Google to buy DoubleClick for $3.1 billion | News.blog | CNET News.com

Google says it has agreed to buy online advertising company DoubleClick for $3.1 billion in cash. The acquisition will give Google the ability to sell online ads that appear on Web sites other than those in its network. The deal will mean that Web site publishers will get access to new advertisers, and agencies and advertisers will be able to manage search and display ads in one centralized spot, Google says.



... So, that 1.6 billion for YouTube was just chump change!!!

MEREDITH IS LAUNCHING BETTER.TV, the company's first broadband video network, gleaning content from its array of home-making magazines. Better.tv will also offer original content and programming from the company's television stations, book division and other areas. With some 20 video channels--spanning food, family, home, style, remodeling, entertainment, relationships, fitness and health topics--Better.tv can mine material from its magazine stable.

Those publications include Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies' Home Journal, More, Family Circle, Parents and Fitness.

Like other media companies, Meredith wants to be a "360-degree" company for its advertisers, encompassing all relevant media extensions, including a broadband Internet channel. Meredith Publishing Group President Jack Griffin says the company currently reaches 75 million women through its media properties and has a "unique understanding of how to deliver service-based information to them..."

Better.tv will also film on location. One of its first efforts is a behind-the-scenes look at the Family Circle Cup women's tennis tournament.

From Mediapost

Marketers create their own shows - USATODAY.com

Problem: TV watchers don't want their shows interrupted by ads. Solution: Make the show the ad.

That's one approach being used by marketers as they try to keep consumers' attention.

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Women Outnumber Men Online

"For girls who have grown up with technology, there is no significant gender gap in internet usage, and the rise of activities that are particularly appealing to young females, such as social networking, will result in even greater usage," said eMarketer analyst Debra Williamson.

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Comverse Brings Second Life to Mobile Phones · MarketingVOX

The application requires a PC or other server to act as an intermediary but will allow people to log in to Second Life and control their avatar from their cellphone.



More at Comverse.com

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Research Firm Wins Second Life Business Model Contest · MarketingVOX

A market research firm has won a contest looking for the most realistic and profitable business model for execution within the virtual world of Second Live, reports CNET. The firm, Market Truths, was determined to have the most potential for profit of the business plans submitted to the contest, which was sponsored by public relations firm Edelman and Second Life-services provider Electric Sheep.

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Mini Web Sites Target Users of Mobile Phones - WSJ.com

As technology allows consumers to access the Internet with their cellphones, many big companies have launched mobile versions of their Web sites, including big media brands like MTV and ESPN and news sites like USA Today and The Weather Channel.

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Arbitron Finds More People View TV Out-of-Home - 4/4/2007 5:09:00 PM - Multichannel News

More than one-third of TV viewers spend some part of their week watching TV at a location other than their own home, most typically in another person’s home, according to an Arbitron study released Wednesday.



Of the Arbitron out-of-home survey respondents, 25% watched TV at someone else’s home; 11% watched at a restaurant or bar; 7% at work; 5% at a hotel/motel or vacation home; and 12% at any other location away from home.



Nearly equal percentages watched a sporting event, 20%, as a local station’s newscast (19%) and an episode of a TV series (18%) away-from-home.

Arbitron also found that women are almost as likely as men to watch TV in some place other than their homes.

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Alpha Moms leap to top of trendsetters - USATODAY.com

An Alpha Mom typically has money to spend, and — key for marketers — she is, as the label implies, a leader of the pack who influences how other moms spend.




She's also wired — online 87 minutes a day, estimates ComScore Networks, an Internet market research specialist — and she spends a hefty 7% more than the typical Internet user. The impact of her purchases or what she touts can spread on the Internet far beyond her e-mail list or blog.

If your product or service passes the Alpha Mom test, it's gold. That's why the nation's biggest marketers, from Procter & Gamble to General Motors to Nintendo, are focusing on this remix of the modern mom.

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MediaPost Publications - Clear Channel Expands Digital Billboard Network - 04/02/2007

CLEAR CHANNEL OUTDOOR IS EXTENDING its digital billboard network to four new markets, the company announced today, bringing high-tech billboards to Akron and Columbus, Ohio; Memphis, Tennessee; and Wichita, Kansas. All four cities are located on or near major interstate highways, which are crucial for reaching a large commuter audience. The additions bring Clear Channel's network of digital billboard markets to 10.

*The billboard shown above is NOT part of the digital billboard network. Just testing.

