Seeking to bolster their mobile offerings, Yahoo and Nokia have formed a strategic partnership in which the companies will collaborate on key services such as email, instant messaging and maps and navigation. Under the alliance announced Monday, Yahoo will exclusively power email and chat in Nokia's Ovi suite of Internet services, while Nokia in return will integrate its Ovi maps application into Yahoo properties. The companies also plan to work on efforts to allow Nokia's Ovi users to use their Ovi account IDs to access Yahoo services more widely. Co-branded mobile and PC-based offerings are expected to roll out by the second half of 2010 before becoming available worldwide in 2011. In a press conference held at the Nasdaq headquarters in New York, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and Nokia President and CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo emphasized that the companies would mutually benefit by combining their relative strengths in mail and messaging on one side and maps on the other. Bartz acknowledged that the company had not been very focused on its mapping technology. "This alliance changes that," she said. "By using Nokia's maps and Navteq service we will provide a much richer experience for our users." Nokia added digital maps to its phones through the 2007 acquisition of Navteq Corp., the largest creator of maps used in car-navigation equipment, for $8.1 billion. Bartz also underscored the importance of pairing with Nokia, the world's largest cell phone maker, in Yahoo expanding more aggressively into emerging markets including countries such as India and Thailand. "Nokia has by far the strongest track record in this market,' she said, noting the number of cell users worldwide is expected to reach 5 billion this year. For its part, Nokia is counting on Yahoo's popular email and messaging applications to further boost the appeal of its phones, especially in North America, where the Finnish mobile giant still has only a small footprint. "We are clearly the leader in the industry but we do not lead in the biggest market in the world, the U.S.," said Kallasvuo. "This is one step to change that." But William Ho, vice president for consumer services at technology research firm Current Analysis, said it will take more than teaming with Yahoo for Nokia to crack the U.S. market. "The impact on the North American market remains to be seen as Nokia needs to fully invest into this market rather than paying lip service in the past," he said. "This means getting a lot more traction with North American-centric devices rather than repurposing European models." Because most of its devices use the GSM wireless standard that's most common worldwide, Nokia has gotten little distribution through CDMA-based networks like those of Verizon Wireless, Sprint, MetroPCS and others. Nokia has also fallen short in the hot smartphone market as manufacturers and other competitors such as Apple, BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion, Google and HTC gain market share with popular high-end devices like the iPhone and the Droid. But Ho noted that the pact could help both Nokia and Yahoo gain new users in emerging markets, where the mobile phone is often the primary Internet access device. "The deal allows Yahoo to get a different maps product with navigation to potentially get into the mobile realm to counter Google Maps, which has navigation built into a lot of the new Android handsets," he said. The agreement may not do much to break Google's dominance in mobile search, however. Despite forging some 100 partnerships with handset makers and wireless operators globally, Yahoo has not been able to keep Google from claiming roughly the equivalent two-thirds share of searches on mobile devices as on the desktop Web. In an analysis of the Yahoo-Nokia alliance, research firm IDC suggested the companies should move quickly to expand the relationship beyond a handful of core services like email, messaging and mapping. "If the alliance stops at these it will make little difference to either company over the medium to longer-run," stated the IDC report. That's especially true if the companies want to encourage the developer community to build on their mobile services by creating new applications around them, helping in turn to expand the user base. To that end, the firm envisions Yahoo and Nokia partnering on mobile offerings encompassing advertising, search, music and video, mobile commerce and operating system development. "For two companies that share similar global perspectives, and face the common threat of Apple and Google, this alliance can be viewed as a test run for a deeper and broader alliance whose logical conclusion is potentially a merger," according to IDC.
