Newsify?

I en kronikk i dagens Aftenposten tar Henriette Hedløv og Jorunn Flydal opp ideen om en Spotify kloning som løsning på mediehusenes utfordring. Les kronikken her

Ettersom kronikken er ført i pennen av to meget dyktige damer med kompetanse på sosiale medier har de klart å lage en aldri så liten twitterstorm. De har høstet litt motstand fra enkelte i mediehusene, men primært har de blitt hyllet av diverse twittrere og alle har stort sett vært enige i at norske medier henger etter og ikke er innovative nok. 

Jeg vil påstå at norske mediehus er verdensledende hva gjelder forretningsutvikling i digitale kanaler (Det betyr ikke at de ikke kunne vært forbanna mye bedre). Torry Pedersen og VG som har fått litt tyn i debatten i dag hadde i 2011 en omsetning på 365mill og leverte et overskudd på 81mill. Selskapet har 1,8mill daglige lesere på nett og 600.000 på mobil. I tillegg er de ansvarlig for en av landets største tv kanaler og en forferdelig slanketjeneste som går som ei kule, økonomisk. Det skal godt gjøres å finne et mediehus som har klart overgangen til nye plattformer bedre enn VG og da mener jeg i et globalt perspektiv. Men VG er ikke alene. Dagbladet, TV2, + +, driver god butikk digitalt. Selv om man ikke nødvendigvis liker alt innholdet er det vanskelig å ikke la seg imponere av live dekningen av viktige nyhetshendelser og de siste årene har kommentatorer og redaktører blitt et daglig fenomen i nettavisenes nyhetsstrøm som stadig øker i hastighet. At flere vil se på rompa til Tone Damli isteden for å lese den siste kommentaren til Anne Marte Blindheim, Astrid Meland eller Frithjof Jacobsen får nesten stå for forbrukerens regning og ikke redaktørens.

I debatten på Twitter i dag var det en som foreslo at DN burde ta en Newsweek. Hvorfor i alle dager skulle de gjøre det? DN er en av ytterst få papiraviser som kan vise til opplagsvekst de siste årene og omsetningen i selskapet har økt fra 581 mill i 2007 til 623 mill i 2011 (Hadde en dipp i 2009 post finanskrise) En tvungen overgang til digitale plattformer hadde ført til et økonomisk ragnarokk, men slike trivialiteter trenger man heldigvis ikke å ta hensyn til som ekspert på sosiale medier på twitter. Personlig synes jeg DN er svake hva gjelder innovasjon på nye plattformer og jeg tror de vil få det veldig tøft når papir ryker også hos de, men det betyr ikke at det er smart å legge ned papiravisen nå.

Men tilbake til start. La meg prøve å sage Newsify sønder og sammen!

Meta tjenester for nyheter i digitale medier er ikke noe nytt. Google news har vi hatt i en årrekke og det finnes en rekke andre, mer eller mindre vellykede hacks der ute. Dette er selvsagt Flydal og Hedløv klar over og jeg antar at det de ønsker er en tjeneste som samler alt innhold som ikke er tilgjengelig på nettavisene. De vil ikke betale for VG+, men hvis de fikk et Media+ produkt med innhold fra alle konkurrenter ville det vært en god investering.  Sammenligningen med Spotify er lett å ty til, men den er desverre villedende. Ser vi bort i fra det faktum at tjenesten taper flere hundre millioner kroner i året og heller konsentrerer oss om det positive med modellen ser vi fort at den har lite til felles med Newsify. Musikk er globalt og lokalt. Spotify funker fordi de tilbyr global, nasjonal, regional og lokal musikk. De aller fleste hører de samme globale og nasjonale sangene og noen få hører på mer obskure lokal musikk. De som misliker Spotify gjør det fordi noe musikk mangler, det er umulig å gjøre alle til lags...

Nyheter er også globale, nasjonale, regionale og lokale, men i motsetning til musikkbransjen pre Spotify er “alt” tilgjengelig gratis. Et Newsify vil vel da "kun" bestå av all den kvalitetsjournalistikken som ikke ligger på nettet? Hvor stort er det markedet egentlig? Og hvor mye av den journalistikken blir ikke publisert på nettet i dag? Newsify vil bli som et Spotify for kun en musikknisje og tjenesten vil være lokal og således ha et meget begrenset potensiale.

Så til pengene. La oss anta at alle mediehusene fortsetter med sine gratis nettaviser og det er inntektene fra papir og digitale + utgaver som skal hentes inn via Newsify. Hvis vi legger oss på samme prisnivå som Spotify (99,- per mnd) og sier at tjenesten har en million norske brukere ender vi på en omsetning på ca 1,2 milliarder. La oss glemme det faktum at det er umulig å få 1 mill nordmenn til å betale 1188,- i året for dybdeintervjuer med Thomas Hylland Eriksen og felt reportasjer fra tørkerammede områder i sub Sahara og heller sammenligne med de pengene som norske mediehus tjener i dag på sin tradisjonelle virksomhet. Schibsted, Amedia, Polaris, Berner Gruppen og NHST har samlet inntekter på  over 10 milliarder fra sine papirprodukter i dag. Ja, kostnadene er langt høyere for papirproduksjon, men de er ikke så høye at et scenario hvor de samme aktørene skal sloss om en total omsetning på en drøy milliard er veldig attraktiv for eierne. 

