• ONLINE SPIN
    CGM, Interactive Crucial To Car Shopping
    Forrester Research reported this month that 29% of new-vehicle shoppers view automotive online consumer-generated media (CGM). Coincidentally, I purchased a Subaru Forester last month, and I fall fully into that 29%, and even the 4% of auto shoppers who create CGM! Reflecting back on this significant purchase, the role of CGM was not only significant, but inextricably linked to my overall interactive and offline shopping experience. Here's how it went....
  • ONLINE SPIN
    What Will The Metro Newspaper Look Like In 2020?
    First, I don't think that I am going to use the newspaper metaphor for describing what consumers will receive in 2020. By then, I very much doubt that folks in major metropolitan markets in the U.S. will wake up daily to the sound of print newspapers hitting their doorstep. The metro newspaper as we know it will not exist in large markets, and will probably not exist in the same way in many smaller markets as well. However, I do believe that there will be many large and very robust local news, information and advertising media products; probably, in fact, …
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Beware Raising Money When Starting A Start-Up
    Our business is doing well yet again, and by our business I am referring to the Internet industry. As a result, there are numerous great ideas being explored and new companies being created, it seems like every week. But what I find most interesting is how many people are unwilling to bootstrap their ideas, and would rather spend 110% of their time trying to raise money, giving up 90% of their ideas, rather than focusing their attention on building out the core ideas for their business!
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Improving Traditional Media Through Social Media
    A couple of weeks ago we got into what is, in my opinion, the most important characteristic of social media advertising: In social media, the publisher is the consumer. It's clear that there is a lot more to social media's advertising potential than as simply another delivery mechanism of ad messages. Within the dialogue of marketers, social media, and publisher/consumers lies the key not only to delivering, but shaping, a brand's message. And deep in the depths of the data of the social media dialogue, is the ability for brands to shape product and service offerings to better serve the …
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Public Display Of Expressions
    This digital generation fascinates me. Want to know where to download music, find cool apparel, watch movies and clips, change expressions, personalize your IMs, emails, blogs, anything... just ask a tween or teen. Sure they may give you the eyes-rolling-in-the-back-of the-head look, but, hey, go directly to the source. So let's take a look at this demographic online.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    The Disparity In Online Spending Is A Good Thing
    At the end of the day, I have one overarching question: Why does online-media spending still lag so far behind relative to the massive share of time and utility it commands? Sure, online advertising continues to grow at a massive clip, but it's still way behind where it should be.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Marketing On The Differences, Not The Averages
    There's no shortage of news in the advertising world about highly targeted advertising developments. Today, for example, The Wall Street Journal led its Marketplace section with a story about Facebook's ongoing initiative to sell advertising on its user pages, targeted anonymously according to the personal interests and preferences that users and their friends have revealed on those pages. Want to target messages only to state university grads that live in urban areas and are avid runners? Facebook can help you now. Yesterday the news was about YouTube's new video ads.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Dynamic Responses Translate To A Need For Education and Training
    Last week I made the statement that the majority of online video networks either serve video into existing ad units or are manually attaching video spots like 30-second commercials into existing video content. That set off a flurry of responses from such companies as Scanscout, Tremor Media, Eyeblaster, Broadband Enterprises and a new start-up called QMeCom. Each of these folks professes to be capable of dynamically ad-serving video spots into video content based on cookie profiles or behavioral data. But not enough folks know about these capabilities.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Advertising's Potential To Pacify Portal's Pains
    "We are not trying to build yesterday's portal," said Ron Grant, AOL's president. "We are trying to build a network of sites that users can combine or do whatever they are most comfortable with." The above quote is from a recent New York Times article by Miguel Helft that reports on AOL's recent revenue woes. The more interesting issue for our forum here breaks into two parts, which in reality are the exact same issue....
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Video Vertigo
    So video has been all the hype for a while now. Quite frankly, I'm getting a tad sick of it. Don't get me wrong -- I have been a proponent for years. Designing for a pixilated world sucks. Video is sexy. For folks like me that came from the traditional side, it's the closest thing to broadcast we've had.
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