SpectatorBytes

Over the past couple of weeks, I have heard several publishers and advertising industry participants state that the online advertising model is broken. Their concerns about online advertising are caused by more than just the softening of demand.  The advertising inventory glut (i.e., no scarcity), the downward pressure on display CPMs, and advertiser dissatisfaction with [...]

We are entering a new stage on the Web. Significant elements of the digital publishing, video, advertising and social media infrastructure have been laid out. Scale winners in each of these ecosystems have emerged such as YouTube, Wordpress, Facebook, MySpace, Advertising.com, Google’s Ad Sense, etc. Now, new players are emerging as a second wave [...]

As I evaluate how the display advertising environment is evolving, I have come to realize that the advertising agencies still have a significant opportunity to recapture their leverage in the marketplace. Today, ad networks have most of the leverage in the display marketplace. The display ecosystem has been built around advertising networks whose primary [...]

Today, the WSJ reported on an initiative by MediaVest’s Vivaki to work with some of the leading online networks to test and develop new standards for online advertising formats. This effort highlights the still nascent nature of the industry but also that online video is coming of age. Even in this economic downturn, advertisers [...]

The online display advertising business is likely to undergo significant changes over the next few years as key participants try to deploy new tools to enhance overall performance. First, the business is becoming increasingly tiered between premium advertising solutions and run of network solutions (RON). In this post, I will focus on the RON [...]

Much has been written about the Hulu experience. Since last year, I increasingly have found myself using my laptop on weekends to catch up on my favorite TV shows both on Hulu as well as on the network sites. The experience is particularly enjoyable on Saturday afternoons when College sports dominate TV programming.
So, obviously [...]

As I have discussed in previous posts, the Web is dominated by performance-driven rather than brand advertising. To explain my point, I have always cited the lack “Colgate Ads” around the Web. This is because growing up, Colgate was one of the leading brand advertisers on television.
So, you can imagine my surprise when I came [...]

The Online Publishers Associate just released a study which concludes that advertisers can boost the effectiveness of their ads by focusing their campaigns on branded content sites. Below are some of the key findings outline in the report (Full report here):
- Ads Placed on Content Sites Raise Brand Favorability and Purchase Intent Significantly More [...]

This was a tough week for online advertising given Valueclick’s lower guidance for Q208 (see below), Google’s less than stellar performance and even eBay’s cautious outlook for Q3.

Valueclick’s Guidance - Fiscal Year 2008 Revenue by Segment

Year-Over-Year Growth

Affiliate Marketing2(excludes Search123)

+8%

Comparison Shopping and Search (includes Search123)

+19% pro-forma

Technology

+18%

Media, Total

-18%

Display advertising

Low single digit increase

Lead generation

High 20% decrease

While Valueclick’s [...]

The online video revolution has certainly been on its way for quite some time now. YouTube’s skyrocketing audience numbers and overall video streams statistics from the Web indicate that video has become a core element of the Web experience. This trend will expect to continue as increasing number of traditional and new video content [...]

For content producers and providers, the Web is bound to create significant value in the middle. Much has been said about the Web’s long-tail over the past few years, and certainly many companies are focused on the “head” since most offline models have been built around the “head”. However, the middle – which some [...]

A couple of days ago, Fred Wilson posted an interesting note on the future of the music business (see here). Fred’s main point was that streaming will likely emerged as the new model for music online. Fred posits that given the increased availability of connectivity and portable connected devices, streaming will eventually prove [...]

Today’s major news headline is NewsCorp’s FIM sales reorganization (see here). While internal politics have been blamed for the changes in the blogosphere, in an strategic sense, I would expect the move to further help FIM built its brand advertising revenues. Here are some of the reasons why:
- Increases focus on creating “scalable” [...]

Much discussion has taken place about the value of advertising networks over the last couple of days. Here are some of the most interesting posts (See Are Ad Networks Becoming Irrelevant?, What’s This Fascination with Ad Networks? and Are ad networks for loser/weak publishers?).
I believe that Web publishers need to focus on building [...]

Some interesting news came out GM today (see GM roars Forward Into Digital Ad Channels). This suggests brand advertisers are finally ready to commit significant spending to digital media. This is certainly good news for the industry, and in particular for companies that are creating solutions specifically designed to serve brand advertisers.
GM’s [...]