En "Premium" løsning vil også være vrient i forhold til deling i sosiale medier og da står vi igjen med den annonsefinansierte gratis strømmen. Skal man tjene penger på annonser på nett kreves et enormt volum. VG med 1,8mill lesere tjener kanskje 250mill på ulike former for annonser og norges største aktør Google ligger rundt en milliard. Hvis et annonsedrevet Newsify er løsningen for norske aviser betyr det bare en eneste ting, det vil være veldig få igjen av de.

Når dette er sagt så mener jeg at et Newsify ville være en hyggelig tjeneste for forbrukeren og jeg er helt sikker på at den vil komme i en eller annen form. Schibsted kunne jo laget noe fornuftig på tvers av sine publikasjoner, men i min verden heter det produktet “bundling”, “cross sale” eller på godt norsk mersalg. Om alle medier skulle gått sammen om en løsning og sett på felles redaksjoner og produkter ville det vært en falliterklæring for norsk journalistikk og jeg håper det aldri skjer.

Newsify er like lite løsningen på avisenes utfordringer som Ipaden var det og gode forretningsideer kommer sjelden i form av en kronikk i Aftenposten. (sorry Jorunn) 

Etter å ha lest igjennom min post her nå, registrerer jeg at jeg har blitt en grinete, gammel og traust gubbe, som opererer på lag med storkapitalen og de etablerte. Ikke gærnt for en 33 åring det…

Distribution revolution? By Even Aas-Eng

Since the arrival of the world wide web we have had three different phases of how we filter information (web sites).

First we had the web portals that gathered useful sites so it would be easy for people to navigate to the information they were looking for. The number of sites where off course very limited and if you tried a search engine to find something else you usually ended up on a porn site! As an advertiser the only real way of reaching a lot of people where through display ads or text links on the portals.

Then search engines (with less spam) changed the game completely. All websites became accessible through a search and a click. Great news for mankind and great news for advertisers that could add paid keywords and search engine optimization to their marketing mix.

Today we are well into phase three, social media. Filtering has again been taken over by humans (facilitated by technology) and social networks and user generated media are increasingly controlling our click streams and influencing our online decisions.

I am not writing this because we need yet another rant on how important social media is and how we can utilize it. What I would like to do is to emphasize one particular innovation, Facebook Connect.

Facebook Connect is a single sign on-service that enables user to logon to web sites outside Facebook with their Facebook login. Facebook Connect was launched in December 2008 and competes with openID and similar services. The difference being that Facebook is the Google of social media and a lot more powerful. For users Facebook Connect means that the actions they do on affiliated sites can be shared with their friends on Facebook. So again, great news for surfers of the web and a massive opportunity for advertisers.

Facebook Connect gives advertisers access to the most powerful distribution platform we have seen since Google took off early in this millennium. Here is why:

1) Facebook Connect lowers the threshold for participation. Who wants to create a new username and password? No one, we have way to many as it is. Using the connect service in advertising campaigns, on smaller niche communities or corporate sites you increase your signup rate massively because most people already have a Facebook account. (The Fluent 09/Razorfish report states that there is a 35% increase in the will for signing up via Facebook Connect)

2) Viral. Everything that you do on a Facebook Connect affiliated site can potentially be shared on Facebooks newsfeed or you can send a Facebook message. So if just ten people make an action and share it thousands may potentially see it. Someone will probably “Like” it and someone will probably comment on it.

It’s that simple and that important.
Try thinking about how you would attract new members to a niche community or how you would recruit users for an online competition with and without Facebook Connect and you will understand the importance of this feature.

I think Facebook Connect represents a distribution revolution, its one of the most important innovations we have seen in years and It will be a game changer.

Who thought that a DVD rental would be the coolest place to work? By Even Aas-Eng

Today I picked up an article in a TechCrunch newsletter about Netflix. The American online DVD rental service apparently has a very interesting corporate culture that everyone now can read about after the management added their “Reference Guide on our Freedom & Responsibility Culture” To slideshare.

Some Highlights from the guide are:
- Netflix Vacation Policy and Tracking: "there is no policy or tracking."
- "There is also no clothing policy at Netflix, but no one has come to work naked lately."
- Netflix's policies for Expensing, Gifts and Travel: "Act in Netflix's Best Interests."
- Netflix on compensation: “When top of market comp done right... Nearly all ex-employees will take a step down in comp for their next job.”

So if you work at Netflix you can go on vacation whenever you like, show up naked in the office, receive a 50 inch LED TV as a gift from a Netflix partner (if it’s in Netflix best interest that you accept it) and while you are doing all this you will get the best compensation in the market!
I guess by now you really want to work with online DVD rentals!

