I can’t count the times I’ve watch a presentation and heard the presenter mention RSS… and follow it by “RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.” And then there is the awkward pause that may or may not be acknowledged – some are probably still thinking “huh?” and others “why do you keep saying this?”. Let’s face it… RSS is not that simple. RSS has a branding issue, and its origins come from technologists (we won’t even get into the version issues).
We should have the folks at P&G, Target, McDonalds or NBC give it a rubdown (you know, people who position to the mainstream)… then maybe people would call it something simple like… an Online Subscription (”sign up for our free online subscription with your online reader”) … or MyHeadlines… or Linker (”add us to your Linker”)… Peek (”sign up for our sneak peek”)… or something, anything. Heck, call it FRED and stop explaining what it is. No one explains the names Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, iPod, mp3, etc, etc. Thank you Yahoo for allowing people to add stuff to their MyYahoo page; that sounds easy.
Thank you Mashable for hitting the point today; yes, it does need and easy button. I couldn’t agree more… or pass up the opportunity to finally post my own rant on this.
I hope you all enjoyed reading this via your RSS reader … doht!
CBS Interactive is doing it right by setting up an office in Silicon Vally (Menlo Park). This world has changed and Tech plays a big role. Today, people don’t need to start their morning with a newspaper, listen to the radio to/at/from work or watch the evening television newscast; although, most still do out of habit. Today and tomorrow, tech will enable media/audiences/advertising in so many ways. Compare how these technologies affected our world: printing press, transistor, AM/FM, UHF/VHF, microphone, video camera. And then consider how many new technologies have rolled out in the past 2, 5, 20 years. Many of those technologies affect information flow, and therefore cut into the role traditional media has played. And, I suppose if Tech companies can become media companies (a la Google), then the opposite can be true (if a book seller like Amazon can sell tech services to small businesses, why can’t media companies enable audiences to ____ , or at the very least, to enable media to continue to evolve). Although, I doubt CBS wants to be a Tech company; rather just enough to grow audiences, audience engagement, and revenue from subscriptions and advertising.
The CBS Interactive M&A and dealmaking team will have their eye (sorry for the pun) on these areas:
Personalization: I want my news topics, my shows, my music, my friends, my lifestyle… my way… and advertisers’ ROI will improve as their targeted ads increasingly reach the right people (throw away that notion of “50% of my ad budget is working; I just don’t know which half”…it is aging fast, and it will create winners and losers).
Distribution: web, email, IM, mobile, gaming, television (here comes the internet connection), in-car, digital signage, digital readers, etc.
Evolving on these fronts will complement CBS’s current content/product portfolio, and, its relationships with audiences and advertisers. Keep an eye (sorry, again) on the parallels between product and advertising; each of the above points has many potential plays on both sides.
Newspaper continues upward, online that is, with 12% growth in web traffic. Another cool number is that 40% of all U.S. web users visited a newspaper website in Q1. Here is more info…
We’ve all seen the plethora of reports and headlines about the video ad business over the past few years. The IAB continues their efforts to help us all face the right direction. That’s cool because bumping into awkward ad sizes just isn’t what it once was (hey man, the animated gif eye sore days are over; get with the program, and make some money). Check out their guidelines and give them feedback. Click here. Doo it. Doo it.
FriendFeed basically builds bridges between your social web accounts (YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc, etc) and allows you to stay connected with friends a bit easier in a world of multiple logins/passwords. Read more here.
On a same-same-but-different track is Google’s OpenSocial. Same in that it makes this “multi” world easier, different in that opensocial is more for developers/server-side and friendfeed is more for users/client-side.
AT&T and Vizible have a new browser in beta dubbed Pogo. Instead of repeating what has already been said (and better), I’ll tip the hat and foward you to ars technica…
AT&T has opened up a private beta of its new, hyper-visual web browser named Pogo. Yes, you read that right—AT&T is diving into the web browser market with a new creation of its own, based on Mozilla and 3D technology from Vizible, a Canada-based company that AT&T has invested in. The goal is to create a web browsing experience that is more robust than the crufty old browsers that we have all grown accustomed to.
Hybrids aren’t the only new thing at General Motors. GM is shifting gears in a big way. Last year it spent $197 million in online display advertising… and now it plans to spend $1.5 billion on digital and one-to-one marketing, of its $3B budget, over the next three years.
