Digital Content, Digital Advertising, Digital Marketing

Today's bites: ROI has finally become the key metric of choice for marketers. China vs. Google, round 2. And Verizon and Budweiser are hoping that music will get Hispanic Americans "ready for some futbol" in advance of the FIFA World Cup.

If we resist the “race to the bottom” idea of commoditization of original content, and instead think about its highest possible state, Peter Berger believes writers and publishers adding great original articles online that offer equally useful information about topics that are being searched for.

What makes some of the top execs at leading digital marketing and publishing companies tick? Want to learn from their past successes (and sometimes failures)? Then dig in to our Five Questions column. This week, we ask Neil Salvage, EVP of advertising at IAC-owned Citysearch about why the company decided to invest in an SEO firm, and how he really feels about competition from Yelp.

Today's bites: Why the "NCAA Vault" is a potential online video goldmine. EA decides to sell all of its own in-game ad inventory. And tips for boosting email campaign conversions with streamlined landing pages.

If ad networks are having a hard time finding publishers and audiences, Good Health Media never got that memo. The company is coming off a February that anyone on the digital content business would take. The February 2010 ComScore Report, lists GHM at the tops for percentage growth among health ad networks, a group that includes veterans such as AdRX, Healthline and Everyday Health. GHM audience is up 93% over a year ago to 32 million unique visitors monthly.

If the goal of social marketing is engagement, then the story and storytelling become its centerpoint. How does that influence the need to tell a story without being annoying or disruptive? Execs from leading digital, creative and social media agencies hashed out the issue at digiday:SOCIAL LA.

It's still about content when it comes to mobile marketing. Film quality is one of the factors marketing professionals can leverage to create social media campaigns in an industry where executives need prodding to spend money on digital.

In our video window: 25 minutes inside the mind of of Google's director of mobile advertising. Diana Pouliot, Google's director of mobile advertising demonstrates Android's contribution to innovation in mobile media and explains how advertisers can leverage it. All from digiday:MOBILE in LA yesterday. Tune into DM2PRO.com for more updates from this and today's digiday:SOCIAL.

ROI is the elephant in the social marketing room. Is it likely that social marketing will not produce ROI in it's current form? "Viral Loop" author and NYU Journalism professor Adam L. Penenberg dug a bit into the history of "viral" marketing at digiday:SOCIAL LA. He also pushed attendees to the conclusion that all forms of digital marketing will fail to deliver a solid ROI if brands continue to use intrusive, old-school tactics.

Infrastructure limitations, or "mobile warming," will pose far more of a challenge to entertainment companies looking to market movies through mobile applications than technology limitations of the mobile devices themselves.

Video viewers at YouTube.com watched 93 videos on average during the month, representing an increase of 50% versus a year ago. Hulu ranked second with the rest of the content owners seeing increases in users but chasing market share.

Digital and social media measurements provided an interesting counterpoint to Hollywood’s big night. What the Academy says and what the people say are very far apart.

BIg numbers marked the opning of the digiday:Mobile conference in LA today. U.S. mobile advertising will quadruple to almost $2 billion between 2009 and 2014 as mobile-oriented marketing efforts catch up with mobile use, according to Jordan Rohan, managing director of equity research, Internet and digital media at Thomas Weisel Partners.

Creating digital tools to connect teens and moms is not as, like, crazy as it seems. Moms are influenced by the teenagers as their “digital mavens” to join social networks and are using the networks as a new place to engage them.

The Rubicon Project announced a partnership with mOcean Mobile, an independent mobile advertising platform, to provide premium digital publishers with a unified view into monetization across their display and mobile platforms. It will be accomplished with a new product called REVV for mobile (RFM).

Skimlinks, a content monetization service already on more than a half million international sites is reportedly looking to be more aggressive on this side of the pond. Yesterday it announced the launch of a new tool that helps online publishers increase the value of their content by creating affiliate links.

For the past ten years, David & Goliath has remained independent, churning out ad campaigns for brands like Kia, Zoo York, and even the Weingart Homeless Center. As the agency celebrates its 10th birthday, find out founder David Angelo's take on how the shift to digital has transformed the creative process, as well a sample of some of the most "brave" campaigns he's seen.

A new Forrester Research report finds historically conservative B2B marketers are not only investing in interactive marketing, but actually shifting budget towards online channels. The category is projected B2B to hit $4.8 billion in 2014, over double an estimated $2.3 billion in 2009.

The urban retailer is in the middle of its first-of-its-kind campaign to create an interest in H&M’s fashion and drive store traffic through the location-based social game that enables players to unlock rewards and earn points by checking-in from real-world shops and locations.

Does the iPad need a new content publishing platform? New ad executions? The debate is on after CondeNast voted early in the week with its pocketbook.

A new book from a University of Michigan professor says four out of five senior marketing executives have not adopted best-practice marketing campaign management. As a result, many marketing departments are struggling to get real results and make the value of their efforts transparent to the rest of the organization.

In an after business hours announcement yesterday, Comedy Central served Hulu notice that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert would be pulled in favor of running exclusively on ComedyCentral.com. Viacom is not an equity partner in the Hulu venture, which may be the problem.

There are thousands of apps in the App Store, Android Market and BlackBerry App World -- but not all of them are worth your time or money. So how do you cut through the clutter? Every Tuesday, digiday:DAILY gives you the rundown on the app that should be on your radar. This week's app: Foursquare for BlackBerry.

Social content and email content live in the same world. Developing content in silos is a missed opportunity for several reasons. Our email expert suggests five ways to make sure the synergy doesn't go sour.

Almost all Americans are using a multi-platform approach to news consumption. The Internet is now the third most-popular news platform, behind local and national television news and ahead of national print newspapers, local print newspapers and radio.

New research shows Moms will take a vacation this year, but it will be different than past years. They're worried about finances and security, and surprisingly, they're not using social media for planning. That needs to change.

AdMob is a great company. So is Quattro. But they both have different owners than they did a year ago, and would be better served by not researching each others' parent companies.

MySpace is trying to get rid of the perception that it's "dead" to users, press and potential advertisers, and it's pushing the envelope in terms of ad units in the process. The new "In-Stream" ads try to engage users directly in their status update windows -- in a move that beats Twitter at its own potential advertising game.

Placecast says ShopAlerts has already demonstrated promising results for retail marketers. Since September 2009, the ShopAlerts service has run pilot programs across the U.S. with several major retailers including SONIC, American Eagle Outfitters, and REI.

Today's bites: Indie publishers can get their content on more mobile devices via Scribd. Sezmi wants to replace cable, satellite and set-top boxes with "personalized" digital video. And do online lead-gen companies need their own trade org? They have one now.

The Custom Publishing Council says total spending on branded content was over $1.8 million per company in 2009, with 51% spent on print publications, 27% on Internet media and 22% on categories such as video or audio, which were measured for the first time this year. Even allowing for the addition of new categories, 2009 spending was double that of 2008 and the highest amount since the CPC began conducting the survey in 2003.

Hooked Media announced today a new a gaming platform aimed at the over 200 million people who play casual games. It has a funny name and a very innovative way to tie publishers and content owners into social media.

Millennial Media was poised to make an acquisition since November, and today it made a big one, acquiring TapMetrics, a San Francisco-based mobile analytics firm, focused on application usage and behavior. The acquisition adds cross-platform mobile analytics capabilities to Millennial’s existing network.

Today's bites: The problem with tech journalism today (i.e. too much news, not enough analysis. How social media has transformed MGM Grand's marketing strategy, and the scoop on Lego's new branded virtual world.

Digital media is expected to take a major share of business from traditional media as it recovers from 2009. Just don't expect this year to mean much according to BIA/Kelsey’s U.S. Local Media Annual Forecast.

No Google won't make us stupid and it the Internet is not the end of the world as we know it. That is the resounding conclusion of Pew Internet's survey of 900 intellectual influencers and heavy-hitters.

Here's how a true social media match made in heaven came to happen with some free stuff and good data for good measure.

Today's bites: Why the last YouTube video you watched probably came from one of a select group of bloggers. RIM has plans for an ad platform for BlackBerry developers, and the secret beauty of pre-roll ads.

Facebook is now the second-most heavily trafficked website in the U.S., garnering more than 134 million unique visitors this past January. So how does a niche social network stay relevant--and in the black? While MySpace struggles to evolve into a content hub and Hi5 focuses on virtual goods, Classmates.com will pin its hopes on "premium" services like digitized yearbooks and reunion-planning.

He said mobile ads suck, and you don't like that. But maybe that little bit of trash talk has the mobile ad space doing a bit of healthy self-examination.

The Saints still won, but the ads from the 2010 Super Bowl ads are still in play. A new survey from Visible Measures shows that have been viewed 90 million times in social video, led by Doritos, Megan Fox, and Tim Tebow.

