| Monday, Feb 14, 2005 |
What's inside:
Today's Online News
1. Online News Sites Struggle With RSS Challenge by Gavin O'Malley
2. Ask Jeeves Breaks Branding Campaign, Heats Up Search Marketing War by Wendy Davis
3. Microsoft And Pfizer Sue Alleged Spammers by Shankar Gupta
News Briefs
4. Kanoodle: Content-Targeted Links Are Fastest Growing Ad Sector
5. Neopets Teams With Tween Retailer
6. Flowers, Gift Sites Draw Valentine's Traffic
7. Google Offers To Host Wiki Projects
Today's News
1. Online News Sites Struggle With RSS Challenge
by Gavin O'Malley
As Internet users discover content aggregation's merit, advertisers and publishers fear a loss of control over their content and how users experience it. Now, several newspapers have launched their own customized RSS readers, in an effort to solidify their relationships with online readers.
In the last several weeks, the Los Angeles Times, Britain's Guardian, and CNET each have acknowledged plans to offer free, branded RSS readers. The Los Angeles Times, part of Tribune Co., and the Guardian, owned by the non-profit Scott Trust, said they were putting their own brands on a reader called NewsPoint. Designed by Swiss-American software firm Consenda, NewsPoint currently is limited to a small trial phase.
For now, less than 5 percent of Internet users currently employ RSS readers. That minority consists mainly of media and tech professionals, and bloggers who contend with information overload on a daily basis.
But analysts say that RSS could quickly shed its niche status if consumers realize they no longer have to surf from Web site to Web site, scrolling their favorites menu for content. Instead, RSS readers pull in headlines and text continually, allowing users to create customized content from publishers, blogs, and search engines. Most offer alerts, which bring everything from product releases, sports scores, and natural disasters to users' immediate attention.
Each RSS reader comes pre-loaded with a list of feeds from its respective content site, but users can add additional feeds at will. By offering branded software, each company hopes to retain beleaguered readers and advertisers as the popularity of RSS increases.
CNET's Newsburst reader, now available as a preview release, is not a typical RSS reader because it adds an "editorial touch," said John Roberts, vice president of product development at CNET. The service is essentially an edited version of the Internet's entire daily news offerings. "I expect all or most publishers to do this in order to try and hang on to readers and control the environment," Roberts added.
Other Internet companies, are also establishing RSS footholds. Yahoo! relaunched its free My Yahoo! service in late September around its RSS reader. And search engine Ask Jeeves acquired Trustic Inc. and Bloglines last week, for an undisclosed sum. Founded in 2003, Bloglines lets users search, publish, and share blogs and RSS feeds for free. Last year, Google bought Blogger.com to gain a foothold into the blogosphere.
As RSS continues to grow in popularity, advertisers are struggling to adapt. "RSS will continue to take impressions away from sites as more users rely solely on headlines and teasers offered on RSS readers," said Bill Flitter, chief marketing officer of Pheedo, a company that offers a set of tools to create, promote, analyze, and optimize ads in blogs and content feeds.
Pheedo offers three different ad placements: within an RSS feed's header; as stand-alone blog units, where the ad appears as a separate blog post; and as advertisements embedded within the content of individual blog posts. The tool offers publishers the choice of pricing ads served on their sites by CPM, cost-per-click, or cost per action.
iUpload--a Web content management provider with clients like Advance.net, Internet arm for Advance Publications, and Conde Nast--began offering Pheedo's services to its clients in late January.
Yahoo!'s Overture is in the midst of testing several possible methods for harnessing RSS as an advertising option for online marketers, according to a company spokeswoman. "RSS could be another vehicle for businesses to reach interested consumers through contextual advertising," the Overture spokeswoman projected.
CNET's John Roberts said Newsburst did not yet have a viable business model. "I've spoken with a number of firms that serve ads over RSS feeds, and I haven't found a compelling model just yet, but we'll continue to listen and respond as the market matures."
"Advertisers are coming to us will a lot of questions about RSS," said Gene McKenna, vice president of product management at Digital Impact, which manages the marketing campaign for the likes of HP, Gap, and Marriott. "I think it's still early yet, but we encourage advertisers to be forward-thinking and position themselves accordingly."
2. Ask Jeeves Breaks Branding Campaign, Heats Up Search Marketing War
by Wendy Davis
As companies continue to compete for the growing online ad dollars spent on search marketing, search engine Ask Jeeves will this week join rival MSN on the air in a consumer branding campaign.
The effort marks Ask Jeeves' return to television advertising after a four-year absence. "We really see this as a first step in a marketing program," said Greg Ott, vice president of marketing. The campaign's goal, he said, is "helping people re-engage with the Ask Jeeves brand."
