Dylan Hunter

He takes feeds of the latest posts from sponsors’ blogs and puts that in an ad box on Techmeme. That’s their ad. It’s brilliantly simple: dynamic advertising controlled by the advertisers, who will make their ads - their content - relevant to the readers who see their feeds on Techmeme….

Gabe is charging $4,500, $3,500, and $3,000 respectively for the three month-long spots (I’ll save you the cipherin - that’s $132,000 per year). For the advertiser, that works out to a $5-8 CPM, which is good.

I definitely agree on the excellence of the idea… For years now, the advertising network folks, (including me while @ Miva) have been talking about how advertising is becoming the content, with this being the perfect pinnacle of that concept - 0 incremental maintenance on the advertiser side, and assistance in feeding the sucking content creation monster, while making money on the publisher side - what the heck’s not to like?

At some point down the road would definitely love to have something that does a contextual match between any given post on the publisher’s side, and X back on the advertiser’s side, to maximize both relevance of the content & CTR, but first things first, and definitely agree with Jeff Jarvis - would definitely be an ad unit that I would think about using myself!

“…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

Six Apart, the creator of social networking site LiveJournal and maker of blogging applications like Moveable Type, just snagged $12 million in a private round of funding from three firms, sources said last week. The series C round, rumored to include Intel, catapults San Francisco-based Six Apart into the thick of an emerging area of Web-focused investments that go far beyond search-related companies. But so far, public market access to that new industry-comprising companies that house content media properties as well as content tool makers-has been nonexistent.

….In any event, these new blended companies are becoming the talk of the media investment world. "Blogging and social networking are coming together," says one source familiar with companies in the new industry. "We’re coming out of the tech bubble doldrums and the next generation of media is online [content-driven companies]."

In the recent past, online search has been the star of Web-focused investing, but that’s rapidly changing as investors consider what happens after users conduct a search on Google or Yahoo. Typically, they then click on the links retrieved and move on to other sites, which are chockablock with content–the new "it" zone for advertisers.

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This is cool as…. stuff.. (remember, I’m a Dad now, have to watch the language! ). Going to have hop over to Bunchball and see how to insert my own trip down arcade memory lane into my blog, (actually just bought the 20th anniversary version of Dragon’s Lair / Space Ace / Dragon’s Lair 2, so, as you can tell, engaging in one seriously long walk down memory lane - don’t even want to venture how many not just quarters, but whole $10 rolls of them that I blew figuring out Space Ace as a cool dude early teenager back in the mid-80’s - at least until I had to get good at pinball to be one of the true hep cats of the arcade! )

Yep, that’s the way for a legitimate site to generate traffic - look for permission vulnerabilities in folks’ blog software, (i.e. Wordpress suggests setting template permissions to 766) and then hack in and insert Javascript re-directs to your site using some domainstat crud.

Another fine thanks and reminder to use Firefox with NoScript, (and to switch permissions back to 755! ). Reloaded my blog, and for the first time got the javascript blog intercept on my own site. Took a look, found the crap, edited it out, switched the permissions back, and up again.

For anyone using Wordpress for your blog software, (and the only reason I’m specifically mentioning Wordpress is that there’s a suggestion on the template page to change permissions to 766) please check your templates for javascript that you didn’t insert, (again, referencing domainstat) delete from all affected templates, save and then switch permissions on those files to 755, and you should again be ok.

Yep, even if we presume that Coolrip is a legitimate site, (don’t know either way) is a good reminder to be _very_ careful of who you engage to get you traffic, and if the acquisition numbers are very low, know that whether you were informed or not, you’re funding tactics like these, including folks hacking into other computers, writing computer viruses on your behalf, etc., and, unfortunately, deserve any and all bad press you might get as a result, if you either didn’t ask, or turned a blind eye to.

