I was wondering how O&M created the popular Zoozoo ads for Vodafone without using computer animation, here are some behind the scenes video clips that will give you some good idea about the whole production process.
You may also want to check these photographs from a studio in South Africa where these videos where actually shot. Pictures are courtesy the official group of Zoozoo on Facebook.
For instance, here’s the original Zoozoo phone backup ad that’s currently getting aired on television during IPL cricket breaks:
For the last few days I have been seeing a lot of new reports about Google’s new Chrome ad in Japan. Im not really sure why this is now big news, because this ad has been running since January! If you want to read more about the ad then head to Techcrunch, Mashable and Startupmeme.
Twitter has been getting so much press for the last six months or so, even though they don’t have a revenue model. Therefore many sites have been trying to think and develop ways to make money from Twitter. Here is a quick list of some of those companies.
Be-A-Magpie – Be-A-Magpie is a simple solution that allows Twitter users to make money based upon sponsored Twitter messages. Twitter users opt in to the service and then define what frequency and ads they run on their Twitter account. Once the ad is run they get paid for that tweet.
Twittad – Twittad is a marketplace in which Twitter users post their accounts and advertisers are allowed to opt in and run a campaign on a specific account. Twittad allows advertisers to purchase on a PPF system, which is pay-per-follower. Therefore, the more Twitter followers you have the more money you can make.
Betweeted – Betweeted is a new advertising solution for Twitter in which users can signup for the service and then pick from a list of CPC and CPA campaigns. This is a new service and I dont really understand why I as a user would choose to use this service when I can just cut out the middleman and do the CPC and CPA myself.
The other day I came across Seekopia which is an online blog magazine you can personalize according to your own tastes and interests. Combining online advertising and blogging, Seekopia has created a completely new way to blog and earn money. Create your free blog today and Seekopia will help you build a list of followers by promoting your posts and keeping track of your readers. By starting a blog, you instantly own a share of advertising on each and every blog post in Seekopia. Seekopia uses both contextual ads as well as custom user adverts throughout the entire network.
The site itself is very simple and the idea is very similar to what Google are trying to do with their Knol project. It seems as though there are a huge amount of these types of sites on the net at the moment and the only way they are going to stay alive in the long run is by providing quality content and giving back good revenues to contributors.
I must admit a lot of work needs to be done on the design of Seekopia. Currently there seems to be a lot of blank space at the bottom of the home page and even in the sidebars of each blog. It is interesting to see that Seekopia is also using Google Adsense as their advertising provider, because this makes me wonder if they are providing the writers with 100% of the revenues or just splitting the percentage with the blogger.
There are many alternatives to blogging on a site like Seekopia, such as writing Paid per post on your own blog, writing for a blog network, writing on Google’s Knol project or simply writing your own blog with Wordpress and using Google Adsense to monetize your site. Overall I don’t really see the point of sites like Seekopia because they provide too much creative freedom to the journalist, but seems to provide little in return. As a user I would much rather read a highly targeted and professional blog compared to something like Seekopia.
AOL’s AIM service has long been one of the most popular instant messenger clients on the Internet. AIM is pretty much the perfect instant messenger client but as most web based products they don’t support themselves by charging for premium accounts, instead they advertising on the site that subsidises the service. Introducing AIM Ad Hack 5.57 in which lets you block or remove advertisements from AOL Instant Messenger 6.8 and above.
Aim Ad Hack 5.57 is small utility which removes almost all types of ads from AIM.
It has been announced that online ad optimization firm, The Rubicon Project has raised another $13 million in venture capital. The amount is made up of an additional $5 million in venture funding from Clearstone Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund and IDG Ventures Asia and Silicon Valley Bank added $8 million in venture debt. The company notes that the funds will be used to, “fuel business growth initiatives including strategic acquisitions, research and development, infrastructure and international expansion.”
The company has raised $33 million to-date and is based in Los Angeles. The company opened a NYC office last November. Check out our interview with founder and CEO Frank Addante.
While at the same time Techcrunch has reported that Collective Media has secured another $20 million in Series B funding. The series was led by Accel Partners and iNovia Capital. Collective Media offers publishers an ad network management platform to create their own branded, vertical ad networks. The company raised an undisclosed amount in Series A funding, led by Greycroft Partners and iNovia Capital, in October 2007.