Jokes aside, I think the presentation was very interesting. Its miles away from our Nordic “social welfare state” corporate culture, but it’s also miles away from most big American corporations excruciatingly boring “code of conduct”. What surprises me the most is that Netflix is not a small company. They are around 2000 people and their listed on NASDAQ. Alternative corporate cultures aren’t exactly uncommon in cool, tech start ups but they have a tendency to disintegrate as the companies go public.

Most companies like Netflix uses stock options as a way to keep the best talent. Google is a prime example, they gave all employees various number of options. Their strategy was never to be leading in compensation. When they went public in 2004 the initial offering was 85$, in 2007 Google hit 700$. Between 2004 and 2007 Google hired about 10 000 people, all got options. Because of the continuously rise in the Google stock its most have been a very effective way of keeping the best talent. There are two problems with this model though, its volatile and short term. Today Google shares are hovering around 450$.

Netflix offers stock options to those who want them but their strategy to keep the best talent is to offer them the best compensation in the market and let the employees decide what to do with it. The get rich quick opportunity disappears but you get long term stability and safety. I think most people would prefer the Netflix way.

Personally I have worked in India where I couldn’t wear jeans at the office except on Fridays and I have worked for Google where you got an incentive to buy a bike to save the environment… I prefer McCann here in Oslo where we have a mix of Nordic welfare stat socialism and IPGs code of conduct!

You can find the preso here: http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664

Innovating pitch process

McCann in Turkey are currently in a pitch process with Turkish Airlines (TA) and the process has been very different and innovative. TA has placed clues online on different social media sites that the agencies involved has to find. You can read more about it here on McCann Turkeys blog: http://www.digithell.net/post/Now-We-re-Taking-Off!.aspx

The Bing project completed… By Even Aas-Eng

The last two weeks I have used Bing as my default search engine. The mission here was not to look at new features or functionality that only are available in the US version but to see if Bing could handle the day by day stuff.

So here is a little recap of my two weeks with Bing. I started off uninstalling my Google toolbar and got ready to install the Bing. Easier said than done… A search for Bing toolbar in Bing gave no results but I did manage to find a Live toolbar. It didn’t look good, no search history and no search suggestion. Two days after I installed the toolbar it mysteriously vanished…

Ok, let’s move on to the actual search results. I was astonished after searching for Facebook and not finding it on the first page. How is that possible? A search for “Aunan” (A salmon fishing camp at the Orkla river) gave no results at all, a search in Google and their homepage was at position number one.

When you search for a site using the complete domain ( for example VG.no) Google sends you directly to the site. Bing doesn’t and it’s annoying.

Today I was looking for a hotel in Oslo for a business contact who is visiting on Wednesday. I searched for the hotel name (Gabels hus) in Bing and got no relevant result on the first page. The same search in Google and the hotel web site hade the top rank.

The last two weeks every newsletter from TechCrunch has had at least one article praising Bing and talking about how great it is that someone tries to give Google a run for its money. There seems to be a lot of people wanting change in the search game. I am definitely one of them, but I can’t change my default search engine to something that is untrustworthy for the easiest requests. So for now its bye, bye Bing and welcome back Google.

Going completely Bing! By Even Aas-Eng

After seven years of Googling I will from now Bing things instead. If it’s not good enough I will change back in two weeks.

I will let you know.

www.bing.com

The link between display and SEM. By Even Aas-Eng

Online marketers can be divided into three categories:

1) Those who believe the display ad is dead and think SEM will solve all your problems
2) Those who believe the display ad is everything
3) Those who believe that the world is not black or white and that it might be interesting to look at marketing across media channels and platforms and that different companies might need different strategies.

Of these three categories it’s my feeling that unfortunately nr 1 is growing, luckily nr 2 is declining and nr 3 is growing but not fast enough.

Aegis owned SEM agency Iprospect recently released a survey that concluded that display advertising has a positive effect on your SEA campaigns and that display advertising could work even though people don’t click on your ad. Revolutionary stuff…
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that Iprospect did the survey, I hope many people read it and I hope we will see more surveys like this in the near future, but it scares me that we are not more advanced in how we utilize new media.

I think it’s funny how SEM fanatic’s have trashed the display ad for years while their favorite company Google in the same period have invested BILLIONS to build the largest display ad network in the world. As mentioned before on this blog, the display ad isn’t dead it has just been revitalized.

I have been a SEM evangelist in the Norwegian market since 2003 but I never meant that display advertising don’t work. If you compare display and SEA by looking at CTR, CPC and conversion rates you are looking at two different planets, that doesn’t mean that one of the planets are about the be blasted out of the solar system. The role of advertising is to create demand and that is possible to achieve trough a social media concept, a display ad, a SEA campaign, a newsletter, a viral movie, a TV commercial, a social media ad, a web site, a DM, or a combination of all or some of the above.

