Chip Griffin: Pardon the Disruption

A Novel Way to Sponsor a Podcast

Popular marketing podcaster Joseph Jaffe of Across the Sound tossed out an idea on his show last weekend: if someone would buy him an iPhone, it would be worth a sponsorship of one of his upcoming shows.  Since we've had good luck sponsoring For Immediate Release with Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson as well as NewCommRoad with Bryan Person, I jumped at the chance. 

Jaffe now has an iPhone and CustomScoop will be sponsoring an upcoming episode.  Check out Jaffe Juice for more details on how this sponsorship came to be.

Technorati tags: Joseph Jaffe, Across the Sound, advertising, sponsorship, podcast, iPhone

No Winners in "People Ready" Kerfuffle, But A Few Observations

It never ceases to amaze me the way the tech blogosphere can get all up in arms over seemingly insignificant things.  The current firestorm over whether top tech bloggers like Mike Arrington, Om Malik, Fred Wilson, and Paul Kedrosky sold their souls by lending their words to a Microsoft "People Ready" campaign is just silly.

One look over at TechMeme tells you that far too many bits and bytes have been spent discussing this topic already, but since seemingly every other post in Google Reader this weekend have been on this topic, I feel compelled to get some things off my chest.

Old Media Endorses Products All The Time

Robert Scoble aptly points out that Leo Laporte does radio ads endorsing products.  Anyone who listens to AM radio regularly (or did anytime in the past several decades) no doubt has heard Paul Harvey waxing on about beds and other products.  Tune into any terrestrial radio station and you will hear a host plugging one product or another -- even news readers do this.  Folks, this is nothing new.

Would the Reaction be Different If It Wasn't Microsoft?

I can't help but wonder if this were an ad campaign engineered by Apple if the reaction wouldn't have been different.  Look at the different reactions to Microsoft's Vista campaign and Nikon's D80 blogger relations program.  Yes, there were minor differences in how the programs were communicated, but the net result is the same: bloggers get to play with expensive, high-end products at no cost for a really long time.

What's Up With John Battelle?

Let me be clear, I'm a John Battelle groupie.  I still miss the Industry Standard.  I loved The Search.  John's blog is on my "1stRead" list in Google Reader.  But what was he thinking when he threw his clients under the bus?  When you act as an agent for someone, as FM does with the blogs it reps for advertising sales, you shouldn't be publicly attacking those clients. 

At Least There's Healthy Debate This Time

One thing that strikes me as different about this blogstorm over blogger ethics is that there seems to be more of a healthy debate about the issue, with many bloggers actively wrestling with the issue.  During similar events in the past, I have been concerned by what I have seen as a rush to judgment and a "blog mob" mentality that sets in.  Here we have had some of the targets stand up to the initial mob attack, rather than folding at the first sign of controversy (notably Fred Wilson and Mike Arrington).  Unfortunately, some of the targets did throw in the towel, prematurely in my opinion.

Showing Irritation Only Emboldens Your Enemies

I don't blame Mike Arrington for getting pretty worked up in his response to this controversy.  Tabloid publications like ValleyWag can clearly get under one's skin pretty easily.  And if someone questions my integrity, you can be sure it's going to make me mad (and it has).  Unfortunately, showing that anger encourages more attacks, as Mike discovered when ValleyWag struck again.  It's important to try to remember schoolyard bullies and two-year old kids in cases like this.  If you show a reaction to their behavior, they keep at it.  If you ignore it, they get bored and move on.

For More Reading...

There's some really good thinking on this subject beyond what I referenced above.  I especially would commend to your attention two differing points of view.  Scott Karp tends to agree with me that this is much ado about nothing, but speaks to a need for bloggers to establish and stick to personal standards.  Jeff Jarvis and I couldn't be farther apart on this issue, but he puts quite a bit of thought and reasoning into his views and makes several points that I do agree with, despite his ultimate conclusion.

