In Memory of Carl Sagan

Today is the 11th anniversary of the death of my hero Carl Sagan (thanks to Bad Astronomy for the reminder).  Personally, it has been an emotionally trying year with the birth of our first child and soon thereafter the death of my childhood best friend and cousin (more like brother) in Afghanistan. I find wisdom in Dr. Sagan’s words about life, the cosmos and humanity today.

Echoing my post from a year ago, here’s the passage from Cosmos which I’ve read at the end of every class I’ve ever taught… whether science or religion bound:

“The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest conemplations of the Cosmos stir us – there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.

The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet ourspecies is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millenia we hav emad the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. I believe our future depends on how well we know this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.

Those explorations required skepticism and imagination both. Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never where. But without it, we go nowhere. Skepticism enables us to distinguish fancy from fact, to test our speculations. The Cosmos is rich beyond measure – in elegant facts, in exquisite interrelationships, in the subtle machinery of awe.

The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen our toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting. The ocean calls. Some part of our being knows this is from where we came. We long to return. These aspirations are not, I think, irreverent, although they may trouble whatever gods may be.”

And here’s the video version:

This being my first year with a child, I can only hope that I pass on to her the wisdom, confidence and humbleness to always look up at the night sky. 

Thank you, Carl Sagan.

Google Checkout Widget Coming?

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Problogger has a post on an interesting new AdSense format being tested with pictures. This definitely puts the widget marketing world in a precarious situation if a Checkout widget does roll out…

There’s been lots of testing of new ad formats going on at AdSense recently – but this one is really interesting – it’s a much more interactive looking AdSense unit that looks and functions a lot like Chitika’s eMiniMalls and WidgetBucks units.It seems to be called the ‘Google Checkout Gadget’.

New Interactive AdSense Unit with Pictures Spotted

Kyte.tv Gets Funding, Distribution and Celebrities

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Video blogging site Kyte.tv has announced a round of funding, added distribution and it looks as if they are adding more celebrities to compliment the popular 50 Cent channel.

Soon-to-announce-a-career-move Robert Scoble is a huge fan of Kyte.tv (and one has to wonder if this will lure him over to the video blog startup or if he’ll go with the rumor and sign FastCompany. If you’re interested in that sort of thing, he’ll be announcing around the 15th of January). He broke the news on his blog:

Kyte just announced a B-round of funding from Telefonica, Nokia, DoCoMo, Swisscom, Holtzbrinck and DFJ of $15 million, adding on to an earlier round of $2.25 million. Whew, the video space is really heating up.

But more significant than the money is the distribution. Telefonica has 230 million users. DoCoMo has 52 million. Nokia has 39% of the cell phone market share. If the Kyte player is embedded on these three it brings a HUGE audience to Kyte.

Also, they showed me a channel that rapper 50 Cent is doing. It has, within a few weeks, passed my Kyte.tv channel to gain the spot on Kyte. More celebrity deals are in the offing, CEO Daniel Graf told me. They also shipped a new iPhone version and demonstrated an even more feature rich version coming in January.

Kyte is interesting in that it functions as a place to live blog, interact with commentors and aggregate content. Perhaps the most compelling feature is the emphasis on mobile blogging via video (which I still think is going to be a breakaway hit in 2008).

So, we’ll see if this news (especially the celebrity additions) add to Kyte.tv’s share in the growing micro-blogging/video/mobile space that is seeing a convergence revolution.

Squidoo Takes on Knol

Squidoo strikes back against Google with an interesting front end for a Squidoo lens creator called SquidKnol:

We built a new front door that makes it easy for you to build a scholarly page, filled with details, facts and more on Squidoo. And of course it will be indexed all over the web…

Pretty smart (and funny at the same time) from Seth Godin and the Squidoo team if you ask me.  Should be fun to watch how much attention this brings back to Squidoo since the topic of Knols is hot conversation in the online tech and marketing world at the moment.