Why box yourself in by just having faith in one type of advertising?

Iprospect survey: http://www.iprospect.com/about/researchstudy_2009_searchanddisplay.htm

The next pot of gold for the agency industry. By Even Aas-Eng

The SMB´s of the world have always been a key driver in online advertising growth. Google’s success being the prime example of how “uninteresting” companies suddenly became the backbone of their business model.

SMB´s are spending more and more dollars online and their perspective on what is “advertising” is getting broader and broader. Their web site is often their only communication platform towards their clients and it’s easy to understand its importance. This study that I stumbled upon shows that 2/3 of the marketing professionals in these companies wants to spend more money next year in the “media” channel “my own web site”. The next wave of new corporate web sites is a huge opportunity for marketers. Finally the market will approach the job wanting to create value for users and not only show off the new fancy logo and the CEO!

The blurring lines of what is advertising is critical to understand if you are in the agency business today. One side of the coin is a huge opportunity the other a big threat…

The report is here: http://www.borrellassociates.com/report_details.aspx?prodID=173

Gulltaggen 2009 a great event. By Even Aas-Eng

Norway is a small country, it’s close to the north pole, there is no people here, shops are closed on Sundays, we are not a member of the EU and the rest of the world couldn’t care less about what happens here. All this according to my Swedish wife and unfortunately she is probably right…

So I thinks it’s worth mentioning when someone puts together an event in Oslo that truly is of high quality even on a international scale. INMA (IAB Norway) arrange this conference and award show every year and this time the lineup is just great, sensational considering that its taking place in Oslo. Chris Anderson, Seth Godin, Jack Myers, Lars Bastholm and Nigel Morris are just a few of the names on the speaker list.

The event gathers a wide specter of Norway’s new media industry and it has really become a “must be” venue every year. Apparently also in 2009 even though most companies are cutting back on their “extra curricular” activities.

So I just want to honor the INMA team that makes this happen and encourage all foreigners to attend the conference. You now have a good excuse to visit Norway.
(shops are still closed on Sundays…)

Check out the event here: http://gulltaggen.no/?nid=14202

A dash of hope in all the despair. By Even Aas-Eng

IAB`s US spending report for 2008 is out in the open and contains some encouraging figures. Year on year the growth was 10,6% but more interesting is the Q4 figures that shows a growth of 4,5%
Search increased its market share from 42% to 45% and display related kept its position at 33%

The report also shows that CPG (Consumer packaged goods) share of internet revenue increased a staggering 60% in 2008. A very good sign for the years to come as this industry vertical traditionally has been skeptical to online media.

Read the report here http://www.iab.net/about_the_iab/recent_press_releases/press_release_archive/press_release/pr-033009?o12499=

Is advertising failing on the internet? By Even Aas-Eng

My good friend Aleksander Rosinski at www.finn.no sent me this article by Eric Clemons: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/22/why-advertising-is-failing-on-the-internet/
Clemons is a Professor at Wharton and he is not a big fan of advertising… I thought the article was interesting but I disagree with him, a lot!

Clemons don’t believe that advertising dollars will not migrate online or to other digital channels, instead he believes that the internet will unveil the failing history of advertising and shatter all attempts at influencing consumers. Clemons says “It is not trusted, not wanted and not needed”
The advertising doesn’t work discussion seems to never end. Normally when this arise it’s a online marketing wizz behind it saying that SEM, affiliate marketing and a good old list of email addresses will solve all your problems but Clemons takes it one further and even dismisses search as a “Monetization of misdirection”!

His article is a long one so I will focus on his three reason on why advertising will fail

Consumers do not trust advertising. Clemons graduated from university in 1971 so he might think that advertising still looks, acts and feels like a Mad Men episode. We might not trust advertising to make important decisions in our life but we are not enemies of advertising. When Nike launches a new trainer, consumers that are exposed to Nike advertising may have thoughts on the design, colors or the price of the product but they don’t accuse Nike of trying to sell them a crap pair of trainers. Consumers don’t trust companies that promises something they don’t deliver and they don’t trust bad advertising. The internet is a transparency tool and the rise of social media means that companies no longer can risk being untruthful in their advertising without the consumers picking them apart, but the idea of truth in advertising is not something new. McCann’s mantra “Truth well told” is almost 100 years old…

Consumers do not want to view advertising. This is definitely true for a lot of “push” campaigns out there, but it doesn’t mean that we are not influenced. Let’s take a horrendous example. inkclub.com has annoying display ads everywhere you go online and I don’t know how many times I have been exposed to their ads. I don’t have a printer but if I did I would surely by both ink and toner from inkclub.com. Why? I don’t care about ink, I don’t want to spend time looking for ink and I certainly don’t care what other people mean about ink, so if I remembered the name of someone who sells ink I would buy it there. If inkclub has a positive return on their investment is a different story but it does work even though it’s annoying.
Then there is all the types of advertising that people like to view. Who doesn’t like the text ad from the wonderful little beach bungalow that was smart enough to be there when I searched for a beach hotel at Boracay or what a about the 240.000 consumers (campaign was shut down after two weeks) that participated in Burger Kings last campaign where you could dump your Facebook friends for a free burger.

