Business Quests in the Information Age

Blog Ad Network by Six Apart helps monetization of smaller blogs

Six Apart is one of the few companies of the so called web 2.0 wave whose focus on sustainable business models is a major strength. Using their position as a blogging platform to structure and manage an ad network is really a no-brainer from a business standpoint, while it is also in keeping with Six Apart's consistent policy of offering easy-to-use solutions to its customers. They are uniquely positioned to generate substantial business value from this initiative. I am very curious about their pricing mechanism and about the degree of visibility they will allow into their profit margins from this activity. And perhaps even more than those aspects of the scheme, I will be interested to understand their targeting philosophy (serving the relevant ads to each micro-audience) because that's one of the big battles of tomorrow's advertising.

clipped from www.marketingpilgrim.com Six Apart Launches Blog Ad Network, Blog Services clipped from www.marketingpilgrim.com Blog software company Six Apart acquired creative agency Apperceptive, a company that built blogs for sites such as The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, BoingBoing, and iVillage. Now they’re launching an advertising network for blogs. They are also venturing into design, programming, and blog marketing services. As an ad network, Six Apart is competing with Federated Media Publishing, Glam, Blogads, and others. Here’s how it will work - they will get advertisers, bloggers put the ads up, and the two share revenue (not sure what the payouts are like, but I believe it’s typical to get 20-30%). Six Apart is working with Adify to provide back end support so bloggers can see their payouts and manage their account. they are targeting their services to the little guy The ad network is currently in invitation-only beta and it’s just for bloggers who use Six Apart’s Vox, TypePad, or LiveJournal.

Fret no more about Google

The decrease in paid clicks on Google's online advertising network has been one of the worrying news of the first quarter for modern day advertisers. The Economist has done a good little piece of analysis showing why the decrease may only be the result of Google's own aspiration for more relevance and better performance of ads. And I think it shows pretty well why Google is here to stay and very far from being already "over the hill" as some put it. It is perhaps the most telling testimony of the company's ambition to build a sustainable position in the elusive field of online advertising and beyond that narrow perspective an indication of the stringent demands the company has on itself.

So emails may be flying around showing how great a working environment Google is, but nobody should infer it's a corporate version of Club Med. And judging from their ambitious cooperation with SalesForce , these guys are going for a cut of every significant business transaction they facilitate. That is some business quest!

clipped from www.economist.com The case of the missing clicks What does it mean when people click on Google's ads less often? The scare started when comScore, a research firm, reported in late February that Google's “paid clicks” had decreased by 7% during January, and were flat compared with the same month a year earlier. the ratio of paid clicks to searches dropped even faster than the number of paid clicks: it was down by 16% in the month of January. eMarketer, another research firm, projects that online advertising in America will grow by 23% this year, economic troubles notwithstanding, because the measurability of the medium is too compelling for marketers to ignore. the likeliest explanation is instead that Google itself is to blame—by, paradoxically, increasing the quality of its ads this is what drove Google's revenue last year: it grew by 56% on the back of a 21% increase in revenue per paid click.

Nope, the world ain't flat Mr Friedman

Some good material presented at Media'08 in Australia. Should it come as a surprise that the concept of a flat world is being challenged from "down under"? This presentation is quite interesting in that it challenges a few stereotypes and generally accepted truths and thus puts in perspective a number of success stories that capture so much of our attention these days. No I am not rambling about Facebook and its ridiculous valuation... at least not too much. Enjoy this good stuff!

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Trends in online advertising and strong growth in Belgium

In an industry that has been growing at a yearly rate greater than 20% for the best part of the past decade (source: PricewaterhouseCoopers), with the 2006 growth standing at 35% according to Pew Institute, Belgium's online advertising spend has grown by 50% to 273 million euros in 2007 according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Of course, that is tiny as a share of the global online advertising revenues which reached 17 billion dollars (about 12 billion euros) in 2006 according to Pew Institute.