Seth’s Blog: For scholars who just can’t wait

What is an API?

Matt Dickman has an excellent (and concise) post/video on MarketingProfs explaining what an API is and what it does.

Whether you’re a marketing geek or just someone interested in improving your web marketing, you need to at least have a conversational understanding of API’s in this web2.0 mashup world. Matt provides a good place to start.

Matt is doing a series of these posts on important terms or concepts that marketers need to understand or grasp in order to exist and survive in the current and emerging tech landscape, so keep an eye on the RSS feed there.

Learning, Teaching and the New Web

Last week, my grad school alma mater Yale opened its doors to the web and followed the path of Stanford and M.I.T. by putting popular courses up for anyone to enjoy and learn from.

Here’s a great story from the NY Times about an amazing Physics teacher at M.I.T. who is using this newfound access to people outside the ivory towers to share his love for physics:

Professor Lewin’s videotaped physics lectures, free online on the OpenCourseWare of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have won him devotees across the country and beyond who stuff his e-mail in-box with praise.

“Through your inspiring video lectures i have managed to see just how BEAUTIFUL Physics is, both astounding and simple,” a 17-year-old from India e-mailed recently.

NY Times: At 71, Physics Professor is a Web Star

TweeterBoard is Bad and Stunts Growth of Conversations (as Do All “Lists”)

My pal Marshall Kirkpatrick made a post on Read/WriteWeb concerning the fascinating new TweeterBoard site:

On Tweeterboard you’ll find not only a list of the top 100 most influential users on Twitter – you can also look up any of almost 2000 users and see who they are conversing with and get some idea how much influence they carry in the Twitter ecosystem. Only a small portion of Twitter users are being tracked so far – but if indexing can be automated (!) then this could become a very important service.

Tweetboard is fascinating but it’s inherently bad for the type of organic and fluid conversation that happens on Twitter everyday.

If Twitter is going to make it to the mainstream and really start pushing the envelope of personal content production by non-tech gods and goddesses, we’ve got to get over the silly notion of “rank” and “importance” that these types of things measure.

Why?

Because sites like Technorati and Techmeme (though utilitarian for some) have stunted (or at least perverted) the blogosphere by introducing concepts of ranking and opened the floodgates to spammer-and-gamer SEO’s and affiliates (those are adjectives for some, not for all) and created a class system of blogging that is not easily overcomed.

Let’s level the playing field with Twitter and not repeat the same mistakes that caused for the creation of A Lists, B Lists and Z Lists. Otherwise, Twitter and micro-blogging in general will suffer.

[Update] After I posted this, fellow Twitter user Mike Krigsman (someone I follow) and ZD Net blogger posted this:

@samharrelson Absolutely agree core value of Twitter is leveling the field. Diminishment of that attribute will limit it’s value. Think Digg

Exactly.

Shopping.com or Shogging.com?

Interesting post (and discussion in the comments) from ComparisonEngine on Pepperjam’s shogging.com site:

In a search for Ugg boots, I found the following ad:
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I thought I was clicking on a Shopping.com ad. Instead, I arrived at Shogging.com, which is owned by the Pepperjam Network.

Kris Jones has also posted about Brian’s ComparisonEngine post on the PepperJam blog . Should be fun to see how the comments and conversation play out and what people think of the PPC marketing strategy behind this (and to see how many affiliates or agencies are doing similar things).

Google Goes Useful: Easily Check Flight Status

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While seemingly mundane, this is killer for those of us with an already large part of our digital life wrapped up in the Google cloud.  Sure there are sites that already do this, but Google has earned my trust for essential info like a flight status:

For the latest information on a flight’s status, simply search for an airline and flight number, and the first result will tell you whether your flight is on time or delayed as well as the estimated departure and arrival times.

Better Flight Stats Results from Google

Thanks, Anna

Chris Brogan wished his wife a happy birthday in a beautiful post on his blog today.