Consumers do not need advertising. They don’t, but that’s hardly the questions here. Companies need advertising and the economy needs advertising to stimulate demand. Increase in demand leads to profits and innovation and that again leads to increased material welfare. I don’t know about Mr Clemons but I certainly don’t mind. Clemons own research shows that people use UGC sites like Tripadvisor when they make decisions and therefore they don’t need advertising. People do use Tripadvisor and similar sites and we are experiencing a influence revolution but this influence is not enough to drive the same amount of demand as you can with a successful advertising campaign. It is definitely possible to influence consumer behavior, advertising is one of the tools companies have at their disposal. Let’s take an example from the travel industry. With the arrival of low cost airlines consumers travel behavior in Europe has changed drastically. In a small market like Norway there are three direct flights to Vilnius from Oslo weekly, that means that 450 people fly there every week. I don’t know what the number was before Norwegian Airlines started their direct flight but I am pretty sure it was less. So by convenience, affordable prices and marketing Norwegian airlines has been able to increase demand for airtravel to Vilnius. How would they fill their flights without advertising and how would I know that they fly to Vilnius without any kind of advertising? And please don’t say word of mouth…

Internet will not kill advertising. On the contrary it will provide us with more relevant models for push marketing so that inkclub doesn’t have to waste money on me and it has already given us the opportunity to create even more relevant, valuable and successful pull campaigns. And the best thing, it will only get better.

“Interest-based advertising”, the rebirth of behavioral targeting. By Even Aas-Eng

Two days ago Google launched their new display product with new targeting options. You will now be able to target user based on their browser history, the site they visit and the pages they view.
The service is still in beta but will soon be launched across Google’s massive adsense network and give it a long overdue facelift.

I assume that the “interest-based advertising” service is based on Doubleclick technology. If that is correct this is the first significant outcome of Google’s takeover of the company in 2007. It has taken two years to take the new display product to market, it must have been frustrating!

I think it’s funny that the term “behavioral targeting” seems to have disappeared after the US congressional hearings last fall about online targeting and privacy issues. In order to stay away from the heat Google has also implemented a lot of user friendly features to their new service. You can choose categories of advertising and you can off course choose not to be targeted at all. No one will probably ever discover these opportunities but Google’s has its back free.

So make no mistake behavioral targeting is back but it has a new name, “interest-based advertising”

More info can be found here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/making-ads-more-interesting.html

God, I was wrong! By Even Aas-Eng

This blog has been dead for a bit over a year now and this is an attempt to bring some life back to it.

One of my last articles was titled “Recession is here” and was posted on January 22 th in 2008. The post was a rant on how a recession will speed up the transition from “old” to “new” media and how the online advertising industry would benefit from this. I was also offensive enough to recommend a few tech companies as potential winners in the stock market during a economic downturn, I wish I didn’t… The concerned companies was Google and Tradedoubler and the stock price at the time was about 500USD for Google and 123 SEK for the Swedish affiliate marketing player. Today Google is trading at 318 USD and I just sold my Tradedoubler stocks at 26 SEK a share…

Well I was right about one thing, the recession was really creeping up on us and we are now experiencing the most severe global economic downturn since the big depression. This has obviously impacted the digital business as well and my rosy prediction from a year ago looks ridiculous today. But I am not going to use this blog to post doomsday prophecies. We live in interesting times of change and transition, new ventures arise and old business models dies, fortunes are made and lost. It’s the age of opportunity.

So the blog is back and the first real post will be ready soon (hopefully) I already know the title, “Black Swans and Creative Destruction”

And I got rid of the sleazy picture!

Microsoft buys Yahoo! (maybe) by Even Aas-Eng

Its pretty clear what’s the talk on the town at the moment, here is my take on it.

This is a big but expected move. I will try and touch on the different relevant areas.

Search: Google is number one in search in most markets except where local competition has triumphed (China,Russia) Microsoft has failed spectacularly, there is very little traffic and adcenter don’t have to many clients either. As everyone knows Yahoo! is the number two player in search. The problem is that Google is so dominant that even a Yahoo!/Microsoft merger won’t be adequate to challenge Google. In the US market where Yahoo! is very strong the market share including Microsoft will only reach 33 % (comscore figures) In many large European markets the two companies will only have single digit market shares even after a merger, in a market like Spain for instance Google has a market share of 90%+
But all this doesn’t mean that Microsoft or Yahoo! can/should give up search. Search is growing and SEM is growing and we don’t know how long Google’s crusade around the world will last. But it will last for a very long time if no one tries to compete with them.

