Media Convergence
Search on the Beach: Summer Search, Social Media, and SEO Books, Your Official SearchViews Reading List
|
Written By Noah Mallin | July 10, 2008 | Share This
|
|
Ah, Summer. Here in
Either way, books and the beach go together like Amy Winehouse and liver damage, so we thought it would be fun to put together a little search industry reading list for your Summer pleasure. The idea originally came about when Reprise Media Managing Partner Peter Hershberg was on Business Wire’s recent Social Media panel and was asked to recommend a few books.
Universal Search: Clueless! – ISP’s act like AP, Greed for Money Upfront will lead to a Kick in the Rear
|
Written By Noah Mallin | June 17, 2008 | Share This
|
|
The recent kerfuffle involving bloggers and the AP fired some interesting connections in my neural net. The attempt to levy a tax on bloggers for the right (nay the privilege!) of linking to the AP’s content smells a lot like the recent attempt of a few internet service providers to charge extra to high-bandwidth users.
The common thread between these two hair-brained schemes is an attempt to force old-school ideas about economics onto the new world of the internet. The irony is that the Internet at its best is probably the closest human beings have come to the perfect marketplace envisioned by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations.
In Smith’s ideal marketplace, all buyers and sellers have access to the same information and equal access to the marketplace, allowing prices to find their natural/optimal level. In a broad way that has been mostly true online whether we are talking about the cost of advertising a product or the product itself. In fact, the auction-based search model is about as close as you’re gonna get.
Reverse Optimization: AP to Bloggers, “Hands Off!” ; Bloggers to AP, ”Don’t Make us Angry – You Wouldn’t Like Us When We’re Angry…” ; SearchViews Officially Joins AP Boycott
|
Written By Noah Mallin | June 16, 2008 | Share This
|
|
After hustling, begging, pleading and cajoling for every link we can get, it comes as a shock to find a content provider so out-to-lunch that they actually begrudge the link love. What’s up with that, Associated Press? The old media consortium of umpty-ump newspapers and other dying media types issued a blogger fatwa on Friday that temporarily got drowned out by GooHoo and Tim Russert’s death.
Seems that the AP sent a nasty latter to the operators of Drudge Retort, a user-powered news aggregator (and now aggravator, heh heh) like hundreds of others out there (not to be confused be-hatted muckracker Matt Drudge’s Drudge Report, which Retort was initially set up to combat.) Only this time the AP decided to get tough:
Google Integrates with CRM
|
Written By Drupad Sil | April 14, 2008 | Share This
|
|
Earlier today Google and Salesforce.com officially announced the expanded partnership of Google apps and Salesforce’s online enterprise apps, the result of a 10-month-old collaboration between the two companies. Docs, Calendar, Gmail, and Gtalk have all been integrated directly into the Salesforce interface, enhancing the company’s productivity suite as described by Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch:
“Google documents, spreadsheets, and presentation can be created from within Salesforce’s CRM application. GTalk works as the de facto instant messenger within Salesforce. With one click, sales people who use Gmail can send any email correspondence with potential or existing customers to Salesforce, where it becomes recorded as part of the sales cycle. Sales events and marketing campaigns can be overlayed onto a Google Calendar (see screen shot below), as well as colleague’s schedules for figuring out convenient meeting times.”
Additionally, Salesforce is offering a service called Salesforce for Google Apps Supported that includes user telephone support, unified billing and provisioning, and additional premium application services for $10 per user, per month. There is no question that the move was made squarely with Microsoft and its Office franchise in mind, although there is some disagreement over whether businesses will spring for the ability to word process anytime, anywhere at the risk of losing all their data due to a server malfunction.
Either way, the future certainly looks rosy for the Google and Salesforce partnership – so much so, in fact, that it has led to speculation that Google may outright purchase the customer relationship management software company. At the least, one wonders if there will be crossover between the Salesforce App Exchange, and the newly launched Google App Engine. At this point, it seems a plausible scenario, and we’re keeping our eyes peeled for more integration between these two companies.
Microsoft Bids $44.6B for Yahoo
|
Written By Kate Zimmermann | February 1, 2008 | Share This
|
|
This morning Microsoft extended an unsolicited bid to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion, or $31 per share, amounting to a 62 percent premium on Yahoo’s Jan 31 closing stock price. Said Microsoft in today’s press release, “We don’t actually want the company, we just wanted to see what the media would do“… okay, maybe they didn’t say that exactly. But in the search world, it’s an understatement to call this bid a big deal (note Techmeme screenshot left).
