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Tag: pete cashmore

  • Will Google’s AdSense be in Trouble Because of Facebook?

    Facebook is infiltrating sites all over the web. These sites are happy to add Facebook’s social plug-ins. What if Facebook launched an AdSense-like product – a product that lets publishers stick relevant ads from Facebook on their sites for a cut of the money? They would be HIGHLY, HIGHLY targeted because the more sites that use plugins like Facebook’s like button, the more users will share their likes with Facebook, which goes to the profile, which is where Facebook already draws its information from to serve its own ads today.

    Should Google be worried? Share your thoughts.

    These ads are already pretty well targeted, when the user has enough information in their profile. Social plugins like the like button will only facilitate the population of such information in the profile.

    Facebook Seinfeld T-Shirt Ad - Could ads like this one day appear on publisher sites in an adsense-style network from Facebook?Apparently Mashable founder Pete Cashmore has a similar view on this, as he says in an article for CNN, "Google makes the vast majority of its money from ads — these ads typically match your search terms, or the content of the Web page you’re viewing. Google has certainly worked to personalize these ads, but its knowledge of your friends and interests is more limited than Facebook’s. The data gleaned from thousands of Facebook Like buttons around the web could make for an ad network that rivals Google’s AdSense."

    Ian Schafer at AdAge has also contemplated such a scenario. "It seems to be an inevitability that all of this intelligence will one day be applied to power a socially targeted ad network as big (or bigger than) Google’s AdSense," he says. "It would be a network that would theoretically deliver even better results for advertisers, resulting in higher CPMs/CPCs/CP-whatevers that can deliver higher payouts to publishers, making a choice between the two platforms a not-too-difficult one for those publishers."

    The Like button is a game changer because all of a sudden you have the whole world wide web of content to "like" not just what’s within your immediate network within Facebook and what you may have taken the time to add to your profile two years ago. It keeps user interests current and enables an infinite amount of interest indication that advertisers would salivate for.

    If Facebook were to launch an AdSense-like product, that doesn’t necessarily mean Google would completely lose out. I can certainly see a lot of sites going forward with both. When pressed to make a choice between the two, however, it could make things interesting for the industry at large.

    Would you serve AdSense ads or Facebook ads on your site if such a scenario were to come to fruition? Let us know.

  • How the Crowd is Changing the News (SXSW)

    How the Crowd is Changing the News (SXSW)

    Here at SXSW, we attended the session "CrowdControl: Changing the Face of Media or Hype?" At the end, one of the speakers asked the crowd, which they thought it was. Almost everybody responded with the former, while maybe one or two raised their hand for hype.

    I think it’s pretty clear that citizen journalism, the real topic of this discussion, is changing and has already changed the face of media. There are varying opinions on if that is for better or for worse, but the very fact that these opinions are able to be voiced is a testament to the stength of the crowd.

    On the panel were Pete Cashmore of Mashable, Randi Zuckerberg from Facebook, Lila King from CNN.com, Jason Rzepka from MTV, and Joseph Kingsbury of Text100 Public relations.

    Much of the conversation was centered around trust. Who can you trust? How do you know you can trust them? How do you know these citizen reporters don’t have an agenda? Things of this nature.

    Cashmore says brand still plays a role in trust, and that you should have some level of skepticism when a story comes from something like Twitter (assuming you are unfamiliar with the source). His point is accentuated by the fact that here at at SXSW, a massive Twitter hoax regarding Conan O’Brien was perpetrated from Digg’s SXSW party the other night.

    "People need to become more educated consumers of news" and "learn what you can trust and what you can’t," says Cashmore. That is probably easier said than done, and possibly asking a lot of the average person that doesn’t reside inside the news industry, but he’s right. If people don’t want to be misled or misinformed, they need to not only consider the source, but acknowledge multiple sources before totally abandoning the grain of salt.

    This actually reminds me of something Andrew Lih said in another session I attended this past weekend about Wikipedia. His advice to journalists (as well as students) was that there is "no better starting point" than Wikipedia, and "no worse ending point."

    Cashmore made a point about Wikipedia in that it is controlled by a few people, so it’s not exactly the crowd like Twitter is the crowd, or like the Blogosphere is the crowd, but I think the point runs parallel. A tweet may be a great starting point for a piece of news, but it should not be the ending point in acceptance of fact.

    The crowd is there for balance. The more viewpoints that are available, the more a reader is able to take away from a story. When points are debated, more info is revealed, and even if some of that doesn’t sit well with you, you can use your own judgment to assess where you come down on the subject at hand. This comes back to Cashmore’s statement about becoming a more educated consumer of news. Perhaps we only need to strive for a better educated public in general, and the quality of so-called citizen journalism will grow.

    That should be easy.

    For more from SXSW, check out our exclusive interviews at live.dev.webpronews.com.

  • Rumor: AOL May (Not) Be Buying Mashable

    Update: According to Business Insider, Pete Cashmore had this to say on the matter: 

    We’re very open to partnerships and always talk with those that get in touch. We’ve certainly spoken to lots of potential partners, some of those conversations more significant than others. But I don’t feel that any of those conversations reached a point at which Mashable is likely to cease being independent.

    Original Article:     In mid-2009, all-things-social-media blog Mashable surpassed TechCrunch as the top tech blog in terms of traffic. Now, Mashable is rumored to be on its way to becoming an AOL property.

    In late 2009, AOL revealed its new strategy away from Time Warner. That strategy is content, content, content, and that is something there is no shortage of from Mashable.

    Gawker’s Valleywag appears to be the source of the rumor after hearing from "a source at the Internet conglomerate" that AOL was interested in buying Mashable. Mashable owner Pete Cashmore has since told the publication:

    "We don’t comment on speculation, but we do hold our writers in high regard and pay a competitive salary for their tireless efforts."

    However, since then, famed tech blogger Robert Scoble has posted the following tweet:

    Scoble Tweets about Mashable

    It’s still only a rumor at this point, but it will be quite interesting to see how this one unfolds. Valleywag thinks the only hold up might be negotiations.

    Mashable certainly fits the profile of what AOL is trying to do these days. They cover a wide spectrum of topics (horizontally, if you will), while staying somewhere within the realm of social media, for the most part. One has to wonder if the writers would stay the same if such a deal were to go through.
     

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