A Fuller View

Well, its another week or so since my last post and April was pretty low month for both the number of posts and the quality from A Fuller View. Lets see if the Arpil drought can bring some May sprouts…

Scanning around the blog-o-sphere here are some posts that I think are worth a read:

• On Screenwrek - Spot Runner just raised more money and this round included money from UK based Dail Mai Group (which is intersting).
• Buzz Machine - his Guardian column from last week. All about an interesting wine guy’s brand and what this means in the world of social media: “Your personal brand is now completely exposed to the world, 24/7. Everyone is media now.”
• AdViking - our sister site posts about the $300M deal for Adify. Wow that’s a lot offly paper.
• On Razorshine some intersting thoughts on Firefox 3 and much needed delicious plugin.
• RWW alot of traffic on myspace US. I wonder how much of that is search driven?

What else is on my mind? Well I need to finally blog about Venice - I have some notes stuck on my mobile Windows device that I can’t seem to easily get off (I am not a fan on Windows Mobile and my Palm Treo at the moment). I am aslo thinkming about the transient nature of instant messenger platform use and churn and what this might mean for socail media. But mainly, I am thinking about how nice it is that summer has arrived in London - at least for the moment.

I will be heading to the Venice Media Festival (which kicks off this Sunday night) and will be reporting back here and on AdViking next week with views, analysis and insight from what looks to be a very exciting industry conference.

Lost of good stuff to read over on AdViking:

• Note to Google: You Can’t Please Everyone!
• Microhoo or is it YahAOL?
• OpenX is Moving to Hollywood

The OpenX move is a surprse but probably makes them a more serious play now. The Yahoo deal is like a great Espionage thriller – I can’t wait to read the final chapter.

Google has launched a free ad serving platform aimed at mid-sized online publishers. The platform is currently in a limited beta - for more details check out this post on SEL or go directly to the Google Ad Manager homepgae. This is a very interesting product release from the big G. I am guessing the team at OpenAds will be watching this very closely…

Here’s a prediction: all ad serving technology becomes free by the end of 2008 (even from the likes of GoogleClick, Microsoft APS, 24/7, AdTech etc). So, then how do these companies make money? They will make it via value-added services and ad networks. Looks like this space is following Chris Anderson’s thesis of why free is the future.

Follow-up: a great post on this over on BuzzMachine - which completely agree with in terms of how Google Ad Manager really could be a game changer.

After almost a year Google has finally closed the DoubleClick deal. SAI has some interesting posts on the deal here (job cuts?) and here (a bold move in display?). I doubt Google will put banners on google.com, but I can see them building out a serious display network to rival Yahoo, MSFT and AOL - they have all the pieces. I’ll be back tomorrow with some more comments… In the meantime here is a DCLK email to exisiting clients:

Dear Valued Client,

As you may have heard, Google closed the acquisition of DoubleClick today..

I wanted to personally share with you our initial plans now that our businesses can join together.

We’re very excited to be able to combine DoubleClick’s industry expertise and market leadership with Google’s technology and resources for serving our publisher clients. The combined company will offer more tools for publishers to enhance productivity and create additional revenue opportunities.

We wanted to immediately address some of the specific implications of the acquisition, so we have a few FAQs below to give you more insight into our partnership with Google and plans for the future. For now, the offerings and services will not change and you will still work with the same great DoubleClick team. As decisions about business integration and products are made we will not only keep you informed on the progress, but also solicit your feedback. Our top priority is to continue to provide you with the highest level of service.

We hope to speak with you soon regarding any questions or concerns you may have and we look forward to working with you during this exciting time!

Regards,

David Rosenblatt

1. Will you continue to support my DoubleClick products and services?

DoubleClick has built its business by providing best-in-class service to customers. We are committed to maintaining those service levels as the two companies combine. And we are committed to better addressing your needs as we combine resources and develop enhanced solutions in the future.

2. Does anything change in my ownership of my data?

Data confidentiality remains a DoubleClick and Google priority. We will fully honor our client contracts that govern the use of the data, and have no plans to change the limited use provisions set forth in those contracts.

3. What are your plans going forward?

Ad serving encompasses a set of critical technologies that will get more support and resources after close. The combined company’s goal is to build on DoubleClick’s products and services so that they scale for the future. We are committed to building a true end-to-end solution that gives publishers more efficiency, scalability and profitability. The DoubleClick and Google product teams will work closely over the next few months to build a plan for delivering next generation ad serving.

