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April 30, 2004

Sayonara

It's my last day as guest blogger here at The Industry Standard. ([Sniff] I promised myself I wouldn't cry...)

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks to Matt McAlister and everybody else here for letting me guest blog this week. It's been a trip. Hopefully, y'all have enjoyed it as much as I have. When I pitched Matt on being a guest blogger, I let him know how glad I was that TheStandard.com has been resurrected, as it used to be a several-times-daily stop on the web for me and I was happy to see it well on its way to achieving its former prominence.

Some parting words...


  1. Don't forget to read your Fark every day
  2. Be sure to take regular breaks from staring at your computer monitor so that your eyes don't melt. Take a walk outside for a bit. Try geocaching if you haven't already.
  3. Enjoy the resurgence of the Internet biz. (Just don't bet little Billy's college fund on a dot com IPO like last time.)

Take care.

Posted by tomhespos at 12:10 PM | TrackBack

As Pop-Ups Lay Dying, IAB Releases Pop-Up Guidelines

As the popularity of pop-up blockers accelerates and the number of pop-ups actually reaching consumers dives, the Interactive Advertising Bureau yesterday released guidelines for pop-up advertising. After the IAB processes feedback from a two-month comment period, the guidelines will become final.

Some highlights:


Sadly, the IAB guidelines are likely to be adopted only by member companies, which comprise the major consumer and B2B ad-supported websites. So they aren't likely to cut down on the many-headed hydra of pop-ups that assault your computer when you visit your favorite pr0n site. (That's another joke, folks...)

Posted by tomhespos at 11:53 AM | TrackBack

Spyware/Adware Controversy Heats Up

FTC Commissioner Mozelle Thompson was blasted yesterday during an congressional appearance for suggesting that "Self-regulation combined with enforcement of existing laws might be the best way to go" in the U.S. government's approach to the debate over ad-supported software.

While Thompson's view might be unpopular with folks who have had their computers illegally infected by malicious code, I think it makes sense to avoid lumping in permission-based adware with spyware. Advertising can be a component of a legitimate revenue model for software developers, and it would be a shame to introduce overbroad laws that would cause developers to shun it.

While definitions tend to vary, thankfully many news stories I've seen on this topic lately are starting to distinguish between permission-based adware and malicious, force-installed spyware. That's an important distinction, and if we don't start making it, we run the risk of seeing new bills introduced that might make it difficult for legit adware companies to do business.

Posted by tomhespos at 11:31 AM | TrackBack

TV Network Execs Cocky, Clueless

AdRants' Steve Hall openly ridicules network television executives in this terrific post, which calls attention to the fact that television advertising has continued to charge exorbitant increases year after year, even in the face of steadily-declining ratings. He quotes Sumner Redstone as saying, "The only way you reach all American people is through network television." Meanwhile, if you're a media buyer like I am, you know that fragmentation of media consumption habits over the past several years has made it increasingly difficult to extend reach to the most desirable consumer audiences. The medium best able to supplement the use of TV to extend reach in ad campaigns? The Internet.

Posted by tomhespos at 11:05 AM | TrackBack

Finally!

Finally, after all the speculation and anticipation, Google is indeed going public. By now, you've probably read some criticisms of its unconventional methods - Dutch auction, two classes of stock, etc.

One thing I dig about this whole deal is the letter co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page wrote to potential investors in the S-1. It stresses the need for long-term investment and risk-taking: "We will not shy away from high-risk, high-reward projects because of short term earnings pressure." That's incredible refreshing in this era of 'make quarterly numbers at any cost' and it sets the appropriate expectation for investors. Google will be less susceptible to short-term earnings pressure from major institutional investors due to the Dutch auction method and the two classes of stock, which will allow management to maintain control pretty much no matter what. This isn't the IPO that will allow 'get in, get out' investors to double the size of little Billy's college fund overnight. It's the IPO that will allow Google to keep doing what it's doing - innovating.