A nice reminder for later about using RSS for categories / search results, etc., (almost a direct analog to when some folks bookmark certain searches and just periodically re-issue). News readers have certainly replaced some of the things that folks used to go to SE’s for, as well as inserting additional competition for time while online. Certainly no reason the SE can’t easily morph to also be avail through this type of interface.

Search Meets The Syndication Engine
by David Berkowitz, Tuesday, January 24, 2006

A RIDDLE: WHEN IS A search engine not a search engine?

One of the most popular blog search engines isn’t really a search engine at all, and its index spans far more than just blogs. Today, we’ll devour a few lessons from Feedster in exploring how it offers a new model for the search business.

What is Feedster? It depends on whom you ask. On Feedster’s site, the company writes, “Feedster is foremost a search engine.” Yet when I asked Feedster President Chris Redlitz whether he’s concerned about Google or Yahoo! dominating his business, he said, “If we were just a search engine, we’d be much more concerned. We’re really much more of a syndication business.” Feedster, the search and syndication engine, specializes in aggregating RSS feeds, the behind-the-scenes backbone used by blogs and a rapidly growing variety of content ranging from major news sources to classified listings.

This is how a niche search engine aims to stay competitive: by specializing its focus and differentiating its model. While a search engine on the surface, Feedster aims to engender long-term loyalty by syndicating its results and allowing users to subscribe to the feeds. That means the most valuable consumer for Feedster is not the one searching its site; it’s the subscriber, who then accesses the feeds from his/her preferred reader of choice. The subscriber can even choose to receive feed updates via e-mail.

While the feed reader business, connoting a software or online application for gathering and accessing blogs and RSS feeds, is still in its infancy, the safe long-term bets for the winners there are the usual suspects: Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and AOL. In other words, many of the most valuable consumers of Feedster are those accessing its content via another search engine’s site. Thus Feedster’s greatest potential competitors are also its most promising distribution channels.

One key differentiator for Feedster is that it has much more content than just blogs, emphasized Redlitz. “We get compared to Technorati a lot,” he said. “They’re a blog search engine… We’re different because we’re feed-centric. We’re not just looking at the blog pulse.”

Feedster’s business model centers on RSS advertising, syndicating ads every few posts into its feeds. If you’re looking to run an advertising campaign on Feedster, get in line. “We’ve probably turned away more campaigns than we’ve run,” said Redlitz. Holding Feedster back for the time being is an inventory crunch. Redlitz said Feedster could double its inventory this year, yet advertiser demand is spreading beyond the early adopters. I asked Redlitz when he foresaw inventory meeting advertiser demand. He answered bluntly, “I don’t think it will.”

In the context of other developments in the search engine space, Feedster fits in most closely with vertical search, both as a vertical search engine itself and as a distribution channel for other vertical search sites. In aggregating others’ feeds, Feedster can be a resource where consumers can subscribe to publishers’ feeds of news, jobs, movie reviews, recipes, message board posts, product listings, travel deals, and other types of content. The syndication model changes the nature of search from a pull to a push model, and in the push model, search isn’t really search at all.

Keep an eye on Feedster’s next moves. The company is launching a mobile service in Japan in the next several weeks, and consumers will likely benefit from personalization options down the road. One thing’s for certain: even while billing itself as a syndication engine, Feedster’s future developments will inevitably parallel where search engines head.

So now, when is a search engine not a search engine? In Feedster’s case, it’s when it can better serve consumers by making search only a small but integral part of its value proposition. It’s not what you are; it’s the value you provide.

David Berkowitz can be reached at dberkowitz@gmail.com or via his blog at MarketersStudio.com.

About 21 million, or 87% of kids ages 12-17, use the Internet. According to a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, half of all teens and 57% of teens who use the Internet have created a blog or webpage, posted original artwork, photography, stories or videos online or remixed online content into their own new creations. The study considers them "Content Creators."

The results highlight that this is a generation of teens eager to share their thoughts, experiences, and creations with the wider Internet population.

