While Google+ is still dwarfed by Facebook in the U.S. in terms of usage, at least one agency -- Omnicom's Resolution Media -- is telling clients that the new site could be a powerhouse marketing vehicle, given some of the ways it is differentiating itself from the pack of social-media sites. The agency is urging clients to come up with plans now so they will be ready when the search giant activates a slew of brand pages for its social site -- expected in about six weeks, according to Chris Wallace, associate director at Resolution and the author of a guide to optimizing marketing goals on the Google+ site. That guide was recently issued to clients. "The big differentiator is the way that Google+ allows users to segment their contacts into different circles," said Wallace. "It will be much easier for marketers to pinpoint their target audiences and only give them information that they find important," he said. "Because there are no brands on Google+ today other than Ford, marketers have a huge opportunity to really go out there and be front runners and steal traffic" when the site finalizes its marketing parameters, said Wallace. "The first 10 or 20 brands that get out there and really do something different are going to be the ones that own the space and help evolve what the Google+ offering becomes." Wallace said that other brands had created profiles on Google+, but that the site had requested they be taken down until it activates the brand pages it is finalizing. Google says the site is still in test mode, and the Ford page on the site is clearly labeled "Test Account." One thing is clear, Wallace said: "The Google+ plus that is here today will not be the same offering that we will see a year from now. But that's a really good thing, to be able to interact with consumers and get feedback and help Google evolve the product into better fits for brands and customers." While it is growing fast, Google+ is still relatively small in terms of traffic. Comscore reported that the site had a little over 5 million visitors in July, just a month after its launch. By contrast, during the same period, Facebook had a record 162 million visitors to its U.S. site. In his marketing guide, Wallace states that Google+ will incorporate brand assets, like earned media, beyond the brand Web site on search engine results pages, "making it all the more important for marketers to integrate their digital marketing programs." He also indicated that the site, from a paid media perspective, will be more heavily focused on click-based advertising, "driving higher click-through rates than other social networks have been historically." Wallace notes that one feature of the Google+ site is a "Hangouts" section where a user can instantly video chat with any person, circle of contacts or even an entire contact list. Two suggestions for clients: Use Hangouts for real-time customer service, and use the hangout to launch a product to one or more circles with specific interests. Earlier this week, Ford used the hangout section of its test page to stream a forum it held in New York called "Cracking the Code on Millennials."
Google has introduced a method to secure photos in Google+ and authenticate users, as it continues to build a strong member base and develop services for advertisers and brands. A feature for photo albums now allows users to see who comments and shares photos with others, and limits the amount of people who can see the pictures. Google+ engineer Jon Moon explains that the feature is similar to the one the social site offers for posts. At the top of the post, users will see Public, Extended or Limited circles. Google also added verification badges. A gray checkmark will appear next to the name of public figures, celebrities and people who have been added to a large number of profiles that have been verified. And while Google took the next step to verify profiles by adding verification badges, not everyone got the message. It didn't seem to work for New York Times political columnist Paul Krugman. It turns out Krugman's Google+ account is fake, started by a recently laid-off college graduate. It unfolded after Tim Carney joked in a Twitter tweet that Krugman thought Tuesday's East Coast earthquake hadn't rocked Washington hard enough, "presumably because more damage would have led to more government spending in response, which could create economic growth." After reading the tweet, Carlos Graterol, the college graduate, posted a statement on a fake Google+ account he created under Krugman's name to impersonate the writer. In a blog post, Graterol admitted to having too much time on his hands after being laid off about a month ago and created a false account out of boredom to "kill some time and fully delve into what Google+ had to offer." The Graterol blog, "Campaign Fix," focuses on sharing stories, news, commentary and analysis from the 2012 presidential campaign. Through the site, he aims to provide people with the latest on the 2012 presidential election. Who will believe him now?
