Written on 16th June 2009
5 COMMENTS Keith, Network Consultant, Social Media Fanatic
Facebook vanity URLs have been around for just over 72 hours but we are already seeing a major brand capitalize on their Facebook URL for an advertising campaign. Volkswagen (VW) has released a series of TV ads that in addition to highlighting their vehicles points viewers to facebook.com/vw. This is the very first instance that we are aware of a marketing strategy that utilizes the a brand’s Facebook page instead of the companies main website, VW.com.
(We would embed the video but Facebook doesn’t like sharing outside of their walled garden, click the screencap below to view the video within Facebook.)
The social network integration goes a step further with a “Meet the Volkswagens” Facebook app
Written on 4th June 2009
13 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
After ending their exclusive ad deal with Microsoft one year early, Digg has just announced plans to let their users Digg or in fact, bury their forthcoming advertisements.
The new advertising platform, appropriately called Digg Ads will give users control over what advertisements they see and, interestingly, how much the advertiser pays. The more an advertisement is dugg, the less the advertiser is charged and conversely, the more an ad is buried the more expensive it will become for the advertiser and consequently, the advertiser will eventually be priced out of the system.
The new ad platform will launch as a pilot (equivalent to a beta?) for a few months whilst they work out how best to run the system.
According to Mike Maser, Digg’s latest recruit and new Chief Revenue Officer:
“The goal here is to give advertisers a way to present content related to their brands and get immediate input on whether it’s relevant to the Digg audience, or not.”
A screenshot was provided to give a better idea of how it’s likely to look:
What’s immediately obvious and rather surprising is that the ads aren’t your standard 300×300 flash squares but rather like your standard Digg story, blended in amongst the other standard Digg stories. This is unquestionably likely to attract the eye more and with any luck, increase number of impressions, and hopefully prevent “Adblock Plus” and other ad-blocking tools from hiding them. Sites like Digg (and us!) need ads to stay alive and this is a creative way to actually make ads interesting.
Whilst both interesting and inspiring in many respects, Kevin Rose & Co must realise the blatant loopholes within the system. Aside from potential competitors burying ads, they’ll need to deal with Apple fan boys who’ll instinctively bury Microsoft ads, marketing agencies who will simply give up in frustration unable to create ads Digg users are satisfied with and all that aside, each ‘ad’ is likely to have to deal with the masses of typical Digg commentary slating every aspect of it and the company behind it.
That’s not to say there aren’t ways to make it work, but the team at Digg have a mission ahead of them and it won’t be easy.
A few weeks ago I met a magazine publisher. We spoke about the future of publishing and the web. It was an interesting discussion because he knew a lot about publishing and I knew a lot about the Internet.
At one point he asked me what magazines and newspapers I subscribed to. I thought for a moment and had to admit that the only magazine I read is Wired magazine which I buy at a newsstand every month. Then he asked me where I got my news from and I explained that I am subscribed to several local and global news sources online. Did I pay for any of these, was his next question. No, I didn’t, I answered. He smiled, and said:
“Don’t you feel guilty for getting all that content without paying for it?”
Of course I explained to him that I didn’t and that although I didn’t actually transfer money to any of these sources I did pay with my attention to their advertisements and that I might even, at one point, consider paying a fee for certain content.
Although the discussion moved on after that the ‘guilty’ question kept lingering in the back of my mind. Somehow I couldn’t find a satisfactory answer. In his line of thought I was guilty of the demise of the newspaper industry, and I had admitted as much. It is all my fault.
Today Reuters reports (for free) that Warren Buffett is giving up on the newspaper industry. In an incredible reversal of fortunes he goes so far as to say that “the reeling industry may never recover because it lacks a sustainable business model”.
Wow. That is what most newspapers are reporting about most Internet companies. No sustainable business model? Really? There is more: “Twenty, thirty years ago, they were a product that had pricing power that was essential,” said Buffett. “They have lost that essential nature.”
Yes, they lost it, and are proud of it.