Clients: Google didn’t not invent SEM, Bill Gross did! He started Overture and sold it to Yahoo! years before Google copied the model and invented Adwords. My point is that Yahoo! much like Google has clients and partners all over the world that has been spending ad dollars for years. These client relationships are worth a lot. Yahoo! like Google has dipped in to the long tail of advertisers, Microsoft has focused more on the agency world and large clients. If the merger becomes reality Microsoft will suddenly have a much larger client list, they will instantly make more money on adcenter and Yahoo! search will get new larger clients that already cooperates with Microsoft on their advertising products. So even if “Microhoo” doesn’t instantly capture new market shares they will instantly make more money.

Display advertising: This is where it really gets interesting. Google has Adsense and Google bought Doubleclick. Microsoft bought Aquantive but they don’t have a large enough inventory. Well they do now if this merger happens. As advertising dollars goes digital the display ad segment will grow immensely in the years to come. Technology will enable advertiser to reach their target groups across the WWW, but you need to own that technology and you need an ad network. Yahoo! has developed a competitor to adsense but it has had limited success but Yahoo! has portals and various content verticals (Sports,finance, etc) plus the fact that they are one of the largest email providers on planet earth. In other words, they have a lot of inventory to sell. Combine this with Microsofts MSN portals, IM, xbox and Hotmail you have one big online advertising platform with global reach and local presence. This platform obviously needs to be complex and fitted to all sorts of clients, well if you are Microsoft and you just bought Yahoo!, Aquantive and FAST you should have the opportunity to create something spectacular.

What happens now: I think that this “war” is mostly about two things, technology and eyeballs, with an emphasis on eyeballs. Both Google and Microsoft have the technology which means that this race now is all about the eyeballs. I therefore assume that we will see more companies swallowed by the two giants in the years to come. Who is next? My guess is vertical ad networks and affiliate networks. The rest of the world’s media companies thought they had their hands full with Google, now it looks like they have two giants to fight with. It will be interesting to see if they will be more willing to join resources with Microsoft than they have with Google. “Google-phobia” has infected many of them, will they get “Micro-phobia” as well?

Steve Ballmer declared last year that he was an advertising man; I think he just placed his money where his mouth is!

Recession is here! By Even Aas-Eng

Everyone who has money in stocks or funds has had a terrible 2008. And it continues today, as I write this Asian markets are down between 5 and 10% and the stock exchange in my home town Oslo is down about 5% today.

I guess this is interesting enough itself but since this is a blog about online media I will try and look at this from a different perspective. The media industry always gets hit hard by recession. Advertiser slash their budgets to save money and agencies struggle because the last thing on a CFOs mind is to put money aside for the next big brand campaign. I am sure that we will see this happening during the next years but with a twist! In all markets online media is experiencing a massive growth. In mature markets between 10-20% and in more undeveloped markets between 20-50% (undeveloped markets here doesn’t necessarily mean undeveloped economies)

The last couple of years I have said many times that I welcome the next recession so that online media finally will have its final and mayor break trough. This was obviously said with a smile as I also save in the stock market and I have very little to smile about at the moment… But I really think that my joke brings some matter of truth to the table. The staggering growth of online media spend will continue and in some cases I sincerely believe that the growth could be further increased by the wobbling state of the world economy. Why? Well as advertising budgets gets slashed and CMOs are pressured on their ROI it’s not totally off to think that they will allocate more money to the most predictable, accountable and cost efficient media channel. It might be a bit naïve way to look at things but it could happen. During the last years of growth, online media has taken big market shares but companies haven’t spent less money on other media channels. On the contrary, they have spent more. It’s my guess that most companies are in a position to save money on their marketing budgets without risking growth in sales or their brand. And it’s also my guess that they won’t save on their online campaigns.

So if it’s true that we will see further growth or even an increase in growth for online media spend it might be possible to make a buck or two in the stock market as well! For those who read the following you should keep in mind that I am NOT a financial analyst!
Google is down about 20% this year and I guess they will be down even more after today’s trading. Google is definitely a company that has many years of fantastic growth ahead of them. In many markets Google is still enjoying growth rates above 100% and Asia and Eastern Europe hasn’t really started yet. They don’t in the US but the US market is less and less important for Google. So Google might be a good buy if the market continues to slide.

The Swedish company Tradedoubler is also an interesting case. Last year AOL tried to buy the company for 215 SEK a share. Shareholders turned the offer down and the stock reached an all time high of 235 SEK. At the moment they are trading at 123 SEK! Tradedoubler is in the affiliate marketing business and they are doing well, so is affiliate marketing and everything seems to indicate massive growth in the years ahead.

There are many, many other interesting cases around. Companies that operate in the ad technology sector, tracking and web analytics companies, search engine marketing technology and e-mail marketing are all interesting.

So I guess my final conclusions are that there are many opportunities out there and that online media will not be hit by the sliding global economy.

God, I hope I am right!

Microsoft buys Fast search and transfer, by Even Aas-Eng

It’s not very often that Norway is the centre of events in the digital world but yesterday there was an exception.
Trading in Fast was stopped on Tuesday and something big was obviously about to happen. On Wednesday morning the news broke.