No surprise that the vast majority of Nielsen's global survey respondents prefer that free content remain free. But the survey found some opportunity in music, movies, and maybe even some newspaper and magazine payment models.

Digital marketing was supposed to be a model of innovation. But our columnist is concerned that it is filled with too many companies content to pursue that “most sincere” form of flattery better known as imitation.

New online targeting capabilities will give MTV networks advertisers, "the ability to laser-focus their marketing messages while connecting our audiences with the brands and products that are most relevant to them," according to EVP Kevin Arrix.

In advance of our digiday:MOBILE show in LA March 8, DM2Pro and Mojiva want your input on how mobile is morphing your media and marketing budgets, practice, results and strategy.

Today's bites: Surprise! People are already paying for digital book apps (at least on the iPhone). Why the distinction between "brands" and "media" will only continue to blur, and Neviot turns its water bottles into virtual tennis rackets via alternate reality.

Ernst & Young claims that most pharmaceutical companies are unprepared for Pharma 3.0, which will require them to find more interactive ways to reach out to patients, doctors and a new breed of business partners.

For too many brands, social media is still a strategy approached with a spirit of caution rather than purpose. This week's social media column breaks down a few myths that unfortunately still strike fear into the hearts of otherwise brave brand marketers.

The CEO of appssavvy says the events of January have necessitated a new 2010 outlook. He's not being shy about what the year will bring and where he was wrong about 2009. The key and challenge for all companies involved in social and mobile apps is still simple – add value.

Behavioral targeting company eXelate has launched a new report culled from its consumer data resources, adding to the trend of digital companies sharing some of their information with the industry at large.

Google Buzz will not be a Twitter-killer. It won't be a Facebook challenger either. Publishers should pay attention to the new social app's Gmail connection, because if Google wanted to be Twitter it would have bought it already.

Sports sponsorships take more than half of the total ad dollars spent in the US. With avid fans on the rise, and video game penetration increasing, the study shows that three out of four sports fans say that in-game advertising plays a part in reinforcing a company's real-world sponsorship of sports.

Can't say Google takes a week off. After unsettling the social media world with Google Buzz, today it announced an initiative to launch ultra-high speed broadband networks, putting out a consumer request for test markets.

Want videos of toned, glistening swimsuit models to arrive on demand? All you need is this year's Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and a camera-enabled phone, thanks to JAGTAG. It's 2010. Welcome to the year of the mobile boobcode.

ComScore's report contains a few surprises left over from last year, and an encouragement for digital content and advertising executives to innovate in social and display media.

We were just starting to get our heads around terabytes when it came to measuring data. Now Cisco has announced results from its Global Mobile Data Forecast for 2009 to 2014 and we have a new data measurement to say "huge."

To paraphrase Jim Mora in that Coors Light commercial: "Super Bowl? Don't even talk about the Super Bowl. Super Bowl? Are you kiddin' me?" That seems to be what Forrester Research has found in marketing attitudes toward TV.

Those E*Trade babies will be back and all over your email, social media and online pages.

Welcome to the world of Poken, where business cards are cute, and your best leads won't get left on the floor at some Social Media Week soiree.

Benetton is taking its experiment with augmented reality technology to a higher level, with a new international print and online campaign and model competition starting Monday.

The jury's still out on whether the iPad will have as big an impact on online publishing as the iPhone has had on mobile content. After all, people can't even buy the device until the end of March. But a pair of online media vets is already banking on an iPad App boom--setting up a "multi-million dollar" AppFund designed to encourage development of new apps that will "support the long-term success" of the touch-screen device.

Quick bites of curated news about digital publishing, advertising and marketing from around the web.

In a new analysis of the display market, Forrester Consulting endorses a change in the way online ads are bought and sold. Runaway inventory growth, it says, necessitates a move away from the CPM model.

The New York Times announced its metered content policy just days before the iPad was announced to make those kinds of business models more attainable. That chain of events didn’t escape the post-event analysis of two of media's sharpest minds, Wharton professors Peter Fader and Stephen Kobrin. Both called attention to the timing of the events, and their affect on digital publishing’s future.

He has been associated with NASA, protein analysis, and machine learning. Now Dr. John Thomas is focused on generating new kinds of data for digital marketers. “As an industry we do a lot of optimization by click-thru rates and conversions and some other metrics than can be improved on,” he says.

Interest in semantic targeting solutions is on the rise, partly because companies that have been spending money on search are finally making the connection between search and the power of semantics. Semantic targeting also has the ability to avoid the issues of privacy and brand protection -- but only if the providers take steps to make it so.

For more than four years, Myxer has collected data from downloads of music, apps and personalized features like wallpapers to more than 1,800 handset models. Usage now tops 30 million users with 85 million downloads a month. More than one billion downloads into its lifespan, it expects to double that number by the end of the year. And it might be the biggest under-the-radar mobile company in the world.

Marketers may think they're hitting 95 percent response rates, but the new report puts that number closer to 80 percent and below. But the number is improved over the first half of last year.

Sometimes, the use of social media is a rather frivolous afterthought in marketing campaigns. In the case of Magdalene House and Thistle Farms, hope, love, and social media sell redemption. Let them show you what social media really can do.

The social shopping business continued its consolidation today as ThisNext announced the acquisition of Stylehive, a leading fashion and beauty social-shopping site. The company also launched a new parent company, Curatemedia, a corporate brand that will operate ThisNext and Stylehive.

In a sign of continuing evolution in the mobile app space, PowerBar has taken an exclusive sponsorship position with the iPhone’s top downloaded snow report app, Ski Report, from SkiReport.com. The campaign is sold by by appssavvy (www.appssavvy.com), in partnership with PowerBar’s agency OIC. It will offer skiers and snowboarders nutritional information, athlete profiles, videos and free product samples of new PowerBar ‘s Gel Blasts chews via the several different executions within the Ski Report app. [...]

A pair of fundings in the online ad technology space: Local online and lead-generation firm Yodle has raised $10 million, while data targeting exchange BlueKai has added $21 million. The investments, which come on the heels of positive earnings reports from Google and Yahoo, are just the latest indications that the online ad market is in the midst of a rebound.

Handmark, which has been one of the overlooked mobile content developers, released two products today, betting both entries in the mobile race. TweetCaster makes tweeting from Android-based smartphones an integrated experience with multiple Twitter account support, integrated retweets, and integrated Twitter lists. Playing to its developer side, Handmark also announced the release of a new version of Zagat To Go for iPhone and iPod touch users. This latest version is compatible with the new iPad, features three major updates. [...]

My questionable proofreading skills might lead you to believe I am a home-schooled journalist. I swear I’m not. In fact my adviser in journalism school at the University of New Hampshire was the esteemed Don Murray. He won a Pulitzer as a columnist at The Boston Globe. He was a charming, knowledgeable guy who didn’t intimidate with knowledge or hoard it. He had rules. If you broke one, he stopped being charming. One of his main rules: “Judge and prioritize news by the most significant departure from normal. [...]

Before the iPad there was this very hyped device called the iPhone. And those looking to the possible future of the iPad might see some of that future in Millennial Media’s December metrics report, which shows that media buyers planned aggressively for the iPhone in Q4 as Apple’s iPhone OS increased 3% month over month and represented 47% of the network’s U.S. Smartphone impressions in December. iPhone held the leading OS on the network with a Q4 average of 41%. RIM’s OS maintained a 25% share of U. [...]

To build brands on social networks, marketers are experimenting with a wide range of strategies. But which efforts are most effective? A recent study by MarketingProfs shows that branded applications top the chart, but they are under-utilized: less than a quarter of all respondents had created them. Any company that wants to be successful on social media must understand that applications are at the heart of successful campaigns. But it also important to understand that getting the most out of a branded application requires an integrated approach to social networks. [...]

On Monday Bank of America debuted the latest installment of "help(2)retire______" (read "help2retire blank"), a new, online-offline campaign that encourages individuals to "fill in the blank" by identifying aspects of their working and financial lives that they want to put an end to, and help them focus on goals for their retirement. Those goals for many Bank of America and Merrill Lynch customers has changed. The new campaign will center a large portion of its $20 million budget on TV and print, but is notable for the way it has used customer data to inform the creative, and for the way it will drive customers online for deeper information. [...]

Digital content publisher Zinio has added to its “UNITY” platform by announcing today that it will extend its online design capabilities to mobile apps. Called “design optimization” the solution allows publishers to design once for digital readers and then have that design fit any digital application whether its online or mobile. The announcement follows Zinio’s announcement of the UNITY platform in early January, which enabled the creation of iPhone apps for its customers, including a new deal with National Geographic. [...]

