When it comes to professional work, there is no better feeling than being recognized and honored for a work that you did.

Hili, I hope that you are enjoying this one. Kudos!

Love you.

This is a great piece by Yaron. Sound advice, lots of common sense and some words of wisdom. Read and think about it.

Is the app economy killing online publishers? (redirect to GigaOm.com)

Read the rest of the post here.

Those ridiculous valuations might actually be realistic after all…

Read more

Message to Facebook: Monetize Dynamic Social Interactions

Here are ways to take advantage of in-stream in advertising now:

Click here to read the full article published in MediaPost’s Video Insider

Compared to the previous version, VAST 2.0 introduces major improvements and new capabilities. From one hand, it provides the required flexibility to support the different business needs of media buyers and sellers and on the other hand, it remains clear and straightforward from technical and implementation perspective.

I have always been a great supporter of the VAST (and VPAID) as an industry standard that brings efficiencies and scale to everyone in the in-stream space. As we march into 2010, I believe that we will see significant growth in advertising dollars spent on in-stream by major brands. This growth will lead to an increased agency demand for third party serving for in-stream as well as increased publisher need to monetize remnant video inventory through third party sellers. This trend will push the adoption of VAST and VPAID which will serve as the infrastructure that will answer these business needs. So, in 2010 we can expect to finally see a critical mass of publishers, networks and technology vendors adopting the VAST and VPAID standards and enabling scale and efficiency in the in-stream space (which will then lead to more dollars spent on in-stream and so on).

For full review on the VAST 2.0, check out this post by Ari Paparo, my colleague at the IAB Digital Video Committee. Big kudos should go to Ari for his hard work on the VAST. He was the driver and facilitator of this standard and without him this release couldn’t have been happened.

Well, I still strongly stand behind my mantra but recently I have seen several cases where path to conversion and cross channel synergy analysis was not feasible since there was no overlap between search and display (i.e. only few users were exposed to both display ads and search ads). The main reason for the low overlap was poor cross channel planning and execution prior to the campaign launch, which led to lack of synchronization between the search and display campaigns. This made me realize that in my recommendations I did not emphasize enough the critical phase of the campaign pre-launch.

The pre-launch phase, which includes planning and execution, is the underlying basis for successful analysis at the end of the campaign (or at any other stage) and therefore it is critical to apply the holistic approach during this stage as well. But what does this actually mean?

Here’s a list of best practices that I recommend for holistic cross channel campaign planning and execution:

1. Campaign objectives synch – to drive the desired results, the search and display campaigns must be viewed as two pieces of the same cross-channel campaign and they should serve the same end goal. The two campaigns can have different immediate goals, for example the display campaign’s goal might be building brand awareness while the search campaign’s goal might be driving traffic to the site. However, in the end of the day they should both work in synch towards a mutual end goal, for example driving conversions. This is the single most import aspect of the synchronization between search and display.
2. Target audience synch – this goes without saying. The same audience should be targeted across search and display and that requires synching display targeting tactics with keyword bidding strategy. For example, if you target your display ads to a specific geographic area (e.g. a new compact car geo-targeted to NYC and SF metros) then make sure that you bid on search keywords which include relevant geo terms (e.g. name of car + “NYC” or “SF”). 
3. Creative synch – it is critical to make sure that the creative messages are synched across search and display to communicate a cohesive message throughout the consumer’s path which will lead to a conversion at the end of it. For example, if the display creative highlights a certain feature in your product, make sure that you bid on the relevant search keywords for this feature and that the search ad copy will highlight the same product feature.
4. Campaign set up synch – from an execution perspective it is critical to properly synch the landing pages and conversion tags across the search and display campaigns. The display and search campaigns should use the same landing pages and conversion tags to allow tracking the entire path to conversion and de-duplication of conversions between search and display.
5. Campaign periods synch – finally, it is important to properly plan the search and display campaigns launch and end dates. This is particularly critical in cases when the conversion/purchase funnel is short so the search and display campaigns should overlap in their start and end date. In these cases, if one of the campaigns launches too late, there will be missed opportunities to drive consumers to conversion. This is it for a start. I am sure that as you dive into the small details of the campaign planning and execution, you will find some additional best practices. If you have any, then please feel free to share.

