Collarity

It was recommended to me by Aimee of Relevant Noise that I check out Kinetic results and Collarity. Being the backwards dude that I am started with Collarity.



I did not spend a lot of time with it and will certainly spend more time in the future. It seems like a very interesting product although, I am not quite sure I am happy with the search results but, as is the case with social media it takes time for the engine to learn.


There is a great flash video to demonstrate the powers of collarity and they use the example two people searching for the term Java. It was quite obvious where this video was headed however this example does a great job of illuminating what it is the product is all about (a concept not new to the digerati and while it is not fully unique, if collarity has built a better mousetrap, they still have a shot at gaining some market share, or more likely selling out to Google :) )


The demo brings up a concept called Core Links, this is a new concept for me!


I am going to spend some time on collarity and report back


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The Subject of Media

In a recent article that I wrote for Adotas I touched upon the subject of Second Life and the distrust that many felt towards the idea of virtual worlds. I likened the virtual space to reality television in an attempt to give a common point of reference so as to disabuse people from their trepidation.

I have done a lot of thinking about virtual worlds since this article was published and I think that there were many other possible angles that I could have entertained in order to address the notion of fear (in relation to virtual worlds).

This brings me to my point; who is the subject of media?

1. Television- Consumers play a passive role and the subjects of the program are objectified by on lookers

2. Terrestrial Radio- Once Again, we apply our "gaze" and play the role of the third person

3. Magazine

(I think you get my point)

...and now for something completely different!

4. The Telephone- Scholars like McLuhan were obsessed with the decentralized and democratic nature of the telephone. The telephone was potentially the first time that "we" were an active subject

5. The Internet- Those who know how to leverage the power of the Internet are able to make active subjects of consumers although, some still treat the Internet as a passive medium

...virtual worlds do something different. They put us in the drivers seat with a visualization of ourselves as subject matter. THIS IS NEW!

I can talk about this for days but...I want feedback. BLOGGING IS NOT A PASSIVE MEDIUM DAMMIT!!! The reason blogging is revolutionary is due to the fact that is does not fossilize content and make it a special to merely look upon.

Join in, be active!

 

 

Search Everything

I never get tired of looking at the search space!

Here are two new products that look really cool. One is Amazon's new paid search platform on the other is a start up that I am still trying to wrap my head around but, the technology looks really cool. It is a visual search product and the potential for retailers seems huge!

 

Reverse Marketing

I was just listening to Max Kalehoff speak on Across The Sound and he said something which I had not heard before. perhaps the core is nothing new but when he referred to keeping your finger on the pulse of the consumer conversation as "reverse marketing" he forced me to take a second and reflect. I was at ad tech for the past few days and  in all the banter that was going on, rarely did I have to stop and reflect.


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TV 2.0: Stories from the Front

Television as we know it still commands the largest budgets and the most respect. But it’s also “leaking” into every corner of the digital media spectrum, forcing networks and publishers—large and small—to go beyond the BOX and traditional distribution models to reach elusive viewers (and nervous advertisers). Can you say paradigm shift? Get the latest facts from today’s frontline leaders.


MODERATOR:
David Hutchinson, Senior VP, Business Development, Program Partners, Inc.
PANELISTS:
Ian Blaine, CEO, thePlatform
Daniel Blackman, Strategic Partner, Development, Google Video
Janet Balis, Senior VP, Sales Development, AOL Media Networks
Tony Nethercutt, VP, Sales, YouTube.com
Dana Jones, President and Founder, Ultramercial


Notes



  • Well You Tube is not here but Google is supposed to suffice (that is what we are told although I would have like to hear from YouTube)

  • Offering choices, content for advertising- reverting back to older models where the sponsor is more championed as the one paying for the content that consumers are getting

  • From a consumer standpoint we are coming into a wealth of content over IP

  • From and ad perspective Janet challenges us to do more than simply "in stream". Consider all of the creative dimensions (Go Janet!)

  • Take advantage of the entire medium

  • There is a lot to be said for the new democratic video process (um)

  • How do we allow content to flow around and still have some marketing control

  • How will UGC evolve to user generated programming

  • Cross Platform exposure

  • AOL- we still have people trying to makes sense of the new models

  • The prevailing sentiment at agencies may not be pre rolls in video ads - a lot of people want to innovate

  • When you start getting outside the stream, that is when is starts getting exciting

  • "The attention aggregation business"



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Ad Tech The Move to Auction-Based Media and the Demise of the Upfront

Google’s foray into non-search media, especially print and radio, has turned the entire ad industry on its’ head, as auction-based media starts to take over the “old school” of volume discounts for heavy-duty media buying. The media community’s call for an Upfront auction that includes traditional and new media has set tongues wagging.
Media selling and buying processes are very outdated and the auction format is the more efficient and profitable model for these media companies and their customers. Knowing HOW to operate in an auction-based environment will become a key differentiator for agencies and marketers as this model gains ground. Join this panel of auction and media experts to learn the inside intricacies of managing auction-based media buying and whether it can work for broadcast as well as it works for online.