As more brands embrace social media, measurement companies are finding ways to quantify those efforts. Dynamic Logic announced today a new strategic partnership with Kantar sister-company Cymfony, that will integrate analysis of the millions of discussions occurring everyday on social media sites, blogs and message forums into their established suite of digital, media and marketing solutions. The partnership offers marketers research techniques for a more complete view of brand performance from the perspective of the consumer. [...]

Semantic targeting has opened the promise of true contextual placements for brands and publishers. In this world of octomoms, errant athletes, and cyberterror. Several targeting firms are turning toward stressing their ability to play semantic defense for brands as well as efficient semantic placement. With that in mind, Peer 39 has announced the general availability of SemanticProtect, a solution that leverages semantic targeting to protect brands in real time. The new product is aimed at avoiding risky, negative and controversial content. [...]

Where’s the next Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants coming from? Might be online. HarperCollins Publishers is going deeper into its digital publishing platform with the launch today of inkpop (www.inkpop.com), an interactive writing platform for teens. Claiming that it is the first to be backed by a major U.S. publisher, Inkpop, created by HarperTeen, combines community publishing, user-generated content, and social networking to connect writers in teen literature with talent-spotting readers and publishing professionals. [...]

A few offline thoughts from the raft of commercials I saw in seven hours of football coverage yesterday. One: When I first saw that WalMart commercial when the father dresses up as a clown and then steps on some kind of long sharp object that pierces his WalMart purchased clown suit, I thought it was disturbing. Second time I saw it I thought “maybe he’s yelling because he has no health insurance.” Third time I thought maybe he doesn’t have health insurance because he works at WalMart. Two: Am I the only person who thinks it rather bizarre that Fox is promoting the great American car race (Daytona 500) with an Irish band (U2) singing a song about heroin (Bad)? Three: When did “how did it feel?” become the exclusive question of sports interviews after a game. [...]

How much would Google give up if it bailed in China? A new comScore survey shows China has 13 percent of the search market and growing. The study revealed that the U.S. remains the largest search market worldwide, while Google Sites retains a commanding position in the global search market.The total worldwide search market boasted more than 131 billion searches conducted by people age 15 or older from home and work locations in December 2009, representing a 46-percent increase in the past year. This number represents more than 4 billion searches per day, 175 million per hour, and 29 million per minute. [...]

My media exposure is admittedly huge. I’m online all day, and from 6 to 7 every evening I go to the gym where omnipresent TVs blast CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and CNBC. I never knew that speculation about an athlete’s presence at a sex addiction clinic was “breaking news.” I never knew that a meteorologist was qualified to explain an earthquake, which CNN did last week. The all news approach is bad enough. But with all the digital touchpoints this industry has developed we should be doing better in terms of ethics and standards. [...]

Digital marketers didn’t need another research project to tell them that social media marketing is a priority. But information about how the competition is paying for it has been rare. Apparently it is being paid funded partially through from direct marketing budgets and aimed at increasing customer engagement. The information comes from marketing services company Alterian in its seventh annual survey. The sample covered 1068 marketing professionals worldwide and found that 66 percent of respondents will be investing in Social Media Marketing (SMM) in the next 12 months. [...]

It takes a lot to get the techy crowd to go anywhere north of Union Square, let alone Columbus Circle, before 8 a.m. Usually bribery with French pastries and cool gadgets. But Adam Broitman, Founder and Ring Leader of Circ.us, did just that this morning. He threw in a dose of Robert Downey Jr. and Augmented Reality at a location that makes any tech geek drool – the Samsung store in the Time Warner Center. Broitman was one of the panelists at Sobel Media’s latest Augmented Reality gathering, along with Esquire Magazine’s David Curcurito, Creative Bubble’s Doug Dimon, and ‘innovation catalyst’ David Polinchock – THE thought leaders of the emerging media space. [...]

Call it what you want, but remnant, non-guaranteed, or extra inventory for online publishers is gaining momentum. PubMatic, which provides ad revenue optimization technology and ad operations support for premium online publishers, today announced the results of its 2009 Year-End Ad Price Index. The research brief indicates that 2009 proved to be a rebound year where ad pricing increased significantly and steadily, but the fourth quarter was off the charts. The study shows that the average CPM of its non-guaranteed inventory rose 111 percent from Q4 2008 to 2009. [...]

Twitter's rocket-like trajectory is fading. This morning HubSpot released its third State of the Twittersphere report, which shows a significant decline in the growth of Twitter users. In October 2009 the Twitter user base grew 3.5%, far below the 13% growth in users Twitter experienced in March 2009.The decline in Twitter user growth is happening as traffic on Twitter.com also declines; ComScore reported that unique visitors to Twitter.com grew only 3.5% from October to November, and both Compete. [...]

As Einstein once said, "I wouldn't give a nickel for simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for simplicity on the other side of complexity." It has taken me thirty years of my professional life to become a simple guy. Starting in the home video business in 1980 and progressing from analog to digital, in retrospect it seems that business was an ongoing exercise in complexification. Nowhere is “complexification” more apparent than in online marketing circles. Here, jargon is supreme. [...]

In addition to being a huge source of donations, the Haitian earthquake has been a testament to the power of social media. Nielsen Wire reports that in the wake of Tuesday’s devastating 7.0 earthquake in Haiti, much of what people around the world learned came from social media sources. Preliminary analysis of data shows that Twitter posts (“micro-blogs”) are the leading source of discussion about the quake, followed by online video, blogs and other online boards/forums. While most online consumers rely on traditional media for coverage of the quake, they are turning to Twitter and blogs to share information, react to the situation and rally support. [...]

T-Mobile is launching its new myTouch 3G next week with help from Eric Clapton and Fender guitars. As part of the myTouch 3G marketing campaign, which has featured a variety of iconic artists including comedians, musicians and sports figures, Clapton's commercial will debut on national TV on January 20, supporting the availability of the device nationwide in select T-Mobile retail stores and online. In the ad, Clapton will showcase a personalized myTouch 3G Fender Limited Edition. Designed in partnership with Fender, the new limited edition myTouch has a Fender guitar sunburst-finish inspired design. [...]

Despite the occasional talk about social media putting in a dent in the usage of email as a marketing tool, it didn't happen during the past holiday season. Smith-Harmon, an arm of Responsys Inc., says that in 2009 the 100 largest online retailers sent out an average of 132 promotional messages to each subscriber, an increase of 12% over 2008 and 39% more than two years ago. According to Internet Retailer, on a monthly basis, the biggest year-over-year gains came in June, July, August and November, the study says. [...]

Last week Apple's app store reached a milestone worth celebrating: in the 18 months it's been open for business, some 3 billion apps were downloaded. The 3 billion mark came and passed with surprisingly little fanfare. With nearly 130,000 apps available for purchase, and downloads increasingly exponentially, consumers' thirst for apps-- and developers’ interest in meeting that desire-- would seem nearly unquenchable. And device-specific apps, once a playground for only the truly geeky developer, have found their way into mainstream culture. [...]

Microsoft and Google were the big winners in December’s ad network report issued today by comScore. The ranking showed that AOL Advertising remains the top ad network, reaching 187 million U.S. Internet users, or 91 percent of the total audience, followed by Yahoo! Network (180.9 million) and Google Ad Network (178.1 million). The fastest growing ad network by audience reach among the top 15 was Microsoft Media Network U.S., which grew 31 percent versus year ago, followed by Collective Network (up 22 percent) and Audience Science (up 16 percent). [...]

He has a lot of nicknames, like "The Shaqtus" and "The Big Aristotle." Now Shaquille O'Neil is the latest poster boy for augmented reality. Muscle Milk is using its local endorser with a campaign targeted to consumers in Ohio. On each bottle of the high-energy drink, there is a square with the number "33." Parent company CyloSport will make its Muscle Milk chocolate flavor available in a limited-edition 14-ounce bottle with a special code marker on the label in the form of "33"—O'Neal's game number with the Cavs. [...]

When Carly Fiorina commented during the last presidential campaign that John McCain wouldn’t know how to run a company, she was spot on. And she was ex-communicated from the McCain campaign for her honesty. I’m reminded of her rather astute observation this week because the latest rumblings of government regulation of Internet advertising have to make a sane business person how politicians think. Take for example Rep. Rick Boucher who is talking about introducing legislation that would give consumers an opportunity to op-out of ad delivery technology or institute third party opt-in and verification. [...]

Leave it to Cisco to find the true business connections enabled by social media. The company coordinated a new study is based on extensive interviews with 105 participants representing 97 organizations in 20 countries around the globe. It concluded that the business world is at the early stages of adopting social media and in the process of identifying key challenges, "such as the need for increased governance and IT involvement, which may impact the integration and adoption of these new platforms and technologies. [...]

