Online Video: The Work is Just Beginning
If you believe the forecasters, 2010 will be the year of the long-awaited inflection point when TV budgets begin to shift to online video in a meaningful way. In 2009, advertisers are projected to spend $699 million on online video ads, an increase of 32% from last year, “outpacing growth rates for most other emerging media platforms,” according to a forecast from Brian Wieser, Global Director of Forecasting for Magna. Jack Myers says that online video advertising will increase by 115% to $968 million in 2009 and is forecasting it to be the fastest growing segment of the media industry through 2012, when it is expected to hit nearly $5 billion.
Read More: MediaPost
In A Year When Online Ads Slumped, Video Egg Doubled Revenues
Last year was the first time the online advertising industry saw a slump in revenues (JP Morgan is estimating a 5.2 percent decline, although things looked like they started to stabilize in the third quarter). But for online advertising network VideoEgg, 2009 was a great year. According to CEO Matt Sanchez, the company “more than doubled” revenues to $25 million last year and reached profitability seven months ago.
Read More: Washington Post
Social Science Meets Computer Science at Yahoo!
Shortly after Carol Bartz took over as chief executive of Yahoo Inc. early last year, she met with Prabhakar Raghavan for an overview of the Sunnyvale Web giant’s research division. As the head of Yahoo Labs ran through the catalog of computer scientists on staff, Bartz turned to him and asked: “Where are your psychologists?” Raghavan was stunned the newly installed CEO had so quickly gotten to a question he’d been asking for years. His answer was they didn’t have enough. That’s changing. In the last year, Yahoo Labs has bolstered its ranks of social scientists, adding highly credentialed cognitive psychologists, economists and ethnographers from top universities around the world. At approximately 25 people, it’s still the smallest group within the research division, but one of the fastest growing.
Read More: SF Gate
Ad Network? Video Ad Network? Why Not Both?
Ever wonder why a separate class of so-called video ad networks emerged over the last decade? Or, why more display ad networks don’t serve pre-roll video ads? The reason is simple: a lack of standards for video ad serving required specialized technology to translate between a network’s ad server and the growing hodgepodge of different publisher video player implementations. This was not an insignificant undertaking, so networks choosing to focus limited technical and operational resources on it became, de facto, video ad networks. But all that’s about to change, due to the IAB’s ground-breaking standard for online pre-roll video advertising (or “VAST”, if you like acronyms).
Read More: AdAge
Ad Servers Rigged To Be DSP’s
Previously I wrote about adservers touching on Full Service options and open source options on the publisher side. One trend I would like to highlight is manipulating Adserver arrangements to put together a Demand Side Optimization Platform (DSP). This seems to be a trend with smaller networks setting up “private networks”.
Read More: Mobtown Labs
On a Scale From 1 to 10, How Weird Are You?
This interview with Tony Hsieh, the chief executive of Zappos.com, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.
Q. What are some of the most important leadership lessons you’ve learned?
A. After college, a roommate and I started a company called LinkExchange in 1996, and it grew to about 100 or so people, and then we ended up selling the company to Microsoft in 1998. From the outside, it looked like it was a great acquisition, $265 million, but most people don’t know the real reason why we ended up selling the company.
Read More: NY Times
Building Real-Time Bidding
In digital media, a new solution that promises a better mousetrap will typically draw two reactions from the industry. The ones who stand to benefit try to hype the trend, hoping to ride the wave. The old guards spread fear, uncertainty and doubt because the solution may eat at their market share. Such is the case with real-time bidding, which became a very hot topic among online display advertising buyers and sellers in 2009, and is likely to dominate industry discussions in 2010. Just 1 percent of all online display ads were bought on an RTB basis in 2009. That number will rise dramatically to 3 to 5 percent this year. Most of the conversation on the topic has centered on the benefits for advertisers and demand-side platforms. These entities are able to place a value on each unique ad impression, individually and in real time, using a judgment that takes into account proprietary data and technology. The result is better performing campaigns and greater advertiser ROI on those campaigns.
Read More: MediaWeek
Vertical Ad Networks Go Local
Ad networks are not only grouping themselves into industry vertical specialties – there are also signs that they are beginning to segment themselves based on location. That is one conclusion to be drawn from the recent launch of SLOAN, the Sacramento Local Online Ad Network. The Sacramento Press launched SLOAN last month with Adify, a vertical ad network platform. SLOAN is forging agreements with several local publishers. To date it includes The Sacramento Press, The Rancho Cordova Post, Gold River Online, Elk Grove Online, SacMix, The Sac Rag, Sacramento365.com, Myfolsom.com and The Tomato Pages Network.
Read More: MarketingVOX
