Reprise Media Reading List 11/28/06
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Written By Kate Zimmermann | November 28, 2006 | Share This
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In This Post — Social Media Spam, pay per video, stats on the offline impact of Search, non-English characters in domains, and the “Freeconomics” of the Internet.
Social Media Spam
Here’s an overview of different ways that advertisers have succeeded in gaming social media sites. Annoying as social media spam may be, the companies that do find a way into the system are reaping huge benefits. MediaPost reports that, “Nearly half (49%) of respondents in a recent survey reported that they would seek out shopping information, including information about sales and discounts, at social networking sites if they offered such information. Forty-seven percent said they would visit a social networking site to search for gift ideas, and 29% said they would buy products on those sites.”
Pay Per Video
In an attempt to rival YouTube, video aggregator Break.com announced that it will pay users $400 per video, and $2000 per animated video. So far the scheme seems to be bringing in more videos (you think?) which Break.com attributes to the viral marketing of their cash incentives. Though Break has succeeded in generating more video uploads, its nondiscriminatory offering doesn’t account for the quality of a video. Break.com could attract a whole lot of nothing if they don’t start offering quality-based incentives - like ad revenue sharing, or increased compensation for popular videos. Regardless, Break.com is the only video site offering cash for content.
The Offline Impact of Search
The Center for Media Research released an interesting data set on the impact of Search on offline purchase behavior. Here’re some of my favorite stats,
- For every $1 spent online, the average search-user spends $2.56 offline.
- Frequent search users (31+ times) spend on average $2,943 online and $3,839 offline, annually.
- Search accounts for 49% of online purchases and 42% of retail purchases
Speak Any English?
Webmaster World has a pretty interesting thread going about the possible introduction of non-English characters in website domain names. ICANN chief executive Paul Twomley claims that this could “break the Internet”, whereas others in the forum believe that ICANN is, in truth, afraid of losing control over the domain name system.
Freeconomics
Last but not least, check out Chris Anderson’s post on the “freeconomics” of today’s Internet. He queries, “by my calculations we have in the past few months reached the penny-per-MIPS* milestone…What happens when things get (nearly) free?” Anderson points to another terrific article in the Financial Times, on innovation in a post-industrial marketplace.
(* MIPS stands for million instructions per second, and is a standard measure of processing power)
Topics: Search: News |