This has made me think a lot about both companies and how IDG Ventures Asia was an investor in The Rubicon Project and the IDG Tech Network is currently using the Collective Media platform to run their advertising network. I find it funny at times how certain section of major still don’t have an overall growth strategy, because investing in one company but at the same time they are wasting money on using another ad platform when it might be in their best interests to think about building their own ad platform and then integrating The Rubicon Project.
There are so many place out there these day that want to help you make money from your online videos. Here is a list of top video ad networks in the marketplace at the moment.
Auditude is a new video and advertising platform that has just received more funding. Auditude is an end-to-end solution for premium video. For websites we’ve built an ad platform for managing complex video monetization rights, for content owners we empower widely syndicated video while maintaining control over your assets and advertising, and for advertisers or networks we provide scale in premium video.
Brightroll is the first premium video ad network, and the most comprehensive. With this widely distributed platform we’re able to maximize the value of your available inventory. We have aggregated the largest portfolio of highly branded and large volume video advertising on the Internet. With this widely distributed platform we’re enabled to leverage content, demo, context, behavior, and traffic volume for the benefit of our advertiser and publisher partners.
Videoegg serves ads, you get paid every time a user engages with one of our rich media ad units on your site. Everyday Videoegg delivers millions of impressions to users across leading social networking environments, video sites and gaming applications. We develop rich user profiles that enable advertisers to start with the right audience. Our unique video advertising formats and targeting approach deliver higher engagement rates for brands and more relevant ad experiences for consumers.
Roo Media is now KIT Digital. KIT Digital is a pioneer provider of video distribution solutions in online, mobile and set top box environments. We provide strategic, technology and content services that connect our clients brands with their target markets, in an ROI positive manner.
Brightcove is an on-demand online video platform. Designed for use with professional websites, Brightcove provides everything you need to publish and distribute online video. Working with professional video has never been easier. Harness the full potential of your content through innovative and flexible online video advertising options. By integrating with leading ad servers and custom 3rd-party ad solutions, you can stay focused on your ad strategy while we handle the technology.
Adap.tv empowers online publishers to efficiently monetize and grow their online video business. The Adap.tv OneSource video ad management platform provides a simple, transparent way to manage and serve ads from multiple sources, in many formats, to capture the full revenue potential of online video content. Fine-grained control and detailed reporting help publishers maximize their online video performance. All through a single, highly efficient platform.
YuMe is a large video advertising network, representing over 400 premium video sites with over 500 million monthly streams. We are unique in that we are both an ad management platform for publishers plus a video advertising network that provides advertisers with the audience scale and premium reach they desire.
Tremor Media is a leading global online video advertising network, providing Fortune 1000 brand advertisers with the reach and scale of more than 1,400 top-tier publishers. Tremor Media can work with you to monetize your site’s traffic with higher CPMs than any other ad network. In addition to our revenue solutions, Tremor Media provides cutting-edge technology for Web publishers that are ready to grow their business through online video advertising. Our Acudeo video monetization platform enables publishers to leverage their video assets and effectively manage their in-stream ad delivery, creating new, high value inventory.
Husky Media allows publishers to generate revenues by placing videos into its own new overlap window and then sells the backgrounds as advertising. Husky works with any video player and doesnt require the videos to be your own, you can make money from any video played on your website.
Adotube is a publisher-centric online video advertising platform that enables you to generate revenue by showing brand-name ads in your video content. Monetize your video content with unobtrusive targeted advertizing. You are in control of the presentation styles and video advertizing types.
My name is Niyi and I’m the Founder of Trafficspaces (I’ll get to what Trafficspaces does in a second).
Focus on that quote. Itis quite seems particularly poignant in the current economic environment. It seems like no matter what we do, our dependence on oil just seems unassailable, even to our own detriment. It seems to me like we have a love-hate relationship with the “black gold”. Without it, we can’t seem to power anything. In fact,without it, we’ll all probably lose our jobs!
Advertising is pretty similar. Many people dislike ads on websites (especially the annoying banner ads) but unfortunately, the truth is that without ads, most websites, blogs, will go out of business and mass-appeal tools like the Google search engine, Gmail, Facebook, and possibly even Twitter will be unsustainable. I shudder at every “Catch the Monkey” ad like everyone else so I’ve been particularly intrigued to discover if there is a middle ground somewhere – something that gives publishers more control over what appears on their site and doesn’t leave them short-changed by some dodgy, fly-by-night ad network.