For those who doesn’t know Fast I will give a quick intro. Fast is (or was) a Norwegian software company who has specialized in search technology. Enterprise search has been their core business but they have also created other interesting solutions. I will get back to that later. The company sprung out around a tech school in the city of Trondheim. Norway actually has a search technology hub in that city, besides Fast both Google and Yahoo has engineering offices there.

In statements made by Microsoft regarding the acquisition they say that they bought Fast because of their technology and their standing in the enterprise search market. I am sure that is true but I also think that there is a reason beside this that have more to do with media then with technology.

Early in 2007 Fast launched a product called Fast Ad momentum. This product resembles Googles adsense technology, it’s a long tail tool that makes it possible to commercialize your total inventory. It’s perfect for companies like Schibsted that has many websites and search engines but no technology for automated ad sales. Since there are a number of big media companies around the world that are desperate to copy Googles success but they are dead scared of cooperation with Google the ad momentum product could be an interesting one indeed. It was at least the reason that I bought Fast shares!

Microsoft is also a company that is increasingly becoming a media player and they have not been very successful in trying to match Google. I would not be surprised if Microsoft will use the Fast ad momentum to get some momentum of their own!

For other media companies Fast is now history as an independent software maker, so I guess its time to by stock in other companies with the same competence. Did anyone say autonomy?

2007 top digital events by Even Aas-Eng

Here is my very subjective take on 2007.

1) Google buys doubleclick
The number one in search and the company with the largest ad network on the planet decided that it’s was time to put some (ad)sense into it! Buying doubleclick Google looks set to become the worlds leading display advertiser. I am already looking forward to what the Mountain View people will buy this year.

2) Facebook launches social media ads
Zero to one million members in Norway in one year is not too bad. But for me it was the launch of their advertising concept that was the big story. Global reach, local presence with endless targeting possibilities. Still in its infancy it can only get better and I project a 2008 packed with news from facebook.

3) Microsoft enters the online advertising race buying Aquantive and a small stake in facebook
2007 was the year that Steve Balmer decided that he would not only talk about Google but actually try and do something. The Aquantive deal will bring opportunities across Microsoft channels that hopefully can give many of them a boost. What Microsoft and facebook are up to, I don’t really know.

4) Marketer’s world wide realizes that Second life is just that and that they won’t have to close shop in real life just yet!
Thank God this hype worn off during the first part of the year. I am not saying it’s not interesting, I am just saying that there is so much else more interesting.

5) Iphone
It came, it looked good and it conquered! People bought it and they started to surf the web. Numbers from UK shows that 60 % of Iphone users move about 25 MB of data back and forward per month. Only 2% of other mobile phone owners move the same amount of data. The floodgates are open, the ad dollars will start to move towards the cell phone in 2008. And did I mention that it looked good?

6) Search conquers Europe outside UK
Staggering growth numbers all over the continent and finally the media agencies and big advertiser are starting to see the light. The only problem is that many of the newly convinced see SEM as the only online solution, need to stop that! Mantra for 2008: SEM targets existing demand it doesn’t necessarily create more demand.

7) How difficult it was to find enough people!
Young people all over the world unite! Come and work with online media, we need you!

Not exactly Fawlty Towers, by Even Aas-Eng

This blog is about the digital environment but I have taken the liberty this time to talk about something completely different. I think that we can call it marketing!

In November my wife and I went to Prague for a relaxing long weekend. As usually we had spent numerous hours online researching hotels and we ended up with hotel Icon. The Icon is a sleek, cool, boutique hotel just of the main street and their main selling point was that they had Hästen beds. A good selling strategy indeed!

The hotel was great, very cool rooms, great food and they served breakfast 24/7. Why anyone hasn’t done that before is beyond me!
But the most fantastic thing about the hotel was the service. The Icon is a small hotel and has a very intimate feel to it and it’s the absolutely amazing staff that provides this feeling. Service not only with a smile but with a genuine smile.

Ok, so we where very happy with our stay and we where absolutely sure that we would book again for our next trip to Prague. Then we where hit with some serious CRM!
Yesterday I received a letter from the Icon hotel. I thought they finally had found out that we had emptied out the mini-bar during our last night and here was the bill…
But no, the letter was no less than a happy birthday card from the Icon hotel (my birthday is today) and it was signed personally by all members of the staff.

So easy, yet so effective. The Icon went from being a great hotel to the greatest hotel in a split second.

I promised you some marketing and here it is. If you are going to Prague you most stay at the Icon hotel. It’s by far the best hotel in Prague and one of the best in Europe. You might think it’s expensive but you are wrong! A suite is about 200 EUR per night which is a bargain considering that you sleep in a 2x2 meter hästen bed and are pampered by the greatest hotel staff anywhere in the world.