For Searchviews readers, here’s a rundown of what happened and what’s important to take away:
Microsoft Wants To Buy Yahoo
…They have for awhile (see rumors from 2007, 2006). Recognizing Google’s unrivaled lead in traffic & technology, Microsoft sees an opportunity to tap Yahoo for its audience, engineering talent, brand value (esp. in search), and social media properties (Flickr & Del.icio.us). In the meantime, Yahoo has spent the past month hemorrhaging money and employees, and is in serious need of a bail out. So far, industry analysts broadly agree that a deal is likely to happen.
What’s the Deal?
There is much discussion about the terms and implications of the deal. Here’re a few standouts:
- Henry Blodget says the deal will happen on Microsoft’s terms, since Yahoo is desperate, and there’ll be no competitors to counter MSFT’s offer.
- Paul Kedrosky says it’ll happen, but the conjoined Microsoft-Yahoo still won’t beat Google.
- Danny Sullivan envisions a lovechild born of Yahoo search, Microsoft ads, Yahoo’s audience, Microsoft’s “technological prowess”, and Flickr.
- Loren Baker concurs that Yahoo Search will take over Microsoft’s Live Search, and predicts that old-school SEO practitioners will feel some pain, while secondary search engines (Ask.com) will potentially gain market share.
- Shar Van Boskirk writes on Forrester’s blog that the merger will help grow online advertising by yielding “laser-target ads” & easier ad management. Shar also has some interesting thoughts about increasing convergence of media + technology.
Though the combined search impact is undoubtedly huge, the opportunities in display should not be overlooked. A combined MSFT/YHOO would be the clear leader in display advertising, reaping the benefits of Yahoo’s traffic volume and Microsoft’s ad serving technology (esp in wake of their aQuantive acquisition).
Last.fm Launches Free Streaming Music Service, New Biz Model
|
Written By Sepideh Saremi | January 23, 2008 | Share This
|
|
CBS-owned social music service Last.fm today announced a switch from playing song snippets to providing free streaming music, a move backed by an ad-supported business model. All four major record companies have signed on, as have 150,000 independent labels, making Last.fm’s inventory of songs larger than that of iTunes. From the CBS press release:
Martin Stiksel, Last.fm co-founder, said: “We’re giving the listener free access to what is basically the best jukebox in the world. The ability to dip into such a uniquely broad catalogue from your laptop, home or office computer, and listen to whatever you want for free represents a new way of consuming music that in turn might change the way you listen to music. In that respect, nobody else can currently offer what Last.fm is offering right now.”
There are some drawbacks to the new model: no downloads, and users will only be able to play a single song up to three times. Then they’ll be prompted to join the company’s subscription service, details of which are still forthcoming. Also, the site will not require users to register but will likely utilize cookies to track user behavior and target banner ads, though the company remains mum about exactly how they’ll track.
The new model is being compared to social network Imeem, which only offers user-uploaded tracks, and SpiralFrog, which is supported by audio ads as opposed to Last.fm’s banners [according to a quote in the BBC, but see update below for correction]. It more directly challenges Rhapsody and Napster, two subscription-based streaming models that, as Mathew Ingram rightfully writes, should be scared. But what’s most interesting about Last.fm, and what makes it a potential challenger to MySpace, as Mashable notes, is that it also offers a perk to unsigned artists who can upload their songs and receive royalties every time a song is played.
What’s curious about this is that it sets up a very attractive distribution model for new artists that will undermine all labels in the long haul. Then again, the incentive to sign on with a record label in the first place was fast-fading thanks to MySpace, which has become a really successful self-promotional tool for artists. Last.fm sweetens the pot with money, though it’s important to note we don’t know how much artists will make for each stream. The labels need Last.fm in order to monetize now, but Last.fm is probably the real beginning of the end for the music industry as it exists now.
And video is next: PaidContent.org writes that the company owns last.tv and execs say video is in the works, which may have big ramifications for strike-embroiled Hollywood and its writers.
