January 2005 Archives
January 27, 2005
One of Mark Cuban's reasons to blog was to respond to the media. He was tired of being misquoted. He wanted to tell his side of the story. I have to do the same thing today.
I am extremely greatful for the press. They have been kind to Pheedo but this one got me. I am a regular reader of MarketingVOX and will continue. Actually, I met our CTO, Adam Kalsey, through them. Adam was managing their RSS discussion group. Today, they picked up on a story ClickZ wrote about our partnership with iUpload.The headline reads, "New RSS, Blog Ad Network to Take 50 Percent of Revenues". They end the story with, "The network demands 50 percent of revenues as compensation." Well, not exactly true.
Just a few comments on their summary of the story.
1. We are NOT taking 50% of the revenue. We take care of our publishers. They put a lot of work into what they do. iUpload and Pheedo split 50% of our share. So for example, if the structure said publishers receive 90% of the gross ad revenue, iUpload/Pheedo each recieve 5%.
2. We don't demand anything. The word demand is pretty harsh. First if you know me, you would laugh at that. I am not demanding. Aggressive yes, demanding no. Secondly, we have a lot of respect for our publishers and treat them as friends. Demanding is not in the Pheedo vocabulary.
If I were writing the summary I would not have used the word 'demand.' In my opinion, it paints an incorrect picture. The partnership is significant because we are making it easy for independent publishers to large media outlets create a revenue stream from their hard work. We are not demanding 50% of anything.
And finally, thanks Mark for setting the example.
Posted by Bill Flitter on January 27, 2005 8:48 PM
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January 25, 2005
Join Steve Gillmor Feb 1 from 6:30pm - 9:00pm at the University of Phoenix in Concord, CA as he discusses AttentionXML. The event is brought to you by ebig.org's Blogging & RSS Special Interest Group. More information on event location
Blogs are a great for information sharing and community building, but it doesn't take too long to get overwhelmed. Even if you've set up your feeds in an rss reader to aggregate the content, it's easy to get overwhelmed by too much content.
Steve Gillmor, journalist with ZDNET, will join us to talk about AttentionXML, a concept he's been instrumental in forming. AttentionXML is a new technology initiative that will present a richer view than that available through just a static list of rss feeds. This new standard, still under discussion and development, will help you manage your blogroll, turning it from a list into an interactive, filtered stream of content. AttentionXML injects intelligence back into the system, as it will use data gathered on what you are reading when to help improve the community understanding of what great content is. It will let you "vote" with your attention, to make the content that is collectively most valued most accesible. Why not harness the power of your social network and the larger community of readers so you stay in synch with the blogosphere.
Posted by Bill Flitter on January 25, 2005 10:20 AM
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January 24, 2005
Are you a San Francisco Bay Area blogger covering the SuperBowl ads? The San Francisco chapter of the American Marketing Association is organizing a panel Feb 17 to discuss the SuperBowl ads. They are looking for a Bay Area blogger to sit on the panel. If you are a Bay Area blogger, doing extensive coverage of the SuperBowl Ads and would like to sit on a panel, drop me an email (bill AT Pheedo.com). The event description follows:
2/17/05 - $2.4 Million for One Ad? Yes, It's Super Bowl Time!
Got $2.4 million to spare? We'll if you do, then you can buy a 30 second television ad during the Super Bowl XXXIX. With ad costs like these, companies haven't shied away from paying for high cost ads. Fox has 58 Super Bowl ad spots and its ad sales team is doing more than fine. The Super Bowl draws around 140 million viewers for all or part of the game, but is the cost worth it? Do companies reach their intended audience? What about ROI? Are companies getting more sophisticated in tracking their ads and ad dollars or do companies view a $2.4 million Super Bowl ad as a branding exercise?
Posted by Bill Flitter on January 24, 2005 6:52 PM
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As the growth in RSS feeds continues and takes impressions from the website, there will be great pressure on publishers to monetize their RSS content - if the content is to remain free. One obvious means to create revenue is advertising. To keep the integrity of the medium intact and before we get too far down the road, it is important that RSS Advertising Standards are established early.
To initiate the effort for RSS Advertising Standards, Pheedo has been working closely with Feedburner and Syndicate IQ.
Some of the items that we've been discussing include:
1. Defining RSS metrics (clicks, impressions, views)
2. RSS ad sizes
3. IAB participation
We will be soliciting comments from publishers, advertisers and consumers as well as expanding the committee to include other interested parties. At the end of this, our goal is to make suggestions to the IAB. We welcome the IAB's support as well as yours. What we are NOT doing is forming a long-term standards group. This is just a steering committee that will make recommendations, period. Once the IAB sees a need to include RSS Advertising in their list of standards, we will gladly let them do what they do best. We are not by any means trying to own the process, but only to move it along in the right direction.
Once these standards are in place, buying and measuring ads in content feeds will be easier for advertisers and agenices. Additionally, it will make it easier on publishers trying to sell their RSS ad inventory. And most importantly, we want consumers to continue to enjoy the experience.
I'll be posting regular updates on the progress. Your comments are welcome.