Two consumers have sued online measurement company comScore for allegedly using "deceitful" techniques to install monitoring software on their computers. comScore developed "highly intrusive" tracking software in order to "surreptitiously siphon exorbitant amounts of sensitive and personal data from consumers' computers," Mike Harris of Illinois and Jeff Dunstan of California allege in their complaint, filed this week in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. "Through subsidiaries bearing innocuous names, comScore uses deceitful tactics to disseminate its software and thereby gain constant monitoring access to millions of hapless consumers' computers and networks," they add. comScore said the complaint was "filled with factual inaccuracies." The company adds: "comScore's position is that this lawsuit is without merit, and we fully intend to vigorously defend ourselves against it." The lawsuit's factual allegations appear reminiscent of complaints against adware companies, like the now-defunct Zango. Harris and Dunstan say in their lawsuit that comScore bundles its monitoring software with programs that offer things such as free screensavers. The Web users say they weren't adequately notified that downloading the free programs would also result in the installation of comScore's tracking software -- which goes by various names, including RelevantKnowledge and PermissionResearch. In many instances, Harris and Dunstan allege, Web users aren't informed about the monitoring software until "after the installation process has already begun." Once users download the software, comScore can access their Web activity and use that information in its market research reports. The complaint against comScore additionally alleges that the company is able to monitor transmissions of users who are on the same network as those who download the monitoring software. The result, Harris and Dunstan assert, is that comScore ropes Web users into its research panel without their consent. "Statistics gleaned from comScore's consumer data are featured in major media outlets on a daily basis. However, what lies beneath comScore's data gathering techniques is far more sinister and shocking to all but the few who fully understand its business practices," they allege. The lawsuit accuses comScore of violating the federal wiretap law and computer fraud law as well as Illinois state laws. Harris and Dunstan are seeking class-action status. William Gray, a lawyer with EdelsonMcGuire, which represents the consumers, says he doesn't know yet how many of comScore's 2 million panel members were "duped into becoming part of their business." He adds: "We've seen a whole lot of privacy cases that make you shudder, but this one takes the cake." EdelsonMcGuire has also represented consumers in privacy lawsuits against Facebook, Zynga and other Web companies. This isn't the first time comScore's data collection methods have been questioned. In 2007, Harvard professor Ben Edelman said he found evidence that comScore's affiliates were installing the company's software without users' consent by exploiting vulnerabilities in their browsers. Edelman tells Online Media Daily that as far back as 2005 he witnessed companies bundle comScore's monitoring software with "free" downloads. Plus, in 2009 the Federal Trade Commission settled a complaint against Sears for allegedly installing monitoring software on users' computers without adequate notice. While the FTC didn't name comScore in that case, Edelman had reported earlier that Sears was working with comScore.
Hoping to raise up to $50 million, online video platform Brightcove on Wednesday filed for an initial public offering with the SEC. While Brightcove has increased annual revenues since at least 2008, the company said it does not expect to achieve profitability until 2012. "We have incurred significant losses in each fiscal year since our inception in 2004," Brightcove explained in an S-1 form filed with the SEC on Wednesday. "Our operating losses will continue or even increase until ... the end of 2012." Debuted in 2004, Brightcove now has nearly 300 employees. It sets itself apart by helping both large and small content providers to publish video using HTML 5 instead of Adobe Flash. As of May, Brightcove was streaming 700 million videos a month, which the company said at the time placed it among the top five online video platforms on the Web. Along with standard video, the Cambridge, Mass.-based company has added live, on-demand and mobile offerings in recent years. Customers include AOL, Bank of America, Honda, Macy's, Oracle, Philips Electronics, Showtime and The New York Times. In 2008, Brightcove racked up $24.5 million in revenue, while in 2010 it earned $43.7 million. During the first six months of this year, the company earned $28.4 million in revenues, but incurred a loss of $9.7 million. However, Brightcove remains optimistic about the future of online video. "We estimate our total addressable market for online video platforms to be approximately $2.3 billion in 2011, growing to approximately $5.8 billion in 2015," the company estimated in its S-1 filing. In April, the U.S. online video audience streamed 14.7 billion videos, according to Nielsen, while the total audience was 141.4 million viewers. Also working in its favor, Brightcove was recently issued a broad patent for the "distribution of content," which covers the basic features of a professional online video platform. The patent, which the company applied for in 2005, describes some of the basic features of all professional online video players, such as customizable players, digital rights management and syndication. To date, Brightcove has raised over $100 million from Hearst Interactive Media, GE Commercial Finance, Accel Partners, Allen & Company, Brookside Capital and AllianceBernstein.