MODERATOR:
Brad Berens, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief and Chief Content Officer, iMedia Communications, Inc.
PANELISTS:
Howard Rosenberg, Director, Private Marketplaces, eBay Inc.
Iggy Fanlo, CEO, AdBrite
Keith McAllister, CEO, Mochila
William Urschel, Founder and CEO, AdECN



  • Julie Roehm Spoke about auction based ad model in 2005


  • Berens- "So What The Problem?"

    • ad spending on broadcast is increasing is but viewership is dropping



  • "In the Time I have been speaking this morning five ad networks have been born" Berens

  • Can exchanges help solve these problems


This model seems to be increasingly pervasive. I for one am going to spend more time testing!



  • How best to match buyers with specific pieces of content

  • Yahoo is now running through the right media platform (they recently purchased 20% of Right Media)

  • Driven by what people are doing with the platforms

  • In the case of eBay Marketplace, it will be about how people use the platform


  • The key will be how behavioral and auction based models will mesh

    • bidding based on worth at a very granular level



  • Content A la Carte, On Demand


  • What is the right metaphor for this model?

    • Forward Auction- eBay Model

    • Reverse Auction- One Buyer, Many Sellers

    • Mochilla is a closed auction- creates value through know audience

    • Links advertisers to publishers in a very transparent manner

    • Another questions is how are you bidding, CPA, CPM, CPC

    • Single Pass Model- Ad ECN

    • Right Media- Effective CPM





Generally speaking, this is a sales pitch for the companies on the panel. Brad Berens has really been the only one to add intellectual value.



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Ad Tech The Online Video Revolution: A Marketer’s Dream or a Consumer-Generated Mess?

In the short span of the past 2 years, two leading social media and consumer-generated sites were launched, reached critical mass, and sold to larger strategic partners. In the blink of an eye, an entire new segment of digital marketing, featuring online video and consumer-generated content, has taken center stage. The impact of these sudden changes on the media and advertising landscape are potentially massive, but where are the land mines and risks, and what impact will this full-fledged revolution continue to have on overall consumer behavior - and future ad spending?


INTRODUCTION BY:
Drew Ianni, Chairman, Programming, ad:tech expositions


KEYNOTE:
Sarah Fay, President, Isobar Communications
Suzie Reider, CMO, YouTube.com
Paul Sagan, President and CEO, Akamai Technologies, Inc.
Jonathan Klein, President, CNN/U.S.

Notes:


Paul Sagan



  • Increase the performance of web based content and ads

  • Performance really matters, the user expects a TV like experience

  • What level of quality do you have to have to keep the audience online

  • People have less and less patience for things like page loads etc

  • People expect higher and higher performance

  • One of the challenges depends on time of day, you pay incrementally, one too many viewers can slow or shut you down

  • If you content is popular at a certain time, it may degrade at that time

  • The State of the art is still very unsure

  • Shared Distributed Infrastructure at Akamai

  • UGC has created a new set of technological demand

  • Architecture of CMS are changing


Sara Fay



  • Isobar Network


  • We are really focused in consumer behavior and major shifts

    • Social Networking- " We have something that appeals to human nature...it is a new game and we are trying to figure out the rules"



  • The brands that win will be the brand that has consumers telling the best stories

  • We pay a lot of attention to time spent

  • Right now we are not experiencing a lot of shortage of inventory to buy although we have to buy from a lot of sites in order to fill all of our budgets

  • The advantage of "in banner" is consumer choice

  • Convergence on the buying side

  • Largest audiences online of now six figures at a time, not yet at broadcast size

  • Nichifiying of interests

  • Tuning out of ad messages

  • Handing over control is a tactic for engagement


Jon Klein



  • President of CNN

  • There is a new tool/threat/challenge created by YouTube/ UGC

  • CNN also has a UGC tool that he feels compliments the You Tubes of the world

  • All of our broadband video is sold out through the fourth quarter

  • People tend to watch entire clips and many times more than one

  • We are not serving enough video

  • Collaboration between online and offline sales- integrated sales is a fundamental principal

  • Buyers will always looked to associate themselves with the most trusted names in news ( :) )

  • Transparency is key


Suzie Reider



  • CMO of YouTube (what must that be like at this time!)