Update: SpiralFrog’s PR agency wrote to let us know that SpiralFrog does not use audio ads, just banners (and SpiralFrog’s FAQ only mentions “ads on our pages,” implying banners). We got the information about audio ads from a quote in this BBC article, which reads “Last year saw the launch of Spiral Frog, another free service supported by advertising. Unlike Last.fm, it offers free downloads but has failed to make a major impact. Mr Jones from Last.fm said that may be because users are forced to listen to an advert with each track, whereas his service will be supported by banner advertising.” We should have stated that SpiralFrog allows downloads and requires registration, whereas Last.fm does not. We regret the error.
Time Warner Cable and HBO: Same Company, Conflicting Biz Models
|
Written By Sepideh Saremi | January 22, 2008 | Share This
|
|
As the lines between TV and online video continue to blur, today HBO will make its 600 shows and movies available online for free download to its TV subscribers, via a new site called HBO Broadband. There are some catches: Initially the service is only available to Windows-using HBO subscribers in Wisconsin that are also signed up for Time Warner Road Runner high speed Internet. Gizmodo also reports there are DRM restrictions - no burning or transferring content to your iPod, and your downloads are yours for no longer than three months.
Still, the NY Times praises its “innovative features,” like separate profiles for each member of a household, parental controls, and the live TV version of the channel, so there’s no need to wait for the episode to go online after it’s aired on the tube first, a common network-TV practice. And DSLreports.com shows this is a big step for previously broadband-resistant HBO.
But The Hollywood Reporter notes that because HBO is actually owned by Time Warner - the broadband provider that wants to switch its model from a monthly flat fee to one that chargers people for how much bandwidth they use - this sets up an interesting conundrum in which free HBO content could get quite expensive, discouraging users from using a service like HBO Broadband. From The Hollywood Reporter:
Last week, Time Warner Cable disclosed its intent to experiment with a billing plan for high-speed data that charges customers based on how much bandwidth they consume. If such a model catches on in the U.S., it could have big implications for content companies trying to find traction online — like HBO.
There is no conflict in the short term; only HBO subscribers in Green Bay and Milwaukee, Wis., will be able to access HBO on Broadband when it is deployed there Tuesday on TWC systems. Meanwhile, the cable operator has selected Beaumont, Texas, as the test market for metered billing.
But in success, the dueling Internet initiatives could conceivably cross paths — and purposes — in other markets. Time Warner would find its cable-operator arm discouraging the very behavior HBO is allowing.
An easy solution for Time Warner would be not charging users for overages due to downloading Time Warner content. But Techdirt notes that this strategy will get the company in trouble with net neutrality advocates:
The Hollywood Reporter story mentions the possibility that Time Warner would create a special “exception” to the bandwidth rule if that bandwidth was for watching Time Warner-only videos. That, of course, is exactly the sort of thing that will be sure to get network neutrality advocates up in arms, though it’s a subtle shift from traditional network neutrality claims. This time it won’t be about “better quality,” but about which content counts towards a bandwidth cap.
Of course, the answer that makes the most sense is the one Time Warner doesn’t want to acknowledge: a metered pricing model for Internet access should not exist. The caps are just too low, they will stifle innovation, and because of a lack of competition in the broadband market, the whole thing reeks of price-gouging.
(via DVD Dossier Blog, from Techmeme)
Sony BMG Drops DRM, Then Other Shoe
|
Written By Sepideh Saremi | January 7, 2008 | Share This
|
|
Music lovers let out a collective cheer when the last of the big record companies, Sony BMG, revealed last week that it will no longer enforce digital rights management (DRM), or copy protection, with its music. (EMI, Universal, and most recently, Warner Music, all jumped on the DRM-free bandwagon in 2007.)
Alas, today Sony BMG let the other shoe drop when they unveiled a rather cockamamie sales model that, as Duncan Riley on TechCrunch also points out, seems calculated to make their DRM-free efforts fail. Seemingly oblivious to how music is consumed online (on multiple levels), the record company expects users to go to brick-and-mortar stores to buy $12.99 gift cards. Taking a cue from soda-cap contests, users then enter redemption codes to download full albums.
First, online music should be available to purchase online; it sounds obvious, but apparently isn’t so. Second, gift cards are fine when you’re buying them for other people, but it’s goofy to buy one for yourself, not to mention a big waste of plastic. Third, buying full albums is a thing of the past, so why continue to impose this model on customers?
So that’s three strikes for this business model: Sony BMG should have quit while they were ahead. For now, let’s just hope this idea doesn’t catch on with any of the other labels.