Technorati tags: People Ready, Microsoft, Mike Arrington, TechCrunch, Om Malik, Fred Wilson, Paul Kedrosky, Nick Denton, Valleywag, Scott Karp, Jeff Jarvis, blog mob, ethics, journalism, John Battelle, FM Published, Federated Media, advertising, Nikon D80, blogger relations, Leo Laporte, Robert Scoble, Paul Harvey, media ethics

Time Inc. CEO on Value of Readers, Professional Journalism

Rafat Ali has a very candid and revealing interview with Ann Moore, the CEO of Time, Inc.  The whole interview is worth a read, but I want to draw specific attention to two portions.  The first one deals with the different value of online and offline readers:

The average reader of Sports Illustrated delivers about $118 to the bottom line in Time Inc. The average very engaged user of SI.com can generate about $5 in advertising contribution. I need many more online viewers to equal one magazine reader. That is why you have to go for big volume and that is why you got to have partnerships.

Now I find this interesting, and I don't doubt there's some truth in it, but I question whether we're comparing apples and oranges to some degree.  One of the problems is how she defines "average reader" and "average very engaged user."  We don't know whether for the print edition it includes subscribers or subscribers plus pass-alongs.  And for the online what is a "very engaged user"?  I assume it isn't every unique visitor, but is it every repeat visitor?  3 visits per month?  Is it a registered user or email subscriber? 

Time and SI are big enough properties that I assume they have studied this every which way to Sunday, but it is important to carefully study your online audience and figure out if you could actually generate the same revenue on a smaller user base.  If you find that certain users/readers are more lucrative, to the extent you can focus on them, you may be able to get around the need to generate eyeballs in massive quantities just to survive.

The second point she made that I think is worth noting is on the subject of professional journalism versus user generated content:

I think one of my priorities is to make sure we build enough fences around the journalistic part of our company, that we protect it and nurture it. Real fact-based news is very important for the country, for our company, for our democracy, for your business. You are not going to want the world to just run on user-generated content. We need to protect real journalism, and it is very much in our DNA.

A company like Time can't survive on user generated content alone.  And despite the real value I see in what users create, I still see enormous value in professional content.  As much as we all may like to read blogs and watch YouTube videos, there's still plenty of room for magazines, newspapers, TV, radio, movies, etc.  It's all a matter of balance, not an either-or choice like some would like to make it.

Technorati tags: Rafat Ali, PaidContent, content, old media, magazines, new media, user generated content, consumer generated media, YouTube, online video, online advertising, Ann Moore

Are Web Sites the Death of Newspaper Real Estate Ads?

A Realtor in the San Francisco area tried an experiment where he compared newspaper listings to web listings.  He discovered that the newspapers drove virtually no people to see the homes in question, while 89% were web-based leads.  He at first attributed this to the proximity to Silicon Valley, so he tried a second home in a "more traditional market" in the area. 

His conclusion?  Newspapers are dead.  But he writes this:

So far, the data is backing up my original thesis that newspapers ads for homes for sale are about promoting the Realtor, not the house. Buyers find houses online, either via the MLS or online real estate tools like Oodle, Trulia, etc.

The question then becomes how effective are newspaper ads in convincing people to check out a Realtor's web site?  It's possible that while individual home listings don't matter per se, that the mere presence of the ad does serve a useful purpose.  If they were web leads who found the web site via the newspaper, that would make them newspaper leads ultimately.

An interesting question.  And I'd be very interested to see if Realtors from other parts of the country could share some data to help determine if this is a geographic phenomenon.  It would also be interesting to see if it matters whether the house is at the high, middle, or low end of the regional market.  Perhaps there is an income bias or an age bias?  For instance, homes more appealing to empty nesters might do better in a newspaper than one more appropriate for a young family.

There are so many facets to the future of traditional media that it really is a fascinating area to watch.