The editor I spoke with proudly proclaimed that he didn’t get a computer until about a year ago. He refused to check out Twitter, thought blogs were just a waste of time and regarded email as a mere nuisance.
Then it hit me; I couldn’t find an answer to his question because it was the wrong question.
I don’t feel guilty for getting my news online just as I can only assume nobody felt guilty for trading in their horse and carriage for an automobile in 1910. I’m sure the local farrier wasn’t too happy about the whole thing but blaming the customer surely didn’t help.
As it turns out the newspaper industry had a healthy lifespan of about 300 years. Their business plan worked out fine. It just wasn’t sustainable.
Was this inevitable?
No, it wasn’t. They owe it to themselves. They didn’t cause their own demise but stood by, ignorant, arrogant and too proud to do anything about it, as the world changed.
Ask yourself this; if ads are so damned important to newspapers, why didn’t any of them invent Google Adwords? Or buy into them when they were just getting started?
If classified advertising was such a huge cash cow, why didn’t anyone buy eBay?
The answer is because these newspapers refused to evolve. They refused to acknowledge the fact that the world is changing. They thought they were big, powerful and strong enough to stay relevant.
Unfortunately for the newspaper industry survival of the fittest isn’t about strength but about who is most adaptable to change.
UPDATE: also read this latest post on Techcrunch on the future of newspapers. one quote: “It’s not the “paper” part of newspaper that’s the problem, it’s the “news.” As in, newspapers are way too slow at delivering it in the age of the Internet. People are unsubscribing from newspapers because what’s the point of reading something in print a day after you’ve read it online?”
Twitter, the microblogging service, is gradually evolving its design on end user profile pages, and as we predicted at The Next Web recently, is now running advertisements for external services.
Today, we spotted an ad for ExecTweets running on Twitter.
TweetSense, here we come…
As we said:
… in the future – well, they are short, unobtrusive and perhaps easily able to adapt themselves to fit your tweeting style?
Twitter, the microblogging service, is gradually evolving its design on end user profile pages, and the CSS code may contain more clues.
At the moment, the advertising placed on the pages is ‘internal advertising’ for Twitter services like Search, and its Widgets, but in the future – well, they are short, unobtrusive and perhaps easily able to adapt themselves to fit your tweeting style?
TweetSense advertising? Makes perfect sense to me. What do you think?
Written on 28th January 2009
25 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Launching in February is a new attempt at monetizing Twitter, not by Twitter themselves however, but an advertising network called The Branch.
Founded by Zerk Media with founder James Avery, The Branch aims to create an advertising network from the various twitter tools and applications out there and, with a bit of work, this just might work. Zerk Media appear to have had experience in the ad network game with other networks such as The Lounge, a Microsoft Developers focused network and Ruby Row, focused on Ruby Developers.
With over 400 Twitter services out there working off the Twitter API, the majority advertising supported, it makes sense for one entity to manage the advertising between them. From the look of things they will need some time to confirm partnerships but with twitpic and twitter gallery on board already, it’s a good start.
There have been other attempts at creating an ad-network from Twitter; Twitter themselves has made attempts to integrate advertising in their Japanese service and there is of course the notorious Magpie ad network which attempts to pay people to integrate advertising into their tweets.
The current rates are $2200 a month with a discount of $200 if you are willing to enter a 3 month contract.
Written on 22nd January 2009
7 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
On January 22nd 1984 during Super Bowl XVII’s third quarter, Apple Computer revealed what has been called the best Super Bowl commercial of all time. The ad would announce the arrival of the Apple Macintosh two days later on the 24th January 1984. Today marks the anniversary of that advert.
Created by Blade Runner’s Ridley Scott and Chiat/Day advertising agency (still Apple’s ad agency today), the advert was met with disapproval by Apple’s board, however after a series of obstacles it was aired all the same.
