Spending on online video advertising is expected to increase 89% in 2007 compared with 2006, according to a new eMarketer report, "Internet Video: Advertising Experiments & Exploding Content."
Video ad spend in the U.S. will reach $775 million in 2007, growing 89% from $410 million in 2006, eMarketer predicts. Still, online video ad spend will constitute just 4.2% of total online ad spending in the U.S. However, that proportion is expected to reach 11.5% in 2010, becoming a $2.9 billion business.
"At some time early in 2010, one in 10 dollars devoted to internet advertising will go for video placements," said David Hallerman, eMarketer's senior analyst and author of the report.
The high year-over-year growth rates of online video ad spend are expected to continue over the next several years: 67.7% in 2008, 53.8% in 2009 and 45.0% in 2010.
Online Video Ad Spend to Surge 89% in 2007
Pew report: New breed of 'net newsers' shape US media habits
The Guardian - A new generation of well-educated, technically-savvy young web users are shaping the media habits of the US, with one in 20 Americans saying they do not watch TV on a typical day and a sharp decline in newspaper readership, according to new research.
The biennial Pew Research Center report on changing news audiences described 13% of the US public as "net newsers" - web users under 35 who read more political blogs than watch national news coverage, rely heavily on web-based news during the day and have a strong interest in technology and technology news.
Yahoo, MSN and CNN were the three most popular web news destinations, though users gave many of the leading mainstream media websites low credibility ratings.
Just 6% said the Huffington Post was very highly credible and 13% said the same of Google News, which aggregates news from mainstream news organisations.
Net newsers are typically affluent and 80% are graduates, making them a highly desirable demographic for advertisers.
They do favour some traditional media brands, including the New Yorker, The Atlantic and the BBC, the Pew survey of 3,600 adults found. But only 47% watch TV news on an average day.
The research paints a picture of steady decline in the US newspaper industry, with the percentage of Americans who regularly read print titles falling from 58% in 1993 to 34% in 2008.
According to the long-running survey, respondents saying they listened to radio news fell from 47% to 35% over the same period. As for network TV, the national news dropped from 60% to 29% and local news from 77% to 52%.
Cable TV grew from 33% of Pew respondents saying they watched it in 2000 to 39% this year, while the number of people who turn to web news at least three days each week rose from 2% in 1996 to 37% in 2008.
"For more than a decade, the audiences for most traditional news sources have steadily declined, as the number of people getting news online has surged," said the Pew report.
"A sizable minority of Americans find themselves at the intersection of these two long-standing trends in news consumption."
However, TV is still the most popular medium for the US, with 46% of the public classified as "traditionalists" who watch throughout the day, but are likely to be older and less well educated than net newsers.
More than 40% of this traditionalist group are unemployed, and were found to prefer visual news stories to audio and have little interest in science or technology news.
A further 14% are described as "disengaged", a poorly-educated group with little interest in current affairs.
Pew's research identified a further 23% of US media consumers as "integrators", an older group who are affluent and influential but still rely mostly on TV news and are interested in politics.
The research also found that the proportion of young people in the US getting no daily news has increased from 25% in 1998 to 34%, with only 10% of people using social networking sites for their news.
Top Canadian Web Rankings January 2008
Google Sites Rank as Top Visited Property for the First Time in Canada
Tax, Career, Real Estate, and Travel Sites Experience Gains in the New Year
TORONTO, CANADA, February 25, 2008 –comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its January 2008 rankings of the largest and fastest-growing Internet properties and site categories in Canada based on data from its comScore Media Metrix service. The month saw increases to tax, career, real estate, travel, and health-related sites as Canadians reevaluated the past year and planned for 2008. Google Sites vaulted into the top position as the most visited Web property in Canada for the first time.
"Several job sites such as Monster, Workopolis, and JobBank achieved significant gains in January as many Canadians resolved to improve their careers in 2008," said Brent Bernie, president of comScore Media Metrix, comScore Canada. "January is also an active time of year for visiting government entities both on the provincial and federal level, which provides Canadians with the necessary information and tools for preparing for a busy RRSP and tax season. Finally, the extreme cold weather and record breaking snow levels in Canada have driven us to travel entities on the Web in hopes of finding warmer destinations."
