Over at Stanford artificial intelligence researchers have developed an amazing piece of software that im sure Google will purchase very soon. The software makes it easy to place and manipulate an image into a piece of video. Thus, could allow advertising to be simply placed in any video.
It works for videos as well – you can play a video on a wall inside your video. The technology can cheaply do some of the tricks normally performed by expensive commercial editing systems.
More information at ZunaVision but first watch the demo video:
This software would be perfect for video makers who place their videos onto Youtube, because they will be able to sell advertising very simply within the videos. This would also mean that they could place their videos and promote on Bittorrent related sites, cause the content owner is drawing an income. Just a thought!
OpenX has today launched its much anticipated hosted ad serving solution. OpenX Hosted is free to publishers serving up to 25 million ad impressions each month and professional and enterprise packages are available for larger publishers who need the additional services and support to manage their businesses.
OpenX Hosted version has been in beta testing since January 2008 and contains exactly the same software found in the original OpenX Ad Server. The new product allows publishers to use the software to operate all aspects of ad serving while OpenX provides all the hardware and back-end infrastructure, leaving publishers free to focus on their advertising revenues.
OpenX Hosted’s feature-set enables publishers to manage their advertising campaigns across multiple direct advertisers and ad networks, prioritize and optimize their campaigns, and use sophisticated targeting tools. Importantly, OpenX Hosted also enables publishers to maintain tight control over which advertisers are permitted to see their data and advertise to their users.
As you can see from the home page of the hosted version, there are some improvements. This home page aims to provide users with some very basic stats to make sure they aren’t going to go over the limit, as well as the community stats and news.
A few changes have also happened over at the Inventory page, in which seems to be a lot simplier in terms of design as well as some great graphics.
Overall
Overall the new OpenX hosted version is great for web publishers to control their own inventory. The limit of 25 million ad impressions per month is great for publishers, and allows OpenX to have a nice additional revenue stream. However, what I haven’t mentioned already is that OpenX are in Alpha of a new Ad Marketplace, in which I’m sure will be their main revenue stream in the near future.
During these turbulent times there has been a lot of change across the economic landscape. Companies from big to small, brick and mortar to online sites have all experienced the crunch. Many are comparing these times to the dotcom bust years ago, if history is cyclical this was a short rotation.
Recently BlogRush has decided to close it’s “doors” and fade away. In an announcement by John Reese, BlogRush was suffering from lack of clicks, and users who no longer wanted to be advertised to. While that may come as a no brainer to the typical user, BlogRush prided itself on being unobtrusive and focusing on the needs and wants of the users.
Was this truly what BlogRush stood for? The site definitely had its fair share of critics. For example, Seopedia sticks out in my mind after they were so amazingly rejected by the site. You can read their entire ordeal here. Basically it appear that BlogRush depended on random people to be the judges of whether a site fit the criteria or not. The advertisement that was sent out by owner John Reese seems to focus less on quality judges, and more on mass quantity.
Mashable has a more scathing post from late 2007 where they say BlogRush was a throwback to the Web 1.0 era. They explain the process of earning credits by using their widget on your site, and sharing traffic with other sites increasing exposure and ranking within the network. He compares the concept to that of a pyramid scheme.
Despite the critics, John Reese stands by his product and claims that he is a risk taker. He admits that as an entrepreneur he has had some ideas succeed and some fail, but his success stems from not being afraid to try. He goes on to say that BlogRush was offered a “small fortune” but that he reluctantly turned it down to keep the purity of the idea. Not sure if I necessarily agree with the decision, but regardless, the site is down for the count.
It’s advised that users remove the BlogRush widgets from their pages because they are no inactive. So while click rates dropped, and BlogRush has come to an end, John Reese promises that he will continue to strive with new online ideas, and look to continue his innovative streak.
This morning I opened hotmail and found they have just launched a new look. The new hotmail style as you can see from the screenshot below has a much lighter design in terms of colours. Light blue is the Windows Live colours and it seems that hotmail now comes under that umbrella completely.
Apart from the colour changes there isn’t really too much to talk about. The design is very simple, left column for heading, right column for emails and top headings above to make a new email, delete, and move folders.
Very simple design but will it work for Microsoft?
b5media one of the worlds largest blog networks has just launched a new home page design. I think the new design is a huge improvement from the previous one.
Navigation through the new site is a lot easier, and now it highlights nicely the key blogs within the network and all the network stats. However, it is a great start from the team.
The main downside is still the lack of ability to purchase advertising across the network and target the niche or sites that you wish. I think the strategy of the company is great, but they still seem to be lacking in the key area on monetization. Individual blogs are now running a variety of advertising from Google Adsense to Tribal Fusion, but there still seems to be no coherency. Additionally, the blog design for individual blogs is terrible, it really needs to be looked at and professionalised. Im sure they have some great blog designers in the team, but they never seem to use them.
Long gone are the commercials with our friends Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld. Mysteriously the advertising campaign stopped, changed directions, and Seinfeld was no more.
Was it the churros? Was it the conquistadors? Perhaps no one wanted to take them in after leaving their last family. Either way, Microsoft has taken a new direction, but some just can’t let a good joke die.