Tying search data into display ad retargeting, mediaFORGE has launched a search retargeting ad platform that relies on search keywords to serve up display ads across a network of publisher sites. The offering will compete with Magnetic. Within the next year, it could also compete with a new search retargeting offering from Criteo. mediaFORGE has integrated search data to support site retargeting to supply ads when a visitor lands at a Web site, but leaves without making a purchase. An ad for products viewed on that site repeats when the consumer visits another. Search engines are popular resources for researching new products and services, with a growing percentage of shoppers conducting research online prior to making a purchase. Keywords during searches are captured from audiences demonstrating intent for specific products or services. Shoppers receive personalized, interactive ads designed to attract them back to the retail Web site. The company charges for ad engagement, not "post-impression, clicks or view-through," according to mediaFORGE CEO Tony Zito. He said a handful of clients have been testing the platform for about 30 days. "We are a performance-based company, so we only charge our clients when someone buys something, and we can demonstrate we influenced the purchase," he said. "We combine both site and search, then optimize on return on ad spend." Search retargeting allows advertisers to see how each keyword performs. Since keywords drive targeting, advertisers can optimize the campaign in real-time. Attribution allows advertisers to understand how ads influence consumers. Reports are accessed through an online portal to monitor ad performance, overlap analysis and attribution. mediaFORGE, founded in 2006 as an ad widget for social sites, moved into retargeting in 2009. The company supports about 135 clients, mostly ecommerce.
Internet radio service Pandora enjoyed a splashy IPO in June, raising nearly $235 million selling shares at $16 apiece. Investors bet big on the digital music startup, despite its lack of profits. Since then, stock markets have gyrated wildly on fears of a double-dip recession and Pandora rival Spotify has made its long-awaited entrance in the U.S. market. Those factors have contributed to Pandora's stock price sliding back to $12 a share lately, amid fresh concerns about its ad-supported business model as the company prepares to report its first quarterly earnings as a public company on Thursday. Since consumer usage of Pandora is shifting increasingly to mobile, much of investor and analyst scrutiny is focused on how well it will be able to monetize that channel via advertising. In a research report Wednesday, JP Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth projects that mobile accounted for 66% of total listening hours on Pandora in the second quarter, up from 62% in the first quarter. While acknowledging increased worries about Pandora making money in mobile, Anmuth says the environment has not changed over the last few months. "It remains early in mobile advertising, and it should not come as a surprise that inventory growth would outpace monetization," he wrote. "We continue to believe Pandora's low rates of premium sell-through, CPM and overall RPM in mobile represent strong growth opportunities over the next several quarters." A separate earnings preview by the site SeekingAlpha speculated that Pandora could try to boost monetization through pricing changes or increases in the number of ads it runs. Beyond that, "it will be helpful to watch for any indications regarding its profitability, its expectations concerning content acquisition costs and international expansion," it stated. Another challenge highlighted in the JP Morgan report is fresh competition for Pandora with the July 14 launch of popular European music streaming service Spotify. Greeted with positive early buzz, Spotify had attracted an estimated 1.4 million users and 175,000 paying customers, according to an AllThingsD article on August 8. (Worldwide it has more than 10 million users and 1 million paid customers.) Still, Anmuth suggests that Spotify's focus on driving revenue via mobile subscriptions will limit its appeal compared to Pandora's free offering. "We think Spotify will be a compelling product to some, but it costs $10/month to access the service over a mobile device, and we continue to believe it's more competitive with iTunes than Pandora," he wrote. Another issue for the company as it becomes primarily a mobile service is the industry trend toward capping wireless broadband use. Sprint is the last of the four U.S. major wireless carriers, for instance, not to limit or throttle mobile data use with the recent rollout of tiered usage pricing by Verizon Wireless. Even so, Anmuth argues this should not affect music streaming by most Pandora users. "On Verizon, Pandora streams most mobile at a low bit rate of 32kbps, suggesting it would take an extremely heavy 3G listening load to max out most data plans," he stated. For perspective, 140 hours a month of listening -- or almost five hours a day -- would be equal to about 2 gigabytes of data. Video, by contrast, tends to suck up much more bandwidth. To help boost its ad efforts, Pandora earlier this month promoted Steven Kritzman as senior vice president of advertising, reporting to Chief Revenue Officer John Trimble. In that role, the Clear Channel veteran will oversee U.S. sales strategy for Pandora's digital and network and spot radio businesses. Given the company's growing mobile presence, however, it would not be surprising to see Pandora bring on more staff with direct experience in mobile advertising. One thing Pandora can't control is the broader market, which is expected to remain volatile for the foreseeable future. That does not help untested, unprofitable Internet startups like Pandora, which Anmuth expects to post a narrow net income loss of $200,000 on revenue of $60.7 million in the second quarter.