Posted by tomhespos at 10:52 AM | TrackBack

April 29, 2004

ACLU Challenges FBI on Secret Information-Gathering

The ACLU has filed a lawsuit challenging the FBI's power to secretly gather information from ISPs about their customers. Currently, the FBI can issue National Security Letters to ISPs, telecoms, banks and other businesses to get them to cough up information on their customers. The NSLs do not have to be approved by a judge and their recipients are barred from disclosing that customer records were turned over.

Language in the lawsuit claims, “As a result of the Patriot Act, the FBI may now use NSLs to obtain sensitive information about innocent individuals who have no connection to espionage or terrorism."

In other words, Agent Scully knows about that V1@gra purchase you made last month. ;-)

Posted by tomhespos at 11:48 AM | TrackBack

"Snam" Becoming a Massive Chafe

What do we do about all of these e-mails we get that ask us to join and participate in social networks on the web? Apparently, someone's coined a word for this unsolicited mail - "snam."

Personally, I think that there are so many networking sites out there that people are likely to start blocking the rapidly-increasing number of "join my network" e-mails, if they haven't started doing so already. It only gets worse when you join. A few weeks back, a friend of mine who was directly linked to me in LinkedIn asked me to forward a meeting request from someone who was linked to him. The request's eventual destination? A person who wasn't even linked to me directly but was two degrees of separation from me. That's a tenuous connection at best, and I wonder how the guy reacted when he eventually received his meeting request. Betcha he turned it down because he had a lunch with Kevin Bacon that day.

Forget the snam. Sometimes there's no substitute for a phone call.

Posted by tomhespos at 11:19 AM | TrackBack

Einstein Pushes "Return on Intimacy"

This article is over a month old, but it's definitely worth a read. In it, Jeff Einstein, a founder of of the first interactive ad agency (Einstein and Sandom), bashes the spreadsheet culture in online advertising that mandates continual focus on, and improvement of, Return on Investment.

According to Einstein, banging the ROI drum continuously keeps the online marketing industry trapped in its own inertia - which is indicative of an addiction. If you work at an interactive agency, you know that continual focus on ROI leads clients to expect significant ROI performance gains from quarter to quarter every quarter. But, as Einstein points out, "The digitally-induced ROI mantra of 'faster, smarter, better' has already succumbed in many minds and hearts to the lurking and growing suspicion that faster, smarter, better will simply never be fast, smart, or good enough, no matter how hard we try, how fast we run, or how much intellectual muscle we flex."

Einstein's solution? Move our focus from ROI to the pursuit of intimacy, which will help us rediscover the true power of interactive media. I'd like to add that this would be no easy task, as most brand managers and VPs of Marketing on the client side currently are evaluated on their ability to do more with less over time. If our clients are evaluated on ROI, it becomes difficult to pitch them online advertising programs that don't focus on it.

Posted by tomhespos at 11:01 AM | TrackBack

T-Shirt Maker "Gagged by Google"

T-shirt maker Y-Que has apparently received an e-mail from Google asking it to remove certain politically-themed products from its website if it wishes to continue advertising with AdWords. According to the e-mail "Google AdWords has a policy of not permitting advertisements for language and site content that advocates against an individual, group, or organization."

I doubt Google can be accused of political bias with a straight face in this particular instance, as the offending items cited include an anti-Kerry message alongside anti-Bush and anti-Cheney ones. However, this case does raise some interesting issues. Does this mean I couldn't advertise my blog on AdWords if I wanted to? What about politically-themed sites that advocate protests? I know it's a slippery-slope argument, but I think this Google policy could bring them dangerously close to stifling political speech.

Posted by tomhespos at 10:40 AM | TrackBack

April 28, 2004

Outsourcing Not All It's Cracked Up to Be

NYTimes: Companies Finding Some Computer Jobs Best Done in U.S. (registration required)

Finally, U.S. tech firms are beginning to realize that not every programming job can be outsourced to other countries where wages are lower. In some outsourcing cases, firms are finding that while wages might be lower, so is productivity. I guess you get what you pay for.

Posted by tomhespos at 12:27 PM | TrackBack

Falk Debuts Pop-Up Blocker Workaround

Ad management company Falk eSolutions will detect site visitors with pop-up blockers installed and convert any pop-up ads into alternative formats. The popularity of pop-up blockers is driving the demand for such technology, as online site publishers lose the opportunity to deliver pop-up advertising to users that block them. Remind you of the nuclear arms race?

