Author Archive - Miguel Cancin
Internet Advertising Revenues Continue to Soar
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Written By Miguel Cancino | October 5, 2007 | Share This
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According to a press release issued today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), online advertising in the U.S. surpassed the $5 billion mark for the second quarter of 2007, increasing 27% over the same period last year. That makes ad revenue for the 1st half of 2007 nearly $10 billion - a 25% increase over the first half of 2006.
These impressive figures speak to the growing importance of online advertising and the continued recognition of the internet as a key medium through which marketers can reach target audiences. According to Pete Petrusky, Director of Entertainment, Media & Communications at PricewaterhouseCoopers,
The Internet is well established as a key media distribution channel for driving advertising. The recent results demonstrate that advertisers recognize the continued growth in the online audience and the growing opportunity to target and monetize that audience.
What’s more, a breakdown of the different types of internet advertising revealed that search marketing remains the greatest revenue generator. Search accounted for 41 percent, or $4.1 billion, of 2007 first six-month revenues. Though a modest one percent increase over the same period last year, this figure represents nearly $900 million in new revenue. Thanks largely to the growth in search, performance-based ad deals (CPC, CPA, etc) surpassed CPM ad buys by 3% during the 2Q of 2007.
FriendFeed Consolidates Social Media Activities
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Written By Miguel Cancino | October 2, 2007 | Share This
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The New York Times reported the beta launch yesterday of FriendFeed, a new social site that consolidates your friends’ activities on the Web into a single ‘Feed’. Says founder Bret Taylor,
“[FriendFeed] gives you a snapshot of what people you know think is interesting. It’s kind of a blog that writes itself.”
FriendFeed currently supports 23 social web services, including Digg, Flickr, YouTube, and Last.fm. Users create their own network of friends whose activity updates can be tracked in a continuous stream of notifications. The streaming content can be embedded within user’s Facebook pages or their personal web page or blog.
FriendFeed is not the first social media site to allow users to distribute their internet-activity with friends. Similar services like Kaboodle (shopping) and Google’s Shared Stuff have already carved a niche in this voyeuristic market. FriendFeed is hoping that their simple and effortless sharing process (users don’t have to do anything to share updates) will lead to the site’s success. Writes the New York Times,
“The creators of FriendFeed say their system is intended to be as simple as possible. ‘I like this because it doesn’t require me to do anything new,’ Mr. Taylor said.”
Though a compelling concept, FriendFeed’s automatic updates could provoke privacy concerns among wary users. Unless FriendFeed implements comprehensive privacy settings for their site announcements, I doubt many Feeders will be eager to ‘automatically’ broadcast their personal information.
Law Firms Acting Too Hip to YouTube?
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Written By Miguel Cancino | September 28, 2007 | Share This
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The New York Times ran an piece today titled, “Law Firms Go a Bit Hollywood to Recruit the YouTube Generation.” According to the article, law firms are trying to attract top-notch summer associates through the use of the web’s most popular video-sharing site, YouTube. Recognizing the popularity of social media and YouTube in particular, recruiters are hopeful that they can appeal to college students through a medium that they are familiar with, while sending the message “We’re hip too”:
Several firms are trying to parlay [the discovery of YouTube] into a hiring tool, creating recruiting videos and Web sites with the look and feel of YouTube. The firms hope to persuade students that their lawyers, and by extension the firms, are young-thinking and hip.
While the attempt by these firms to embrace the social media movement is admirable, I question their use of YouTube to portray their firms as the “hip place to work.” Social media is founded on a philosophy of transparency and full disclosure. It’s a two-way conversation wherein users are able to question and challenge the marketer - or, in this case, the potential employer’s self-representation. After all, having recently spent a year with a the District Attorney’s Office, I can assure you that young associates and lawyers do not spend their days bouncing around on “hop balls” as one firm’s video depicts.
A more effective use of these firms’ time and money would be to embrace social media in a different fashion. Rather than trying to paint a rosy picture of a work environment that may or may not exist, law firms would be wise to create an honest dialogue between potential candidates and current summer associate (or new hires). For example, what if a firm sponsored a Q&A forum moderated by current summer associates? Could they create a Facebook/Myspace group created for the sole purpose of bringing together new and potential hires? Or, how about a “Day in the Life Of” blog written by a recent hire?
While potentially more “risky” to the firm’s reputation, I’m certain that quality firms would shine by embracing these forms of social media. The conversational nature of forums and blogs not only offers a less contrived representation of a firm’s culture, it gives applicants a point of contact (the author or moderator) to ask real questions about recruitment. This, more than videos of bouncing balls, will help weed the preliminary applicant pool in order to attract more quality applicants and lower attrition.
My Grandmother Does Not Use Facebook
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Written By Miguel Cancino | September 24, 2007 | Share This
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Marketers are generally aware of the opportunity that social-networking sites like Facebook and Myspace provide to companies hoping to target teens and 20-somethings. A new group of sites, however, aims to target an older segment of the population – the enormous aging baby boomer audience.
Though the thought of your grandmother on Facebook might seem like an unlikely (and even uncomfortable) scenario, in the eyes of investors and entrepreneurs this segment of the population provides a potentially golden opportunity. So what makes the elderly so attractive? For starters, there are currently 78 million of them. What’s more, this portion of the population possesses a unique “stickiness” that has bypassed younger generations. To quote a recent New York Times article:
“Teens are tire kickers — they hang around, cost you money and then leave,” said Paul Kedrosky, a venture capitalist and author of the blog “Infectious Greed.” Where Friendster was once the hot spot, Facebook and Myspace now draw the crowds of young people online.
“The older demographic has a bunch of interesting characteristics,” Mr. Kedrosky added, “not the least of which is that they hang around.”
In addition to being “sticky,” baby-boomers also have time and money. Sites like Eons.com and Rezoom.com are hoping to capitalize on these demographic advantages by creating networking sites that appeal to older generations. These sites aim to create more comfortable, albeit less “hip,” environments in which older generations will feel safe discussing issues that are of concern to an older audience, like retirement, aging, and health concerns. If baby boomer-oriented networks achieve even a fraction of the boomer population, they have the potential to eclipse youth-oriented social networks like Facebook, by providing advertising opportunities for companies that have until now felt social networking to be beyond the scope of their target market.
So, the question remains, could you see your grandmother surfing the social net?
Personally, I have a tough time doing so. Most social networking sites grow through word-of-mouth evangelism that is bred in condensed social environments, like high school or college campuses. Is this WOM effect likely to occur within an aging population that doesn’t live within the same condensed of environment? Current statistics suggest it’s not - In a recent study, Forrester estimated that 70% of Seniors (65+), 61% of Older Boomers (51 – 61) and 54% of Younger Boomers (41 – 51) are “Inactives” online. In other words, well over half of this audience has never had contact with social activities online – perhaps because the barrier to entry for many boomers is higher than merely visiting a web address.
Nevertheless, Eons.com and Rezoom.com have both made compelling cases for the future of boomer social networking. If baby boomers are as “sticky” as the venture capitalists claim they are, it’s not the short-term prospects that they’re concerned with. Venture capitalists firms such as Shasta Ventures and VantagePoint Ventures and are willing to put their money where their mouth is, investing $4.6m and $16.5m, respectively, in social-networking sites aimed at older generations. With this level of capital on the line, one has to imagine that at least some venture capitalists believe in the adage, “If you build it, they will come.” Only time will tell.