My team and I have just created a new ad management platform called Trafficspaces. We’ve solved three common problems:
1. Losing potential advertisers
“If you build it, they’ll come”. So true, but if they come and they are ready to pay, and you are not ready, they’ll leave (and may not come back). Way too many potential advertisersare lost because publishers expect them to fill a form in order to advertise. Where is the automation?
Imagine if you had to call an airline over the phone in order to book a flight, and there was no Expedia, Orbitz,Ebookers etc. It will be a pain and the airlines will make less money.
I once spoke to a very large newspaper firm who relied mostly on Google for ads on their website. They received a $5,000 check every month from Google and they weren’t impressed. It turns out that their site generates about 10 million impressions per month and understandably they felt short-changed.“I wonder how much Google got paid by the advertiser” ranted their Online Editor.
Recently, Michael Arrington of Techcrunch mused about dumping his long term partner Federated Media because his advertisers (who had to go to Federated Media’s site to place ads with Techcrunch) were spending a disproportionate proportion of their budget with other sites on FM’s network. Basically, if Techcrunch had its own self-service system, they’ll keep more of the advertiser’s budget.
The point there is that publishers need more control. The traffic that cannot be filled by your direct sales, or through your self-service system can be sent to Google or any other ad network. This is particularly important for those who get a lot of site-targeted ads. That is the best way to maximize your revenue.
3. Managing ad operations easily
This part is actually quite important because a lot of publishers I know don’t want to get bogged down with the intricacies of monitoring ad campaigns, optimizing the ads, and preparing reports. They don’t want the complexity that comes with OpenX. They just want to approve the ads with one-click and forget about it. “Keep it Short and Simple” as a close friend said to me. If you are one of those publishers, then Trafficspaces is for you.
Conclusion
Our goal was to give publishers more control. More control over what appears on their sites, and more control of their revenue. But most importantly, it had to be done through a system that was easy to use. The response so far has been great.
Are you looking for new ways to make money from your online videos, then maybe Adap.tv might be the way forward. Adap.tv empowers online publishers to efficiently monetize and grow their online video business. The Adap.tv OneSource video ad management platform provides a simple, transparent way to manage and serve ads from multiple sources, in many formats, to capture the full revenue potential of online video content. Fine-grained control and detailed reporting help publishers maximize their online video performance. All through a single, highly efficient platform.
Adap.tv works with a lot of advertising option including post roll, pre roll, overlay banners, expanding overlay and post roll banners. Although all of this technology isn’t really new for monetizing videos, Adap.tv seems to have some good options that could potentially really help in your quest for a quality video advertising solution.
I have been looking at our advertising page over at BuySellAds and have been wondering why stats over their estimates only 18,000 impressions when my Google Analytics says 51,000? I know with BuySellAds it take sometime to build up the stats, but our ads have been on the site for over a month and they still havent increased up to its real level.
Are you sick and tired of receiving crappy spam messages in your inbox every single day? Well why only receive spam in your inbox when now you can also receive it on your mobile phone! This all comes from a new startup called SaySoMobile.
SaySoMobile is a new startup in which users can sign up and receive advertisements straight onto their mobile phone and in return the user makes a little money. Its that simple!
The idea is simple. Advertisers want access to people which gets their message across as much as possible for as little as possible. This new startup allows advertisers to target certain people in certain countries with advertisements direct onto their mobile phones via messages. Advertisers know that with this method the high majority of ads will be opened before they can be deleted, thus having a higher possibility of providing them a return on their investment.
Im very interested to hear from people using this service to make a little extra money, mainly to see if the money they are making is worth the intrusiveness of the advertisements.
Tatango is a new ad-supported group SMS service which has been making huge steps forward since gaining funding and a new design six months or so ago.
Sign up, invite some friends (they have to opt-in, else this thing would be a spam machine), and you (or anybody you dub as a group admin) are able to SMS the entire group at once, either from the browser or right off your mobile handset.
The basic service is free, supported by 30 character advertisements strapped to the bottom of each message. Ad-free messaging is available along with a few other pay-per-option premium features but, at just under $35 bucks a month.
Adap.tv
Are you sick and tired of receiving crappy spam messages in your inbox every single day? Well why only receive spam in your inbox when now you can also receive it on your mobile phone! This all comes from a new startup called 