Posted by Bill Flitter on January 24, 2005 5:10 PM
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Today we announced a partnership with iUpload. As I stated in the press release, we are impressed with the direction they are headed. They come from the content management world and have relied on that expertise to build their weblog platform. Additionally, I had the opportunity to see the product they are announcing at DEMO and was quite impressed. Look for more good things to come from the team at iUpload. We are excited to be working so closely with them.
Posted by Bill Flitter on January 24, 2005 3:29 PM
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January 21, 2005
Blogging live from the AMA - more to come.
Posted by Bill Flitter on January 21, 2005 7:47 AM
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January 20, 2005
According to Tom Foremski of Siliconvalleywatcher, Google is about to unveil a completely revamped Adwords/Adsense program. The reason for the new program is because of threats from Kanoodle. According to Foremski, "That's why the revamped Adwords/Adsense will provide a suite of tools that provide greater control, management and monitoring data to advertisers, to better target their sales messages."
Posted by Bill Flitter on January 20, 2005 7:00 PM
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January 18, 2005
Rok Hrastnik from MarketingStudies has authored the most comprehensive electronic book I've seen to date on everything you need to know about RSS. I had the privilege to review one of the first copies. I was blown away by how in depth he covers RSS. It's a steal for only $39.95. It speaks to small and large business marketers and publishers. I encourage you to get a copy before I encourage him to raise the price. He is giving it away. I sound like an infomercial, don't I?
Disclaimor: I did contribute to the book, but I have no financial gain from the sales.
Two other books are coming out on the subject: RSS for Dummies and Buzz Marketing with Blogs for Dummies.
Posted by Bill Flitter on January 18, 2005 1:14 AM
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I think we are witnessing the beginnings of a trend. Traditional websites are taking on the characteristics of blogs. Blogs are the new website (RSS is the new email - in the generic sense of delivery content I've opted in to receive).
Blogs are what websites should have been on day one. They live up to the idea we were trying to achieve when the Internet went commercial - interactive, community, easy to create. Blogs are easy-to-use tools that allow anyone to become a publisher. They inspire conversation. All this chatter is spawning new ideas, creating new friends and generating revenue.
But, what makes a blog a blog? If Fortune, added comment fields and trackbacks to their homepage content, would they have a blog? The content is still reviewed by an editor but created with TypePad - an easy to use content management system, do we have a blog then? Or take the opinion column from your local newspaper and allow hundreds of people to participate, have we created a blog?
c|net is a good example of one publisher whose website is morphing into a blog. I think we will see blog-like tools added to websites as publishers realize the benefits of building community, inspiring conversation and growing their reach and marketability with every story they write (trackbacks and search engine friendly features of blogs). c|net has added comment capabilities to each article, they include author profiles, and they even added trackbacks.
Besides the obvious format differences, compare this page on c|net to this page on Weblogs, Inc. What is the difference? Has c|net crossed over into the blogosphere? Do the mechanics make it a blog or is there a spirit that must exist to be considered a blog?
Posted by Bill Flitter on January 18, 2005 12:30 AM
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January 17, 2005
"From political candidates to Cuban cigars, marketers are discovering there's nothing that can't be sold by paying for blog content, writes Sabrina Dent. Is the independent reputation of blogging about to be tainted?"
The article talks about Marqui and the paying of bloggers to pimp their services. Janet Johnson, Marqui's VP of Communications, is questioned about the success of the program. Additionally, it mentions how Tom Daschle is coming under heat for his role in paying someone to spread the good word about him during is running for election in South Dakota.
"It wasn't discovered until a month after the election, which Daschle lost by a narrow 2% margin, that Lauck was on the payroll of the Thune campaign to the tune of $27,000. Van Beek was also on the payroll, taking home $8,000 from the campaign coffers. The pair were buried in a maelstrom of controversy and outcry. Accusations of deception flew around the web amid indictments that the sites were nothing but paid advertisements."
I am really on the fence on this one. Not going to get join the debate. I think some form of Marqui's program will exist moving forward. It blends naturally into the spirit of blogging. In the article, I comment, "Personal referrals are powerful and adverblogging is no different if done correctly."
As always, honesty is the best policy if you are considering adverblogging.
Posted by Bill Flitter on January 17, 2005 10:46 PM
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January 4, 2005
Much talk this week about PR firms and news organizations monitoring blogs. Today, MWW the 11th largest US public relations firm, announces the launch of Blog 360 Marketing Practice.
"MWW is expert at identifying and leveraging strategic marketing tools that generate significant ROI for clients. As media channels continue to become more segmented, blogs represent a new and emerging opportunity for companies to pinpoint communications to key constituents," said Michael W. Kempner, president and CEO of MWW Group. "Blog 360 is a component of MWW's Marketing-360, an approach which is grounded in the belief that all communications activities must reach target audiences at every point of contact in order to impact a brand."
I am sure we will see more of this. Blogs are a great place to engage your customers and potential customers. PR practitioners need to move beyond the release and track the conversations happening online. Blogs are actually making their jobs easier. By monitoring buzz wth a subscription to Pubsub or a Feedster search, practitioners can easily track and measure the impact they are having on the conversations.
Posted by Bill Flitter on January 4, 2005 8:54 AM
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