Some key findings of the study include:

* 33% of online teens share their own creative content online, such as artwork, photos, stories or videos
* 32% say that they have created or worked on web pages or blogs for others, including friends or school assignments
* 22% report keeping their own personal webpage
* 19% of online teens keep a blog, and 38% of online teens read blogs
* 19% of internet-using teens say they remix content they find online into their own artistic creations.

Teens are often much more enthusiastic authors and readers of blogs than their adult counterparts. Teen bloggers, led by older girls, are a major part of this tech-savvy cohort. "For American teens, blogs are about self-expression, building relationships, and carving out a presence online," said Amanda Lenhart, co-author of the report entitled, "Teen Content Creators and Consumers."

51% of online teens report downloading music, compared to just 18% of adults who report similar behavior. Mary Madden, a Research Specialist at the Project and co-author of the report, said "At a time when social norms around digital content don’t always appear to conform with the letter of the law, many teens are aware of the restrictions on copyrighted material, but believe it’s still permissible to share some content for free." 75% agree with the statement that, "Music downloading and file-sharing is so easy to do, it’s unrealistic to expect people not to do it."

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I know I am hardly the first blogger to deal with this situation, but wanted to send along a nice, positive “may you roast upon a firey spit” to our friends working with Online Poker and Phentermine, (there, you got your one mention, and no, you’re not getting the links). Now piss off, (and yes, I know perfectly well that not only is there not a chance in hell that these folks are actually listening, but even less of a chance of them actually heeding me, but sometimes a good “shaking your fist at the sky” is important, nonetheless - keeps you strong on why you don’t want to engage in these kinds of business practices when confronted with folks who keep pushing to swim deeper and deeper toward the darkness! )

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For those of you who don’t know what comment spam is, there are some seriously scummy companies - they used to work with porn, where they used to try game my index on ATW.com* all the time - but apparently have found online gaming and prescriptions at least as profitable - out there who build bots to find blogs, and then submit random, utterly unrelated crap as comments to those blogs, which include their links, trying first and foremost to build up their Google PageRank** numbers, as well as hoping to get the maybe one in ten thousand folks who might actually click on to find out what this random non-sequitor is all about to actually engage.

For those blogs / forums that are unmoderated, these links go up, and if Google / Yahoo, etc., haven’t yet detected their most recent bit of random crap, (i.e. they change IP’s, emails, text, doorway pages, etc. all the time, and am sure have gotten smart enough to ensure that the true IP’s are entirely masked, and the ones they submit are sufficiently randomized so as to make it more difficult to connect) for at least a point in time, they get to profit from the connectivity calculations to boost their ranks within the algorithmic portion of these search engines, thereby attracting more extremely cheap leads, (though Teoma, in using their more “segmented only to the query” version of connectivity should at least isolate these idiots to fighting back and forth to only their own sewers).

Is forever the anti-spam / porn / spyware economic problem - there is much more profit for the companies doing this than there is for the companies trying to resist, (where usually doing a better job in dealing with is only a cost***). And so long as this remains the case, (which’ll be nigh unto forever) we’ll have to deal with, and lose the economic value of the time spent in all of us dealing with, (i.e. how much cash could we all generate in the same amount of time it takes us to moderate our blogs / forums to make these things go away and go away and go away…. And yes, I know WordPress 1.5+ has some method of decreasing comment spam, but afraid I haven’t yet been able to get my webhost to upgrade me beyond 1.0.x even after repeated requests - and yes, this indeed may turn out to be enough of an issue for me to move webhosts - or, via the extreme power of inertia - it may not! )
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* Have I told you how much it hurts my heart every time I have to type the link to ATW anymore? What’s there is nothing more than a tired shell - my Old Girl, as a distinct entity, with its own advantages and disadvantages is long since gone, (though at least adding nicely to Yahoo). It’s as sad as when Disney bought Go.com, gutted it, refused to do any work to keep it up, refused to sell it, (I tried! ) and killed it through neglect, (and that wasn’t nearly as interesting a search engine) as happened with:

AV, (I almost never used, but I’m sure I’m far from alone in missing them having their full boolean advanced search - some things are important just to _be_ - as something in the World - even if only 4 people on the planet actually use - this is one of them), as happened with

Hotbot, as happened with

Northern Light, (one of my old personal favorites on the relevance front - from a business model perspective, were clearly always one of the weirdest), as happened with

….,

but as will unfortunately never happen with MSN even though looking at the mistakes that they continue to make that all of us already went through and solved years ago, it probably should, (but MS has to remain MS, and do it their own way - their focus has always been on how things can be best for them, rather than how they can be best for the consumer, and luckily, they have more than enough cash to continue to totally not care, and there are more than enough people whose most important market trait is inertia).

** And yes, I’m well-aware that Google doesn’t actually use PageRank, the algorithm, anymore. Am referring to the PageRank _concept_ - i.e. weighted link popularity to approximate concepts of authority, which I’m sure they’ll always use in one way or another, (if only to keep a tight, well-understood PR message). And if you’re _seriously_ picking these kind of nits, am sure there are plenty of other folks who would be much better foils for random, senseless and otherwise unproductive argument, (i.e. I never understood the point of debating, either).

*** Even for the anti-spyware guys, who do get comped specifically to fight, they get comped to remove stuff, and if that means wiping out a whole mess of false positives, who cares? They don’t get paid to work hard on parsing the nice ones from the nasties, they get paid to make things go away, plain and simple, with the specific exception of never tagging Google or Yahoo since the bad PR would kill them, regardless of the practices of their apps - i.e. did you know that if you have the PageRank button active on your Google toolbar, (which is the default condition) that they’re watching literally every single site that you, your husband, your wife, your children, go to, (though I suppose if your child is an early-pubescent, it might be a good thing to scare him a bit about people watching what he’s watching! )? Did you know further that both Google and Yahoo update their toolbars to do whatever they’ve chosen to do without your knowledge or consent? This stuff certainly scares the bejesus out of me!

An excellent article on passion, and on eating your own dog food!

http://www.softwaresalesjobs.com/index-wrap.jsp?u=o/newsletter/articles/con-article163.jsp

BTW - have always allowed commentary to stand in the way of blogging - i.e. sometimes I just want to do the equivalent of bookmarking something I found intriguing while working on something else, but am trying to remain focused on the initial activity, (more than challenge enough for me, trust me! ). So, trying something new - upon occasion, if I find something that I think I’ll want to keep track of for later use, but don’t have the time to write up something formal, will just pop it in real quick here, and then may come back to comment on later, (or, may not! Afraid I’m still not a huge fan of the central time aspect of blogging to remain in the creation / building of a project / knowledge base - Wiki’s seem to me to be much better tools in this regard, and Jotspot is one of my current favorites, (link to Joe Kraus’ podcast presentation intro’ing it to come…)

Well, finally getting down to doing a bit of blogging. For now, this is primarily for my own use as an adjunct to the space between my ears, which, though still operating fairly nicely for analysis, synthesis, etc. has definitely been showing a decreased capacity to retain some of the best bits of new, (and sometimes old) insights. So I decided it was finally time to start creating a virtual knowledge base of what I’ve found useful / important, so that when the time comes, I can hop back here, refresh my head and then move forward with the best insights that I’ve come across. And if others can take advantage of the efforts and experiences that I’ve had to build on as they tackle even greater problems - fabulous!

Warning - as you’ll no doubt find out over time, (and as my wife will very strongly attest) my mind does tend to be a fairly chaotic place, (which can be truly marvelous or darned inconvenient, depending on the day! ) so don’t be surprised if you see numerous radical hops in trains of thought, random tangents intermixed on equal footing with salient logic, and quite more than a few “what the heck is he talking about?”’s. Hey, nobody ever said running 4-6 continually concurrent trains of thought was easy!