SpectatorBytes

Upon learning of Facebook’s acquisition of Friendfeed, very few industry people (myself included) were surprised that Facebook needed to acquire a company to bring in talent to compete with Twitter. However, if one takes a step back, this news should have at least raised an eyebrow. Currently, Facebook is one of the hottest digital [...]

YouTube’s recent programming and advertising initiatives are pretty exciting. In them, I can see that YouTube is taking steps to unlock the value of online video.

First, YouTube recently allowed one of its content partners, CBS, to use their own video player to broadcast “March Madness” on YouTube.com. The second was YouTube’s experiment with a [...]

Ever since I updated the software on my iPod Touch, I have increasingly found myself using it to watch full-length TV shows. I am able to watch the evening news, news talk shows, old sitcoms and some ESPN content. I enjoy my TV experience on the Touch because it is personal but more importantly [...]

Hulu’s content partners decision to pull out of their relationship with Boxee has gotten me thinking: “Here we go again.” The existing TV and Film ecosystem will continue to focus on protecting the existing model rather than focusing on embracing the new one.
Over the past 15 years, I have witnessed first-hand a significant amount [...]

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 [...]

ComScore reported that the average online video viewer watched 273 minutes (4.55 hours) of video per month in 2008.  This compares with 73 minutes of online video streaming per viewer in 2005. This is an increase of more than 3 hours per month. As a reminder, 2005 was the year AOL established a major milestone [...]

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 [...]

I recently came across an interview given by former head of Ad Sales Wenda Harris Millard (see Here) which outlines some of the issues that I see in the online ad industry today — particularly around the push to shift “brand” advertising spending to the Internet and away from Television and print.
- The online [...]

Recent report by Pubmatic (see here) over the past week indicate that online advertising prices are declining. This trend had already become evident as leading Web players announced their Q1 results.
The forces that have enabled the growth in advertising on the Web now seem to be working against it.
Direct Response advertisers have driven [...]

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 [...]

Last week, Paramount announced that they are forming a new venture with MGM and Lionsgate to launch a new pay for TV and VOD network (see here). This meant that Paramount opted for not renewing its distribution deal with Showtime Networks.
While most of the discussion on this event has been focused on alleged [...]

The Google-Doubleclick deal announcement (see Google closes $3.1 billion DoubleClick deal) is a good time to share my current thoughts on the evolution of advertising: I have been talking to a few folks about display advertising over the past couple of weeks. Here are some of my findings to date:
- Majority of online [...]

During the Bear Stearns Conference, Google’s Tim Amstrong described YouTube as the “brightest light” in terms of display-ad potential (see Google: Moving Aggressively Into Display Ads). I remember many people who were surprised at the value that Google paid for YouTube a couple of years back. However, it was clear [...]

Original content is king. This sentence has been said before by many media executives. However, in the age of digital media, content is not the word to focus on but rather the word original. By now, it is pretty obvious that there is a significant amount of content out there. As a result, [...]

Over the past few years, I have been waiting for the coming of brand advertising dollars to hit the Web. When that happens, the Web is expected to dramatically change. Web publishing and video production will further flourish as brand dollars will help get talent from other media to commit to [...]