As we settle into the second official week of the New Year, and everyone is back cranking on projects big and small, it’s hard not to wonder what’s ahead in 2010. There’s more hope in the air than there was this time last year; a sense that things are turning up in the industry, that the economy is finally showing signs of life. With that in mind, what will be the biggest story in technology in 2010? What will be the most unexpected surprise? And from where I sit, a twist on that question: what should brands be paying attention to as they shape their digital strategy for the coming year? In a constantly shifting space, what will matter and what will just amount to chatter? While the tech headlines buzz with recent M&A shakeups, I think it’s worth noting that there’s just as much happening—if not more—in companies with fewer zeros behind them. [...]

The top of the org chart at appssavvy has a new addition. Industry veteran Todd Bowman has joined as senior vice president of sales. Bowman joins Chris Cunningham, CEO and Michael Burke, president, along with Calvin Wong, executive vice president of sales operations and product, as the most recent addition to appssavvy's senior management team. Bowman arrives at appssavvy from Condé Nast Digital Media where he served as West Coast sales director since early 2007 working with a number of marquis brands including Apple, HP, Lexus, Microsoft and Sony. [...]

Das Auto is representing Deutschland at the Uber Bowl, but don't take its first appearance as a lack of online commitment. Volkswagen of America, Inc. announced today it will premiere a 30-second spot during the 3rd quarter of Super Bowl XLIV. The spot will debut a new approach to the Das Auto tagline and positioning, and is the first step in a much larger multi-faceted campaign to increase model awareness and familiarity by reminding consumers of all the new Volkswagen products on the road. Immediately following the Super Bowl, Volkswagen will kick off a two-month campaign that will run extensively throughout February and March to support its national sales event. [...]

I have spent my entire adult life in media. Buying and selling advertising is only one part of my resume. My real love is creating content. I have written four books, produced nine documentaries, been the CEO of an e-zine company that published 78 e-zines and recently created 21 micro-publications on Twitter. These micro-publications will soon make their appearance on Facebook. This personal journey started thirty years ago in the home video business. And despite all the twists and turns, I believe there are still a few more miles to travel before I run out of road. [...]

It’s always tempting to think one step beyond when it comes to marketing technology. In that light, the much talked about launch of Google's Nexus One alongside reports of the ever increasing stronghold in the market for smartphones motivates any smart marketer to seriously consider the potential of a mobile playground for brands. I generally view my environment and work with brands through a distinctly creative lens, so an impressive development in the mobile space over the past year has me considering a technology for mobile that goes that step beyond. [...]

November was the biggest month ever for digital video content. comScore, it a report released today and culled from November 2009 showed that more than 170 million U.S. Internet users watched online video during the month. Online video viewing continued to reach record levels in November with nearly 31 billion videos viewed during the month, and Google Sites accounting for 39 % of all videos viewed online in the U.S. Google Sites continued to rank as the top U.S. video property in November as it delivered 12. [...]

With 21 million users a month, TV Guide.com is the top TV and entertainment site on the web. And right before the holidays it made a big revenue move by signing PubMatic to monetize non-guaranteed ad inventory. Josh Wetzel, VP, Publisher Services at PubMatic, says it was a big win, one which was justified at TV Guide within 45 days of its implementation in terms of increased monetization and the resulting better use of internal sales resources. We caught up with Wetzel last week. Digiday: There’s a lot of competition in the digital publishing monetization space. [...]

The challenge of 2010 could very well be getting paid for content. A sample from a new global Nielsen study on the topic shows it will be a complex but perhaps rewarding challenge. “The big question in the new Internet decade is whether consumers will pay for content online,” writes Nic Covey, Director of Cross-Platform Insights, The Nielsen Company. “It turns out that millions of global consumers are, in fact, willing to pay up… but not for everything. For example, consumers are three times as likely to pay for online music than for a blog. [...]

With an eye toward increasing response rates and brand engagement metrics for online video, Tremor Tremor Media has rolled out six new ad formats and features. With the video advertising network’s Acudeo video monetization platform already in place for more than 1,000 major video publishers, today’s announcement is aimed at making video more effective and scalable. “With our Acudeo technology tightly integrated within the player-environment across all of the sites in our in-stream network,Tremor Media is able to continually introduce new and innovative ad formats that can be reliably delivered at scale. [...]

Publishers can make their own app in under an hour. That’s the goal of AppMakr, a new service officially launched today that allows any company or any individual to make an iPhone application. According to Sean Shadmand, Chief Strategy Officer of AppMakr parent PointAbout, Inc. the service enables easy content distribution to the iPhone in a highly monetizable way. iPhone apps often cost more than $10,000 for content and development and take weeks or months to create, making the decision to plan execute a mobile strategy a complex task. [...]

The demographic profile and growth of the Internet may be slowing down according to a new survey conducted in December by the Pew Internet project. The survey found that overall internet use, broadband connection and even wireless access have not changed significantly over the past year. The survey does include a specific effort to include more interviews with Spanish speaking internet users. In some cases, according to the Pew report, this may have flattened some year-to-year data. Among the specific findings: • 74% of American adults (ages 18 and older) use the internet -- a slight drop from the survey conducted in April 2009, which did not include Spanish interviews. [...]

Interesting piece in The New York Times today about the 82 percent of of cellphones in use that are not smart phones. Turns out that there's an app for those too. According to the Times, one such company, GetJar, offers about 60,000 applications for nearly 2,000 different mobile phones, including the Motorola Rokr. Feature phone users can find YouTube, Tetris, the restaurant locator Urbanspoon and a range of expense-tracking and calorie-counting apps. But just because consumers have simple cellphones doesn’t mean they don’t want Facebook, Wikipedia or a popular instant-messaging application like Nimbuzz on their phones, says Ilja Laurs, chief executive of GetJar, which is based in San Mateo, Calif. [...]

The summary is 96 pages. That will give you some idea of the scale of the Morgan Stanley report on the mobile market. Only a few websites have received and ventured into the 900 page plus monster, and we give props to ArcticStartup who ventured a manageable summary. 1. Worldwide only 260 million of 4 billion mobile subscribers are on 3G in 2009. The 20-25% inflection point for 3G penetration in emerging markets will depend on falling equipment prices. Asia and Africa is better positioned than Eastern Europe & Middle East due to subscriber growth. [...]

In a development that is sure to affect the continuing marketing battle between AT&T and Verizon, iPhone sales were stopped at least temporarily in the New York City over the holiday weekend and into Monday. AT&T, picking up on a crisis management tactic that is gaining popularity in the post-Tiger Woods era, has said nothing. It has offered up only vague explanations behind the decision, leading to rampant press speculation that he New York City AT&T wireless grid was simply not able to handle the amount of phone sales added during the holiday season. [...]

We tend to assume that because masses of people are flocking to the Internet, it is, therefore, a mass medium. It is not. In a mass medium, you have an audience that is assembled either because you control air-time (like TV) or because you control space (like a magazine or an amphitheatre). On the Internet you control neither. Like a crowded street in Times Square, lots of people are spinning through the Internet from different places for different reasons and they control their own time and space. [...]

Here's what we talk about when we talk about mobile. The line between phone handsets and other mobile devices such as netbooks is about to blur. ABI Research reports that mobile device shipments will grow from 1.2 billion in 2009 to 2.25 billion in 2014. For mobile marketers, says ABI, the trend indicates that mobile marketing opportunities as more than just those designed for smartphones and other mobile handsets. “The next five years we will see a shift in the breakdown between types of mobile devices shipped,” said ABI analyst Michael Morgan in a statement. [...]

You know the Lyle Lovett song: "You can have my girl, but don't touch my hat." Now Stetson is bringing the hat and other products a little closer to its customers. Big Fuel has launched a new website for The Stetson Hat Company. Millions of consumers know the Stetson brand for its signature western hats and dress hats along with fragrance, apparel, footwear and eyewear. The new site (www.stetson.com) has been designed to highlight the brand's traditions, history, and social identity. The site dynamically pulls content from popular social networks to showcase how the brand is woven into the fabric of American culture to create the Stetson "American Quilt. [...]

In what could signal a new wave of Internet technology and content acquisitions, Limelight Networks today announced it will acquire rich media solutions provider EyeWonder. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2010. “Today, two best-in-class companies are combining to capitalize on the clear opportunity created by a macro shift of content consumption and advertising spend away from legacy channels and towards the growing world of Internet-connected devices. Limelight and EyeWonder bring together deep technical and operational skills for creating a brilliant online experience anywhere, on any device, and the ability to help advertisers and publishers monetize that experience,” said Jeff Lunsford, chairman and chief executive officer, Limelight Networks, Inc. [...]