Top Gaining Site Categories for January 2008
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| Total Unique Visitors (000) | |||
| Dec-2007 | Jan-2008 | % Change | ||
| Total Internet : Total Audience | 23,784 | 23,802 | 0 | |
| Taxes | 1,805 | 2,591 | 44 | |
| Retail - Health Care | 1,511 | 2,032 | 34 | |
| Hotels/Resorts | 4,302 | 5,658 | 32 | |
| Career Services and Development | 7,762 | 9,761 | 26 | |
| Real Estate | 5,816 | 7,107 | 22 | |
| Online Travel Agents | 5,639 | 6,885 | 22 | |
| Business to Business | 5,058 | 6,009 | 19 | |
| Health - Information | 8,028 | 9,530 | 19 | |
| Training and Education | 673 | 793 | 18 | |
| Family | 8,041 | 9,438 | 17 | |
* Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.
Top Gaining Properties for January 2008
| Top 10 Gaining Properties by Number of Canadian Unique Visitors* | ||||
| Property | Total Unique Visitors (000) | |||
| Dec-2007 | Jan-2008 | % Change | ||
| Total Internet : Total Audience | 23,784 | 23,802 | 0 | |
| Softvoyage.com | 1,747 | 2,665 | 53 | |
| Workopolis.com | 2,808 | 4,184 | 49 | |
| Monster Worldwide | 2,825 | 3,994 | 41 | |
| JobBank.gc.ca | 1,413 | 1,983 | 40 | |
| Canada Revenue Agency | 1,691 | 2,339 | 38 | |
| MacRAE’S Owen Media Network | 1,486 | 2,051 | 38 | |
| MLS.ca | 2,158 | 2,861 | 33 | |
| Gov.on.ca | 1,887 | 2,477 | 31 | |
| Expedia Inc | 3,770 | 4,890 | 30 | |
| ServiceCanada.gc.ca | 2,145 | 2,762 | 29 | |
*Ranking based on the top 100 Canadian properties in January 2008.
** Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.
How to drive revenue from ads on your site
Yahoo blog - As a publisher, it’s important to know how to optimize your web site to help drive better traffic. This can help drive up your program earnings which is enough motivation for most publishers.
Last year, Yahoo!’s Cody Simms and Amit Paunikar wrote in a great four-part series on this blog about various optimization practices. In case you missed it—and in case you don’t have time to read a four-part series—we’ve boiled it down to some key tips to help your business.
Focus on making your site as text-based as possible
“Crawlers” are programs that analyze the content on your site for ad targeting purposes. Be sure to include important topic-oriented items in the text fields of your site, rather than hinting at them in image or other elements.
Consider adding dynamic content on the home page
Content that frequently changes while remaining on-topic for your audience not only keeps the interest of your audience, it perks up the attention of our content analyzers. Static content could bore users, which may result in low click-through rates.
Structure your site
Your site structure helps your users and our systems to understand what your site is about. Here are some tips:
• Integrate keywords into your URL structure. Consider using permalinks, rather than query strings.
• Use strong keywords as “anchor text.” Link text should be descriptive rather than text like “Click here.”
• Use concise descriptors. Put short descriptions under a link when possible.
Content do’s
You want to make your content relevant, which helps drive your click-through rate. Relevant content can also help ads become more appealing to your users. Here are several actions to take that should help on this front:
• Write for users. Users generally come to your page to read your content, not to click on ads.
• Maintain your editorial integrity. Write unique articles that drive traffic to your site.
• Take time to optimize your web pages. Use distinct titles, headers and section headlines for each article.
• Limit the number of low-content pages on your site. If you have a page with a lot of images, make sure you use alternate text.
• Maintain a high “signal-to-noise” ratio. Keep the content of each page focused on one or two topics at most.
Content don’ts
Simplicity helps clarity, so you don’t want to load your site down with too much stuff. Here are a few tips of what not to do with your content:
• Don’t use unnecessary code.
• Don’t use unnecessary language.
• Don’t try to take shortcuts around lack of content or traffic.
• Whatever network you use, don’t violate the “Terms of Service” or “Terms and Conditions.”
Ethnic media and the advertisers
U.S. ASIAN WIRE — According to the Selig Center for Economic Growth, Asian Americans represented $253 billion in spending power in 2001, and this number is projected to reach $528 billion by 2009. While Hispanics make up the largest minority in the U.S., there are 13.5 million Asian Americans (residents who say they are Asian or Asian in combination with one or more other races) according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau findings. This group comprises 5% of the total U.S. population. There is also a sizeable proportion of Asian Americans who are business owners and entrepreneurs.