Google began beating the drums a little louder Monday in an effort to gush openness and transparency. The Mountain View, Calif. company decided to share the revenue split for AdSense for Content, and AdSense for Search. The numbers -- heard loud and clear -- were no surprise to large publishers already privy to the information through negotiating contracts, which probably are a little more favorable than revealed here. Until now, others in the ad community have been shielded from the stats. AdSense for Content, in which Google contextually targets ads to work on Web pages, is calculated at a 68% split to publishers. Google takes the remaining effective CPM (eCPM) charged to advertisers. AdSense for Search -- ads for on-site search engines that are triggered by matching keywords used in the search query -- are calculated at a 51% split to the publisher. Google takes the remainder of the cost-per-click (CPC) they charge advertisers. "A good corporate citizen" -- that's what Matt Lawson, Marin Software director of marketing, says the search giant wants to convey. "Google wants to show they give away more of the revenue than they keep," he says. "They're probably saying: 'We're not doing evil.'" But when I asked Lawson what publishers could do with the knowledge, he says, "not much." In the United States, Google has some competition with Microsoft Bing and Yahoo Search, but in other parts of the world such as Greece, the search engine owns more than 90% of the market share. Aaron Goldman, Connectual managing partner, says critics have been coaxing Google to share the details, and it appears that the company "finally figured it had enough of a stranglehold on the market that it could share the numbers without risking competitors holding it against them." Google even addresses this potential outcome in the post by saying other networks may give a higher split, but their effective CPM yield is not likely as high, which means the net revenue to the publisher is less. Since Google has millions of advertisers, Goldman says -- far more than any other network -- it can best match ads to content and garner higher yields for advertisers and publishers. On the one hand, this announcement represents Google opening up in the spirit of transparency, and on the other hand "Google's being brash, saying to individual publishers: 'Go ahead, try and get a better deal from someone else. You need us more than we need you,'" Goldman says. Regulators paying close attention to acquisitions like AdMob likely prompted Google to come clean with the numbers, too. Bruce Clay, founder of Internet marketing company Bruce Clay, can't say for sure how the "Google mind works," but if Google makes publishers aware of what companies spend on their site, then they could likely charge more for the perceived value of other ads. "This makes the Google ad network look more competitive to attract more advertisers," he says. "Google could have simply had a head crash and temporarily lost its mind." Google also gave advice to focus on yield rather than revenue split when possible, explaining that when considering different monetization options, it is advisable to focus on the total revenue generated from the site, rather than just revenue share, which can be misleading. For example, you would receive $68 with AdSense for content for $100 worth of advertising that appeared on the site. If another ad network offers an 80% revenue share, but is only able to collect $50 from ads served on your site, you would earn $40. In this case, a higher revenue share would not compensate for lower revenue yield from another ad network. Publishers and advertisers use the advertising network that delivers the best revenue, not the best ad split. Some networks may provide an 80% split, but not deliver as much revenue because they will not generate as much money from the clicks. Google has a lot of advertisers on their network, so they can generate a high cost per click.
People might use RapidShare to share copyrighted material, but the company is no Napster. That's according to U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Huff, who declined to issue an injunction against the German-based file-hosting company. Huff said in a written ruling that unlike Napster -- the original poster child for copyright infringement -- RapidShare did not appear to contribute to users' piracy. The decision was a blow to adult entertainment company Perfect 10, which alleged in a lawsuit filed last November that RapidShare "stores hundreds of thousands of unauthorized copyrighted images on its servers, along with billions of dollars in songs and major full length movies." RapidShare allows users to upload large files to a site with a unique URL; people can share that address with others who wish to download the files. Perfect 10, which alleged that people used the system to transfer its videos and photos, requested an injunction banning RapidShare from making available images or videos owned by Perfect 10. Perfect 10 also is requesting monetary damages. But Huff ruled last week that Perfect 10 had not made a strong enough showing that RapidShare encouraged or contributed to copyright infringement to warrant a preliminary injunction, largely because RapidShare isn't easily searchable. "The public cannot enter rapidshare.com and browse through a catalog for desired materials," wrote Huff, a judge in the Southern District Court of California. "Additionally, a RapidShare user cannot find files located on RapidShare's servers in the same way as a Napster user could find a specific song from a peer's library because RapidShare does not index its files." Huff also said that RapidShare was capable of non-infringing uses, noting that PC World magazine in Germany had used the service to distribute anti-virus software to readers. She also criticized Perfect 10 for seeking an injunction when it had not "availed itself of simple, available measures to protect its property," including giving RapidShare enough information to allow it to remove infringing files. Huff's decision marked the second major pro-RapidShare ruling this month. Several weeks ago, an appellate court in Germany said the company was not responsible for users' copyright infringement. But the company still faces criticism from content owners. The same week that Huff denied to issue an injunction, the Recording Industry Association of America and lawmakers who belong to the International Anti-Piracy Caucus named RapidShare as one of six "illegal" sites, allegedly used mainly to exchange copyrighted material. Huff's ruling does not yet dispose of Perfect 10's lawsuit. The company will still have the opportunity to present evidence against RapidShare at trial.