To paraphrase Yogi Berra "it ain't a deal until it's a deal." So it goes with Google and Yelp. What was a done deal Friday afternoon, seemed to come apart over the weekend, and was still up in the air when we hit "send" today. However, the confirmed interest and $550 million price tag shows the unmistakable trend toward local advertising and content. As David Carr wrote Monday in The New York Times: "How serious is Google about local, with or without Yelp? Well, consider that they’ve begun distributing stickers to local businesses that contain bar-codes that can be scanned into a smart phone to access information like reviews and coupons. [...]

I met up with a friend from college for an early dinner after work last week. Reeling from the day, I barely let him say “how's it going” before blurting out the most incredible thing I just learned at work. "Facebook apps- oh man! Did you know we can now collect more user data before someone accepts the terms of agreement? And after that box is clicked...I think this access is really going in the right direction to help us produce smarter content for people and brands!” My friend's expression turned to shock then confusion, suspicion and finally fear. [...]

Engagement and targeting metrics continued to show impressive month-to-month gains for consumer mobile usage. The November installment of Millennial Media’s SMART report showed that average monthly page views per user increased from 106 to 113 in November and average user session time increased from 4:46 to 5:02. The use of custom landing pages increased 8% in November - a potential indicator that advertisers were focusing on campaign specific microsites to promote end of year specials and promotions on products and services. [...]

The end of the year is always a good time to reflect on the past. The older we get, the farther we travel. The road to our present business has been one of buying, owning and selling media of just about every type. Over the years we have bought and/or sold billboards, radio, newspapers, online e-zines, banners, online video, local cable, national cable, and even catalogs. I'm sure the above list is not complete, but you get the point. When it comes to media buying and selling, we’ve pretty much tried them all, been there and done that. [...]

Check that perception of Facebook as a white and Asian dominated network. A Facebook blog reported Wednesday that blacks and Latinos have joined the social networking giant at a rapid clip in the past several years. Facebook researchers found that about 11 percent of the social network's approximately 100 million U.S. members were African-American, about 9 percent were Latino and 6 percent were Asian, a much higher share for blacks and Latinos than four years ago.

The spam and other unsolicited DMs I've been getting on Twitter have finally gotten to me. And I'm going to be taking action. A Bit of Background You know the kind of direct messages I'm talking about, all with spammy links in them: "Is this you on here?" "I just gave you a High Five! Check it out" "Hey, I got some free ringtones from here" "Hey, can you take this quiz thingy?" "I found out my IQ. You should too." "I lost a bunch of weight doing this." And many, many more. Lots of the direct messages I get are of the automated sort when people first start following me. [...]

Real-time ad optimzer PubMatic signed a big client this week. Yesterday it announced that TVGuide.com, a one-stop entertainment destination for breaking news, online video and TV listings, has chosen PubMatic to manage multiple remnant networks across its site. “PubMatic has significantly decreased the operational burden of managing multiple ad networks and simultaneously helped us eliminate inefficiencies in our remnant advertising pricing,” said Ian Wallin, Vice President, Online Ad Sales, TVGuide. [...]

Mobile ad agency and research stalwart Millenial Media published its 2010 predictions today, and decided that this upcoming year was not going to be the “year of mobile.” The year in questions I currently drawing to a close it says The proverbial “Year of Mobile” came and went. There was no “cataclysmic tipping point that shocked industry-watchers into acknowledging mobile as a highly effective and efficient advertising medium” it says, but the agency’s report does take some bold stabs (ten of them) at the look of maturity for mobile. [...]

Teens and their mobile phone behavior continues its microscopic analysis. Today the Pew Internet Research project released a study that shows one in seven American teens with cellphones say they have received nude or nearly nude photos by text message, according to a new survey on the phenomenon known as "sexting." Helping to define the little-understood trend in teen life, the poll found that 15 percent of adolescents ages 12 to 17 have received sexually suggestive photos or videos on their personal cellphones. [...]

There are scores of blog posts suggesting that you need to ask six to 20 questions. I maintain these two will give you the real skinny on your prospective social media agency or consultant.

The year has hardly ended on a good note for pharmaceutical content and advertising. After inconclusive hearings in front of the FDA in Washington the industry was stung once again this past weekend by new lawsuits and accusations regarding Wyeth’s past promotion of hormonal drugs to reverse the effects of menopause. However, some in the industry have started to turn away from the constraints that have been placed on content and advertising and have started to turn toward what will work. “Healthcare organizations large or small can do a better job of giving patients better resources to make decisions,” says Pat Griffin, CEO of Manchester, NH-based “marketing innovations” company Griffin, York and Krause. [...]

When Pranav Mistry started his exploration about eight years back, he started with an idea. That idea was to use everyday objects and gestures in the real world and leverage their interaction with the digital world. In the recently posted video on TED, (Technology, Entertainment, Design) "The Thrilling Potential of Sixth Sense Technology," Mistry demos several tools and applications that "bridge" the physical world with the digital world. After watching the nearly 15 minute clip, my first reaction was, "That is super cool! But, who is going to wear a video camera and projector around their neck all the time?" Without taking anything away from Mistry's undeniable genius. [...]

No secret that social media usage among women is prevalent but a new study finds it close to unanimous. Social network marketing agency SheSpeaks has released its 2nd Annual Social Media Study. It surveyed members to understand their adoption and usage of social networks and their interactions with brands. It found that 86% of women now have a profile on a social network, up from 48% last year, a huge jump. Participation among women 50+ is now up to 71%. 95% of women with social network profile have one on facebook, while MySpace is down to 42%, from 63% last year. [...]

Technological gimmicks may get downloads, but a strategy targeting the end user is the best way to generate sales for the product the application is publicizing, said a panel that included executives from 20th Century Fox and Sony Pictures purveyor Universal McCann.

I was talking to a former employer of mine recently, a guy who knew how to squeeze net-per-page from a magazine so hard that the logger who cut the tree down would scream. I asked him what he would do if he was responsible for squeezing revenue from today’s digital platform. He said pretty quickly: “I’m glad it’s not my problem.” So it was not completely surprising to me that the biggest companies in the publishing world have adopted then same approach. Digital publishing has proven to be such a difficult issues to matter, and has caused such a crisis of money and ad value, that they are not prepared to tackle it alone. [...]

Like the economy itself, that longed-for comeback keeps getting held up. According to Nielsen, spending on overall advertising fell 11.5 percent in the first three quarters of 2009, compared to the same time period in 2008. Preliminary figures show that expenditures fell $10.9 billion to a total spend of $83.4 billion in the first nine months of the year. In other news: Internet ads, expected by many analysts to show an appreciable increase, fell .5 percent. Increases were led by Cable TV (+ 9. [...]

When the digiday:Apps conference breaks open tomorrow morning it will be in a world that demands definition of content. The joint ventures among publishers to promote mobile and digital content as well as the real dawn of Tablet technology necessitate a new app strategy. When a company says “this is my app” it better think through what that means and looks like on both platforms. I think the most fertile field of app development will be branded. Yes, we will continue to have the brilliant games and gadgets that drove the mobile app marketplace. [...]

Ad Targeting is no longer Revenue Science and Tacoda; they are so five years ago. Today the volume of data being horded, according to Alan Chapel, requires new technologies.

How should we organize ourselves as humans to work with machine-think? Or should we?

If FTC commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour is worried about the horse having left the barn on privacy, she need only look to the number of people who shopped online this holiday season: 100 million. One third of the population of the United States shared at the very least credit card and shipping information, and probably much more to qualify for special deals, alerts and bonuses from tens of thousands of retailers. Marketers at Monday’s FTC privacy workshop, while they may agree that consumers are wary of identity theft and spam, maintained that targeted offers, that may arrive when someone is in the right place, at the right time and in the right frame of mind – facilitated by the right information -- are in fact welcome. [...]

The two biggest retail categories for the holiday season may hinge on word of mouth for final purchase decisions, and that’s good news for social media. Although retailers will try to push the decision-making with online and offline ads, many shoppers won’t commit to buying some gifts until hearing from people just like them that it’s worth it, according to a Retail Advertising and Marketing Association survey conducted by BIGresearch. Word of mouth remains the biggest influence in people’s electronics (43. [...]

You Can't Afford to Miss It! digiday:TARGET on December 8th, in New York City. During this high-level event, Top Publishing, Technology, Agency, and Brand Marketers will come together to discuss and explore how brands find their customers in a digital data driven world. The event will dive deeply into the challenges and success stories of audience targeting, management, and monetization. "The show was great. One of the best I have been to in a long time in terms of networking and content. The crowd was all senior, C-level colleagues whom either I knew or wanted to connect with. [...]

Digital Brand Management is becoming the critical new discipline for marketing in the digital age. Digital can no longer be looked upon as a “post-strategic’ channel or as a simple one-off, add-on or after-thought. It reflects the new paradigm of this transforming world of ours; that digital must be at the core of a brand’s strategic platform. Marketing companies that continue to think of digital only as a series of tactical channels or platforms will do so to their long-term detriment. The discipline of Digital Brand Management applies the techniques of traditional brand management: analysis, planning, implementation and measurement, but with a much more rigorous, robust approach. [...]