Ok I maybe went a bit over the top there but its really a fantastic place, check it out at http://www.iconhotel.eu/en/welcome.php or look at the tripadvisor reviews here: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g274707-d646535-Reviews-The_Icon_Hotel-Prague_Bohemia.html

Just disregard the first review from some old stuck up Americans!

Merry Xmas!

Facebooks flying start, by Even Aas-Eng

Things move fast in the online media world. So fast that the product facebook flyer pro that was launched a couple of weeks back is already gone and replaced by facebook social ads! But it’s still the same product so it doesn’t really matter. So my plan with this post was to dig a bit deeper into what effect facebooks latest move has on the online advertising world. I briefly touched this in my last post and I will go further into details in this one.

So what is facebook social ads? Well it’s a mix between a text and a simple display ad. Whats “social” about it? You can target your ad based on “social” parameters. When you create the ad you first pick the country you want to show it in. Then facebook tells you how many people that have a profile in that country (940.000 profiles in Norway) After that you start with your segmentation. You decide if you want to target females or males, you choose age, political views, education background, religious view and relationship status. If you like you can also target people based on interest and where they work. You can segment your campaign all the way down to 20 people.

So how will this work for a brand advertiser? Pretend that you are the Swiss watch maker IWC and that you have a few people in the Norwegian market that are potential clients of yours. You create your facebook ad by choosing the following:

Country: Norway
Gender: Male
Age: 30-65
Education: College Graduate, Major in Business
Political views: conservative
Relationship status: singles and people in relationships
Interest: investing, watches, wine
Workplace: ABG, Artic Securities, Orkla Finans, Glitnir, Enskilda

The point is that you can define your target group pretty precisely. And I am pretty sure that hypothetical campaign above would be quite successful. Now think about how much a company like IWC would be willing to pay for such segmentation… Obviously this is just an example and a profile like this probably doesn’t exist in Norway but it makes a point.
You can use the system for extremely targeted campaigns like my example but also for campaigns where reach is key. If you want to reach Norwegian females between 20-35 you have about 250.000 profiles at your disposal. So it’s a tool for large brand advertisers and small local businesses and it’s a tool for targeted niche campaigns and those who need volume. It covers both the head and the end of Mr Andersons long tail…

In my last post I mentioned something about facebook flyer being an adwords killer. It isn’t but it will be one of the only alternatives to Google’s adsense system that has huge reach and targeting possibilities. So it’s not a threat to Google but a great supplement for advertisers. If it where to be a threat they need other publisher than just their own site.

But interestingly enough facebooks ad move probably tells us a lot about what Microsoft and Google are launching pretty soon. Segmentation across communities, news sites, blogs, e-commerce sites and IM tools. This is why they bought Doubleclick and Aquantive. Imagine placing your ad within Google’s adsense network on the criteria from my example above. That makes contextual advertising look kinda bleak don’t you think?

So in conclusion; Hooray for facebook social ads and lets wait for Google and Microsoft

If you want to read more about facebook social ads and their polling tool! You should read this http://www.facebook.com/ads/

A little bit about everything, by Even Aas-Eng

The problem with writing a blog about online media is that there is so much stuff happening all the time. That means that if you haven’t posted anything in a while it gets difficult to decide what to write about. That’s where I am today! So I have decided to do things a little bit differently this time and provide a summary of interesting events that have taken place the last month.

First Microsoft finally makes a move and invests in facebook. From the outside it resembles Googles deal with myspace a couple of years back. They are paying to distribute display and search ads, they are buying themselves a ad network. Microsoft is buying 1,6% of facebook for 240 million dollars, this values the company to 15 billion in total. This means that the price for social media has had a rising curve the past years… Murdoch bought myspace in 2005 for 580 million dollars and Google bought youtube for 1,65 billion in 2006.

Let’s stick with facebook. There have been rumours for a while that they would launch an ad concept with social targeting possibilities. This month the facebook flyer appeared and yes there are interesting segmentation options. But even more interesting is how this product resembles the adwords model. It’s a long tail tool open for small and medium sized companies and perfect for small local campaigns. You buy based on CPM or CPC with your own credit card. So the concept could really be the first adwords competitor to appear in quite some time. Unfortunately though the people I have spoken with that have tried it says that its full of bugs.

Okay, back to Microsoft. Their new exec Brian Mcandrews (former head of aquantive) has stated the bleeding obvious; display ads will trump search in the years to come. This is off course already the case in many European markets where SEM is playing catch up and I am sure it will happen in the states to. Apparently this is suppose to solve Microsoft’s challenges in the advertising market, it doesn’t. They still has to get into search (buy yahoo!) and they are also trailing googles enormous inventory for display ads (adsense/site targeting, youtube, myspace deal) A good start I guess would be to buy more of facebook so that they can sell display ads in the US as well, this is not covered by the deal mentioned above.

And at last! The daily show with Jon Stewart will revamp its website and actually show their content there! Revolutionizing stuff, apparently advertiser will also be able to buy ads!!
Great news for all Jon Stewart fans and it’s great to see that Viacom is doing something for the users, not just suing youtube!