In response to the growing threat malvertising - malicious computer code distributed via online ads or applications - represents to the online publishing industry, the Rubicon Project this morning said it acquired SiteScout, a Seattle-based security firm specializing in malware detection and prevention. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Rubicon executives said SiteScout's technology would be integrated into Rubicon's entire infrastructure, ensuring that no ads containing malicious code can be served on any publishers or ad networks it does business with. The acquisition replaces a deal Rubicon struck early this year with San Francisco-based advertising security firm ClickFacts, which has also developed a sophisticated system for tagging and monitoring ads carrying malicious code, as part of its suite of advertising protection software and systems. Rubicon COO and Founder Craig Roah said the decision to acquire SiteScout and embed its technology into Rubicon's infrastructure followed a "side-by-side test" of several leading malware detection and prevention systems, which convinced Rubicon that SiteScout was the best fit for Rubicon. He said the test was conducted in a "live production environment," utilizing actual ad tags on premium Web sites, and that SiteScout proved most effective. Rob Lipschutz, CEO of SiteScout, said the technology his company has developed grew out of the cyber security industry, not advertising management and protection, per se, but he acknowledged that thwarting malware - even malware that utilizes advertising as a "vector," is a constant game of vigilance and adaptation, as "the bad guys" are constantly iterating and adapting the methods they use to distribute malicious code. Advertising has long been a vector for distributing malicious code, but it began to accelerate over the past year as malware purveyors figured out that advertising management systems, especially the kind of third-party, self-serve systems that ad networks and aggregators like Rubicon depend on, were particularly vulnerable to attack. Over the past year, major premium site publishers ranging from the NewYorkTimes.com to Gawker Media to Fox News have been hit by advertising-distributed malware attacks, raising awareness on Madison Avenue, and leading some publishers to institute new controls or to steer away from third party ad networks altogether. Estimates vary, but malvertising attacks can have costly effects, driving traffic and usage of a premium publisher's site down as users become aware of them. Rubicon executives estimate the "net monthly risk" of malware attacks is costing online publishers $600 million monthly in lost revenues.
In an effort to identify key trends and behaviors among U.S. minorities, the Interactive Advertising Bureau on Monday announced the formation of a new Multicultural Council. Replacing the former IAB Hispanic Committee, the IAB Multicultural Council will focus on key issues that impact marketing and advertising within the multicultural marketplace, including audience measurement, and ensuring that all segments of the U.S. population are accurately measured and accounted for in online media measurement. "This council will drive a better understanding of the diverse populations and audiences that make up multicultural America, and help marketers use interactive media to reach these market segments," said Sherrill Mane, SVP of Industry Services at the IAB. While few analysts would deny that a digital divide still exists in the United States, recent reports suggest that progress is being made to close the gap. For instance, Facebook -- once dominated by White and Asian users -- now has percentages of Black and Hispanic users that are equally proportionate to the U.S. population, according to recent research conducted by Facebook staff members, along with two graduate students from Cornell and Princeton. Last May, comScore reported that about 21 million U.S. Hispanics were online, representing about 10.7% of all U.S. persons online. ComScore also found that the online Hispanic population in the United States was growing about three times as fast as the overall online population. The new IAB council will also seek to educate marketers and agencies on how to create successful digital marketing strategies to reach multicultural markets, as well as equip multicultural publishers and agencies with tools to address the needs of marketers who want to reach multicultural markets. "The Multicultural Council will provide our industry with an important forum where we can work towards critical marketplace improvements," said Mark Lopez, chief operating officer of Terra Networks, and co-chair of the IAB Multicultural Council. "We also want to further our efforts in educating marketers and agencies to innovate and connect with this growing audience."