Posted by tomhespos at 12:20 PM | TrackBack

Got $200 Million?

If so, consider buying Lycos. Terra Lycos is looking to dump the web portal. If you ask me, this isn't the smartest move, considering that online advertising is just starting to experience a renaissance of sorts. Still, we could see it coming. Lycos canned its sales force several months back, awarding ad sales duties to network/rep firm 24/7 Real Media, in a move that indicated Terra might want to wind things down at Lycos.

Personally, I think this is a great opportunity for a group of investors to re-launch Lycos and return it to glory. Heck, even if someone bought it and loaded it up with Google AdSense ads, it would probably throw off enough moolah to make it worthwhile.

Posted by tomhespos at 11:55 AM | TrackBack

Behavioral Marketing Mania

Online media buyers everywhere are learning that targeting ads based on surfing behavior yields higher click-through and conversion rates than most other forms of ad targeting. Desktop applications such as Claria and WhenU offer ad targeting to users based on web-wide surfing behavior, while B2B plays Tacoda and Revenue Science allow for site-based behavioral targeting. Jumping into the space this week is AQuantive, corporate parent to ad agency AvenueA and adserver Atlas DMT. This week seems to be a big one for the category. About.com announced a re-launch this week, with fresh repaint job of its pages and the addition of Tacoda's technology.

Meanwhile, Tacoda's Dave Morgan announced that he's getting back into the online ad network business. (Dave's last company, RealMedia, merged with 24/7 Media to form 24/7 RealMedia - a network/ad rep firm). Tacoda's technology will form the backbone of a new behavioral marketing network called AudienceMatch.

And then there's Engage, the company that debuted the first behavioral marketing network. I still have a couple shares of Engage in my online trading account and totally forgot about them until I got home from work yesterday and found a notice in my mailbox that they were declaring Chapter 11. Engage was years ahead of its time, and lacked the scale to effectively make use of its targeting profiles, but it was a step in the right direction.

All of this activity is indicative of the validation of behavioral targeting's ability to get the right ads to the right people at the right time. Look for the space to become even more crowded in the coming months.

Posted by tomhespos at 11:44 AM | TrackBack

April 27, 2004

Research Sez iPod Mini Big Enough

Research suggests that a digital music player that can hold 1,000 songs is plenty, given that 90 percent of consumers have no more than 1,000 songs on their PCs, according to Jupiter Research.

Long before the iPod made its huge splash, I purchased a Portable Jukebox with a 4.6 GB hard drive. It's been a few years, and I have yet to fill the thing up with tunes. When one of my friends asks me which iPod to buy, I tell them that unless they're planning to use it for file storage or something other than music, they should consider saving some money by buying one of the lower-capacity units instead of the 40 GB monstrosity. Better yet, go for a Mini - it will fit in the change pocket of your jeans.

At the same time, increased capacity will help future media players as they add video functionality and such. Somebody ping me when Apple comes out with a wristwatch player that will let me watch Caddyshack during boring panel discussions at online marketing conferences.

Posted by tomhespos at 12:04 PM | TrackBack

Permanent Ban on Net Access Taxes Moving Along Nicely

Legislation that would permanently ban Internet access taxes went to the Senate floor on Monday. In a moment of clarity, President Bush said the ban was critical to the proliferation of high-speed access. This is good news for those of us who have triple-digit monthly cable bills (like me).

Check the bottom of the linked story for what has got to be the funniest quote I've heard from a senator in a while. "I would be the first to say that this subject inherently is about as interesting as prolonged root-canal work," said Senator Ron Wyden.

Posted by tomhespos at 11:39 AM | TrackBack

Consumer Cookie-Clearing Poised to Wreak Havoc

Anne Holland has a nice piece over at MarketingSherpa about a survey that shows an alarming number of consumers are clearing their cookies on a weekly basis. Holland showcases how this inflates site measurements of unique users, a metric that many online media buyers factor in when choosing sites on which to place their clients' advertising.

