It’s not surprising that Google is suppressing content (racist, anti-abortion, Scientology documents) in its French and German sites. The question is whether this will be enough. How long will it be before they’re required to remove information from Google.com? The good news is that Google has agreed to report all requests to censor their database to Chillingeffects.org.
I’m sure they’re paying attention in China.
Confusing content with distribution, Part II: Disney + MSN = ?
Disney and MSN are working on a service called Disney on MSN, combining Disney content with MSN Internet access.
I don’t understand. Can the combined Disney/MSN service really generate more revenue for each company than the individual services could? Of course not.
Making the Web more like print, Part II
Roger Fidler was legendary when I worked at Knight-Ridder in the mid-90s. He had already been saying for a decade that tablet PC’s were coming and newspapers had better get ready.
Well, the newspaper industry got distracted by a fad called the Web and lost track of its dream of a $2,000, 3 pound, single-user newspaper-reading device. Now that Microsoft is about to bring that dream a little bit closer, Roger is ready. He is working on a specification for PDF documents that are optimized for a 10.4 inch screen.
Push done right
RSS aggregation is push done right. Remember push? I wasted six months of my life, despite my better judgement and protestations, working on it.
Why does RSS look like a winner?
- It’s decentralized. You serve your own pages and don’t need anyone’s permission to do it.
- It’s HTML-based. You don’t have to worry about proprietary formats.
- It’s lightweight. No one is moving lots of graphics or attempting to “change the online (or desktop) experience”.
- It’s grassroots. One of the reasons for the explosion of interest in weblogs is that RSS aggregation makes it possible to for readers to scan sites for interesting items in the tenth of the time it would take to read the same sites in their browsers.
- It gives power to the reader. The premise of push was that publisher would have more control of your online experience. RSS aggregation makes it possible for the reader to control his own experience.
In other words, RSS aggregation (we need a better word for it) is everything that push was not.
SprintPCS comes to its senses
SprintPCS has finally acknowledged the idiocy of their per-megabyte pricing for wireless web access and established a flat rate. This should drive their competitors in this direction.
Wireless Net access on computers is a huge growth market that the mobile carriers have ignored because they still think of the Internet as in enhancement for cell phones, like text messaging.
Online advertising to increase 10% in 2003, especially ads that suck
Jupiter says online advertising will be up 10% next year. They’re especially enthusiastic about online classifieds, which they peg at about a billion dollars. They’re not optimistic about prospects for increasing CPM’s anytime soon.
UPDATE [10/26]: Emarketer has an excellent roundup of Internet advertising numbers, with a positive forecast for the fourth quarter.
That is, of course, unless AOL restates their earnings again and wipes out the increase all by themselves.
Elsewhere, Jupiter is predicting that rich media will be about a quarter of online advertising in five years. I still don’t understand where this groundswell of interest in rich media is coming from. Eyeblaster’s PR team is earning their money, because I’m seeing their name on a lot of these stories. This idea has been around since the dawn of Flash. This trend could be bad for Macromedia, as more people discover that Flash is now used almost exclusively for ads and should treated like any other virus.
Defacing the commons
Advertising giant David Ogilvy made the most persuasive case against billboards. His simple thesis was that advertising should represent a bargain between the audience and the advertiser: “I’ll subsidize this news/information/entertainment/event for you if you’ll agree to accept some advertising from me.”
Billboards violate this bargain. There is no bargain. The audience is forced to view the ad and receive nothing in return.
The NY Times says that Nike and ABC have been defacing public sidewalks with advertising. IBM did this awhile back in the US and Australia. The worst excess of the dot-com years in San Francisco was a boat that towed a billboard on San Francisco bay–defacing on the most beautiful views on earth with their commercial message.
UPDATE 10/26:Microsoft is defacing public streets. You’d think having control of most people’s desktops would be enough.
It’s time to re-read Ogilvy. His belief in intelligent communication with the audience and establishing a bargain with them is sorely missed in the current marketing climate.
Making the Web more like TV, Part III
Atomfilms.com, BMW, and AOL are all producing video for the Web, and USA Today is hailing it as evidence of “renewed interest in watching original entertainment on PC screens” and that “consumers are willing to pay for things now.”
First, this is evidence that the dream of turning the Web into TV persists in certain corporations, not among users.
Second, it’s evidence that consumers are still unwilling to pay for the privilege of having this done to them. Both BMW and AOL are giving the content away as a premium to grab consumers’ attention. It’ll be interesting to see if we’re willing to take it for free.
Direct Marketing Association: "Just try and say no."
In a reversal of its historic position Direct Marketing Association now favors anti-spam laws, which I guess is progress. But since the DMA is now promoting direct email marketing, what they really want are laws that make the Net safe for themselves. I am proud to have made a living in direct marketing, but I also believe the DMA is yielding to its sleazier instincts.
According to Declan McCullagh in News.com, the DMA wants to overrule the existing laws in 20 states, prohibit only forged headers, and make opt-out the maximum protection under federal law. Does that mean you have to opt out of mail from each of their 4,700 members?
Jerry Cerasale, the DMA’s vice president for government affairs, says “We’re finding that we need to give the consumers the choice to try and allow them to control their inbox, to try and say no, I don’t want this, while leaving the medium open for commerce,” Cerasale said.
That’s what he said: “Just try and say no.”
Internet advertising is down 22% for the first half
According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, Internet advertising was down in the second quarter by 4.1%. But the first half is 22% below the first half of 2001.
Keyword-based search ads grew from 3 percent to 9 percent of ad spending, and “niche ad formats” (i.e. “rich media”) grew from 9 percent to 12 percent of overall revenues.
Top categories:
computing 19%
financial services 14%
media 12%
telecom 7%
These are categories that mostly sold by direct marketing, instead of brand advertising. It’s another indication that the current mini-trend toward to rich media is a move in the wrong direction.
Online advertising is highly concentrated. The top ten media outlets took in 76 percent of all revenues, and the top 50 got 97 percent. Most media sites are not in the top 50. How are they going to pay the bills?