Don't look back, Yahoo -- Google and Facebook are gaining in display. In its forthcoming report on Internet advertising in the first quarter, market research firm IDC says that Google's rise in display advertising has been so swift that the company now poses a serious threat to the biggest players in the segment -- Yahoo and Microsoft. "Thanks to rapidly growing display ad sales on YouTube, Google has managed to steadily grow its net display ad revenue market share (excluding traffic acquisition costs) from not even 1% in 1Q 07 to 7% in 1Q 10, and more growth is in the cards," commented IDC analyst Karsten Wiede on the report's findings. Fueled by its acquisition of DoubleClick in 2007, Google has now overtaken the No. 3 company in the category, AOL -- which had 6% share in the first quarter, and may later this year push Microsoft, with a 9.5%, share, out of the No. 2 slot if current trends continue. That would leave only Yahoo, the longtime leader in display for Google to conquer. IDC says Yahoo share was 16.5% in the first quarter, but has been stuck at about 16% for the last five quarters. "Longer term, four to five years out, even Yahoo...can't feel safe anymore," wrote Wiede. Facebook is coming on strong too, although not quite as fast as Google. The world's largest social network has already surpassed News Corp. and CBS, the former No. 4- and 5-ranked companies in display, is poised to catch up to AOL within the next three to four quarters, according to IDC. Online display advertising overall held up better than expected last year, increasing 4% to $8 billion -- buoyed by a 39% gain in video spending to $1 billion, according to the 2009 ad report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Yahoo in the first quarter reported a 20% year-over-year gain in display ad revenue as marketers continued to ramp up spending on high-profile brand campaigns. U.S. online ad spending overall increased 11% from $6.3 billion a year ago to $7 billion, according to IDC. The firm is predicting 19% growth for online advertising to $31.5 billion in 2010 from $26.4 billion in 2009. Google's U.S. net market share across all advertising formats increased by 1.3 percentage points compared to the prior quarter, to 32.2%. Yahoo's share decreased by 0.6 percentage points to 10.3%, and Microsoft's was essentially unchanged at 6.4%.
Mountain Dew took three new Dew flavors to fans, asking for feedback on placing ad media buys. The move represents the latest in a series of attempts by so-called Dew Labs to turn over the entire product development cycle and marketing process to consumers who love the brand most. The year-long project now asks Mountain Dew lovers to guide the media-buying process after creating the products and designing the marketing campaign. Through the DEWmocracy project, Mountain Dew polled the 4,000 Dew Labs members about their favorite Web sites. Gathering that information, Mountain Dew invited the potential media partners to pitch the DEW Labs community. Entertainment Web sites CollegeHumor, The Onion, Crave Online, and Funny or Die became Mountain Dew Media Partners after DEWmocracy members were asked in February to name their favorite Web sites. The chosen sites created two-minute pitch videos, but in the end DEWmocracy members had to vote on the site that would help Mountain Dew market the flavors. The four sites worked with the Mountain Dew's Flavor Nations on their campaigns, which aired on April 19. These sites will also work on the winning product launches. At CollegeHumor, the group created a campaign that emphasized the ultimate road trip. For each Dew flavor, the site will come up with three video ideas, and then it's up to those in the DEW Lab to decide which one they want to see. The three videos will post to the CollegeHumor site and let users decide their favorite. The flavor that wins dictates where the group goes on the road trip. The group will film all of its popular series. The CollegeHumor cast will tweet clues on Twitter as to their specific location, but it's up to Dew Lab fans to find them. One lucky fan will get a chance not only to ride in the CollegeHumor tour bus, but also to star in a segment of "Hardly Working." That's if CollegeHumor wins the media pitch challenge and the members of the Dew Labs vote them in. It turns out the road trip gets underway this week. The team will meet up with the DEWmocracy Flavor Teams already on the road. The Distortion video that CollegeHumor created received the most "likes," so the team will meet up with the Mountain Dew's group on their Flavor Campaign Tour in Cincinnati this week. Mountain Dew, whose parent company Pepsi shunned this year's Super Bowl in favor of advertising on social media, has been rallying soft drink fans not only to create and name the Dew flavors, but to market them too. Since last year, competing teams chose flavors, voted on new drink names, spread the word on Twitter and Facebook, inspected commercials and organized stops for the sampling vehicle. "Between 70% and 90% of the more than 4,000 members have responded throughout the process," says Brett O'Brien, Mountain Dew's marketing director. The vans with marketers and fans recently set out across the United States representing each flavor -- Typhoon, Distortion, and White Out. Fans in each truck represent the flavors. Consumers can track the vans through the DEWmocracy Web site. Maps link to the groups' Twitter page, providing geographic location. Technology and social media give the groups that are traveling around the country in the vans the ability to tweet their location and have fans nearby join them for a little fun and a taste test. The iPads in the trucks allow fans to vote and have their preference added to the tally in real-time. Designed by consumers, Mountain Dew's three new flavors hit store shelves three weeks ago. Voting on the flavor will continue until June 15, and on Labor Day the next permanent product created entirely by Dew drinkers will debut. The first DEWmocracy initiative began in late 2007, allowing consumers to create flavor, color, name and graphics. About 1 million participated in the process. The result was Voltage, a citrus-flavored beverage that came to market in January 2009. DEWmocracy 2 followed in July. The idea to give the brand's fans another outlet to express their passion created an ongoing dialogue between the brand and DEW drinkers by leveraging social media and giving consumers a voice. The DEWmocracy platform has become a pedestal for collaboration among fans, as Pepsi loosens control and turns over the creative process and marketing to those who dig deep into their pockets to support the brand. "We don't plan to continue to outdo ourselves," O'Brien says. "It's really about keeping the lines of communication open."
