Dylan Hunter

Ok, was in the mood for a good chuckle, so decided to poke around on YouTube a bit, came across the AskaNinja videos, and couldn’t stop laughing!

Ask A Ninja Question 18 "Minjas"

Then go check out AskaNinja.com for more - they’re awesome!

BTW - putting back on the marketing hat - I can’t stress enough how valuable it is to make some part of your product portable away from your site as YouTube’s done above.*1* Give folks the ability to modify / color / flavor / select just what they like, so that they have ownership of some portion of what you’ve done, and they’ll be more than thrilled to take and pass along to friends, family, etc., as I’ve done above, (and loved to do! ).

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*1* Unfortunately, the bit of code that YouTube put out to embed the above screws up the stock Wordpress XHTML Transitional validation, (which could screw up search engines). Luckily, in the case of embedding Flash, since there really isn’t a good way to do without breaking validation or inserting javascript, I’m sure the SE’s simply ignore anything in <object> tags, so think you should still be good.

“…advertising spending on user-generated online media - blogs, podcasts and RSS - did not begin until 2002, but this combined spending has grown to $20.4 million by the end or 2005, a 198.4% increase over the 2004 level. Spending on blog, podcast and RSS advertising is projected to climb another 144.9% in 2006 to $49.8 million.

“… - Total spending on user-generated online media is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 106.1% from 2005 to 2010, reaching $757.0 million in 2010.

“… - Blog advertising accounted for 81.4%, or $16.6 million, of total spending on user-generated online media in 2005, but blog ads will comprise only 39.7%, or $300.4 million, of overall spending in 2010

“…. - Podcast advertising totaled only $3.1 million in 2005, but is projected to reach $327.0 million in 2010, when it will account for 43.2% of all user-generated media advertising.” More

Good for GM to have the cojones to realize that something as strongly viral as a create-your-own ad campaign for an SUV, (with all of the negative passion that they elicit) is well worth the anti-GM sentiments that of course will be part and parcel.

I’m a little cautious about the “screening offensive content” thing, (i.e. back @ ATW, we spent a tremendous amount of time differentiating “F* [current president]!”, which is perfectly fine, (if somewhat less than tactful) free speech from f* something else, (which is porn! ) but will give them the benefit of the doubt for now, (and more if I see a “F* GM” ad).

So, all in all, well done, GM - and even if it was solely Great Lady Providence smiling upon them, you get credit for that, too, (there’s not one of us who hasn’t profited well beyond hopes just because it was a Tuesday, or there was a solar flare, or because the wind was blowing out of the NE that day, and you get the credit for that one, because next time, you’ll have done everything right, and it’ll be a Wednesday, or a New Moon, and you’ll get beaten for that, just as well).

Many thanks to Tara of HorsePigCow for the link about.

Good for them for adding CTR as an element of PPC ranking, rather than just pure $. Interestingly enough, though I’m sure there are Yahoo ad sales guys choking right now, really should be a big gain all around:

1) For the high-paying advertiser, he’ll only pay now when his offering, (or at least his ad text) is actually relevant to the search occasion itself, thereby improving his odds on the conversion side,*1*

2) For the high-relevance advertiser, he won’t have to keep being held hostage by being outbid by a bunch of less relevant advertisers who just beat him out on bid price.

3) For Yahoo, CTR goes up, as more people find the ads more relevant, which means that their overall revenue goes up - remember, in the standard bid-price only sort, the high bidder gets position #1, but if position #1 is not strongly relevant to the actual search occasion, no one clicks on, and thus not only does Yahoo not get the $1 the poorly-relevant high bidder bid, but they also don’t get a chance to get the $.15 that the highly-relevant, but less-wealthy advertiser bid for the same phrase, so ends up getting nothing. By including CTR, (depending on the degree to which CTR is a contributor, of course) if the high bidder is also the most relevant, Yahoo gets the $1. If not, Yahoo at least gets the $.15, rather than the 0.

4) For the end-user, especially on economically-oriented queries, (mortgage, Viagra, “mesothelioma lawyer”) they get a second set of sources that now become much more valuable to them.

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*1* Yes, it will mean that he’ll need to start paying more attention to his conversion strategies, rather than just simply firing large sums of money out, and relying as heavily on the laws of big numbers to help, but in the long run, that’s also good for them in terms of improving their ROI.

Mobile TV and video usage is growing slowly, but is attracting a higher proportion of the young adult and male demographic, reports Telephia, the leading provider of performance measurement information to the mobile industry. According to Telephia, 1.5 percent or roughly three million wireless subscribers in the U.S. streamed TV or played video content on their mobile devices in Q4 2005 (see Table 1). Historical data from early 2005 show penetration of 1.4 percent.

Younger mobile subscribers, age 18-24 have the highest penetration for mobile TV and video usage, securing a 3.3 percent rate, doubling since the beginning of 2005. Overall, men are more likely to stream TV and play video content on their wireless devices than women, showing a penetration rate of 1.8 percent or more than 3.5 million wireless subscribers during Q4 2005. Female mobile subscribers who accessed mobile TV and video content over their handsets had a rate of 1.2 percent in Q4 2005, equaling 2.5 million consumers, according to Telephia.

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