Following in his footsteps, I just wanted to give a quick “Thank you and I love you” to my wife. It has certainly been one heck of a year, but she impresses me more and more everyday with her skills as a physician, friend, wife and (now) mother…

Here’s to the next 50 holiday seasons!

Sitemap Videos for Google Indexing

Google continues its foray into video with the announcement of sitemaps for video:

In our effort to help users search all the world’s public videos, the Google Video team joined the Sitemaps folks to introduce Video Sitemaps—an extension of the Sitemap Protocol that helps make your videos more searchable via Google Video Search. By submitting this video-specific Sitemap in addition to your standard Sitemap, you can specify all the video files on your site, along with relevant metadata.

Here’s an example (emphasis mine):

<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9"
     xmlns:video="http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-video/1.0">
<url>
<loc>http://www.example.com/videos/some_video_landing_page.html</loc>
<video:video>
   <video:content_loc>http://www.example.com/video123.flv</video:content_loc>
   <video:player_loc allow_embed="yes">http://www.example.com/videoplayer.swf?video=123</video:player_loc>
   <video:title>My funny video</video:title>
   <video:thumbnail_loc>http://www.example.com/thumbs/123.jpg</video:thumbnail_loc>
</video:video>
</url>

<url>
<loc>http://www.example.com/videos/some_other_video_landing_page.html</loc>
<video:video>
   <video:content_loc>http://www.example.com/videos/video1.mpg</video:content_loc>
   <video:description>A really awesome video</video:description>
</video:video>
</url>
</urlset>

This will facilitate Google’s indexing of video based around relevant data.  Of course, this also helps Google to properly categorize videos in order to display relevant contextual ads via AdSense.

For small to medium publishers, this could be a good chance to increase AdSense commissions if your videos are properly indexed early and often.  As seen in the
example above, Google’s spiders will be looking for keyword descriptions.

You can get going with video sitemaps through the Google Webmaster Tools page.

AdMob and the Coming Mobile Marketing Revolution

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AdMob is an advertising network aimed at the mobile market. They interact with publishers and advertisers much in the same way as a Commission Junction or Linkshare or ShareASale, but focus on mobile ads, creatives and deliveries.

They have just released their November stats (report available here):

It is our pleasure to send you our third monthly AdMob Mobile Metrics with November data. We have appreciated your feedback and continue to add to the report. This month we have added month-over-month change calculations to make it easier to observe trends in geographic regions, manufacturers and individual handset models.

Some observations from the November data:

  • AdMob Network impressions were up 4.5% November over October to 1,722,213,245. The growth was driven by Western Europe and North America.
  • Apple iPhone share continued to grow and we saw a strong first full month of iPhone traffic in the UK.
  • Nokia N Series devices showed strong growth in November.

The trends here are interesting to observe and digest considering the impact that mobile marketing is poised to make in the general marketing industry in 2008. Companies like AdMob are paving the way and will surely be either competitors or acquisitions of Google, Microsoft or Yahoo.

Digital River Shares Slip: Affiliate Future for Games?

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Barron’s is reporting that Digital River, the parent company of affiliate network oneNetworkDirect, is seeing its stock price slide today in light of lower revenue from key client Symantec resulting in a lower valuation:

Zorovic says that he now expects the software-downloading service company’s revenue from key customer Symantec (SYMC) to be down 5% year-over-year in the current quarter, rather than flat as previously expected. “As Symantec continues to focus on its costs in 2008, we anticipate it continues on setting a high performance/price hurdle for Digital River, as it did with subscriptions in 2007,” he writes. Zorovic adds that he expects ongoing investment in R&D and sales and marketing as the company develops its games offerings. He now sees operating margins next year flat versus 2007, rather than the 240 basis point he had been projecting.