Toyota, Pizza Hut, NBA, Fandango, and More Reveal Their Brand Success Secrets with Mobile and Social Apps! Please join us for digiday:APPS on December 10th, in Los Angeles. During this high-level event, Top Brand Marketers, Agency Executives, Publishers, and App Developers will come together to discuss and explore how brands can harness the power of the billion dollar app boom. The event will dive deeply into the challenges and success stories of the explosive mobile and social app market. This is an event you can't afford to miss! "digiday:APPS is a one of a kind event. [...]

The DPAC AWARDS will honor the winners and finalists at The DPAC Awards Gala on 12/8 at The W Hotel Union Square, New York. The DPAC Awards judging committee has selected the finalists and winners for the awards in each category, as well as the Best in Show. This is your chance to network and congratulate the winners and finalists like American Express * IBM * Walmart * Intel Corp * The Coca-Cola Company * Visa * Publicis Modem * Subway * New Balance * Initiative * 20th Century Fox * Cadbury/ Trident * Ogilvy * Kia Soul * Oakley * PGA Tour. [...]

In this week’s On Audience Targeting and Measurement column, Scott Knoll, Senior Vice President for Datran Media and GM of Aperture interviews Matt Spiegel, CEO, OMG Digital Scott Knoll: Audience measurement is a nebulous term. What is your definition of audience measurement, and how does it correspond to your definition of digital media measurement?? Matt Spiegel: There is no doubt that audience measurement has become an increasingly nebulous term but it is far from a new concept. I think the reason it is so hot and misapplied as of late is that there is renewed interest in measurement based on today’s innovations and the availability of more sophisticated modes of audience measurement. [...]

With all due apologies to the great Dr. Seuss, our intrepid intellectual property and entertainment marketing expert Ken Horowitz takes on the world of Google. What if Google started to get after digital movie rights the way it approached books. In the tradition of Seuss classics If I Ran The Zoo, and If I Ran The Circus, Horowitz takes a creative and humorous approach to a potential nightmare.

There aren't many of them, but they sure might look good to marketers. Meet the E-book customer. According to the most recent data from Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI), there are approximately 2.1 million U.S. adults who own electronic book readers, and they are likely to be well-educated, well-heeled, and use the Internet frequently. At 56.3% of e-reader users, men outnumber women (43.7%). Adults ages 35-54 are the “sweet spot” for this product, as they are 20% more likely than the average adult to own an e-reader. [...]

DM2 Events is finishing 2009 with a triple-threat event package during the month of December. In addition to the company’s second digiday:TARGET event on December 8, with the DPAC Awards to follow, DM2 is holding its first-ever Los Angeles digiday:APPS conference on December 10. “A lot of event companies treat LA as if it’s a secondary market for thought leaders and digital advertising activity,” says DM2 Founder Nick Friese. “We disagree strongly. We’ve had multiple DIGIDAY events in New York, but with digiday:APPS and we’re putting our money where our mouth is. [...]

Let’s talk turkey. While various retail organizations called it about even between 2008 and 2009 Thanksgiving shopping numbers, I saw a knockout for digital marketing and digital commerce. The digital commerce part doesn’t concern us here so much. Plenty of websites will report on that, including what looks to be a huge CyberMonday take. But what went on behind the scenes made CyberMonday happen way before the actual day. It was a huge win for email, social media, and more general efforts to use internet marketing for its targeted purpose. [...]

Mobile search has a long way to go. A new Xiam Tecnhologies survey of over 2,500 U.S. and U.K. mobile Internet users found that 8 out of 10 are frustrated by mobile search capabilities despite 68% of mobile users being dependent on mobile search engines to access content. Content most desired and used is weather-related, followed by maps, social networking, games, music and local/world news. Respondents said that 27% of the time they were unable to access mobile content, often as a result of poor mobile webpage design (too large/small). [...]

Sorry, it's Thanksgiving week, not Halloween, but you know what I mean. When you think about it, ad delivery platforms have been among the innovations primarily responsible for our ability to do our day jobs better and more efficiently. Can they accommodate the latest in rich media? Can they target? (No, I mean REALLY target?) Can they deliver metrics on an ever-refined list of criteria (opened, time spent, shared...)? Can they accommodate a just-in-time delivery marketplace based on demand? And -- perhaps most importantly -- can they simplify all these mind-blowing complexities? Yes, yes, yes, and of course, would be the responses of some or all of our DPAC Awards finalists. [...]

The myth of objective journalism has been torn asunder by tens of thousands of citizen journalists who share more with W.E.B DuBois, I.F. Stone and Frederick Douglass than they do with mainstream reporters who feign objectivity. The three passionate souls mentioned above championed causes. They made no attempt to be “even handed” with the injustices of their day. Bloggers likewise have shed the accouterments of mythical objectivity and assumed partisan positions from every point on the political spectrum. [...]

Like anything else that aspires to exceed economic expectations in 2009, Internet advertising has fallen short. But in this time of social media hype, let’s not lose sight of the targeting factor. Internet advertising has grown and will continue to grow because it can target customers at various points in their engagement and purchase lifecycles. Until social media can do that it will be a fascinating evolution of consumer behavior. A curiosity that defies any logical business model analysis. But it will not be an advertising vehicle of any magnitude or effectiveness. [...]

With the holiday shopping season just days away from full swing, marketers are getting ready to generate 25-40 percent of their yearly sales. With that much at stake, savvy marketers are doing everything they can to maximize the success of their holiday marketing campaigns. The good news is that holiday cheer is easy to come by if you follow a few key tips to ensure high returns on your marketing investments now and well beyond the holiday season. Coupons are a Gift Buyer’s Best Friend It's no secret that consumers are planning on tightening their wallets this holiday season. [...]

Maybe the newspaper bleeding is stopping. New data from Scarborough Research (a joint partnership with The Nielsen Company and Arbitron, Inc.) finds nearly three in four adults, nearly 171 million, in the U.S. read a printed newspaper -- either online or in print -- on a weekly basis. “While our data does show that print newspaper readership is slowly declining, it also illustrates that reports about the pending death of the newspaper industry are greatly exaggerated,” said Gary Meo, Scarborough’s Senior Vice President of Print and Digital Media Services. [...]

Even though the economy is recovering, marketers may need to re-invent as they move into 2010 to regain customers. Presenters from the IDEA Conference held on Thursday, November 12, have ideas and stories to share.

Seeing the same talking heads at every one of your industry events? Thinking a heightened profile could help your career? Ever wonder how they got there? Brandon Gutman is an expert connector, business developer and a Founding Partner of FOCi Group, a digital brand management firm serving the Fortune 500 community. He has also coined the term “Executive Celebrity” and helps many of his clients step up their own brand presence as they turbo-charge their business development efforts and expand their horizons. [...]

On some level, it's not enough to build a great social app anymore; or perhaps it's that only the existene of an underlying community can demonstrate success. Whatever the case, DPAC Awards Contenders for Best Branded Social Media Community include BusinessWeek, American Express OPEN, and Real Estate leader Coldwell Banker. Coldwell Banker and FD kinesis conceived the first all-video destination for Real Estate by a national Real Estate brand. OnLocation was created to allow users to search and see video tours of properties in their area instead of the standard still images. [...]

The FDA starts its public hearings today on pharmaceutical advertising and already I think we’re missing the point of it. The point should be to find a compromise area in which pharmaceutical companies can advertise online without having to jump through more hoops than a puppy at obedience school. Instead, I think we’re starting out with a spirit of more regulation. The IAB has started its input by suggesting a move toward standards that would hopefully make pharma ads accountable to FDA regulations. [...]

For every parent who worried that their kid was socially withering in front of the computer screen and for every commentator who claimed the US was isolating in a fog of Facebook posts, now there’s evidence to the contrary. Claiming to be the first ever survey that examines the role of the internet and cell phones in the way that people interact with those in their core social network, the Pew Internet Personal Networks and Community survey has found we’re no more or less lonely than we used to be. [...]

Nielsen has seen the mobile future and the future is smartphones. It's new report out today shows that in Q3 2009, historically the slowest phone sales quarter, more than 25% of all phones sold were smartphones. It expects Q4 to have more than 40% of all new phones to be smart devices. "This is important to watch as smartphones are on track to be the majority of phones in the U.S. by 2011," the report states. "Projecting Nielsen data out through 2010, we see smartphones crossing 50% of the market by the middle of 2011, roughly equal to 150 million users. [...]