Technorati tags: newspapers, real estate, realtor, MLS, home sales

Newspaper Ads Up Online, Down Offline

 From PaidContent:

For the 12th straight quarter, newspaper websites saw their ad revenues rise; this time around, the increase was 22.3 percent to $750 million in Q1 compared to the same period a year ago, according to estimates from the Newspaper Association of America. For context, online made up 7.1 percent of total newspaper ad spending in Q1 compared with 5.5 percent for the same period a year ago. In general, however, sites are not pulling in enough to offset the drop in newspaper ad expenditures. Together, newspapers and their websites totaled $10.6 billion for Q1, a 4.8 percent decrease from Q106. Spending for print ads in newspapers totaled $9.8 billion, down 6.4 percent versus the same period a year earlier, while classified revenue fell 13.2 percent to $3.4 billion.

Technorati tags: newspapers, advertising

Profiting from Breaking News and Tragedy?

A grad student doing some research emailed me today to ask what I thought about media web sites including pre-roll advertising on breaking news video.  The impetus was apparently an ad that a news site showed as a pre-roll before news about the Virginia Tech shootings.  Some were clearly offended.

The argument against advertising in such situations, of course, would be that it is profiting from a tragedy.  Furthermore, one could argue that the imperative in a breaking news situation should be to deliver news quickly, not advertising. 

There is no clear cut ethical problem with pre-roll advertising in a breaking news situation, even when it may be a horrible tragedy.  Nor do I have a broader objection to pre-roll ads on web video, as others may.  Content creators have a right to extract value from the content they create, whether that may be through advertising or some other means.

It will not surprise readers of this space, however, to know that I believe that individual media properties must make individual decisions on a case-by-case basis.  For instance, a student-run media outlet at Virginia Tech may well want to elect to remove advertising for appearance sake in the wake of a tragedy like the one that occurred.  Similarly, readers will recall that the major networks went into wall-to-wall news coverage without advertising for several days after September 11. 

Nevertheless, a media outlet provides no less of a service to its readers/viewers during a time of tragedy or crisis than at any other time.  Indeed, it could be argued that media outlets provide their greatest service and value in such situations.  While it might be unseemly to initiate advertising only in a breaking news situation, maintaining advertising policies throughout one should not be frowned upon.  Without revenue, these sites would cease to exist and the news, information, and video would not be available.

Technorati tags: advertising, ethics, pre-roll, web video, online news

Online Ad Revenue for Newspapers Slipping

From PaidContent:

as the earnings for the NYTCO, Gannett and Tribune have shown, interactive ad dollars are not growing as expected (Dow Jones and the smaller Journal Register Company represent the exceptions). And as WaPO prepares to release its Q1 earnings, the CEO of its online division tells the WSJ that online ad growth is slowing across the board.

Technorati tags: newspapers, advertising, online advertising

Roundup of Blog Advertising Networks

John Battelle mentioned on his blog today that he's experimenting with some new ad pricing models on his blog.  It got me to thinking about the blog advertising space generally, so I decided to take a look at the current options for advertisers seeking to target blogs specifically.

Note that I did not include ad networks that do not permit targeting specifically to blogs.  For instance Google AdWords and AdBrite include blogs in their networks, but (to my knowledge) do not permit targeting only those sites.

BlogAds

The BlogAds network created by Henry Copeland skews heavily toward the political, though certainly not exclusively.  Here's how they describe it:

We represent the blogs you read -- Dailykos, Perez Hilton, Hotair, Atrios, MyDD, Americablog, PoliticalWire, GoFugYourself, OverheardinNewYork, CrooksandLiars, RightWingNews, IndieWire, OutsidetheBeltway and Cuteoverload. And we rep many blogs you don't read but should. In all, we place ads on 1100 peer-selected blogs with 300 million impressions a month in hives like: New Yorkers, Gothamist blogs, lawyers, evangelicals, gizmophiles, gays, conservatives, baseball fans, foodies, liberals, scientists.

The site is organized by topical "hives" (or groups of sites).  You can choose to buy hives or individual targeted sites.  Browsing through the options allows you to drill down and see the components of a particular hive and how much traffic each receives.  It is relatively easy to use and generally transparent with the information it provides.  Ads allowed are mixed media with images and text, or simple text.   