I’m eager to see how the gaming offerings mentioned play into oneNetworkDirect. That is a segment of consumer culture that affiliate marketing hasn’t particularly done well (or much) with in the past. Since gaming (both console and online) continue to explode in users and revenues every quarter, it’s time that a network figured out how to leverage the affiliate channel to promote games.

Why Social Media Marketing Matters

Peter Kim has a thought provoking post on a quote from Lester Wunderman:

“We are living in an age of repersonalization and individualization.  People, products and services are all seeking an individual identity.  Taste, desire, ambition and lifestyle have made shopping once again a form of personal expression.  A computer can know and remember as much marketing detail about 200,000,000 consumers as did the owner of a crossroads general store about his handful of customers.  It can know an select such personal details as who prefers strong coffee, imported beer, new fashions, bright colors.  Who just bought a home, freezer, camera, automobile.  Who had a new baby, is overweight, got married, owns a pet, likes romantic novels, serious reading, listens to Bach or the Beatles.  New marketing forms which will link these facts to advertising and selling must evolve – where advertising and buying become a single action.”

Spot on.

Crazy thing is that the quote is from November … of 1967.  That is real thought shaping.

Peter makes the point that the quote (which helped to spur the direct marketing industry) can be applied just as fittingly to social computing and media today.  Perhaps if we all go back and re-read and re-digest (or grok for you Heinlein fans out there) Wunderman’s words, we can spur the evolution of the next form of marketing which is surely ready to birth.

Performics Offers Make Good for Downtime

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Performics offers affiliates a make good for downtime earlier this month in an email to network members…

As you know from previous communications, DoubleClick Performics experienced a system outage on Saturday, December 8, 2007 due to an inadvertent complete loss of power in the DoubleClick Thornton, Colorado data center.

In light of the service disruption, DoubleClick Performics decided to do something special for its Affiliate Publishers and will pay a one-time bonus of 10% based on affiliate commissions generated on Saturday, December 15, 2007. Such bonus will be equal to 10% of the commissions earned during the entire day by an Affilate Publisher and will be reflected in the January payment statement.

We are hopeful you view this as a reflection of our commitment to your success, and the success of our Affiliate Marketing business.

We appreciate your valuable contribution.

The DoubleClick Performics Affiliate Team

10th Grader Gets Detention for Using Firefox (UPDATE: HOAX)

If my daughter ever gets detention for doing something like this, I’ll be the first to take her out for ice cream (or whatever the kids consider cool these days):

Now this is a sad story…if it’s true. According to this alleged school report, one student received a detention for using Firefox—as opposed to IE or Safari, we assume. And while there could be plenty of explanations for why the school would want to control student browsers, we loved the teacher’s write-up of the event:

Today in class [name] had a program launched called Foxfire.exe. I had told [name] to close the program and to resume work but he told me that is was just a different browser and that he was doing his work. I had given him two warnings but he insisted that it was just a “better” browser and he wasn’t doing anything wrong. I had then issued his detention.

Absolutely sad.

Wired has the story:

Update: Earlier today we posted a story of the Pennsylvania high-schooler who received detention just for using Firefox in lieu of another Internet browser. Looks like this one was a hoax. Apparently the kid actually got in trouble for mouthing off to a teacher after being asked not to surf the Interwebz when he was supposed to be doing a written assignment in Microsoft Word. The supposed faux detention slip is a forgery the kid made after scanning the original.

Celebrating Five Years of Blogging: SkyHawkScience Still my Fav

Robert Scoble has started a fun trip down memory lane for all of us with his post “Celebrating Seven Years of Blogging.”

I formally started blogging in 2002 with Digital Moses then the relaunched ReveNews (my pal Jim Kukral was publisher of ReveNews at the time and has been blogging since 2000 or so). But the blogging that I’m most proud of was the class blog I started while I was teaching 8th Grade Physical Science at Hammond School in Columbia, SC. The blog was called SkyHawkScience and was a tremendous experience. I still tear up when I look at the archive on Internet Archive (took the site down because after I left teaching I didn’t want the blog to forever dominate my students’ Google indexes since it did gain popularity).