  • The Vision- "The greatest entertainment media destination in the world" (um)

  • How do we take this you tube and capture all the things that are going on in the community and have marketers leverage it and not mess it up

  • What does broadband/public wi fi mean for the world of media

  • What is going to happen when the flood of video inventory comes online

  • Dropping CPM's (that does not sound bad to me)

  • 100 MM videos watched a day

  • 65k video's uploaded per day

  • "Clip Culture" - Little Snippets of entertainment

  • Convergence is new, there was a disconnect in selling just a year ago

  • PVA- Participatory Video ad

  • The Community is in control



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Social Juice at Ad Tech

I just saw Joseph Jaffe at ad tech and although he is a great hero of mine, it was not as if I was meeting James Brown (who I did meet). There was a lot of excitement but, listening and reading his work for such a long time made me feel like I was saying "hello again, brother".


Once again the Juice schools me on social media, thanks Joseph!


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Ad:Tech The Search Evolution: How Social Search is Changing all the Rules

The next evolution of search has already begun to change the way consumers connect with content on the Web. This panel will highlight ways that even late-adopting advertisers can start to take advantage of these new developments and how they have started to bridge the gap with traditional digital marketing. In today’s search environment, content is ranked and indexed according to computer algorithmic-based perception. In the very near future, consumers will lend a hand to algorithms and move into the driver’s seat. You’ll learn about media search, RSS, vertical search, visual search, Web 2.0 search and the new ad models that support them. Can smaller players out-innovate the behemoths? Hear the opinions of some of search’s most forward thinkers.


MODERATOR:
Rebecca Lieb, Executive Editor, ClickZ


PANELISTS:
Emil Ismalon, Co-Founder and CTO, Collarity
Peter Hirshberg, Chairman and Chief Marketing Officer, Technorati
Kevin Ryan, CEO, Kinetic Results, LLC


Notes:


Kevin Ryan




  • What's wrong with the search box

    • moving beyond rank addiction

    • The community concept



  • The old way was not about relevance- meta tags ruled etc.

  • Page Rank- Moving Beyond Page Rank


  • The community concept

    •    Search comes first, ads come late

    •    combining social and algorithmic search




  • Social Search

    • Eurekster- Buzz Cloud Technology

    • Yahoo Mindset

    • Rollyo



  • The next evolution in brand recognition management


Emil Ismalon



  • Social Search- The beginning of a new science?


  • Phases

    • Keyword Density

    • Links Topology

    • People Power



  • From what is popular to what is relevant

  • From Query To Dialogue

  • From one size fits all to what is best for me


  • Current Limitations of Social Search

    • We need users to tag info, how do we get them to do this?

    • Small % of participants



  • Database Of Intentions- Jon Battelle

  • we must be able to learn from spontaneous behavior to get more participation

  • Understanding the single person through his/her network of affiliations

  • All about movement from end user to information provider



Peter Hirshberg


Social Search and the rise of the audience



  • The web is not about pages, it is about people

  • More than two thirds of people trust peers

  • Tracking 50 MM blogs


  • What makes the blogosphere grow?

    • Conversation



  • The blogosphere as lots of different communities

  • Audience as distribution model and work force for publications

  • Technorati Conversational Advertising



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Ad:Tech-Pay For Performance: Braving the World Beyond Pay Per Click

Google and Overture revolutionized advertising online with a single, elegant innovation: They took the risk of the ad not working by making advertisers pay only if a surfer clicked on it. Now a raft of publishers and advertisers are defining the next steps, expanding and refining cost-per-action advertising. Models abound, from deals where advertisers pay for every lead, every phone call or even every sale. But cost-per-action advertising has many of the same pitfalls and opportunities as cost-per-click: Smart advertisers have to find and prevent fraud and learn how to measure the results of their campaigns intelligently. On this panel, advertisers and agencies explain when cost-per-action is the right way to run a campaign, and how to do it well.


MODERATOR:
Tim Mullaney, E-Business Editor, Business Week
PANELISTS:
Jed Fowler, Analyst, Atlas


Erin Clark, Manager of Product for Entertainment.com, Entertainment Publications, Inc.
Mark Dorf, Managing Partner, Acuity Media Group
John Marshall, CEO, ClickTracks Analytics


Mark Dorf



  • I did not know the nations capital was New York?

  • The metric type does not matter as long as it backs out into profit

  • Forced to adopt CPA after the bust as no one had money

  • Lead generation a major portion of the CPA model

  • Challenges- Quality Leads

  • Scaleability and Quality

  • What is an acceptable scrub rate

  • Shared Risk Between Advertiser and Vendor


Erin Clark



  • Landscape much more competitive these days

  • CPA model still successful

  • On a scale of one to ten the model is at a 7

  • Most of our work is done networks



I just learned a good lesson. When going to conferences, pay more attention to the description of the sessions. I do not know why I did not do that in this case but, I think the last thing that I want to here about right now is affiliate marketing. Not that I do not think it is important but, I am hearing nothing knew and the types of things being discussed are what I already do.