Apparently The New York Times hasn’t made up its mind yet about charging for website content. Managing Editor’s Bill Keller’s leaked speech to the troops last week indicates that the issue is still open for discussion and that the ad side of the church and state debate is winning for now. The ad state, undoubtedly, wants to keep as much content free as it can. If you don’t have to sign up for the bottom line P&L or report to those nasty NYT board members, it’s easy to fire off about The Times. [...]

It happens every time a new type of media emerges. For example, and this dates me a bit, when I entered the home video business, beta was king! Back then, music industry executives-turned video executives treated the video industry as if it were the record industry. Book distributors also jumped in, and, guess what? Yep, they treated video like books. Periodical distributors entered the fray and, well, you know what happened… It is undoubtedly true that we view life through the lens of our own experiences. [...]

Story of the Week: No kidding. A real iPhone app was launched by Spanish company Biloop Technologic called the the Cry Translator . The company says this ground-breaking application is designed to help parents and caregivers learn to understand their baby's first language - their cry. The Cry Translator involves a revolutionary sound analysis technology that quickly identifies an infant's cry, based on one of five emotional or physiological states: hunger, fatigue, annoyance, stress or boredom. These five cries are universal to all babies regardless of culture or language. [...]

Today the lines have blurred between publishers and brands living in the digital world. Brands are no longer content to merely rent access to their consumers from publishers. Instead they are creating their own slick digital hubs that include entertainment, information, communities and more-- offering an experience where they control and ultimately own the links to their customers. How will brands and publishers collide and coexist in pursuit of a profitable relationship with consumers? FOCi Group assembled and moderated a panel at DPAC4 to address this topic. [...]

Apparently text messaging and social networking has found its way on to the radar of analysts that track activities called "entertainment." According to the latest update to the "Entertainment Trends in America" tracking study conducted by The NPD Group, many consumers expect to be spending the same amount on traditional entertainment categories during the coming holiday season, "even as their participation in newer forms of entertainment continues to rise." The most notable increases occurred in social networking and text messaging: More than a third (37 percent) of respondents reported visiting a social networking site over the prior six months, which is an increase of 11 percentage points since last year; 63 percent reported sending and receiving text messages, which is an increase of 7 percentage points over the prior year; while 9 percent used Twitter during the same time period. [...]

Maybe you don’t have to worry about all that time employees spend on Facebook. A new research report from Business.com shows that businesses and business professionals people are using social media for profitable purposes. Based on insights from 2,948 professionals across North America, the study recommends that “current trends to restrict access to social networks like Facebook or Twitter at work need to be re-thought in light of the business value in such activity.” That activity shows that webinars and podcasts are the top social media resources for business professionals, used by 69 of respondents. [...]

Over the past year, display has been something like the long-in-the-stained-tooth Austin Powers when he lost his mojo. It’s just not sexy anymore. The business media has certainly dumped it in favor of the ingénue allure of mobile and social. The publishers are declaring that display ads just don’t work. At last week’s DPAC IV one prominent publisher panelist declared he didn’t think his media company would even BE in the display business two years from now. Thus, we’re in danger of losing the attention of marketers. [...]

As my friend Ken Horowitz pointed out in his column yesterday, the patterns of the past can foreshadow the future. He was talking about the e-reader format struggles. I have some similar thoughts about patterns and paid content, but these are aimed at the future. The current content landscape is brand new territory. Never has any business in history gone from substantial profit to complete inability to charge for its product and then come back again. Forget the time compression factor involved, the content business has had its entire business model melted down like plastic for action figures. [...]

Ponitflex shook up the digital ad world in late summer with its study that showed marketers will pay publishers an average price of $2.27 for each reader they can qualify as a lead. With that as its business model Pontiflex has led advertisers to relevant websites, social networks and mobile apps, in the quest of connecting the right people no matter where they are. We caught up with VP Evan Adlman to talk about the cost-per-lead pricing model and other important issues. Digiday: There’s certainly a lot out there for publishers to choose from in the world of content monetization tools. [...]

Content monetization solutions are coming to ecommerce. Evidence can be seen in today's announcement that ShopWiki and DigiPowers will team up to provide a new vertical product search tool for web publishers of consumer interest content sites. A statement from the two companies claims that the new tool will build on DigiPowers' technology and allow the ShopWiki product search engine to be embedded into third-party web sites, extending the consumer reach of ShopWiki's product database to highly targeted consumer audiences. [...]

It is fair to say few people were more critical of Twitter than I. With pithy tag lines like “Join the conversation,” and 140 characters to communicate, it seemed silly. Hell, it was silly. Amassing large followers for any but a few high-profile celebrities remained a course in round-trip circle jerking. You follow me and I will follow you. This resulted in neither one following what the other had to say. A friend of mine followed over 4000 people and they dutifully returned the favor, creating so much noise that he had to create a new account for the “real” people he wanted to follow. [...]

The Atlantic has an excellent thread running on the future of newspapers. Megan McArdle stirred the pot last week after the Audit Bureau of Circulation published its numbers, and many readers have taken issue with her opinion that "the numbers seem to confirm something I've thought for a while: we're eventually going to end up with a few national papers, a la Britain, rather than local dailies. The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the New York Times (sorry, conservatives!) are weathering the downturn better than most, and it's not surprising: business, politics, and national upper-middlebrow culture. [...]

The Internet is a medium with infinite content sources and dispersed usage. Here’s the bad news: It has a really crappy way of valuing inventory. Ad networks have a part to play here. They make this broken media easier to use by aggregating inventory and actually making the medium more efficient to buy. What they have negatively produced is a layer of confusion to the marketplace with no one really sure who is representing what inventory. Inventory is being sold and resold which results in deals that do not deliver or retain latency in the ads actually showing up on the page. [...]

Lifetime Digital is ramping up it's social commitment to moms. Today the company announced the re-launch of MothersClick.com and the debut of LifetimeMoms.com, two major initiatives to "strengthen Lifetime Networks' bond with mothers by creating communities to connect with others like them." MothersClick.com is the first digital acquisition by Lifetime Networks, and features a dynamic conversation engine that empowers women to easily find discussion topics by keywords and to engage with other moms across thousands of subjects. [...]

As a digidayDAILY reader, you are entitled to a copy of an exclusive whitepaper, data packed with insights from the leading research companies about what actually is going on in the online display sector. Compete, comScore, DynamicLogic, The IAB, InsightExpress, Microsoft Advertising and The Nielsen Company have all contributed to this bigger picture of trends in spend, measurement and usage plus an update on ad networks and exchanges. * Marketers and Agency execs will get ad spend info and an update on how to improve the efficiency of their buys and the impact of their creative. [...]

Back when I was a little punk Jersey kid and songs on the radio were more subtle and innocent than they are now, there was a song by Melanie that went something like this: “I got a brand new pair of roller skates, you got a brand new key.” It was hardly “rockin’ this party eight days a week” like the braggadocio kids listen to today, but I was reminded of this corny little line when I listened to various publishers and ad technology executives at yesterday’s DPAC conference. The content owners have brand new roller skates. [...]

Facebook keeps running away with social media market share. Experian Hitwise announced today that Facebook accounted for 58.59 percent of all U.S. visits out of 155 social networking Web sites in September 2009. The 58 percent was the highest among all social networking sites sites, as U.S. visits to Facebook increased 194 percent in September 2009 compared with September 2008. MySpace received the second-highest market share of U.S. visits for the month, with 30 percent. Tagged received 2.38 percent of visits in September 2009, the third-largest amount. [...]

Qualcomm, Sony, Apple, Google, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon are geared to shake-up the application and media delivery ecosystem. What will this mean to marketers?

In March 2006 the Advertising Research Foundation defined Engagement as "turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context. How we measure engagement – the turning on - is by the time a consumer actively spends with the brand. But, how do you measure active versus passive? What activities constitute being turned-on by a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context? How do we measure activity at different touch-points?

We have extend the entry deadline for the DPAC Awards to Friday, October 30th. This will be the last and final date to enter. So please take this time to submit your campaigns or even add new work into the competition. The response to the DPAC awards has been amazing! Thank you! Deadline to Enter The DPAC Awards Has Been Extended! Final Deadline is October 30th Participating Brands Include: NBC Universal, Nissan, Showtime, P&G, Coca-Cola, Subway, 24 Hour Fitness, AT&T, Microsoft, Toyota, New Balance, Huggies, Oakley, Swatch, NBC Universal, Hearst, MTV, BusinessWeek, Zinio, Meredith, PGA Tour, 20th Century Fox, Quattro, Investor's Business Daily, Carl's Jr. [...]

This is what he has come to DPAC 4 to propose – that the Internet as we know it is dead because this is what the search metrics prove.