Here are two interesting reports published in 2007:

• by PwC and IAB: Internet Advertising Revenue
• by WebTrends: Engagement Marketing
• by IBM: The End Of Advertising As We Know It

The American spirit of rising to the challenges ahead

Being in NYC these days, I am spending quite some time observing the city and its people as well as watching those huge screens displaying TV programs on the avenues of the city that never sleeps. These are uncertain times for the US economy and one of the things I was looking for was how people would react to that. First of all, I see none of the gloom and doom even though people acknowledge the ride ahead may be quite bumpy for a while. Secondly, I am impressed with this very American way of seeing opportunity and rising to the challenge in troubled times. To illustrate this, I see quite a few people who are turning the current pressure some people feel into a business opportunity selling books and workshops on how to make real estate decisions or how to reduce debt. Some authors do that positioning themselves as experts while others occupy the "consumer activism" space defending customers from the nasty tactics of credit card companies and other providers of financial services. And this is quite intense.

So there's a big difference between US and Europe: the Americans are able to see opportunity in almost any trouble, while Europeans see trouble in many opportunities. For example, the way we handled the expansion of the EU to Eastern Europe is perhaps iconic of this: the French started complaining about Polish plumbers "invading" their market and no public figure, no political leader trumpeted the only message that was constructive back then (and perhaps now): "go East young man!"

Direct from AlwaysOn OnMedia NYC 2008

Just got to the OnMedia conference and glad to be here for a new edition meeting friendly faces from previous events. Same posh location and already a couple of very striking facts for the marketing & communication industry or at least stuff I found quite interesting and worth commenting:

• found a flyer of IBM Global Services giving their analysis of the momentous changes this industry is undergoing. My take: if IBM GS is around looking for business the changes could be even greater than we think in the field of media & marketing;
• fact from a KPMG survey of 300 CEOs,executives, VCs and insiders of the industry: 64% of them feel between 26% and 50% of media time and spending is to shift to new media;
• fact from the same survey: 91% feel advertisers have not figured out how social media fits into marketing mix;
• search engine marketing voted most effective form of online advertising by 71% of those surveyed;
• large majority see mobile marketing effort increasing within the next couple of years.

Interesting trends don't you think? Of course as a friend of mine keeps saying surveys can be twisted to convey the desired message, so they have to be taken with a pinch of salt, but nevertheless the field is ripe for some momentous changes, all of which may not necessarily be in favor of Google. For example I doubt AdWords will be successful in its current form in the long run... but that's for another post :-)

A contrarian's view

If we are serious about dealing with durable (human) development and the type of world we will leave to future generations (not only in the economically developed world), it is worth listening to well documented views from contrarians like Bjorn Lomborg, whose book Cool It I strongly recommend. Worth considering on this Blog Action Day I think. His presentation at TED Talks can be viewed at the end of this post.

What I like about what he develops is that:

1. he makes the case for immediate action on stuff that matters today and has consequences tomorrow, possibly preparing people and nations to better deal with threats that we cannot possibly fathom
2. his approach involves considering the issues of the human condition in an integral manner, not looking at matters in isolation
3. he considers the limited nature of current resources and outlines a path for a rational use of those resources to achieve the goal of a wealthier and more balanced world
4. taking an integral approach forces us to confront the contradictions of our current ways with barely conceivable imbalances between endeavours of different types and merits
5. considering costs and benefits and focusing on currently achievable steps while keeping an end goal in mind is precisely what will break the loosing game of the prisonner's dilema as outlined in a recent article of The Economist

Trends in future Foreign Direct Investment

The trends in FDI over 2007-2011 are quite intriguing as among the top 10  recipient areas 8 are developed OECD countries, while China, Russia and Brazil together are expected to capture 12.9% of world total FDI, i.e. less than the US alone.

clipped from www.economist.com At a glance Foreign direct investment Flowing Sep 5th 2007 From Economist.com FOREIGN direct investment will increase markedly from 2007 to 2011, according to a report released on September 5th by the Economist Intelligence Unit. In 2007, global inflows are set to reach $1.5 trillion, above the record total of $1.4 trillion in 2000. Asia looks rosy to investors, despite political risks. China is the most attractive market, with forecast yearly inflows of $86.8 billion over the five-year period, the third-biggest global recipient. Inflows into India will grow, but to just $20.4 billion, thanks in part to inflexible labour laws and poor infrastructure. And Asia's biggest economy, Japan, punches far below its economic weight, with inflows of $13.3 billion a year. Cultural factors are a big hurdle. Many companies resist foreign takeovers for fear of harsh restructuring, and foreign investors say they struggle to find managerial talent. Jupiter Images