For AdSense publishers, DART tags will be introduced into the Google content network. After close, Google will begin testing DoubleClick’s ad serving products to pave the way for the acceptance of DFA tags in our content network. The testing will begin on a small scale and expand over the course of the next year. We look forward to sharing more and to working with our publisher partners to maximize the potential of the network.

Together, we will create the next generation enterprise-class ad serving and management solution for publishers.

We will work with you to generate higher yields by combining DoubleClick’s and Google’s strengths in inventory management, ad serving, and optimization

It a very storming in the UK today - the 1st big one this winter and spring in on the door step. I think there is another storm brewing over privacy and the uses of cookie data (user profiles, behavioral targeting etc) to target ads. I’ll point to 3 pieces that form part of my thesis:

1. AOL trying to get ahead of the curve (smart move, btw)
2. UK start-up Phorm getting into hot water
3. More on the decline of users on social networking sites - I wonder if maybe some people are getting turned off by all the advertising (here’s a previous example I posted) and the spam (although I bet this is a small impact) on social networking sites?
4. This NYT piece also worth a read re: this subject

SAI says they see Google as the least exposed of the big 4. I disagree as the have user data across multiple services (mail, docs, igoogle, etc) and this appears to me that this data is used to help tagret ads. To an end user looks like a profile and looks spooky. All the big players need to have solid PR and education programs in place around privacy and profile targeting (this my generic term fo all user type targeting tied to a cookie).

Simon B on AdViking says he thinks social advertising could be a real thing and a real business model - he even provides a meta algorithm here. I agree only if I can be in control and that the recommendation side gets easier to access. My biggest complaint is that many of social networking sites expect the users to do to much work, = boring. One of my biggest complaints about FB was the lack of usability. Maybe FB + IYP database + Google maps = a better experience?

Microsoft launched a new methodology for tracking the effectiveness of online advertising termed “engagement mapping” - this has previously been called “conversion attribution.” The full MS release is here. Also worth reading this interview from Sept ‘07 with Brian McAndrews, Microsoft’s senior vice president of advertising and publishing solutions for more on the background this new ad measurement system. The super short digested version of this news is that: engagement mapping a smart and more balanced way to measure the effectiveness of ad spend on-line that does not reply solely on the users’ last click. Last click heavily favors paid search vs. display (banners).

Couple of decent posts worth checking out over on sister blog AdViking:

• Post-Mobile World Congress Wrap Up - from Barcelona
• ISP Advertising Moves, Google Video Ad Push

Also, hoping that Simon expands on insight from this week’s Fast Forward search conference in Florida. I am guessing he’s got his silver card on BA by now with all this travel.

Well, that’s wrap for this working week. And here’s funnny one strip from xkcd - enjoy!

According to a piece in SAI today Google may be “very exposed to US recession.” I would agree with some of the logic in this insider analysis. However, Google has so much organic growth, new products and ways to optimise their business that they may be able to weather things better than most. The key points are:

A significant percentage of Google’s customer base is exposed to economic weakness(logic below), and
As consumers spend less, the ROI for many Google advertisers will drop–and this will cause them to spend less on Google (We concur with this view, which is still a minority view.)

I would more inclined to think that online companies that are more on the margins, such as 2nd & 3rd tier networks (such as Miva, Looksmart, Infospace and others) would suffer and some may likely perish is a US recession. What do you think?

This PR about a display click rates from Starcom and others is very interesting. I will have to try to get a copy of the full study and report. Looks like the über clickers (or should be call them super clickers?) are distorting reality… Not sure this is good news for online advertising. My initial thought is we will likely need and see wider studies on general “conversion attribution” of online advertising - ie, you need a solid mix of ads (including display) as this helps drive conversion on your search both paid and natural, etc… Quoting directly from the PR:

Starcom, Tacoda and comScore’s “Natural Born Clickers” findings suggest “the click is dead” as go-to measurement of effectiveness for brand-building display advertising campaigns

The study illustrates that heavy clickers represent just 6% of the online population yet account for 50% of all display ad clicks. While many online media companies use click-through rate as an ad negotiation currency, the study shows that heavy clickers are not representative of the general public. In fact, heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000. Heavy clickers behave very differently online than the typical Internet user, and while they spend four times more time online than non-clickers, their spending does not proportionately reflect this very heavy Internet usage. Heavy clickers are also relatively more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites – a markedly different surfing pattern than non-clickers.