TV on Internet Beats TV on TV, Study Says
|
Written By Sepideh Saremi | December 27, 2007 | Share This
|
|
New data reported this week shows viewers are more engaged when watching TV content and advertising online than when they watch it on a TV set. In a year-long study, researchers surveyed nearly 75,000 participants to determine that online TV beats traditional TV by 47% when it comes to viewers’ engagement with advertising, and by 25% when it comes to engagement with content. MediaPost explains how engagement was measured:
The study defines “engagement” according to six characteristics that respondents identify with media: “inspirational,” “trustworthy,” “life-enhancing,” “social interaction,” “personal time-out” and ad receptivity.
Survey participants were asked, for instance, to rate TV shows, magazines and Web sites based on how “inspiring” they were or how much they provided fodder for conversation. Ad “receptivity” was gauged on how willing people were to view or read advertising in a given medium because of its relevance.
The efficacy of online TV advertising is good news for networks, even though they’re in the midst of a strike by writers over the issue of payment for online content. This study also appears to give a boost to the writers’ argument that they should get of the online ad dollars networks generate, but at least it proves that online ads work for TV.
Networks have been working hard to figure out how to maximize online revenues, favoring ad-supported, free access to content via sites they control, like hulu, a News Corp./NBC Universal joint venture currently in private beta, or network websites like abc.com, which offers most of ABC’s prime time shows in the form of streaming video. NBC stopped offering downloads via iTunes this year, and the network is also experimenting with “quarterlife,” a show that debuted on MySpace and YouTube with mixed results but will air on NBC in February.
Why is online TV engagement so much higher than engagement via TV set, especially for ads? Coverage of the study doesn’t really say, but it probably has to do with the more limited nature of that advertising, the inherent interactivity of the web, and the fact that most of the online ads are just better. Most hour-long ABC shows, for instance, feature four or five 15-second clips, usually from the same advertiser, many of which include games or other interactive elements that give the viewer something to click or do while watching. The relative infrequency and shortness of those ads makes them less intrusive than traditional TV advertising, which typically bombards viewers.
One very fascinating part of this study also found that print and magazine content online is also more engaging than its dead-tree counterparts, though the numbers are not as dramatic as those for online vs offline TV (perhaps because reading online isn’t as fun as watching online?). But overall, print is more engaging than both online or TV, though its audience is declining.
See more of the study on MediaPost.
Search and Social Media: 2007 in Review
|
Written By Sepideh Saremi | December 20, 2007 | Share This
|
|
The year’s almost over, which means it’s time to look back on search and social media in 2007 and take stock of what happened and what it all means. It was a big year in search and a pretty big year for us at Reprise Media, too: OMMA deemed us Best Search Agency for 2006, we turned four years old, we joined IPG, and we started giving back.
Way back in January 2007, Searchviews predicted quite a few things that came to fruition, among them that Google would keep growing (okay, that was an easy one) and that Panama would be good for Yahoo. The key theme this year was media convergence, with an emphasis on acquisitions and blurring the lines between search and social media. You’ll have to come back tomorrow for our 2008 predictions, but to refresh your memory, here are the big developments of 2007 that we’ll keep close to our hearts… until next year’s big stories overshadow them.
Yahoo
It was a tough year to be #2, especially for the ever-beleaguered Yahoo, which kicked off 2007 with some bad press courtesy of Wired. The magazine skewered the company’s spotty strategy and its then-CEO Terry Semel. No big surprise, first quarter earnings were disappointing, and Semel was replaced with Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang over the summer. Yahoo released some interesting 2.0 tools and bought some others, but this year it mostly floundered when it came time to pull together a cohesive social network strategy that would truly leverage its existing gajillion or so users.
On the search front, Yahoo had a slightly better year: its introduction of Panama was a great move (here’s our full report), America said it loved Yahoo the most, and improvements to its search engine were a step in the right direction. Now Yahoo’s signing up publishers to serve contextual ads in PDFs, and the company also bought Right Media and BlueLithium to expand its ad network. Here’s to putting the ! back into Yahoo! in 2008 - in a good way.
Google
Every year we ask Google, is it possible to be so successful? Really? If it wasn’t for everyone’s favorite upstart-in-shower-slides, Mark Zuckerberg, and all the press and industry upheaval Facebook inspired, I’d say this was Google’s year.
