Mobille means Fewer more qualified Ads

Improvements to the mobile Web will continue to cause more people to conduct searches on their cell phones however a new challenge to Web advertising giants like Google, Yahoo and others just may well be the mobile phone's screen size. Traditional thinking might lead you to assume what Ben Kunz did in his article in BusinessWeek - small screen equals - less inventory to sell. It's true that a standard computer screen the Google's Ad Sense can fit about 10 ads, but on a cell phone you get only one or two paid ads.

Says Kunz: "Imagine the horror that would befall your business if a large slice of what you sell suddenly disappeared. A similar fate could befall companies that depend on online advertising, as small screens become the gateway to the Internet."That said, no one believes that mobile phones will replace laptops overnight, but if the adoption of Web usage on Apple's iPhone is any indication, Google and its competitors better get
prepared.

Isn't Google already working on this? Earlier in the first quarter, when those infamous numbers from comScore were released (not that those were necessarily wrong, by the way), Google came out saying that it was tweaking its algorithm to promote ads that were likely to convert while eliminating those that were not. The end result was fewer ads, but more qualified--and thus more lucrative--leads generated from ads that were clicked on. Perhaps Google decided to tweak its algorithm with a view to the mobile shift in mind? After all, if the future means less space for ads, wouldn't Google be wise to make sure that fewer ads cost more and convert better? Link: BusinessWeek - Apr 28, 2008 - The Real Threat to Google

Nielsen To Report Ratings For Place-Based Video Networks

Joe Mandese with Media Daily News Reports this morning that "in a move that could bring the kind of structure to the burgeoning out-of-home video advertising marketplace that is associated with traditional television, Nielsen plans to introduce TV ratings "pocketpieces" for a variety of place-based television networks. The plan, which was revealed by Senior Vice President-Nielsen Strategic Media Research Paul Lindstrom, came out as part of a panel discussion on Wednesday during MediaPost's Digital Out-of-Home Forum in New York." Link to the whole story

YouTube videos accessed by TiVo

Forget about squinting to see those sometimes bazaar videos on you computers screen, you can watch the latest web phenomenon on your big screen. TiVo and YouTube this morning announced an agreement that will offer access to web videos directly on the television via TiVo digital video recorder devices. The service will become available later this year for broadband-connected subscribers with Series3 DVRs or later models. Users will be able to surf through YouTube videos on their TVs and watch and save videos. They will also be able to log into their YouTube accounts in order to access existing favorite videos and channels. TiVo calls the deal one more step in the process of combining all web and television viewing needs into one service. Link: Tivo.com Press Release 3/12/08 - TIVO TO PROVIDE YOUTUBE VIDEOS DIRECTLY TO THE TELEVISION

Project Canoe

We’ve all heard about it but the cable industry is still keeping details about "Project Canoe," the clandestine, cross-MSO, advanced advertising initiative, relatively close to the vest. The venture is an effort by all six major cable companies in the U.S. to deliver targeted TV ads to viewers via set-top boxes. The cable companies may control the set-top boxes, but they only collectively control about $5 billion of the $70 billion spent each year on TV ads. With better ad targeting through Project Canoe the cable operators hope to triple their take to $15 billion.

This coalition has been spurred on by Google’s aggressive moves into new spaces, they are already testing their own TV ads on EchoStar’s Dish Network (no satellite companies are part of Project Canoe). Just last week, some Google TV Ad beta testers were able to start buying TV ads through AdWords as part of their regular advertising campaigns. In other words, they can buy search ads on Google, contextual online ads across the Web, and TV ads on Dish all through the same Google interface.
Clearly the cable companies have a lot of work to do to pull this off, but the prize is huge. Forming a viable coalition where incentives are aligned to encourage continued cooperation in the long term is a major step forward. I’m sure that we will be hearing a lot more about this in the coming months and it will be interesting to see how (and how soon) this plays out. Link: NYTimes.com, March 10, 2008 - Cable Firms Join Forces to Attract Focused Ads