Has the heyday of the Text-Ad, been had?

Google has a lot "going on," to say the least, but could it obscure something else going on in their business?

With Google throwing $3.1B @ privately held internet ad concern, DoubleClick, you have to ask... just what is the target growth rate of the Google Ad Network? (or what was it beforehand, for that matter)?

Was this acquisition offensive, defensive, or purely opportunistic? It's worth noting that their stake of the TOTAL online ad market will be approx 85% if this deal goes through!! (in a bittersweet twist of irony, Microsoft and AT&T are already lining up against it citing anti-trust reasons)

(**anecdotally Gooliath is worried about paid links and pay per post...to uphold the integrity of the index of course, but cutting out the only forms of competition that their algo's cant detect is a nice byproduct.**)

As if that wasn't enough, today they *also* announced a partnership with Clear Channel radio to deliver 30 second radio ads on 675 stations nationwide (!) Both of these developments come on the heels of the Dish Network TV Deal announced a few days ago, whereby Google is going to deploy the first automated system for buying, selling, delivering and measuring TV ads to 125 million subscribers (!)

With all this hype and freneticism, it's easy to forget about the foundation of the house - those humble little text ads that everyone increasingly just ignores (or has ad blocked). What about those? How's that business doing? Is there any beer left at that party? Its worth asking because these other endeavors make great headlines, but are yet unproven ventures. The actual revenue sharing details are typically murky, but it is known that most of it is going to the stations and not to Google.

And now a word from our sponsors...

Television + Metadata = TV 2.0

User Annotated Television is On it's Way!!

“Imagine watching a show like Heroes once, and then watching it again with comments turned on to see what other people caught that you missed."-Dan Friedman

Read the first comment at this post, Sources speculate that this is the same Matt Hall who works for Joost out of the Leiden office:

“We’re already working on it. So far we have a rough passive version — a few bits of content have “trivia” that pops up at specified timestamps — but we plan eventually to allow timestamped tagging, commenting, annotation, etc.

I can see the TV Meme's(c) now...

Digg this Story

Having your life ruined for sharing information

Imagine this...you find an interesting news story on Google about the industry you work in. You decide to share it online, on an industry-related forum. A short while later after say, 60 or so page views, you're arrested, imprisoned, loose your home, marriage, and can't get a job because you're legal status is now "criminal suspect."

That's what happened to Zhang Zhijian, an R&D worker in the pharmaceutical industry in Haikou city. In April of 2006 he was arrested at his place of employment for re-posting an essay to two internet forums. The complaint was, "suspicion of damaging commercial reputation." The charges were made by a subject of the essay, local pharmaceutical company, Kongliyuan.

The essay that Zhijian had re-posted was an article he found on Google about how the state's Food and Drug Chief was taking bribes from Kongliyuan in exchange for approving new drug patents. He posted it to two different pharma industry-related websites. Within hours of posting and approximately 60 views of the article has was forcibly arrested and imprisoned!!

He has been under arrest for such a length of time that he lost his job, his home (to foreclosure), and has had to postpone his marriage. Even now a year later, according to the legal system there, he is still considered a "criminal suspect." He cannot get employment and has essentially been socially destroyed.

All of this for re-posting text on the internet, that he found, publicly, on the internet...that is very likely to be true.

Kind of puts getting buried, sunk, or flamed in perspective, doesn't it.

"There's a "News Troll" a-coming and he say's that content ain't Free!!"

Meet The Guy Who Wants to Kill Free News on the Web.

This is the new owner of the Chicago Tribune and LA Times. His name is Sam. Very soon, he's going to be known as the guy who foolishly tried to kill free news on the internet.

According to a Washington Post Story (free registration required) Mr. Zell has indicated that the newspapers could not "economically sustain the practice of allowing their articles, photos and other content to be used free by other Internet news aggregators."

He went further, singling out Google, (wrongly) accusing them of outright theft:

"If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content, how profitable would Google be? Not Very."

He said the relationship between the Tribune's media properties and search engines such as Google can, "last for a time," but that, "We're going to see new formulas in the immediate future that reflect the cost benefit."

Sadly for the Tribune companies, Mr. Zell might find out the hard way that there's not a lot of "cost benefit" for their customers and readers to pay for something from that they can get somewhere else (and often better) for FREE.

We don't care about your "cost benefit," Mr. Zell. We care about Good Content. We're even willing to pay for some of it some of the time, provided you give us a reason to.

If it by the Tribune's management's own admission, that their online efforts are "feeble" ...Why in the hell will anyone start PAYING for them ?!?!?

Netscape - some thoughts and concerns

While my life as a social bookmarker began on Del.icio.us and flourished on Digg, I've been gently nudged to give Netscape a try as the "next thing" in Social bookmarking and news gathering. I've been trying it out and here's what I've found so far...

I initially signed up for an account back in July of 2006, but rarely logged-in, as Digg.com had everything I wanted in terms of community, content, and plain old "coolness."

With the decline of Digg's former top users, what has seemed like a changing demographic on the site, and out of curiosity, I have been inclined to give Netscape more of a shot and serious consideration. I'm impressed by many of the site's features, and of course it's great to catch-up with old netfriends and bookmark with them, but today I had my first bad experience with the site. :-(

It started when I submitted this link. My story description indicated that this was an RSS based Mash-up that I created (blending the FP stories from Digg, Delicious, and Techmeme), was something of an experiment, and was really only intended to provoke conversation about the use of syndicated content and mash-ups, etc as the next phase in content delivery in Web 2.0. ( It was also posted in Art & Design since it was just a "proof-of-concept" thing on my part)

The submission garnered some quick votes, only one single "sink" (the digg equivilant of a bury, only it's transparent when it happens @ Netscape) and made it to the Netscape's "front page!" I was pleasantly surprised by this since it was my *first* netscape front page submission. That satisfaction quickly dissipated though when upon checking back at the site, I found the story to be gone.

Not "Sunk", Not Flagged, Just Gone. Vanished. Disappeared. Removed from their system and my history altogether!




I'd like to point out that Netscape is big on sending "notifications" about stuff. You get an email from them when a someone befriends you, or when there is activity on your stories. You evidently don't get an email however, when someone takes down your stories though (??)

Additionally, Netscape has paid bookmarkers called Navigators, who submit content also, but are kind of like community leaders. There are also Anchors who are like super navigators. Both Anchors and Navigators are Netscape employees and there are always some "on shift"

When I found that my story had simply vanished, I thought surely, I'd just email the Anchor or some of the Navigators and at least find out why it was taken down. My intentions certainly weren't nefarious (i.e. spammy) in submitting my own site, as it were -- it really was just a "concept thing." The fact that I had only one "sink" led me to believe that this was understood. Evidentially not.

What is most frustrating to me, is that I constantly hear (even from my friends) that Digg.com isn't "transparent enough" or is broken, etc. I am still giving Netscape the benefit of the doubt, but there's nothing transparent at all about removing user stories with no notice, no reply, and no indication of why (!)

I emailed the Anchor +10 hours ago as of the time of this post, and have still yet to get a response or answer. There is no explanation at story URL either. One of the Navigators, did respond to me and she said she was forwarding my mail to someone else, to look into, so we'll see....

Not a great first "front page" experience, Netscape. It's a good thing you keep great company with the smart user base you have. At this point, I'm still withholding judgment, but would really like to know why it was taken down, or if this is merely a technical thing, or what?