Blogsvertise

This firm serves more as a matchmaking society between advertisers and bloggers.  Here's how they describe their offering: "We offer 3 basic types of Sponsorship Opportunities: Blog Entries/Advertorials, Blog Home Page Links, Blog Home Page Banners."  And here's how it works: "The blogger receives an advertising request from you/our system. They accept or decline the offer."

It is impossible to browse their offerings without registering, so I can't speak to the number of participating blogs or the quality of their product interface.  It does appear that they are in the same vein as PayPerPost, in that they pay bloggers to write about companies.  They don't require a specific message and bloggers can be critical, but I saw no mention of any sort of disclosure policy on their site.  Their site indicates that advertisers pay $4 to $20 or so per post.

This one seems to be more of an SEO play than a blog advertising one, despite how they are marketing themselves.  I'm not going to get into the merits of the idea, since that has been adequately discussed here and elsewhere in the past.

CrispAds

Providing a pay per click (PPC) advertising network covering more than 3,000 blogs with more than 421 million impressions per month, I was surprised I hadn't heard of them before I went searching today to to find blog ad networks that had escaped my notice.  They do have some surprising language on their site, so I wonder about their track record.  For instance: "We currently have 6,000 text advertisers available on our blog network. However, our CPC Text Ads are currently offline to the general public. They will be restored in the near future." I'm not quite sure what that means exactly.  The web site also includes news on the home page, but it hasn't been updated since 2005. 

After digging a little more, I discovered that CrispAds had been put up for sale on eBay late last year but received no bidders.  They claimed a 30% gross profit margin, but set the minimum bid at $90,000 so there seems to be some disconnect there.  If it were really profitable, why sell it so cheap?

You can't search their inventory without registering, so it is hard to say what they really have to offer other than the broad category statistics they provide on their site.  I find this one intriguing, but the evidence suggests this may be one to be avoided until they provide more information on their site about their reliability and viability.

Federated Media

The blog network assembled by Federated Media includes a number of "A-listers."  As their promo materials describe it: "Ten of FM's first twenty partner sites - Boing Boing, Dooce, Fark, Metafilter, BuzzMachine, TechCrunch, Google Blogoscoped, GigaOm, TechDirt and Searchblog - are among Technorati's Top 100 most-influential weblogs online."

Options include graphical or text ads, as well as CPM or flat fee pricing.  Their search interface for finding advertising options leaves a bit to be desired, however.  The search results take a while to navigate and there is only page navigation at the top of the search results, with none at the bottom where it would be more logical.  When I get to the bottom of the page, why do I want to scroll back up to the top to go to the next page?  The search results also include all of the advertising options for each blog.  Ideally, I'd love to see it return the blog names with the ability to click a button to expand the listings to include that level of detail.  Frequently, you may want to see which blogs are available first, then drill into the pricing and sizing details later.

Despite the awkwardness of the interface, FM's network quality make it a winner for potential advertisers.

Feedburner

The established leader of blog feed distribution, FeedBurner, now provides an advertising network as well. Using this service you can advertise not only the web sites of blogs, but also in their feeds (naturally).  Ads can be in graphic or text format.  Targeting is done by channel, not by individual outlet.  Categories available include:   Arts & Entertainment, Business, Computing & Technology, Consumer Electronics, Current Affairs & Politics, Digital Culture, News & Information, and PC & Console Games. 

Using the site is pretty easy.  You simply browse through the available networks and channels to figure out where you want your ad to appear and go from there.  CPM rates are clearly posted for each and you have access to a list of included sites and recent blog posts to give you a clear idea of what you're signing up for.  There's even an online video to help you get started if you're at all intimidated.

PayPerPost

If you're interested in blog advertising and haven't heard of these guys ... I'm not sure where you've been.  Clearly the most controversial player in the space (and arguably not even in the space since they are generally perceived to be more SEO focused than advertising oriented), PayPerPost has certainly developed considerable name ID.

Nevertheless, they describe their offering as blog advertising, so they're included here.  The basic concept is that advertisers pay bloggers to mention their company or product.  Bloggers need not write positively.  They must disclose that they have been compensated for blog posts, but many believe the disclosure policy does not go far enough because it does not require the individual item to be labeled as a paid post.  (Here is not the place to discuss the merits of this, so I won't.)