Unlike in 2006, though, Google’s growth didn’t come without costs — 2007 saw the rise of Google as a true world power, wherein Google became everyone’s best Frenemy - i.e., the company we all hate to love (though Zuckerberg seems to be gunning for top spot in the frenemy category for next year). Google managed to get sued for $1 billion over YouTube, had some antitrust trouble over its acquisition of DoubleClick (apparently now resolved), inspired the ire of both librarians and newspapers, served us some questionable ads, introduced shady “preferred cost bidding,”and without really launching it in a meaningful way, introduced OpenSocial, a consortium that looks like its sole aim is to take down Facebook.
On the other hand, Google also created a super-cool mobile platform/operating system (maybe cooler than the iPhone, maybe not), kept monetizing everything (this could maybe also go in the list of bad things, but we’re all marketers here), and got its hands dirty with TV (not yet a smashing success). Not to mention, Google also continually improved its already supremely useful services (Gmail, Analytics, Reader, etc.), bought and integrated Feedburner, launched iGoogle, and kept us sated with free versions of expensive stuff. Probably in his 20% time, Google co-founder Larry Page even came up with a plan to save the planet and Google funded it. All in all, not bad for a year’s work. Plus, of the top 3 engines, Google’s social network efforts seem most promising and logical. We’ll be watching you, Google, and we know you’ll probably be watching us.
Microsoft
Microsoft was on the defensive (or is that the offensive?) much of this year, especially because Google beat them out for DoubleClick and surpassed it in site traffic. MSFT paid a whopping $6 billion for online ad company aQuantive to help nurse its wounds and then drove Facebook’s valuation to $15 billion by paying $240 million for a small stake - exemplifying its strategy this year, which was to buy or partner up wherever it made sense. Microsoft’s new operating system, Vista, launched with much fanfare but also to mixed reviews. We’ll have to wait and see with this one.
Ask.com
Ask.com is tiny but worked hard this year, introducing contextual ads and getting props for its proactive privacy policy. Its parent company, IAC, decided to be less confusing by breaking up its holdings into a few smaller companies, which should benefit the search engine, and Ask also secured $3.5 billion deal with Google.
Facebook, Social Media
Arguably the leader of the social media pack, Facebook’s high value as a communication vehicle became clear when, after shootings at Virginia Tech, students used the site to share information faster than the news networks could. That paradigm shift continued when the site opened up its API to allow outside development of applications - a move that made VCs sit up and that forced direct competitors and even other industries, like notoriously draconian mobile providers, to follow (in rhetoric, at least).
Thanks to Facebook, it’s not enough to have a site, you’ve got to have a platform. Applications became microcosmic indicators of Facebook’s massive success, and the site made its first acquisition in July. But the social network was also plagued by a some missteps this year. Users of the site are resistant to overt advertising and Facebook bungled the launch of its newest ad program, Beacon, shaking the faith of its advertisers and causing some (minimal) unrest among users, though it continues to secure funding.
Media Convergence, Money, and Ad-Model Growing Pains
ComScore introduced new engagement metrics this year, and social networks added search-like, CPC ad structures. A rash of acquisitions made it clear that everyone was eager to get into the social media game, even if they didn’t know quite how: Ebay bought StumbleUpon, and CBS snagged online video show Wallstrip and music service Last.fm.
This year’s housing market crisis had many worried that the economy’s headed for downturn, but we didn’t think online advertising would be drastically affected, and so far, we’re right. Traditional offline industries (music, TV, and newspapers) continued struggling with web monetization. Steve Jobs railed against DRM, and Radiohead practically gave away their new album as an experiment. The New York Times got rid of paid content online, successfully, but the rest of the newspaper industry seems not to have figured out how to make enough money. In TV, the writers’ strike is still underway because networks aren’t giving writers a cut of online profits, while networks experiment with ways to distribute content online.
And Other Top Stories Worth Remembering…
- For the third year in a row, we evaluated big advertisers for their search-savvy in our Super Bowl Search Marketing Scorecard. The winners made search an integral part of their campaigns, ensuring that millions of dollars spent on TV campaigns didn’t get lost when it came to the search box. Here are parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 of that feature.
- Taco Bell, dirty as their restaurants may have been, proved they know how to leverage search to make the best of a horrible health and PR nightmare.
In sum, a lot of growth for the search industry, the emergence of social media as a real force, and still some hobbling by traditional media companies to catch up or keep up - 2008 will definitely be interesting. What stories do you think will still matter next year? What would you add to this list?