Recent social-marketing buzz around the new NFL season gives a leg up many East Coast teams -- in particular The New York Jets. Looking at social media activity -- Twitter, Facebook, blogs, message boards and the like -- the New York Jets grabbed an 11.9% share of all NFL-related social-media activity, the best among all NFL teams. The team, which got into the AFC Championship game the last two years, and recently added former New York Giants troubled receiver Plaxico Burress, was more than two percentage points higher than the Philadelphia Eagles, which tallied a 8.3% share. This is according to recent Nielsen Company research. Crosstown rivals, the New York Giants, were next at a 6.0% share; the Dallas Cowboys were just a bit behind, at 5.9%; with the New England Patriots at a 4.3% number. Compared to weeks during the off-season, the NFL's network of sites more than doubled their audience, nearly a 260% increase in unique visitors during the first full week after the NFL lockout ended in late July. When it comes to individual players, former New Orleans Saints running back Reggie Bush, now moving to the Miami Dolphins, received the most buzz during the off-season with 194,000 mentions. Nielsen says one in four active Web users in the U.S. visits sports sites, amounting to 42.5 million Americans for the week ending July 31. Big sports sites of that week include: Yahoo! Sports, 14.6 million; ESPN Digital Network, 9.5 million; FoxSports.com on MSN, 7.4 million; NFL Internet Network, 4.9 million; and MLB.com.4.9 million.
Last month, the world of local online marketing came to a screeching halt (again) as Google made an announcement (again) of an update to Google Places pages (again). Typically, Google making changes to Places rarely warrants much discussion beyond the immediate cosmetic impact. However, Google's recent moves into the social arena with Google+ gives the Places page changes an undertone unlike other updates -- and hints at a move toward potential monetization of the product. The explicit modifications to Places involve overall content changes and management of consumer reviews. One change of note is information "missing" from the Places pages, particularly the owner comments and details sections. Previously, a business listing had the option to include robust sections for additional location details and comments from the owner. These sections allowed for SEO-type optimization of a listing, giving local merchants a chance to showcase their location beyond what is typically offered in other local directories. Most importantly for merchants, these elements were free, allowing for a good deal of marketing for only the cost of the time it takes for information input. While the Google Places interface still allows for data input into these sections, the abovementioned information no longer appears for the user. On the surface, taking location details off a location's Place page seems to denigrate the end user's experience by offering up less information instead of more. Or, it is a signal that this more robust content may be part of a broader strategy to monetize the listing? Imagine a scenario where the current Google Places page is a "basic" listing, similar to a name, address, and phone number listing in the Yellow Pages. Then picture the soon-to-be-released Google+ Business Listings as the "enhanced" (i.e. - paid) version, similar to a full-page spread in a yellow book. This approach isn't unprecedented as Yahoo does something very similar, yet its significance and magnitude to businesses would be much greater coming from the market leader. Another change to the product that should catch attention is the removal of most references to third-party reviews in the search results, including on Google Places pages where third-party reviews are no longer shown in full. Instead, users now see a link at the bottom of the Google reviews section to the third-party site along with a parenthetical reference of the number of reviews the site has received. It seems these changes were implemented for a few reasons: in reaction to complaints by third-parties and to bolster the prominence of their own reviews. Additionally, by making it easier to write a review on a Place page, Google builds up their review database. While businesses wait to see if these changes affect ranking, Google's move serves as an equalizer of sorts among many merchants. Retailers that have cultivated a review strategy relying on sources outside of Google will now find themselves "leveled out" with merchants that relied upon Google reviews. This calls into consideration the need for a multiple source review strategy for companies to properly influence the local marketplace. With their push into the social realm with Google+, and the announcement of Google+ Business Profiles to be released in the near future, these Google Places changes signal a shift in how Google will approach local businesses, using both paid and earned media strategies. In the short term, merchants have important local decisions to make. ComScore's Local Usage Study (2011) shows nearly half of social network searchers select a local business based on consumer ratings and reviews. For brands without a review strategy, the decision is being made for them; it is a necessity that no business can afford to be without, so they must get into the game. For brands that already had a strategy, they must now decide if the previous model of an all-encompassing review strategy will still prove as effective given Google's changes, or if it's necessary to cultivate separate strategies -- one for Google and a separate for other players in the local arena. Longer-term, brands should evaluate how potential monetization by Google could impact their local media strategy and investments. Google carries less weight in the local space, given the fragmented ecosystem where consumers find information locally, but their presence still looms large. Brands that have a more comprehensive approach to engaging local consumers via paid, owned, and earned media across numerous online properties will be better positioned to mitigate moves such as Google in the local space.