Without registering, advertisers can't learn much more about the offering beyond a blurry screen shot and a picture of a smiling woman.  So I can't comment on how easy it may be to use or the quality of sites included in their database. 

PayPerPost is certainly a lightning rod for criticism so it would be wise to consider this as an advertiser since it could end up reflecting on you in the end.  If the company can sort out its image and disclosure issues, it could provide value.  Clearly identified sponsor posts likely have merit as a blog advertising device and would go beyond the SEO play they currently have going, for better or for worse.

Conclusion

Advertisers have more choices than ever in how to communicate their message throughout the blogosphere.  Let me know what you think about the companies included in this roundup and tell me if I have missed any that you are aware of. 

Technorati tags: John Battelle, BlogAds, Blogsvertising, CrispAds, FeedBurner, Federated Media, PayPerPost, Google AdWords, AdBrite

So You Want to Build a Big Ad-Supported Web Site? Think Again

Today the New York Times points to an excellent blog post by Jeremy Liew of Lightspeed Venture Partners who details 3 ways to get to $50M in annual revenue with an ad-supported web site.  The bottom line is that it takes a lot to achieve it.  He thinks it is hard, but doable.  Jeremy says in the comments he thinks that a niche site is most feasible, but would still need to achieve 200 million or more page views every month in order to hit the goal.  If you're building a site with more general appeal, you'd need to have in excess of 4 BILLION page views per month to hit those kind of revenue numbers, according to Jeremy's calculations.

Unless you really think you'll be one of the handful of players to achieve these numbers -- and you may well be -- then you need to either set your revenue sights lower or you need to come up with a different model.  Just about a year ago, Fred Wilson raved about his favorite business model, which includes a mix of revenue streams sitting on top of a free service. 

To me, though, it also points to the need to think through revenue models before you start your business.  I know that it is fashionable to argue that with low startup costs today, you can just start your web site up and figure out how to make money after you get traffic.  Baloney.  You should have an idea as to how you plan to make money because how you structure the site may change based on your plans.  Now, you need not stick with that model as time passes if you have a better idea -- and in fact in most cases how you make money 12 months into the adventure will not be the same as what you predicted.  That's fine and expected.  But don't subscribe to the "build it and revenue will come" school of thought.

Technorati tags: Jeremy Liew, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Fred Wilson, business model, advertising, web traffic, page views, entrepreneur, venture capital

Online Video Advertising Finds an Answer from the 1950's

OK, so today seems to be advertising day on Pardon the Disruption as this is now the third consecutive item on online ads of one sort or another.  But wait ... this one has a funny video embeded, so stick with it.

Fred Wilson pointed to a recent Wallstrip Video as an example of how good video advertising might be done in the future.  (Aside: Wallstrip is a much more fun way to get stock information than by reading boring analyst reports.)   And if you like geeky Wall Street humor, the whole video below is worth watching.  It's only a few minutes long.

 Essentially, as Fred notes, it conjures up the 1950's where TV shows integrated sponsorship within the content itself.  In some ways, it is much like sports stadiums today where there are ads on the field, ice, court, boards, scoreboard, outfield walls, and even the arenas themselves are named for sponsors.  Even sports TV integrates sponsors within their broadcasts as you have things like the "Aflac Trivia Question."

Fred is particularly excited because he doesn't think "pre-rolls" (ads shown before the ultimate content is displayed will work.  And nobody thinks "post-rolls" will work because there's no incentive to stick around and watch ads after the fact -- if you even make it all the way to the end of the video in the first place.

I agree in general with Fred on this one, especially for professional web video content.  My concern is it doesn't really answer the question of monetization of consumer generated video, since integrated sponsorship requires additional production cost -- not to mention the relationship with the advertiser must be more direct.  He's probably right that "mid-rolls" will be the real answer in this area once the technology matures.

Technorati tags: Fred Wilson, pre-roll, video advertising, advertising, online video, post-roll, mid-roll, Wallstrip