Rather than an afterthought, Asian Americans should be of special interest to marketers. While Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco have the highest Asian populations, other cities are increasingly becoming urban hubs. According to a 2005 report titled "Asian Americans in the U.S." written by Dr. Robert Brown and Ms. Ruth Washton for Package Facts, specific goods and services, including computers and Internet services, home electronics, and automobiles are more likely to be owned by Asian Americans than other ethnic groups.
A study by Ethnic Media in America conducted by Bendixen & Associates in partnership with the Center for American Progress Leadership Conference on Civil Rights in Education Fund revealed that Asian-American newspapers reach a substantial percentage of adults in the U.S. Approximately 80 percent of all Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese adults read an ethnic newspaper on a regular basis. This reach extends to other media outlets, including television and the Internet.
Ethnic media can play a powerful role as part of a marketer's overall media mix. One of their chief advantages is cost efficiency. In addition to their unique connection with the community, ethnic media typically can't charge the same ad rates as mainstream media of a similar size. One estimate is that less than 4% of ad dollars go to ethnic media.
Saul Gitlin, EVP of strategic services at Kang and Lee Advertising, is one of the leading experts on marketing to Asian Americans. "I think planners and buyers need to know that this is a very rich media environment. They may not be aware of them personally, but the media is there." He tells potential advertisers that Asian-American marketing is cost effective and essential to a complete ad campaign.
There are currently significant changes taking place in the advertising marketplace. Audiences are moving away from big media and adopting more niche media instead. The entrenched model of advertising has been leveraging the economies of scale—the more people an advertiser reaches with his message, the greater the opportunity to make a sale. In an interview with Ad Age, media guru Rishad Tobaccowala said the new model must be outcome, engagement and effectiveness instead. Surveys show that ethnic media connects with ethnic consumers along three important variables: reach, use and trust.
For a variety of reasons, the Asian media is difficult to measure as a group. Not only does "Asian" not speak of a single culture or nationality, it also doesn't define a particular language. Even within Asian nationalities, there are language differences that make it difficult to group. China alone has seven distinct dialects.
Media buyers with no experience in ethnic communities often find that their efforts fail to perform well, leaving them with the conclusion that these communities may not be worth pursuing. In addition, many marketers fear their pitches might unwittingly offend people from other cultures. Brian M. Heiss, Senior Vice President & Managing Editor of Diversity Spectrum Corporation, said, "There is no handbook out there that says, 'This is how you market to Asian Americans.'" According to Heiss, "If you do it with thoughtfulness and understanding, you may be successful."
For marketers trying to reach the Asian-American community the obstacles may be cultural, not language. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 86% of Asians are literate in English.
Ted Fang, publisher of San Francisco-based AsianWeek, an English-language newspaper serving the Asian/Pacific Islander community, says that the one unifying factor for the community is English. Fang says that due to, "the inter-ethnicity of marriage—when a Korean woman marries a Chinese man—the language they speak at home is probably English." A recent study by OMD Worldwide concluded that ad relevancy is more about communicating in kind culturally than speaking in a language.
Leslie Yngojo-Bowes, the president and founder of U.S. Asian Wire, was previously the media relations manager for Business Wire when she realized that the needs of the Asian community weren't being addressed. She launched U.S. Asian Wire, Inc. in 2006, a distributor of press releases and news content specifically reaching Asian American media. She is currently collaborating with Ted Fang to develop an Asian Pacific American Media Association. "It's a win-win for media, advertisers, PR, marketers, and the Asian community -- bringing this full circle" stated Ms. Yngojo-Bowes. We are hosting our first organizational meeting with participants from Asian American press in Orlando, Florida later this month. This is very exciting and the timing is ripe as advertisers, marketers, and PR specialists are increasing efforts to reach Asian American communities."
Ethnic media has traditionally encountered indifference from media buyers who, despite studies to the contrary, believe that they can reach the ethnic community through mainstream newspapers and magazines. There is still a lack of awareness from media buyers about the buying power of nonwhites. "The media cartel has run a business based on the Ozzie and Harriet general market," said Jo Muse, chairman of ad agency Muse Cordero Chen & Partners.
Some marketers demand proof in advance that their campaigns to reach ethnic audiences will pay off in sales, a standard not applied to other media says Deborah Gray-Young of ad agency E. Morris Communications.