I still miss that blog. I’ve gone on to blog at CostPerNews, ReveNews again, HarrelsonReligion (my college class blog) and here (first on wordpress.com then as a hosted WordPress blog). I still like the SkyHawkScience blog the best, though.

Google Adds Social Networking to Google Reader

Google is making a small tweak to Google Reader that increases its “stickiness” even more and competes directly with popular applications such as the FeedHead app within Facebook:

So, we’ve linked up Reader with Google Talk (also known as chat in Gmail) to make your shared items visible to your friends from Google Talk. Once you’ve logged into Reader and been notified of the change, these friends will be able to see your shared items in the Reader left-hand navigation area under “Friends’ shared items”. We’ve provided an option to clear your shared items in case you don’t want your friends to see what you’ve shared in the past. We’ve also added a Settings page so you can choose which friends you see and invite friends who aren’t yet sharing to try it out.

Google Reader is the most popular web-based feed reader on the market and this sort of viral saring will only increase its foothold as RSS, and feed reading in general, continues to climb the mountain to mainstream acceptance.

This also gives a glimpse of the eventual social features that Google will surely build into GMail, GCal, Google Docs and Reader as they continue to move further into the social web.

Marketers would be wise to mind the meme (or at least The Social).

Here’s a screen shot of the profile creating option within Google Reader:

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BTW, you can grab the feed or see my shared items from Google Reader here. Feel free to share yours in the comments here as well!

And here’s more on Google’s social profile options for inviting friends:

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LinkConnector’s New Product Feed Creatives

LinkConnector, a North Carolina based affiliate network, launched its new product feed creatives this week.  The new creatives allow affiliates to promote specific merchant products without having to download the merchant’s entire product feed.

In other words, these are dynamic ads that allow the affiliate promoting a merchant to be choosy about products withing a data feed.  Giving affiliates a choice is always a good thing and normally works out for the merchant in terms of improved conversions as well.

According to LinkConnector:

“LinkConnector’s product feed creatives pull data directly from merchant product feeds, tools which are very important to the success of many affiliate marketers. Product feeds enable affiliates to link directly to the product or landing page specifically requested by the user. They also provide merchants with a quick way to supply definitive product information directly to their affiliates. Product feeds enable affiliates to programmatically keep their websites up to date with the merchant’s latest product pricing and promotional information. Product feeds better enable affiliates to sell the products and services of merchants, translating into increased conversions.”

While nothing earth shattering, this is a positive step in the right direction for networks.  Improving on something as “old” as product or data feeds seems rather mundane in the web2.0 world where there seems to be revolutionary new platforms being created every day, but it is essential for networks to continue to make these sorts of improvements on features we’ve all been using for years.

Raising Conversions with Data and Design

MarketingSherpa’s Landing Page Handbook is tremendous.  I’ve had the handbook for over a month now and haven’t posed a review yet because I’ve taken the time to actually read and ponder all 272 pages.  Normally, I’m not a huge fan of such handbooks or “how-to’s” that pertain to marketing, but the Landing Page Handbook is definitely an exception and proved worth the hours of time I put into reading the whole thing.

Here are the specs from the site:

  • Research Data & Useful Stats — See how your landing page-related stats compare to 3800 of your peers. Useful for pitching upper management for tests and budgets.
  • Step-By-Step Instructions — Practical guidelines for each step of landing page design, including copy, graphics, layout, buttons, typeface, video, audio, and top four types of testing. Plus, “skunk works” tips.
  • Creative Samples & Case Studies — Use as design aids and inspiration for your new landing pages. Includes multivariate test results and real-life marketer’s stories. ( Click for a list of brands featured….)
  • Specific help for — Search marketing (PPC and SEO), business-to-business marketers, ecommerce sites, email marketers, offline advertisers and even bloggers.
  • Besides the case studies from major brands, the most enlightening part of the handbook had to be chapter 2 (“Landing Page Design, Layout and Copy Fundamentals”).  That sounds like it would be just a rehash of tips and tricks, but the chapter lays out a number of insights and examples (and helpful charts) that describes, in detail, a successful landing page strategy for higher conversions.  If the handbook had been composed of just chapter 2, I would have been happy with the time investment.

