people can upload their "Your Kindle Commercial Contest" submissions. Entries are due by August 29, and an Amazon judging panel will review all contest submissions and select the top 50 entries based on the following:

    *Creativity

    *Overall appeal

    *Likelihood of making viewers want to buy a Kindle or download a free Kindle app

    The grand prize winner and up to four semi-finalists will be announced on September 20. The grand prize winner will receive a $15,000 Amazon gift card, and the semi-finalists will receive $2,500 Amazon gift card.
     

     

  • Microsoft Launches Online Circular Ads for MSN Local

    Microsoft Advertising has unveiled new localized deals through interactive online circulars (like those ads that fall out of your newspaper, the company notes) as part of MSN Local Edition.

    The site is geo-targeted, so only location-relevant circulars will be shown to consumers.

    Site visitors will be able to rotate through the different circulars on one screen, as well as browse and flip through them just like print versions. They will also be able to search for products across circulars, add items to a shopping list, find retailer locations with Bing Maps, and share offers with friends through Facebook, Twitter, and Windows Live.

    MSN Local Gets Circulars

    The back-end data for the circulars comes from ShopLocal. As long as retailers update their info on ShopLocal, their circulars will be refreshed. If they’re not current, they won’t be shown.

    Microsoft says it intends to leverage more of its assets (including mobile) as it evolves its circular offerings. Advertisers need to talk to their account execs if they want to take advantage of this kind of offering.

  • Funny or Die Launches Redesign, New Ad Opportunities

    Popular comedy site Funny or Die has launched a new redesign, adding adds new content and features. The site now provides new themed photo galleries, top 10 lists, and special guest blogs. It also gives advertisers a larger presence on the homepage and more in-video opportunities across the site.

    "Our new design reflects how far we’ve come at Funny Or Die," says CEO Dick Glover. "We’ve grown beyond the top comedy website to become a best-of-breed digital studio producing content for all major distribution channels.  And, along the way we’ve become sustainably profitable."

    The site even has its own HBO show now called "Funny or Die Presents," which premiered in February (and is currently in production for its second season. Comedy Central has also tapped Funny or Die for content, and the company will present its first movie next year.

    Funny or Die Gets Makeover

    The company says this year it has expanded its service offerings to partners and advertising clients. This includes a branded entertainment division creating campaigns that combine brand advertising and viral video.  Examples include campaigns for the Axe Comedy Tour, Cottonelle, Mini Cooper, Pepsi Brisk, Sony’s "The Other Guys," Travel Channel, Edge, Paramount’s "Dinner for Schmucks," and others.

    Funny or Die also points out that it frequently drives trending topics on Twitter, and attracts a great amount of attention on Digg.  Currently Funny Or Die has about 1.5 million Twitter followers and 1.2 million 212,962 Facebook fans.

  • BlackBerry Use Limited in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates

    BBC News reports that two Gulf states have announced bans on some BlackBerry functions based on security concerns. The United Arab Emirates will block sending emails, accessing the Internet, and delivering instant messages to other Blackberry handsets, while Saudi Arabia will prevent the use of Blackberry to Blackberry instant messaging.

    The Wall Street Journal posted an interesting piece on companies that use softare to capture what people type on websites and sell it to other companies. The WSJ calls such spying on Internet users, "the fastest-growing business on the Internet."

    Google revealed a new imagery update for Google Earth that will soon also be available in Google Maps. The update includes high resolution aerial updates for numerous locations in the U.S., Canada, and the Netherlands, as well as high resolution satellite updates for quite a few countries.

    Intel announced a milestone confirming that light beams can replace electronic signals for future computers. The company created the world’s first end-to-end silicon photonoics connection with integrated lasers, which it says can revolutionize computer design, dramtically increase performance, and save energy.

    The FTC is looking into a browser-level way for consumers to opt out of behavioral advertising to avoid being tracked by advertisers, Brocasting & Cable reports.

    Live Science points to a study that finds that you may increase your chances of living longer if you have strong social relationships. Interestingly, the study assessed how involved people are with their social networks and communities.