The burden of making themselves more appealing to advertisers lay upon ethnic media itself. The ethnic media has traditionally survived on local ads—auto repair shops, grocery stores and restaurants—and classified advertising. Measurement has been perceived as a problem for many ethnic media outlets, preventing them from attracting mainstream ads.
In a special marketing forum that addressed the political landscape as related to advertising, Len Fong, principal of The Kobayashi Maru Group, said one of the ways to get past the advertising "gatekeepers" is to create critical mass for ethnic media.
"We need to know marketing numbers," Fong said. "We lack the proof of performance—a lot of our media outlets are not even audited. That prevents us from being in consideration. "Asian media leaders need to develop their own research and provide local data about the community and local market to their clients, seeking out third-party validation where possible. In addition, ethnic media must provide detailed demographic information about their readers that large advertisers require."
Amee Enriquez, the Executive Editor of Balita, a newspaper for the Filipino community in Southern California, says that they chose to become audited for several reasons. "We wanted to add more credibility to our newspaper. What better way to do so than joining the ranks of other reputable news organizations that underwent the same process? Doing so separates us from others who claim numbers but can't back them up."
At this moment, there is a great opportunity for Asian media to increase their participation in the marketplace. Gitlin says, "Some clients will still look at a population below 6% of total and [think] they don't need to address it. But let's look at California. Asians make up 20% of the population in California and more than that in San Francisco. If I start a meeting by asking a potential client if California is important to them, it shows them how profound this audience segment really is."
Heidi Gardner, the VP of Diversity and Strategic Programs at American Advertising Federation, stated that ethnic media adoption is a three-stage process. "First you have awareness, then acceptance, then change. On the whole, the [advertising] industry is somewhere between awareness and acceptance. Yes, it's moving slowly but we're getting there."
Email wins best marketing medium title
Search Engine Journal - Datran Media (an online marketing firm specializing in email marketing) recently published the results of a survey which consists of 2,000 online marketers in December 2007 on the best performing medium for their online marketing efforts.
eMail marketing came ahead of search and display. There are some very interesting statistics in this survey that many will find helpful.
- 82% of the marketers surveyed indicated that they plan to increase their use of email marketing in 2008, and 55% of the respondents said they expect ROI from email to be higher than any other channel.
- Email ROI will hit $45.65 for every dollar spent in 2008, more than twice the ROI of other mediums including search and display, said Datran Media, citing data from the Direct Marketing Association.
- Some 67% of respondents stated that email has helped boost sales through other channels. In these scenarios, email is a tool for sales as well as a media channel.
- Search is the favored channel for complementing the email channel.
Marketers from 90 companies including OgilvyOne Worldwide, Avenue A/Razorfish and Stamps.com offered valuable insight into major brands’ overall positive outlook for the email channel. Across these companies and others, 67 percent of respondents stated that email has helped boost sales through other channels. In these scenarios, email is leveraged as a tool for sales as well as a media channel.
Although eMail may seem and look to be the greatest thing through this survey, keep in mind email can be very tricky.
Just like there are many SEOs that promise you the world and don’t deliver, search marketing companies that provide no results through PPC marketing, eMail can provide with you horrible ROI’s if you don’t do the right research and carefully choose who you use to do your email marketing.
More Americans use web as source of political info
ClickZ - The percentage of Americans who regularly go online for news about the presidential campaign has increased from 13% in 2004 to 24% for the 2008 elections. "Internet's Broader Role in Campaign 2008" released by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and Pew Internet & American Life Project looks at the increased usage of social networking sites and online videos for topical election news.
42% of young adults ages 18 to 29 use the Web as a primary source, up from 20% in 2004. As a whole, nearly one in four American adults regularly learn about campaign information from the Internet, up from 9% during the 2000 presidential campaign.
People get campaign news from many sources. MSNBC leads the pack; 26% of the respondents say they go there. MSNBC is followed by CNN (23%) and Yahoo News (22%). The survey identifies sources it categorizes as long-tail sites such as the Drudge Report (3%); MySpace (3%); and YouTube (2%).
Younger audiences cast a wider net to find relevant news. When asked which Web sites they head to for campaign news, 41% of 18 to 49 year olds listed more than one Web site, compared to 24% of people 30 and over. Younger audiences look at more than long-tail news sites; 61% of 18 to 29 year olds get campaign news from at least one of the three top sites (MSNBC, CNN, and Yahoo News) versus 46% over 30 years of age.
