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.