Being an optimist about the future of newspapers is kind of like rooting for the Washington Redskins. Things are so bad that any news is good news, and when the bad things happen, well, they were supposed to happen anyway. So while the latest numbers from the Audit Bureau of Circulation are hard to get excited about, at the same time they may be showing some promise. Maybe this team will only win a few games this season, but they have next season to look forward to. Admittedly, these numbers continue to show an undisputed decline. [...]

By Pam Horan, President, Online Publishers Association- The strength of a brand is and has always been its ability to generate and grow loyalty over a customer’s lifetime. When a consumer makes a choice between Coke and Pepsi, BMW and Lexus or Microsoft and Apple, that decision has been influenced by the continuous strategic planning and foresight of brand marketers. As consumers continue to shift their time and attention to content online, this creates both new opportunities and challenges for brand builders. [...]

You’re not alone. Most marketers are trying to figure out the process of building and managing their brands for the digital age. Even the most sophisticated organizations can fill buckets with what they don’t know about digital and its constantly increasing potential. In this article, FOCi Group defines Digital Brand Management, provides a four step process for DBM and suggests why brands need to own digital. Digital Brand Management Defined Digital Brand Management is no longer a subset of marketing. [...]

How One Mid-Sized Publisher Competes in the Midst of Unprecedented Clutter and Dominance of Niche and Reach Players. When I spoke on a late-afternoon publisher panel at digiday:TARGET earlier this year I was immediately notable (to the tweeting crowd anyway) for being the first female panelist of the day. I was blissfully unaware of my special status before-hand, but it definitely occurred to me at the time that I was probably going to have to work extra hard to get a word in edge-wise with my three animated co-panelists. [...]

News Corp is leading the bids for the Travel Channel. If successful, the acquisition would add to the cable holdings in Rupe’s empire-- and edge out earlier favorite, Scripps Network Interactive as well as private equity group Providence Equity Partners. Majority owner Cox Communications put the cable net up for auction this summer; Cox owns around 65% of Travel Channel. Needless to say, the bids for Travel Channel surprised everyone, including Cox, turning out to be notably higher than initial projections. [...]

Meet the professional blogger. Today's installment of Technorati's State of the Blogosphere report shows thata minority of professional bloggers are making more money than ever. Bloggers can collect ad revenues related to their blogs. But they are also making money by parlaying the popularity of their blogs into speaking engagements, traditional media assignments, and running conferences. Among those who make money from blogging, 54 percent are part-timers, 32 percent are self-employed, and 14 percent work for corporations. [...]

Barnes & Noble unveiled its new Nook digital reader yesterday, giving the public a peek at the new device. At first glance, Nook looks a lot like Amazon’s Kindle. So what’s special, new, or different about Nook? For one, it does have a cool color navigation screen below its main, black and white e-ink display. It sports WiFi connectivity, nice for on-the run downloads; Nook's wireless is from AT&T thanks to Barnes & Noble's deal with the telecom giant. But of course, Amazon has its own wireless deal with Sprint for its Kindle units. [...]

I originally wrote this over a year ago, but I think it deserves another go around, as there seem to be even more social media "experts" out there. Please add your suggestion to the comments section or on Twitter with the hashtag #smbulb and let's see how many responses we can get. Stop me if you've heard this. Yesterday, I asked a question on Twitter - one that Joseph Jaffe rhetorically asked on his blog - I posed it as a joke and asked for responses. The question was: How many social media experts does it take to change a lightbulb? My original answer on Joe's blog was: "309. [...]

Marking the first post-Bloomberg acquisition blood, BusinessWeek’s Editor in Chief Stephen J. Adler announced his pending resignation. Adler spent four years as Editor in Chief at the venerable business mag, and saw it weather major changes—and financial turmoil. He helped it navigate the integration of print and digital operations; challenging advertising declines; and once McGraw-Hill decided to sell BW earlier this summer, he steeled his staff through the stormy bid process this fall. Adler, who joined BW from the Wall Street Journal, will stay on board until the Bloomberg purchase closes in December. [...]

Innovation only happens when you're investing, seems to be the reason behind AlwaysOn's newest list of most promising tech start-ups. While Pacific Biosciences leads the list, there's also a top broadband player, cyber security, and even an educational platform with an e-book element.

Let’s not lose sight of the most important part of the term “e-reader.” It’s “reader.” We love to talk about devices and speculate on future marker share and who gets exclusives and who buys whom, but in the end the person reading the content has to win. I think the e-reader business is fighting the right fight. Evidence of the solid competitive foundation here can be seen in Barnes & Noble’s new e-reader introduced today. There’s enough compatibility with other formats to make it reader-friendly (you can even share content) with enough proprietary technology to let B&N carve out a brand. [...]

Like the baseball playoffs it plays out over about a week on late October. This, however, is Technorati's State of the Blogoshere Report. In today's installment the company reported that 72 percent of bloggers call themselves hobbyists. About 9 percent of bloggers are self-employed, and of that group, about 22 percent say their business is their blog. Some 10 percent of the professional bloggers say that they blog more than 40 hours a week. And among professional bloggers, 40 percent said they worked in traditional media. [...]

As behavioral targeting continues to be a game-changer for digital content, the words themselves have found their own advertising momentum. Semantic targeting has attracted new add-on technologies, new clients, new suppliers and a new respect as content sites search for ways to monetize their inventory. “No technology is going to change the fact that around 50 percent of all inventory is still remnant inventory,” says Amiad Solomon, CEO of semantic web platform Peer 39. “And if you have fundamental problems like weak content or poor market positioning, no technology will save your business. [...]

Hearing what your customers have to say – whether they like or dislike your products or services and ultimately whether they are advocates, evangelists or detractors is the critical first step in laying the groundwork for an effective digital and social media strategy. To be successful today, brands need to understand what consumers are saying, why they're saying it and how their dialogue has the potential to impact business. Here are four steps that FOCi Group follows to help marketers capture, interpret and apply online chatter into actionable and measurable results. [...]

Google is challenging Amazon on its home turf: the search giant confirmed its plans to roll out an e-book store which it plans to call “Google Editions.” If Jeff Bezos didn’t have indigestion yet, he will after reading the fine print— unlike Amazon or Barnes & Noble’s e-book stores, Google’s effort will not be device specific. That means digital titles purchased through Google Editions will be compatible with a much larger number of devices. That’s a very smart move on the part of Google, given the volume of e-readers reaching the market by next year. [...]

Companies from GE to Popular Science to Doritos have begun incorporating augmented reality (AR) into their marketing, and iPhone and Google Android have begun proliferating. Meijer, the 190-store mid-western retain chain, is merging Augmented Reality and social media on its Halloween site. Will it blend?

In the absolute deluge of speculation about who was going to buy BusinessWeek (Bloomberg) and then what they would do with it, one big thing has been missing: Assets. BusinessWeek for all its problems, is still an asset. It is not the asset it was five years ago to be sure. But there’s still a lot of expertise on that staff, quality in its circulation, and compelling reasons to advertise to its audience. So without mocking the purchase price (anywhere from $1 to $5 million) here’s what I would do if I was Bloomberg: [...]

In the past, I’ve written about the Kindle. Specifically, I griped about the lack of support for smaller news organizations wishing to use the Kindle and pondered the direction of future eReaders. Today, I received an email announcing a new device that has the potential to add an interesting disruption to the ereader market, the WikiReader Pocket Wikipedia. It has a reflective monochrome 240x208 capacitive touchscreen and a 8 GB MicroSDHC card. The card is formatted in FAT32 format and contains a snapshot of Wikipedia. [...]

A new study released today by King Fish Media has quantified a “structural change” in the world of media. The study says marketers are rethinking the business of reaching customers and prospects with custom content at the center. The King Fish Media 2009 Survey on Marketing, Media and Measurement, conducted in partnership with HubSpot, Junta42 and the Upshot Institute, reveals that companies are abandoning other's media platforms in favor of creating their own original channels and content. "Marketers have been aware of the effectiveness of building relationships and trust with content since long before the Internet," said Gordon Plutsky, Director of Marketing and Research, King Fish. [...]

A few weeks ago a friend of mine got a ticket on Route 95 for not wearing a seatbelt. Immediately, of course, he was ranting about whether the State Police might have something better to do than pull people over for not wearing a seatbelt. After all, Route 95 is an interstate highway undoubtedly used by people traveling under the influence of various substances, perhaps with contraband onboard, operating at high speeds and at the very least possibly taking processed uranium from New York to Boston and then on to ports unknown. [...]

Target is taking its newsstand digital. In addition to traditional print magazines sold in its brick and mortar stores, the retail giant is launching a new effort which will allow shoppers to buy electronic versions of their favorite magazines. Now you can throw a digital version of US Weekly or Elle in that virtual shopping cart along with TP and Windex. The new digital newsstand, built into Target.com, allows customers to snap up single copies of current or back issues, or order subscriptions from the convenience of their laptops or home computers. [...]