    However, all 270+ pages are useful for both online marketing newbies and veterans alike.  That’s not an easy balance to find, but MarketingSherpa found the magic for this publication.

    You can find out more about the Landing Page Handbook here.

    Google’s Biggest Move in Years: Adding Authority to Content

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    (Example of a Knol)

    What normally causes a rage or a riot in the tech blogosphere flitters out to meaning little to nothing for the “average” web user in general or is tested and evolved before being adopted by web users outside of the Techmeme echo chamber. Interestingly enough, the things that seem to slip by most tech bloggers sometime come back to surprise us all with their impacts or ramifications for the web environment.

    That might be the case with Google’s latest experiment called “Knol” (for a unit of knowledge). Google says they are attempting to get people to contribute knowledge to the web with a layer of authorial addition:

    The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors’ names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors — but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content. At the heart, a knol is just a web page; we use the word “knol” as the name of the project and as an instance of an article interchangeably. It is well-organized, nicely presented, and has a distinct look and feel, but it is still just a web page. Google will provide easy-to-use tools for writing, editing, and so on, and it will provide free hosting of the content. Writers only need to write; we’ll do the rest.

    The goal is for knols to cover all topics, from scientific concepts, to medical information, from geographical and historical, to entertainment, from product information, to how-to-fix-it instructions. Google will not serve as an editor in any way, and will not bless any content. All editorial responsibilities and control will rest with the authors. We hope that knols will include the opinions and points of view of the authors who will put their reputation on the line. Anyone will be free to write. For many topics, there will likely be competing knols on the same subject. Competition of ideas is a good thing.

    Knols will include strong community tools. People will be able to submit comments, questions, edits, additional content, and so on. Anyone will be able to rate a knol or write a review of it. Knols will also include references and links to additional information. At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads. If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with substantial revenue share from the proceeds of those ads.

    It’s no wonder that Google is getting into the knowledge production business. And at this point, it is a business. Whereas Wikipedia has rapidly become the repository of information for those seeking deeper knowledge of a subject or topic than a query on a search engine (such as Google) can provide, Wikipedia still relies on donations and is run as a nonprofit.

    Google sees the opportunity to provide a better product while also serving their famous contextual ads on top of the content and increasing their revenues (with what would certainly be highly targeted audiences). Blending authoritative information with relevant advertising equals money. And lots of it. Not only will knols rank high in the search engines, they will go hand-in-hand with Google’s search results to form a platform of trust and that spells conversions.

    Google has learned well from both the under monetized Wikipedia and the over-spammed Squidoo in this endeavor. And while the announcement of the knol program went by fairly quietly in the tech world, this could be Google’s biggest move in years (up there with acquiring YouTube).

    I expect we’ll be seeing more and more about knols as people realize the potential impact on the average web user.

    ShareASale: Learning from Facebook

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    Incredible (and promising) post from the ShareASale Blog today in context of Facebook removing the “is” from its presence platform…

    Similarly, we often have things at ShareASale that we know are “broken” but are little things in the grand scope of things. I hereby apologize for all of those “little things” and am going to try to sweep through a bunch of them – as I realized today (again) how important little things are to just generating good will and making you all (our customers) happy with us.

    Whatever you feel about Facebook, this is incredibly promising. We can only hope that more networks learn and adapt like ShareASale is doing.

    Flickr Now Has Stats

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    Flickr announces that they have opened up a stats interface for Premium Members.