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MediaPost Publications - Advertisers: Hispanics Love Media, Like TV/Net Bundled - 03/29/2007

HISPANICS ARE AVID CONSUMERS OF all media--more so, in fact, than the general U.S. population. And they expect TV and Internet content to be delivered in tandem, according to a new joint study titled "Connected Culture" from the Yahoo-Telemundo partnership, with Experian Simmons Research. The data--gathered in an online and phone survey of more than 2,600 Hispanics ages 18-55 who regularly use Spanish at home--should stoke advertisers' already burning interest in the Hispanic market, the nation's fastest-growing ethnically and linguistically defined demographic group.





According to the study, the average Hispanic consumer spends more than half of each day somehow engaged with television, the Net or communications devices, like mobile phones--often simultaneously. Respondents record an average 13.5 hours spent with media out of a total 51-hour multitasking day. Fifty percent of U.S. Hispanics also use the Internet while watching TV--in what Jose Rivera-Font, general manager, Yahoo North Latin America, referred to as "media meshing" behavior.

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New Bar Codes Can Talk With Your Cellphone - New York Times

It sounds like something straight out of a futuristic film: House hunters, driving past a for-sale sign, stop and point their cellphone at the sign. With a click, their cellphone screen displays the asking price, the number of bedrooms and baths and lots of other details about the house.

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FastCompany.com - Perceptive Pixel Showcase

You may ask yourself, "What's this got to do with advertising?" Well ... let's say you've got a really big flat-screen TV in your house. Who said you have to navigate the thing with an infrared remote?! Isn't that sort of so 20th century?!?

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Mediaweek - Ajax to End Page View Metrics

Ajax Puts Page-View Math, Web Ad Sales in Peril

Emerging Internet publishing technology Ajax, which promises to make Web sites more dynamic, is threatening to make one of the industry’s core metrics—the page view—irrelevant. And as the Web gets more interactive, the way online advertising—estimated to hit $20 billion this year—is measured and sold is set to undergo a dramatic change.

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Twingly Screensaver Beta
Burned by the Windows-only requirement again, darn! Click through to this page and see a YouTube video that demo's what Twingly does though. It's fantastic. I've seen a similar visualization at Google's office wherein they show vertical bars ascending from points on a spinning globe to quantify search activity. Twingly does it for blogging activity. Very cool.

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Brand Monitoring - Yet Another New Marketing Practice
Online Reputation Management Basics | WebProNews: "Companies that want to protect their brand visibility on the web would do well to make optimizing their brand content a best practice. Optimizing all digital communications including: PR, marketing, SEO, HR, investor relations and related electronic content that is publicly available on the web as well as social media: text, images, audio, video will produce more branded content in the SERPs. Doing so doesn’t necessarily put the brand in control, but it’s a much better situation than scrambling after the fact."

My top list of Brand Monitoring service providers -

• MotiveQuest
• Nielsen BuzzMetrics
• Cymfony (TNS)
  
• New Media Strategies

Advertising Age - Bob Garfield's Chaos Scenario 2.0

Advertising Age - Bob Garfield's Chaos Scenario 2.0: "Maybe you'd better lean forward. Presently you will be given five reasons to consider something barely imaginable: a post-apocalyptic media world substantially devoid of brand advertising as we have long known it."

This is a tough read. It's long for Garfield. And it rings more than one bell - the final one for advertising as we know it. I have to date downplayed pronouncements about the iminent collapse of the marketing communications agency vertical. This article is the first to give me pause.

Second Life Loses Luster

Second Life Loses Luster: "'The most successful business people in Second Life have taken a look at the commercial landscape and determined where needs exist,' said Catherine Smith, Linden Labs' director of marketing. 'If you are not authentic and do not offer anything to the community, you are likely to be ignored.'"

"ATT said it was working with Atlanta-based mobile banking firm Firethorn, online commerce website CheckFree and a set of US banks to fulfill the vision.While people in parts of Europe and Asian already have the option of using mobile telephones to make store purchases or tend to banking, the innovation is in developmental stages in the United States.

"This is revolutionary," industry analyst Jeff Kagan told AFP.

"This is the first wave for cell phone banking here in the United States. We've been watching for years overseas. It is a proven system. People love it.""

From MarketingVOX.com
"Video ads within online TV programming is great for brand awareness but repetition is watering that awareness down, according to a new study from MillwardBrown, reports ClickZ."

One line of thought is to jump early because every new wave comes fast and fades faster. Smirnoff's "Tea Partay" viral video killed in August 2006. Would it have a chance today? Not with about 150,000 YouTube uploads a day. It's just part of the clutter.

Now we know for certain that hundreds of millions of US Internet users are watching video online. Many are downloading favorite shows. And already ad effectiveness is eroding. That's too bad. It hints at one important point, though. Effective interactive campaigns provide engagement and "lean forward" experiences. Just watching video - whether it's online or on TV - is neither.