CNBC have a wonderful interview with Mike Murray, Macintosh’s marketing manager at the time, who highlights the fact the ad was initially never meant to be broadcast. The Apple board instructed the marketing team to sell the advertising spot on, however the team could only sell one half of the 60 second ad space they had bought. This being the case, they were forced to run the commercial as no other ad available made sense at the time – fortunately it was a bigger success than anyone could have imagined.
Written on 19th January 2009
18 COMMENTS Patrick de Laive, Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of The Next Web Conference. Twitter: @patrick
Last week I wrote a post on the horrible Microsoft Songsmith ad (where they used a Mac in the ad!), now an example of a big company that does understand how to market their product.
The T-Mobile Flashmob
Little words are needed, take a look for yourself.
Compared to the Songsmith ad, who do you think gets more attention?
We’ve welcomed our first new sponsor since we’ve introduced a new ad system. Mo’ money, mo’ blogs, so we’re pretty happy. Though we do feel that sponsors must have a certain coolness surrounding them – as the 125 x 125 pixels banners really have an impact on your Next Web Blog experience. So, why is MIG69 cool enough to be our sponsor?
Doesn’t matter how large a video site is, most of the times it’s facing monetization problems. And that’s bad, considering the enormous bandwidth costs. We’ve covered this problem quite a lot on The Next Web, here are some examples:
MIG69 hosts videos for companies and provides them with statistics and fancy players. It has recently introduced a business model to maximize revenues for advertisements on online videos. The Dutch company links several large online video advertising networks – e.g. Tremor Media, ScanScout and VideoStrip – and shows their advertisements based on their own target market and characteristics.
Eric‐Paul Scholten, CEO of mother company Minoto Interactive Media Group:
“Our new method ensures that our partners and customers do not have to sign up with the advertising networks themselves; they don’t even require an account. Via the MIG69 platform they are directly connected with the industry players, which normally would not be possible for a publisher with 100.000‐250.000 views per month.”
Initiatives that help online video publishers to survive are cool, I reckon. By doing that, they preserve diversity on the web.
Written on 13th January 2009
22 COMMENTS Patrick de Laive, Internet entrepreneur and co-founder of The Next Web Conference. Twitter: @patrick
I wonder what the guys ‘n girls are thinking at Microsoft HQ. Meet Herman and Sheila, two fictional Microsoft employees at the marketing department.
Herman: Hey Sheila, we need to do something. How do we get as much attention as Apple does? Sheila: You’re right, we need to do something. We have to come up with a strategy that moves people, we need to bring Microsoft back to the people. Herman: So true Sheila, HIGH FIVE! Sheila: Ok ok lets come up with a cool marketing campaign… Herman: Well you know that we can’t come up with a cool marketing campaign, we’re not creative enough to do so. But what about making a series of marketing campaigns which are lame and truly suck, that should be something people talk about and will write about. Sheila: Well that is not such a bad idea, not a bad idea at all in fact. There is no such thing as bad publicity! Lets go for it!
Well, they sure did it with this new add for music making software Microsoft Songsmith.
I love the quote of dad: “Its a Microsoft product right, so its pretty easy to use”
Written on 16th June 2009
5 COMMENTS 
Facebook vanity URLs have been around for just over 72 hours but we are already seeing a major brand capitalize on their Facebook URL for an advertising campaign. Volkswagen (VW) has released a series of TV ads that in addition to highlighting their vehicles points viewers to facebook.com/vw. This is the very first instance that we are aware of a marketing strategy that utilizes the a brand’s Facebook page instead of the companies main website, VW.com.
Written on 4th June 2009
Written on 4th May 2009
Written on 24th March 2009
Launching in February is a new attempt at monetizing Twitter, not by Twitter themselves however, but an advertising network called 
On January 22nd 1984 during Super Bowl XVII’s third quarter, Apple Computer revealed what has been called the best Super Bowl commercial of all time. The ad would announce the arrival of the Apple Macintosh two days later on the 24th January 1984. Today marks the anniversary of that advert.
Written on 19th January 2009
Written on 15th January 2009
The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