    Mike Masnick at Techdirt points to a new open iPhone App Market that doesn’t require jailbreaking, and that "Apple can’t stop." It’s called OpenAppMkt, and creates an app market for iPhones via HTML. "Effectively, this is an entire ‘app market’ for the iPhone that simply routes around Apple as a gatekeeper, and there’s really not much that Apple can do to stop it. And, of course, since the apps in the OpenAppMkt are just HTML, it likely won’t be difficult for OpenAppMkt to extend this to other platforms as well, such as Android (even though Android’s much more open market means that there’s less of a reason to developers to use OpenAppMkt for Android)," he says.

    Masnick also posted another interesting piece about how software firms are overwhelmingly against patents.
     

  • Google Getting Rid of Old Version of AdSense for Search

    Google is retiring the old version of AdSense for Search and telling users to switch to the new version powered by Google Custom Search, which has been offered for a while.

    If you see "powered by Google" on the logo on the search results page, then you’re using the old one. In a post on Google’s Inside AdSense blog, Katrina Kurnit writes:

    AdSense for search with CSE gives you more control over your search results without changing how you earn money showing AdSense for search ads. For example, with the new version, you’ll have access to advanced features like refinements and promotions. Our team has developed a number of updates and improvements during the past few months, and you can access more advanced features at www.google.com/cse.

    Your existing AdSense for search box will continue to work normally for a few more months, and we’ll be sure to update you when we retire this version. To take advantage of the benefits offered by the new version of AdSense for search and ensure you don’t miss any revenue during the transition, we encourage you to update your code now.

    To upgrade go to AdSense setup and "AdSense for Search" then select the sites you want your users to be able to search across, customize the look and feel and update the code for your site. Google offers more info here.

  • Google Launches New Product Search Ad Format with Product Extensions

    Google has announced a new advertising format for Google Merchant Center users. The format is based on the product extensions AdWords format that lets advertisers add specific product listings.

    There is a difference with this new format, however. The format, which runs on Google Product Search, will show users products and prices without them having to click on a "plusbox" to expand the ad.

    Product Extensions on New Ad Format for Google Product Search

    "These ads are a great opportunity to market the breadth of your product catalog and highlight any promotional messages directly to conversion-ready shoppers on Google Product Search," says Google Product Search Product Manager Andrew Poon.

    Poon also notes that to take advantage of the new format, you should make sure your product extensions ad campaigns are being served on "search partner" sites.

    This isn’t the only new ad format from Google. The company also announced a new location extensions format with map features today. More on that here.

  • Google Launches New Mobile Ad Format with Location Extensions

    Google has announced a new location extensions ad format with map features. Businesses can feature their locations and phone numbers on an expandable map ad that can appear on mobile sites and apps in the Google Display Network.

    This format shows up as a banner text ad with a business icon that expands to show the business location on a Google map, including ad creative, a click-to-call phone number and an option to get directions.

    "Since ads can be served based on the user’s location, a potential customer will see the phone number and map of the store location that’s nearest to them," explains Dai Pham of Google’s Mobile Ads Marketing Team. "By providing mobile consumers more options to connect with your business you can drive more traffic to your store, visits to your website or calls to your business."

    Google Ads with Location Extensions

    "This new ad format is available on mobile devices with full Internet browsers and allows you to expand your advertising campaigns to reach highly engaged mobile users with relevant local information as they use their favorite apps or websites to check the weather, read the news, play games or pursue other mobile interests," adds Pham. "Advertising with location extensions on mobile devices is also great value because you’re only charged when a user clicks to call the business or clicks to visit your website.  You are not charged when users click to expand the map or gets directions. The cost of a click to call your business will be the same as the cost of a click to visit your website."

    To utilize the new format, campaigns must be opted into the Google Display Network, and Google suggests setting up separate location extensions campaigns for search and display networks.

  • Google Makes Changes to AdWords Partner Reporting Policy

    Google has announced some upcoming changes to the way its third party partners provide reports and information about AdWords to their clients.

    "In order to provide the best online marketing experience, we want to make sure that you understand how each dollar you invest in AdWords is performing," says Jason Shafton of Google’s Inside AdWords Cew.

    Google AdWords - New Partner reporting changes"If you work with another company to manage your AdWords campaigns, you should be able to find out how much of your advertising budget (cost) was spent on AdWords, how many times your ads appeared (impressions) and how many times users clicked on your ads (clicks)," he adds.

    These requirements will be included in Google’s legal terms and agreement starting in February.

    Google says that while most partners already provide advertisers with the proper information, some will need to make adjustments.

    More info about the changes can be found in the AdWords Help Center.