One thing Holland didn't mention, however, is that many advertisers use cookies to attribute website sales to the ads that referred them, through third-party ad serving systems like DoubleClick's DART or Atlas DMT. Cookie-clearing can lead to fewer attributed sales, thus making it appear as if online advertising campaigns are less effective.

Furthermore, cookie-clearing can present some tough challenges for online publishers. Often, they match subscriber information that is used to target advertising to cookies. When the cookie disappears, so does that user and the opportunity to target relevant advertising to that user.

I know a lot of privacy advocates don't want to be targeted by advertising in such ways, but consider this: Wouldn't you rather see an ad for something you're likely to be interested in, rather than the same untargeted, irrelevant ads that annoy the hell out of you over and over?

Posted by tomhespos at 11:24 AM | TrackBack

Cheap Pay Per Click Online Ad Deals Drying Up

Poor eDiets. Seems their online ad partners are pre-empting their low-cost Pay Per Click ad deals because other online advertisers are willing to pay more than they are. Such are the laws of supply and demand. When the online ad market was depressed, I'm sure they were able to cut plenty of favorable deals. But now the online ad market is rebounding big time and cheap ad inventory is harder to find.

Hmmm...Maybe there's some money in this online publishing thing after all.

Posted by tomhespos at 11:06 AM | TrackBack

April 26, 2004

Baby Tossed Along With Bathwater. Film at 11.

The Abusive Hosts Blocking List has apparently nuked all of Telefonica De Espana's IP space in an attempt to curb spam. Reactions are mixed over at Slashdot.

As a related aside, when are we going to learn that banning IPs of entire ISPs isn't the best solution to fighting spam? The spammers just jump to another IP, leaving legit customers to deal with the IP blocking and the difficulties that come hand in hand with getting off of blacklists.

I say let's crank up the efforts on the P2P side.

Posted by tomhespos at 12:14 PM | TrackBack

The Onion Introduces Paid Model

Here's an interesting nuggest from Wired News (via MarketingVox). The Onion has introduced a paid subscription model for 30 clams a year. Subscribers get access to archived content in an ad-free format, the ability to download Onion Radio News segments and early access to new issues.

Personally, I will not shell out money to read about Jean Teasdale's latest Beanie Baby acquisitions, but I might do so to keep tabs on Jim Anchower's latest car troubles.

Posted by tomhespos at 11:57 AM | TrackBack

GMail and the Freedom to Make Up One's Own Mind

Declan McCullagh has a terrific piece on privacy advocates' approach to Gmail this morning on News.com. Seems that privacy groups are taking a radical approach to GMail, which delivers contextual ads based on the content of e-mail messages. Usually, privacy groups inform web users of potential threats to their privacy and let the consumer make up his own mind. In the case of GMail, however, more than 30 groups have written to Google to ask them to suspend the GMail service. Now politicians are getting involved.

California State Senator Liz Figueroa has introduced a bill that would pull the plug on GMail, as well as introduce government regulation that many might consider overbroad. Not only would Figueroa's legislation pull the rug out from under GMail, but it would also block e-mail and instant messaging providers from reviewing the content of incoming messages. I wonder what implications that might have for spam blockers or services that eliminate offensive language from e-mail.

Why legislators need to go overboard with this stuff is beyond me. Wait, actually it's not beyond me - they're just posturing in advance of the next election. How about legislating required disclosures and letting the consumer make up his own mind?

Posted by tomhespos at 11:45 AM | TrackBack

Blog at Home, Make Up to $5K/Week

Quite a few bloggers out there want to get the bills paid. Given the time they spend reporting news, scouring the 'net for interesting things to comment on, and cranking out the content their visitors want to see, wouldn't it be nice if a paycheck was involved?

I've been reading about the BloggerCon wiki for Blogs as Business on Jeff Jarvis' blog for a while now - there are some viable ideas there. On another front, blogmeister Rick Bruner recently debuted a blog called Business Blog Consulting that showcases blogs that businesses are using to facilitate communication with customers. I think business blog uptake could help accelerate the emergence of viable business models.

Time to start tagging the "Software Proficiencies" section of your resume with "Expert in Movable Type, Blogger and Greymatter."

Posted by tomhespos at 11:03 AM | TrackBack