Forget about the click…

(but if you want to read the rest of this post, you will need to click here… (-: )

Whitney is missing one big factor – IPTV. Once TVs and set top boxes will be connected to the internet, a whole new world of opportunities will open up for content distribution and monetization. I had the chance to speak with Artie Bulgrin, SVP of Research and Analytics at ESPN, about the future of TV in the light of IPTV and he approved that this is a huge question that many players are currently trying to figure out.

It’s hard to even imagine the effect of IPTV and how it will reshape the space but I am sure that it will bring enormous change. Think interactive live TV shows, personalized programming and hyper targeted ads! But in any case, one thing that I am sure about is that the TV will not die – it will evolve. We will probably see TVs playing a different role, potentially serving as the heart of our home entertainment hub. Laptops and cell phones will complete, and not compete with, the TV where it can’t properly fill our needs.

“Online video is considered one of the most promising online advertising channels, with a forecasted ad spending of $1.67 billion in the U.S. by 2013 (according to JupiterResearch). Over the years, a seemingly endless procession of start-ups has entered the space, with myriad solutions touting inventory creation, ad management tools, and optimized functionality. Judging by projections and innovations, the in-stream space is the place to be, but that still doesn’t necessarily guarantee monetization.

Let’s face it, despite the hype, in-stream advertising has not lived up to expectations. So we, as an industry, need to take immediate action — or online video and in-stream advertising risk going the way of Second Life. ”

For survival recommendations, see the full article in iMedia.

I totally agree with Miller. I already expressed my personal opinion in the past that too many companies in the online space rely on online advertising as the sole business model and revenue source. This is going to be an interesting trend to watch and see if users will cope and agree to pay for content again after years of consumption of free content.

In an ideal world, advertisers could have measured the performance of all their marketing channels in a holistic manner and understand how they all drove the average consumer to take the desired action. This should have allowed advertisers to determine the true ROI of their marketing efforts as well as of each single channel and thus make a smart decision on how much to spend per each channel.
Unfortunately, this is not possible these days due to lack of capabilities for measuring marketing performance of offline channels as well as for matching and de-duplicating data across channels. Gladly, the online industry has started tacking this problem and today it is possible to measure performance across online display, search and other online advertising channels. I believe that mobile will be the next to join followed by IPTV.

I have recently posted an article on cross channel analysis for online display and search (available here). I hope to be able to add more channels to this article in the near future.

Online Advertising

I came across a somewhat pessimistic (or rather realistic?) article from AdAge about the future of web 2.0 start-ups which build their business on advertising revenues. The article’s main point was that too many start-ups “are built on the notion that if they can build scale, a near-bottomless well of advertising awaits” (the article can be found here).

I must say that I agree. I’ve seen many start ups overestimating the upside of online advertising and failing to understand that traffic doesn’t necessarily equal dollars. I believe that the best explanation for this is the inherent radical optimism and excitement which rely within any entrepreneur. However, it will be foolish to believe that ads can support any free online product or service, as cool as this product may be.

Yes, your start-up rocks! Your users love your service and can’t spend a day without it. But, what are their demographics? Do you have enough reach? Will ads be relevant for them when they spend time on your site? Will they engage with your ad? What will be the ad performance and ROI for the advertiser?… and even if you have all of the above – do you have the sales capability and expertise to sell your inventory at a decent CPM?

Michael Learmonth, who wrote the article, is the first person that I see who speaks up the uncomfortable truth that online advertising budgets are just too small to support all the inventory that is currently being developed online. Unless you’re a premium video content provider such as ABC, NBC, Hulu and the likes, you might have low fill rate of your display ad inventory.

Don’t get me wrong – I truly believe that online advertising has great future and will only continue to grow. I just think that many start-ups will have to find other business models than advertising. The question is which other models? Online users, and I among them, got used to get everything for free in the past few years. From e-mail service through news and entertainment content to social and professional networking, it’s proven that users prefer free ad supported content. Is it possible to change it back now?

I’d love to hear what you think.

I was recently asked to comment about the typical user profile of casual games. While many will say that this is a no brainer – women 30 to 55 years old married with one or more kids – I think that there is no one typical user and that segmenting the casual games space to only one user demographic is an absolute mistake. Here’s why.