Apple has just released two commercials that are sure to get Microsoft’s feathers ruffled, but all’s fair in and love and war.
Check them out and share your thoughts. Whether you love them or hate them, you’ve got to admit that the marketing from both attacking the other does provide for some interesting conversation.
BuzzLogic is a new blog CPM ad network that has just launched into public beta. Unlike most other blog ad networks BuzzLogic is paying some good rates. When BuzzLogic was in private beta they were paying a minimum of $2 CPM (per 1,000 impressions) if your blog got accepted into the program.
To get accepted into the program, your blog should be hosted on one of the popular platforms like Typepad, Blogger, Wordpress and the frequency at which you post content will also be considered.
However, that all being said BuzzLogic will only pay you for US traffic. This is very limited at the moment, but as they grow im sure they will move into other markets. BuzzLogic will also pay less if you place their ad units below the fold, unlike most other ad networks.
That all being said BuzzLogic is definitely worth a look. It would be great to hear feedback from any current users! I have been trying to get Crenk into the BuzzLogic network, but they seem to be too busy at the moment to add us.
Tribal Fusion has to be one of the worlds leading online ad networks. Tribal Fusion works in the same way as most ad networks in that they select various sites in various verticals and then sell run of the networks ads. This allows them to get some great advertisers on board because of the amount of total impressions running in those verticals.
Tribal Fusion is quite exclusive and sometimes hard to get an account, it mainly depends on if their campaigns on are target. If you are lucky enough to get a Tribal Fusion account then you can expect $1 – $3 CPM rates, however the split is 55/45, 55% going to the publisher. Thus, after Tribal Fusion take their cut you can really expect an eCPM of about $1.00 on average.
Recently Tribal Fusion launched their new ad serving platform, Expo 9. Expo 9 allows all publisher the ability to control their remnant ad serving. Expo 9 is easy to set up remnant tags and also the ability to use their ad server to sell private ads. That all being said expect a fill rate of approx 50 – 70% for most blogs.
Tribal Fusion is what I call a top tier ad network, in that they provide one of the highest CPM rates in the industry. If you get a chance make sure you head over to Tribal Fusion and give them a go.
NewsGator Technologies, the company behind some of the biggest name RSS feeder applications out today has taken a big step by releasing all of its consumer products for free. The applications include NewsGator Inbox, FeedDemon, and NetNewsWire. Mobile software that is now free includes NewsGator Go for Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, iPhone, and others. NewsGator also frees NewsGator Online, the Web-based RSS feed.
Since NewsGator did go free they have seen some steady improvements in their traffic and users. That being the case im not too sure where their business model stands, if they are offering some services at a price or if they take a percentage of advertising revenues within certain products.
However, if you are looking for some world class products for free, then head over to NewsGator.
Adify is growing into one of the largest advertising technology provides on the web. Adify was recently purchased by Cox enterprises for $300 million back in April. Adify provides a unique white-label advertising network solutions.
Currently Adify has some of the worlds largest media conglomerates using their platform to serve advertising, Forbes, The Guardian, Reuters and more. They have over 20 vertical networks that are using their service.
What does this all mean for the average web publisher? Well web publishers are able to opt in to use the Adify platform, then they can apply to join their vertical networks to sell the advertising. Thus, a publisher could have Forbes, Reuters, Break and IDG, all selling advertising for your site at the same time. Therefore, this normally provides a great eCPM for the publisher and gets them a lot more money than they would get elsewhere.
If you are a web publisher looking for a great advertising solution, make sure you head over and check out Adify, because in times of the US Dollar being quite poor, they will be sure to make you more money than most advertising networks.
If you found yourself just as confused by the first commercial from Microsoft featuring the $10 Million Dollar Man himself, Jerry Seinfeld and Microsoft mogul Bill Gates, so was the rest of the world.
The media slammed against what seemed like a commercial about nothing, similar to the description of the show Seinfeld from 10 years ago. Personally I am a big fan of the show, but the humor does not translate 10 years later, and if they look to enter a new, younger, more media savvy market, digging 10 years back for jokes does them no good.
Well the second clip has been released, and the extended version has already been all over YouTube and other video posting sites. While this will not show on TV in its entirety due to it being over 4 minutes long, I can’t imagine the cut version being any better.
The TWiT podcast hosted by Leo Laporte even attempted to dissect the first commercial for the underlying message looking for symbolism in the commercial and even they fell short near the end. If the commercial looks to be that cerebral, they will more then likely lose people rather than gain.
I say thumbs down to this sitcom-ish style advertising, but you be the judge.
There are so many advertising networks popping up these days its hard to know which ones are actually going to be useful to your needs. However, when it comes to mobile advertising networks, there is only one that really stands out from the crowd, Admob.
AdMob connects people who want to buy ads with people who want to monetize their mobile traffic through the AdMob Marketplace. Admob makes advertising and publishing easy with solutions and tools to meet your unique needs.
Mobile is very dominant in countries like Japan, and advertising to these clients is still not developed fully. Admob offers everything a normal online advertising network would offer, but they simply make moving into the mobile revenues generation space easy.
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