Currently, Ask Jeeves is the sixth most popular search engine, behind Google, Yahoo!, MSN, America Online, and meta-search portal Information.com, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Competitor MSN launched a branding campaign to tout its new search engine two weeks ago; at the time, a company executive boasted that the effort would be the biggest since the introduction of the MSN Butterfly about five years ago.
The Ask Jeeves ads cap 18 months of upgrades to the search engine, said Ott. Most recently, in September, Ask Jeeves beefed up its site with new personalization capabilities that allow users to save their queries, and last week, the company announced the acquisition of blog search engine Bloglines.
The campaign, a series of six 15-second spots designed by TBWAChiatDay, San Francisco, will run on network television shows including "American Idol," "Arrested Development," and "The O.C."--which, coincidentally, recently aired an episode in which a character mentioned competing search engine A9.
3. Microsoft And Pfizer Sue Alleged Spammers
by Shankar Gupta
Microsoft Corp. and Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company responsible for Viagra, last week filed lawsuits against alleged international spam rings that sell unauthorized "generic" versions of the medication.
The two companies filed 17 actions in total--including five by Microsoft relating specifically to spam--against a number of different defendants allegedly involved in the sale and advertising of the knock-off medications. Pfizer filed civil trademark infringement suits against CanadianPharmacy and E-Pharmacy Direct, and 10 domain name actions.
In its complaints, Microsoft alleged that some online pharmacies have sent hundreds of millions of e-mail messages to MSN Hotmail customers within the past year, in violation of the federal Can-Spam act as well as Washington state laws.
"As a result of defendants' activities, Microsoft's computer equipment and servers were required to process millions of improper spam e-mails, as well as 'bounce back' e-mails which had been sent by defendants to non-existent, outdated or incorrect e-mail addresses," state the lawsuits. "This significant number of e-mails has taken up substantial amount of Microsoft's finite computer space, threatens to delay and otherwise adversely affect MSN Hotmail subscribers in sending and receiving legitimate e-mail, and has resulted in and continues to result in significant costs to Microsoft."
Microsoft's court papers stated that the company was unable to determine the identities of the people who were allegedly behind the spam operation. Therefore, the complaints only reference the business names of the alleged spammers, including: CanadianPharmacy, E-Pharmacy Direct, Discount RX, Virtual RX, and EzyDrugStore.com.
News Briefs
4. Kanoodle: Content-Targeted Links Are Fastest Growing Ad Sector
Content-targeted sponsored links will become the fastest growing interactive marketing tool over the next 12 months, according to results of a survey of 725 advertisers considered current or potential users of sponsored links, released today by Kanoodle. Of the nearly 70% of advertisers who said they used sponsored links in 2004, more than 26 percent spent $100,000 or more on their campaigns. Over the next 12 months this spending will increase by close to 10 percent -- beating the overall advertising industry, which is expected to grow at 6 percent, according to various ad forecasts compiled by Kanoodle. Additionally, 20% of advertisers surveyed said they will incorporate content-targeted sponsored links into their overall marketing programs, in comparison with other interactive marketing tools including: display ads (14 percent), e-mail marketing (12 percent) and sponsored links on search results pages (15 percent). The survey was conducted in December 2004 by JupiterResearch.
5. Neopets Teams With Tween Retailer
The online promotion of Limited Too is an advergame, hosted on Neopets' Web site, which allows site members to play a mix-and-match memory-type card game. The game consists of players pairing up facedown cards, which have Limited Too products on the faces. Players who win the game get virtual currency--"Neopoints"--for the Neopets game, where players raise a fantasy animal like a Kau or a Lupe (a cow and a wolf, respectively).
Neopets boasts one of the largest social networks aimed at young teens and preteens, with more than 25 million registered members and more than 7 billion page views per month.
In addition to the online component, Limited Too stores are also selling Neopet-themed CD cases, which have emblazoned on them characters from the Neopet line.
--Shankar Gupta
6. Flowers, Gift Sites Draw Valentine's Traffic
With Valentine's Day upon us, Nielsen//NetRatings reported Friday that gift and flowers destinations drew 2.5 million at-home visitors, marking a 40 percent jump during the week ending February 6. Two other popular Web site categories during V-Day--greeting cards and personals destinations--were expected to gain momentum last week. "Online florists strategically offered shoppers special discounts for early orders and sweepstakes to maximize customer acquisition opportunities," said Heather Dougherty, senior retail analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings, in a statement. --Gavin O'Malley
7. Google Offers To Host Wiki Projects
Google has offered to host parts of the consumer-generated media site Wikimedia.org, Wikimedia announced on its site last week. According to the Wikimedia posting, the terms of the deal are under discussion by the Wikimedia board of trustees, and the site's developer committee has been informed of some of the inside details by e-mail. A private meeting between Google and Wikimedia representatives has been set for next month. The Wikimedia posting stressed that the agreement would not entail a requirement to host ads on the site.
--Shankar Gupta
Monday, Feb 14, 2005
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/