Consumers looking to buy new vehicles were among the first to embrace online research to support buying decisions. And while television and print still have a place in product launches and awareness, many dealers now accept that the purchase process starts - and sometimes ends - online. …
I personally have spent much more time on auto websites than at the dealer, or anywhere else for that matter. MINI has a great build-it-yourself site (I spent an hour consumed with the site last fall), which is becoming much more common. It is the ultimate showroom — your favorite cars, customized to your liking, in the convenience of browsing in your boxers. And when I do hit the showroom, admittedly just to browse and make sure I didn’t miss something online, I often find out I know as much or more about the car than the car salesman. Nope, I’m no Einstein, just passionate about the stuff I’m into, like many. So, it makes perfect sense that auto companies would go where the interest and purchase begins — online. It’s about education, it’s about connecting with the senses and passion, it’s about the conversation, it’s about…selling cars.
Okay, this is totally off topic for this blog, but, I feel compelled to add a post. The venerable Bear Stearns is out, but the show will continue due to J.P. Morgan and the Fed stepping in. On Friday Bear Stearns’ shared dropped $27 to $30 a share (down heavily over last year). This was no doubt a busy weekend for the investment bankers. Today, J.P. Morgan announced — ahead of trading in Asia — that it was buying Bear Stears for $2 a share. Ouch. But, with high employee ownership and influential clients and assets, this keeps it from the likes of an Enron fallout, and then some (different scenario all together). Why am I posting? Well, with the Financial sector in ruins, a housing bust, a broken dollar (great if you’re selling toys to China), $1000+ gold and $100+ oil… as an online guy… I’d have to say we’re back in 2002, only that the online side hasn’t really felt it yet. (with that said, as Cramer would say, buy..buy..buy..on GOOG. Tech is on sale, if you have cash.) When the sea level goes down, it affects the entire beach. let’s just hope the tide starts coming back in before online starts to feel it. On the up side, there is SO much innovation in the works! And that will keep the country moving.
J.P. Morgan Rescues Bear Stearns Bear Stearns Cos. reached an agreement to sell itself to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., as worries grew that failing to find a buyer for the beleaguered investment bank could cause the crisis of confidence gripping Wall Street to worsen. …
I was invited to try out Google’s beta for TV advertising yesterday. The term AdWords does not really fit here/anymore, but we’ll look past that for the moment. It looks like you cannot target to local TV at this point. It does seems like this would work okay for cable TV advertising. Let me know what your experience is if you try it…
Here is the invite email:
Dear AdWords Advertiser,
You’re one of a select group of advertisers invited to try Google TV Ads beta. The perfect complement to your online campaigns, Google TV Ads makes it easy to reach new customers, drive more traffic and increase your sales volume - turning TV viewers into your customers.
To learn more, join us for an online webinar led by AdWords specialists. Sign up at google.com/adwords/tvads/webinar.html
Are you ready to give Google TV Ads a try? Log in to your AdWords account and click on ‘Create your first television campaign’ in the ‘Other Campaign Types’ section at the bottom of this page.
Now, with Google TV Ads, you can tap into the power of television with the accountability and flexibility of your online advertising campaigns. We look forward to helping you grow your business.
Sincerely,
The Google AdWords Team
Email Preferences: We sent you this email because you inquired about Google TV Ads through our online form and asked to be notified if you became eligible to participate in the Google TV Ads Beta Test.
Copyright 2007. Google is a trademark of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy.
Mountain View, CA 94043
…And here is the confirmation/thank you email after I signed up:
Thank you for submitting your contact information.
We will contact you by email with details to participate in Google TV Ads. Please note: if you indicated interest in local targeting only, we will contact you when local inventory becomes available in the future.
We look forward to enabling you to advertise on TV more efficiently and effectively through better measurement, more accountability and greater optimization.
Sincerely,
The Google TV Ads Team
Update:
Here is a YouTube video about an advertiser’s experience with Google TV Ads:
Interactive Salsa is a hot mix of the Internet with mobile, media, entertainment, politics & the User! This blog is as much a journey as it is a destination. Enjoy the ride as our worlds converge and reshape themselves (it's getting harder to simply call it the "Internet").
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