Lead-generation company Clash-Media on Monday announced the acquisition of 'ad-matching' technology provider Trigga. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Per the deal, Clash-Media founder and CEO Simon Wajcenberg is actually leaving the company, and is being replaced by Trigga founder and CEO Ed Bussey. Wajcenberg is "moving on to other business development opportunities," according to the company. Bussey, for his part, described the combined companies as a "super lead-generation platform." "Trigga will enable Clash-Media's advertisers to source more highly qualified consumer leads, across more territories and a significantly wider range of product and service categories," Bussey said. "It will also help publishers generate additional revenue by automatically positioning lead-gen adverts contextually alongside their news and lifestyle content." Based in New York, Clash-Media launched in 2006 and presently delivers millions of fully opted-in sales leads globally every month -- complete with detailed profiles on their interests -- to clients, including the U.S. Military, Whiskas, Toyota, Cheapflights and AXA. Through a network of mostly educational and higher-learning-related Web properties, Clash-Media reaches millions of mostly 18- to-35-year- old consumers. Trigga's proprietary 'ad-matching' technology is designed to give advertisers qualified and opted-in leads among consumers who have a current and immediate interest in their goods or services. Bussey founded Trigga in 2009. Prior to that, he was chief operating officer of ZYB, a Denmark-based mobile social networking startup, which was acquired byVodafone in 2008. Before ZYB, Bussey was a marketing director at clothing retailer FigLeaves.com, which he helped introduce to the U.S. market in 2004.
Savvy search marketers understand the importance of focusing on the right keywords in any search-based advertising campaign and adjusting maximum cost-per-click (CPC) accordingly. Marketers constantly look for ways to increase visibility into keyword performance in order to guarantee strong ROI and also find room to grow impressions. In this constant quest to improve campaign performance, marketers have a major opportunity in Google's new bid simulator, a feature of the AdWords interface that shows marketers the potential impact of their bids on their advertising results. Google's chief economist, Hal Varian, compares the bid simulator to a spreadsheet where marketers can test different scenarios to illustrate the real value between click and cost; extracting data from the auction and presenting it in a way that's easy to understand. While the bid simulator can't predict the future, it enables marketers to explore what could have happened if they had set different keyword-level bids. Using data from the previous seven days, the bid simulator re-calculates three key metrics: the number of impressions for which marketers' ads could have appeared had they chosen a different maximum CPC, how many clicks the ads could have gotten for those impressions and what those clicks would have cost. The feature offers advertisers increased visibility into the AdWords auction and the insights to make more informed bidding decisions. This simulation data helps marketers determine the trade-off between click volume and cost, enabling them to more confidently determine how to increase site traffic without raising costs too much and for which keywords they should alter their spend. While it wouldn't be practical to factor bid simulator info into every bid decision made in AdWords, it is added information worth reviewing for high traffic keywords. Performics worked with Google to discover how bid simulator could help optimize clients' search campaigns. Using the bid simulator for a major retailer, Performics looked at bid simulations for tens of thousands of keywords. Account managers then mapped the bid simulator data to conversion information across the entire program and, based on this information, manipulated CPC bids on a smaller subset of keywords. Anywhere the campaign experienced strong ROI and room to grow impressions, account managers increased the bids in line with the bid simulator's analysis. Performics began concentrating on how many impressions were garnered and monitored the actual revenue the keyword generated. Essentially, the team calculated revenue per click and acted on that information to add clicks when appropriate. Once bid simulator findings were incorporated into the active keyword portfolio, the retailer saw day-over-day increases in impressions by as much as 11 percent. Since those impressions came from the right keywords -- where the client had already demonstrated strong ROI - daily revenue increases registered as high as 20 percent. The net results created day-over-day increases in ROI of up to 17 percent. Owing to the substantial increase in performance, the client shifted budget from less efficient keywords in the examined group of 400 to more efficient keywords identified by the bid simulator. In the constant struggle to balance efficiency and volume in paid search programs, the Google bid simulator helps marketers gain insight into this paradigm. The bid simulator offers crucial analysis when establishing budgets and measuring incremental volume possibilities. This information provides marketers a better sense of how much added volume can be gained from any given term; data that marketers can use to make more informed and effective bid management decisions.