The data are part of a quadrennial survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Internet & American Life Project on campaign news and political communication. The survey was conducted in December 2007 among 1,430 adults.
China has 210m internet users!
SEJ - China has now 210 million users according to a press release from the China Internet Network Information Centre (The CNNIC is a government agency).
That’s a lot, considering that half a year ago there were only 165 million users and a year ago 137 million. In one year the number of users has gone up with 73 million users.
Full story here.
Top 30 newspaper sites Dec 2007
Editor and Publisher - Monthly Top 30 Most Popular Newspaper Sites
NEW YORK Newsday's online traffic edged past The Wall Street Journal Online in the month of December, according to the latest data from Nielsen Online (owned by E&P's parent company). Newsday had 6.4 million unique users in December compared to the Wall Street Journal, which had 5.4 million uniques.
Newsday managed to almost triple its traffic compared to December 2006 data.
The New York Times once again tops the chart of the top 30 newspaper Web sites with 17.1 million unique users, a 29.9% year-over-year gain.
The number of people visiting the Orlando Sentinel surged 78.6% to 1.5 million uniques in December 2007 compared to December 2006.
Politico.com continued to do well, in the 21st slot.
The number of unique users slipped in San Francisco. SFGate.com and the San Francisco Chronicle fell 30.9% year-over-year for that month. Visitors to AZCentral (part of the online arm of the Arizona Republic) dropped off 36.6%.
Below is the list for the top 30 newspaper Web sites for December. As always, this is custom-made by Nielsen. Look for the average time spent data at these papers in the coming days.
Brand or Channel -- Unique Audience (000) -- Year-over-year % Change
NYTimes.com -- 17,177 -- 29.9%
USATODAY.com -- 9,939 -- 9.1%
washingtonpost.com -- 8,478 -- 11.2%
Newsday -- 6,450 -- 182.8%
Wall Street Journal Online -- 5,409 -- 109.0%
LA Times -- 4,607 -- (-6.4%)
Boston.com -- 4,364 -- 15.0%
Chicago Tribune -- 3,891 -- 14.0%
Daily News Online Edition -- 2,956 -- 23.2%
New York Post -- 2,851 -- (-5.7%)
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle -- 2,785 -- (-30.9%)
Philly.com -- 2,300 -- 33.4%
International Herald Tribune -- 2,250 -- 14.9%
Village Voice Media -- 2,224 -- 70.6%
Chicago Sun-Times -- 2,186 -- 8.3%
Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- 1,974 -- 26.2%
The Houston Chronicle -- 1,946 -- (-18.6%)
The Seattle Times -- 1,840 -- (-19.3%)
DallasNews.com - The Dallas Morning News -- 1,828 -- 21.9%
Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- 1,785 -- (-0.1%)
The Politico -- 1,672 -- N/A
Orlando Sentinel -- 1,522 -- 78.6%
NJ.com -- 1,455 -- 40.1%
Azcentral.com -- 1,435 -- (-36.6%)
Baltimore Sun -- 1,332 -- 26.2%
MercuryNews.com -- 1,315 -- (-15.1%)
The Detroit News -- 1,256 -- 21.4%
The San Diego Union-Tribune -- 1,180 -- 10.4%
Detroit Free Press -- 1,168 -- (-22.9%)
The Washington Times -- 1,161 -- (-24.9%)
AFP reporters barred from using Wikipedia and Facebook as sources
journalism.co.uk - Agence France Presse (AFP) has banned its journalists from using Facebook and Wikipedia as sources, the agency's London bureau chief told a Lord's Committee yesterday.
In response to a question from the Lord's Committee on Media Ownership and the News about the trustworthiness of online sources, Pierre Lesourd said that internal rules that governed the entire organisation prevented journalists from relying on many new 'virtual' sources for news.
"We have internal rules that are regularly updated [on this matter]. Wikipedia for example, we have a written rule inside the company that forbids any journalist using Wikipedia," he said.
"We have the same thing, updated last week, for Facebook because of the incident with Bilawal Bhutto in Oxford.
"Some newspapers picked up pictures on Facebook about Mr Bhutto, which turned out to be fake.
"We are trying to be vigilant about it but, obviously, everyday a new virtual source appears. We have to be very careful."
Speaking to Journalim.co.uk today, Mr Lesourd clarified the policy, stating that reporters working for the international agency could not pick up information from these sites for news without referring to other, more reliable sources for factual clarification.