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Ad:Tech Day One Keynote

From The Alley To The Avenue


Drew Ianni sits down with David to discuss the new media landscape, the continued power of the television commercial as well as the new opportunities and threats that are emerging thanks, in part, to new digital technologies, platforms and creative tools. David and Drew will look at the new world order of strategic brand planning and what it takes to produce world-class creative in a universe increasingly defined by short attention spans, massive media proliferation and where the consumer is increasingly in control. David came to BBDO from Fallon, Minneapolis where he was responsible for some of most memorable and out-of-the-box advertising campaigns including Citibank's “Identity Theft” series and BMW Films. David has been charged with bringing a new, progressive way of thinking to an advertising agency once dubbed the “old guard”


INTRODUCED BY:
Drew Ianni, Chairman, Programming, ad:tech expositions
KEYNOTE:
David Lubars, Chairman and Chief Creative Officer, BBDO North America


Notes (My apologies if I cannot cover this segment in full, I have a call at 11 and have to hop out early)




  • The Current Landscape

    • Headed to 20 billion

    • Online video and community (still relatively small)

    • Consumer control and community- Trendy?

    • Quality inventory shortage, "Wagging the God"?


    • Mobile revolution "going local"

      • Business model issues "Tactical and contextual"



    • Global Revolution


    • The Power To Deal

      • Google market cap 140 billion






  • David Lubars

    • Top of mind- How do we create voluntary involvement

    • Completely Agnostic in terms of medium

    • I don't care where the medium is as long as people want to engage with it

    • "I don't care about technology"

    • BMW Films- "It became what it became" in a very organic manner

    • "95% of ads are probably not that great"

    • fragmentation of attention


    • Online VS. Television- People using DVR's similar to how people used VCR's

      •    Half of the people watch the commercial




    • No Default in terms of creative starting point

      • There are mediums that we do not even know about

      • The way to think now is in terms of a big upstream idea

      • What is the big idea and where can it go



    • Creativity is baked into the wall of BBDO

    • You shouldn't  have to convince clients of new platforms, the work should seem logical

    • Based on the insight is a logical path


    • The beauty of the new world- Dodge/My Space initiative

      • A little car with attitude

      • A little Joe Pesci :)







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Track This Google/Why Is the Medium Now Responsible For Accountability?

Podcasting; one of the coolest things to happen to media in past 100 years (well, at least from a content creation and consumption standpoint). Like all great media however, someone needs to pay the bills. I think most of us know who this someone is (generally) and the model by which payment is structured.


The conundrum lies in marrying advertising and podcasting in an effective way.  Due to the fact that podcasts reside online, many advertisers are hoping for the same type of trackability inherent in the interactive nature of the web however, the podcast is not always as obviously interactive as some of its web counterparts (blogs etc).


So what do we do? Look to Google to save us!


This is one way to go about as; Google helped us define the way advertising/marketing is conducted on the web.


Will Google really help form an ad model for podcasting and how will it be done? This is a topic that my friend and industry cohort Jason Van Orden tackled in his post: Adsense for Podcasts…How Do You Measure It?


Jason, I loved your post and while I think it is dead on, I think the real question is; do we really need to rely on Google to figure this out or can we take it in house and get creative?


I say we get creative!


Without the ability to click how can we measure success of a podcast initiative? One great example is BKG’s Sponsorship of Joseph Jaffe’s Across The Sound/New Marketing ZuneCast or x+1 sponsorship of the same cast.


In both cases Jaffe integrated the messages of his sponsors into the content of the show, making them less obtrusive and more relevant. Jaffe broke new ground by making the marketing messages transparent and at times fun (the x+1 theme song).


He gave his sponsors to chance enter the conversation by doing interviews and including links and information in show notes.


In the case of BKG there was a direct objective (find a new employee) and the quantification will be easy.


I am not saying everyone can do what Jaffe did with ease but, if you get creative you can learn that at times there is life beyond the click.


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Is there life beyond Second Life?

I have been talking a lot about second life lately but, do I feel that Second Life is the "end all be all" of virtual online worlds?


I would have to say I am not really sure. The centralized nature of Second Life makes it seem unfit for sustainability and the type of growth that we saw on the Internet at large however, I have a feeling that Linden Labs will make a push to decentralize (I feel they have to if they want to continue to grow and the amount of capital raised is very telling about what their intentions are).


In the meantime I will continue to enjoy SL and point to other virtual spaces as they arise.



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