    We’ve introduced a new feature for our pro members: stats!

    No, your eyes aren’t deceiving you — we’ve launched another of our most often requested features. Yay!

    We’ve designed stats on Flickr to give you all sorts of insight into how people arrive at your photos. If you’re a pro member you can activate your stats now.

    There’s more information about stats on Flickr in the FAQs and we’ll be happy to answer your questions and take feedback in this Help Topic.

    Very cool for metrics junkies!

    AdItAll – Professional Video Clips On Demand

    AdItAll is an interesting entry into the online video creation space. Aimed at more corporate type companies with little time to adequately create, produce and edit a professional style video, AdItAll combines editing tools typically found on user generated video content sites with a marketplace of various available clips:

    aditall1.jpg

    As an example, I chose a clip geared towards an office environment which took me to an AJAX pop up to see the video, price (most looked to be in the $300 range for a 10-15 second clip) and choice to edit…

    aditall2.jpg

    The editing screen includes a number of options and allows the potential buyer to experiment with the soundtrack, voice over, individual frames, images, etc. All in all I was quite impressed with the editing options here…
    aditall3.jpg

    AdItAll isn’t for everyone, but it certainly is an interesting option for companies looking to include a short and professionally produced (and customizable) web clip on their sites. I don’t see many affiliates using this, but I do see the potential for an affiliate network or CPA network to grab a couple of vids for $300 to enhance their affiliate recruitment or site conversion improvement metrics.

    PayPerPost Puts Online Marketing in a “Hairy Situation”

    [Edit 1/15/08 The creator of the campaign, Kirt Gunn, emailed me to let me know that the campaign never worked with PayPerPost.  Glad to hear!]

    PayPerPost … er… Izea… insults our intelligence yet again. Ariel Waldman summarizes a new campaign from PPP and Garnier:

    The Harry Situation site is a horrid attempt at a site, not naming what networks, lawyers, etc. they were working with, but somehow managing to spill out the fill name of “Ganier Frucits” at any chance. A quick WhoIS lookup gives a vague address and another un-Google-able Gmail address…

    On this particular blog post, the site is again, linked to twice (with 2 TinyURLs). One of which is supposed to go to Todd’s “blog”, but when you click on the link, it (surprise!) takes you to an image of the “show” hosted on PayPerPost. Also, “interestingly”, the same name of the image is used on the Harry Situation blog, only this time appropriately hosted on the site. Other blogs that host the post load PayPerPost data when you visit them.

    Our investigative conclusion? Not only has Garnier (and potentially associated ad agencies) attempted to “game” bloggers, by somehow believing that they will link to anything without credentials, but it seems that PayPerPost is incredibly insatiable in making themselves and any blogger associated with them become an evil empire of ridiculousness.

    Whatever your feelings about PayPerPost … er… Izea… this sort of marketing stunt dilutes both the online marketing and online video effectiveness for early adopting advertisers and does nothing useful for either viewers or advertisers dumping money into such campaigns. In fact, I’m sure the poor results and backlash from this will only convince more Madison Ave agencies that online video is a fad.

    Twitter and Online Marketing: What Problem Does Twitter Solve?

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    What purpose does Twitter serve for online marketers? Can you successfully “market” something on Twitter?

    Yes and no.

    Yes: you can market yourself, your ideas, your brand and your positions that down the road equate into real world bottom line numbers.

    No: marketing products or services directly on Twitter in a pure performance marketing sense is incredibly difficult. I’ve been on Twitter for over a year and have 500+ followers and people that I’m following (which is a fairly substantial number in Twitterland). I’ve not seen anyone successfully sustain the ability to direct market products or services.

    Twitter is an amazing tool for networking, sharing info or marketing yourself or your ideas. It requires patience and the realization that not all marketing is constrained by notions of direct results. Sometimes, the best types of performance marketing are the ones that build on organic interest… the type of interest you can generate on Twitter.