• AOL Europe Buys Into Video Distribution
    With an eye on content, AOL Europe just bought online video distribution network GoViral for $96.7 million. As the Guardian notes, “This is AOL's first major European acquisition since its disastrous 2008 deal to buy social networking website Bebo for $850 million.” Co-founded in 2005 by Danish Web and advertising execs Jimmy Maymann and Claus Moseholm, GoViral is currently based in London. “AOL Europe said that the deal will strengthen its video offering and ‘ultimately’ North America,” the Guardian notes. "We believe that GoViral … allows us to match our ambition for premium content creation and engaging advertising, with …
  • The Real Point Of All This Social Marketing Stuff
    According to FanAppz Founder-CEO Jon Siegal it's about getting consumers to do stuff, and ideally stuff with a marketers products or brands. All the social interaction, and data gathering are nice, he said, but the bottom line is, well marketing. And marketing he said, is about getting a consumer to convert to some kind of marketing intended behavior. "At the end of the day we're trying to get the fan to do something, open an account, convert," he said, adding that an obsession with getting consumers to simply interact may be nice, but it may not move the …
  • The Social Web: It's More Than Just Facebook
    That is Eric Wheeler's point of view. Of course, that's also Wheeler's business model. As CEO of 33Across, Wheeler mines data and launches campaigns based on the social connectivity of people across the World Wide Web, not just on Facebook. "We are basically doing the same thing across the Web," Wheeler said, noting that the potential socially connected audience across the Web is 10 to 20 times larger than what a marketer can get via retargeting Facebook users. Most significantly, those ads perform better than conventional Web ads. "Two to five times better, when they are socially …
  • Tough Act To Follow (Or Why Timing Is Everything)
    Taking the stage to present, "The Data Dive: How Do Social Ads Really Peform," Webtrends Senior Manager of Social Media Marekting Justin Kistner, quipped, "Nothing like getting up here and talking about how well advertising performs right after a great discussion on privacy." Kistner's presentation followed the social summit's data privacy panel.
  • Let Your Fingers, Er Faces, Do The Walking
    Speaking about the ebb and flow of regulatory policy surrounding media, Venable Partner and social summit privacy panelist Stuart Ingis recalled one early discussion surrounding the pre-Do-Not-Call-List telemarketing industry. "Should we outlaw the phone book," Ingis recalled, noting how extreme policy discussions can get. Needless to say, technology has moved past the phone book, leaving Ingis with a very real modern day dilemma, which is that he often cannot figure out how to find people anymore. Fellow privacy panelist and Ad.ly CEO Arnie Gallov-Singh suggested, "Try Facebook."
  • Evil: You Know It When You See It, No?
    After I suggested to my privacy panel that the new industry opt-out icon should maybe carry a tagline like, say, "We do no evil," privacy panelist and Ad.ly CEO Arnie Gullov-Singh suggested that may not be such a good idea, depending on how that tagline is actually spelled out. "Is it, 'We do know evil,'" Gullov-Singh quipped. That made me wonder with Google knows evil.
  • The Good News Is Clickthroughs Suck
    The bad news is that the online industry is bracing for a massive wave of consumer's opting out of having their online behavior data tracked. The good news, is that the effectiveness of the industry's self-regulatory solution enabling them to do that isn't that great. In fact, it's probably not going to be much more effective than online advertising itself. That was one of the comforting scenarios that Scott Meyer, CEO of Evidon, gave this morning during his presentation on the industry's Open Data Partnership, which among other things will alert consumers about their ability to opt-out of tracking …
  • Tweet Liability (Or Just Libeling Twitter)
    Social Media Insider (and summit chair) Cathy Taylor is sporting some kind of brace on her wrist as she opens this morning's session down in Key Biscayne, FL, and just to make sure attendees didn't get the wrong idea, she said it was "not" a "tweeting injury." "It's a torn ligament in my thumb from skiing," she disclosed, repeating, "it Is not a tweeting injury." Now I don't think Cathy meant to malign Twitter, but she did raise some concerns about the physiological implications of the micro blogging platform. Kind of like the carpel tunnel syndrome of the …
  • Web video next to regular TV: Running as long as it needs
    Web-to-TV services looking to change the game -- Roku, Boxee, and Google TV, and will be apparent when it comes to the duration of a particular piece of content. Original programming running along side traditional TV won't look the same, from a time perspective -- different lengths of video versus the standard half-hour, hour blocks of programming. In speaking at the OMMA Video event in San Francisco, Jim Louderback, chief executive officer, Revision3, , which produces original web content says: "We are not trying to replace TV. It's as long as it needs to be. We have shows …
  • Waiting for video? Nailclipper, please!
    Your video starts in 30 seconds. So what can one do with that time? Research from a study called "Off the Grid" done by IPG Media Lab and Say Media, said viewers -- especially those who can access on-demand video or at opting out of cable/satellite/IPTV overall -- says a good pedicure could be in order. Video of a viewer during the IPG/Say Media presentation said: "I can trim that finger nail!" Brian Monahan, executive vp and managing director of IPG Media Lab, said: "This is what we heard time and time again. 'My time is valuable.' …
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