The answer to who the typical casual gamer is depends on how you define casual games. Some define it by the platform (console vs. online vs. mobile, etc.) and others might define it by the type of game (shooter vs. puzzle, etc.). I think that if there is one way to define casual games in some way, it’s probably by the learning curve and time commitment required to play casual games. Typically it’s 1-2 minutes of learning curve and then the user will play the game in short to medium length gaming sessions. I’m sure that this is not the first time you come across this definition as this is a common way to define casual games.

If you define casual games in the way mentioned above then there isn’t really a specific user demographic for casual games. Everyone plays casually in some way or another whether it’s solitaire on the mobile, Sudoku online or even Guitar Hero on the Xbox. You can also find people playing casually everywhere – at home, work or somewhere on the train or bus.

Now, say we decide to focus on the online casual games space then it really depends on which website you look at. There are many sites such as Pogo which cater to women and then there are other sites such as Miniclip which cater more to men. In addition you also have MMOs which focus on different types of audience, for example Habbo Hotel vs. World of Warcraft. If we’re thinking about advertising, I believe that any advertiser can find its target audience somewhere in the casual gaming space – it’s just a matter of where and how. This is great thing for advertisers, developers, gaming sites and in the end the user as well.

The Casual Games Association speaks about almost a 50%-50% split between men and women. This split is consistent with the broad definition of casual games which I mentioned above. However, the typical perception of casual games is that it’s an industry for women above 30 years old. This perception is due to the strong marketing and success of major casual gaming sites such as Pogo, RealArcade, Yahoo and MSN which all cater towards women. However, again, these are not the only gaming sites out there. There are other gaming sites which focus on other types of demographics and we should avoid presenting the industry as a women’s world but focus on different segments of this industry instead when we try to define user demographics of casual games.

“In-game ads are not very effective…” says Alex St. John, CEO of Wild Tangent. This is a very bold statement from someone who built his company on the premise of in-game advertising. So I was quite surprised to see that kind of statement but after reading the whole article, I realized that he wasn’t talking about the in-game ads as an ad format but actually as a business model. And, I must say I do agree with some of the things that he said… but, I don’t totally agree with the conclusion.

It seems like St. John talks specifically about the challenges in core gaming and points to the main advantage of pre-rolls ads, the standardization and scalability, which allow WildTangent to generate large ad revenues with minimal effort. This is definitely one of the main reasons why casual games are the future of in-game advertising (whether on the PC or other consoles, including wireless). That is, scalability.

However, I strongly disagree that the pre-roll is the only way to go. Interstitial or inter-level ads are a viable format that in many cases adds to the user’s gaming experience (a short break to get ready for the next level) as well as sponsorships. Both can be very scalable for the developer, publisher and game portal and non-intrusive for the user while generating a large amount of ad inventory and ad revenues.

Read the whole article here and decide for yourself.

There’s definitely a buzz around in-game advertising and it seems that no day passes by without a new column about in-game advertising.

While most columns and blog posts regarding in-game advertising focus on core games, I wanted to point out an interesting byline on in-game advertising in the casual games space. This one is interesting to read as it explains how in-game advertising creates value for everyone involved: game developers, advertisers, agencies and gamers.

At the center of this byline, Ran Cohen, VP of Product Planning at Eyeblaster, forecasts a shift in the target audience for PC/downloadable casual games which is currently heavily skewed towards female. Casual games industry professional have been long calling for new content in order to target broader demographic groups. In-game advertising can definitely be the driver of this new trend…

To read the full byline, click here.

* Disclosure – Ran Cohen is heading Eyeblaster’s product planning team which I am part of.

Part 1: Console Games

The Challenges
One of the main challenges though is finding the best way to integrate the brand in a smart and subtle way that won’t take away from the gaming experience of the user but will actually add to it. Core gamers are fanatic about their gaming experience and will not accept any ad that was inserted just for the sake of advertising. However, core gamers will defenitely accept ads that add realism to the game (for instance driving a branded car or drinking a branded drink).

 1 eMarketer forecasts that in-game ad spending on console and PC will be only $344M by 2012 (of that US will account for 50% or $172M). Video Game Advertising, Paul Verna, eMarketer, February 2008.