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:

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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…

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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…
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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.

Big in Japan: Web2.0 Is Dead and Japan is the Next Hub of the Web?

Robert Sanzalone of Blognation Japan has an interesting interview with Zooomr’s Kristopher Tate in which he expounds on his vision of web development’s future.

He’s almost got me convinced…

Kristopher: My goal is simple. I’m going to make Japan the next center of the web!…

I really want to get bloggers excited in Japan. It doesn’t seem like they have much forward voice here. That needs to change. The bottom line is this: Web 2.0 is dead — the brand is. In the valley everyone is scrambling for new ideas. But Google and Facebook have sucked up core talent. There isn’t anything new or exciting happening there. It’s become a bubble. Japan holds the second largest GDP globally. It’s infrastructure is amazing. 3G is here and people know how to use technology.

Read the rest here.

Super Roman Glue

First concrete, now superglue… is there anything the Romans didn’t engineer?

I’m sure the location that this glue concoction was recovered had something to do with its makeup (much as Roman concrete varies from place to place based on location of origin in the Empire). However, this is still pretty amazing considering the time gap:

Analysis shows that the Roman glue was made of bitumen, beef tallow and pitch. But researchers said they had failed so far to recreate the adhesive and that sawdust, soot or sand might have to be added to complete the process.

“When we finally manage to remake the superglue, it will easily compete with its modern equivalents,” Mr Willer said. “After all, which of today’s glues stick for 2,000 years?”

Glue Used by the Romans Has Stuck Around for 2,000 Years – The Independent