Any movie buff could tell you that the Academy Awards telecast is scheduled for this Sunday March 7th. They have seen the nominated films, they have watched the awards shows all season, and they are eager to view the most coveted validation of film success – the awarding of the golden man we call Oscar.
What they might not know, is while they are surfing the web for real time updates, photos and behind the scenes videos, E! Entertainment and Google will be teaming up to capitalize on their interest with real-time updates to E’s internet advertising.
Emily Steel of the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, “If a celebrity makes a red-carpet appearance wearing outlandish attire or an award winner makes a newsworthy speech, E will alter its Oscars-related ads within minutes. The media company’s goal is to make sure consumers searching for the subject on the Web find their way to E’s online photo galleries, live blogs and fashion-police critiques.”
Suzanne Kolb, president of marketing, news and online for E! Entertainment, says “The live updates to search ads will help position our online coverage at the top of the Google search results for people seeking Academy Awards-related content,” and really, nothing beats landing at the top of the Google results.
Despite their strategic efforts to optimize results during the Oscar telecast, E! is not broadcasting the show, ABC is. Not one to be outdone, ABC is turning to the web to take advantage of real time, web based interaction as well.
Steel reports, “New features this year on the Walt Disney network include tie-ins with microblogging site Twitter, interactive games and a live video stream from the red carpet, where hosts will interview nominees. Through a partnership with social-networking site Facebook, viewers will be able to submit questions live.”
While television spectacles like the NFL’s Super Bowl tend to attract major television advertising dollars, it seems the Oscars advertisers are more interested in the web.
If this trend continues, could we have commercial free awards show broadcasts in our future? A girl can dream.
If Google is successful with selling it, the answer may be yes. One of the more under-covered aspects of Google’s launch of Nexus One this week was its proclamation that it would only market the device online. Yes, the device will be in T-Mobile and eventually Verizon stores, in addition to being available online through Google. However, Google won’t be sending any “coverage map” campaigns or Luke Wilsons consumer’s way. Just phones and online marketing, which is something that would scare most retailers to death. No television cover?
But this is Google after all and they’re willing to bet they may be able to reach consumers their way. They have this thing called a search engine that is pretty popular I hear. Step one of that online marketing effort is giving the Nexus One ad space on Google.com’s homepage that is usually only reserved for holiday logos and event tributes. More than 70% of all Internet searches come through that page according to Hitwise, meaning Google will reach north of 100 million users with an enticement and link to check out the Nexus One each day.
Will it work? That’s hard to say. Even the biggest advocates of social media and online marketing believe TV and even radio advertising still get a piece of the pie. However, if Google is successful it will be a strong nod to the fact that television advertising is no longer the foundation of launching consumer products to the mass market.
Here’s an interesting story, according to Hitwise data. Google was the most visited Website by U.S. Internet users for 364 days of 2009. Google had the year at #1 all to itself until visits to Facebook surged on Christmas Day and Mr. Zuckerberg’s company passed Google to become the most visited U.S. site for the first time ever. Facebook then fell back behind Google up until New Year’s Day (2010), when it once again passed ahead of Google as the most visited site in the country.
The fact that it was two major holidays, which led to Facebook passing Google in visits, is interesting on a variety levels. What was it that made these days so popular to log onto the social networking site?
Bill Tancer, General Manager of Global Research at Hitwise, hypothesizes that being home for the holidays also means being physically away from social groups, which likely drove people online to connect.
I’d argue that it may be something a little deeper than that. Facebook has become so ingrained in most people’s “friendships,” or as Mark Zuckerberg likes to call the “social graph,” that connecting with loved ones (friends and extended family) on Christmas Day naturally occurs through Facebook. A common catchphrase among the Facebook generation is it’s not real until it’s on Facebook, and in a lot of ways that trumps picking up the phone or even taking the time to get together in-person (in-terms of simplicity, quantity of folks you can connect with and instant gratification).
It also points to an intent issue that may become a powerful advantage for Facebook over Google as it continues to improve upon its search feature. For instance, on Christmas Day my intent for logging onto my computer and the Internet was to share what I was up to and what gifts I got with my social graph. I also wanted to see what my friends were up to. I wasn’t, at the time, looking to dig up more information on the failed terrorist attack on a Northwest plane landing in Detroit or directions to a local restaurant. If that was my intent I probably would have moved over to Google.
The point is, on days like Christmas Day, the basic human intention to enhance our relationships (i.e. log on onto Facebook) will always win out over a Google search. But how far away are we from that intention winning out everyday?
Furthermore, as Zuckerberg and Co. continue to improve search and people get more comfortable with using it, who’s to say that we ever feel the need to exit stage right to “Google it”? After all, would I rather find information about a restaurant I’m looking into or concert I’m going to from an algorithm or my closest friends?
What does this mean for individuals searching for content via Google?
The company’s senior business product manager Josh Cohen wrote on the Google blog, “If you’re a Google user, this means that you may start to see a registration page after you’ve clicked through to more than five articles.”
Graham continues to explain, “That way, the publisher still gets its articles indexed, while at the same time, can charge for reading. The pieces will be labeled as “subscription” in Google News.”
Here at RaceTalk we have extensively covered the print media’s attempt to adapt to the demand for free, online content. In order to stay afloat, many print outlets require a paid subscription to view their content online, such as the Wall Street Journal. This would be taking that concept one step further and blocking web access at the search level. It may also affect where content appears in among search results. Paid subscription search results may get bumped lower down the list.
When individuals searching for content via Google stumble upon one of these “subscription” listings, they will have to start asking themselves, is this worth a click? Am I willing to pay to read this?
While paid subscriptions for online content generates revenue for the parent, print media outlet, it may drive traffic away to free websites instead and cause interested readers to find new sources for their online content.
Google Wave was officially launched this week, and so far the lucky 100,000 invited users haven’t had many nice things to say about it. While it’s still very early to make any predictions about its future, here is a rundown of what some bloggers have said about Google wave so far.
Robert Scoble: “This service is way over-hyped and as people start to use it they will realize it brings the worst of email and IM together: unproductivity.”
Steven Hodson: “Am I impressed? Not yet. Not in the least. Sure the real time display of all the people in each of the waves you are involved in might be rather neat but I’m honestly not sure how long it will be before it gets old, boring and irritating.”
John Scalzi: “Google Wave basically strikes me as an innovative small business collaboration tool…Google Wave will not replace your e-mail, paint your house, give you a kidney.”
Earlier this week Advertising Age took a look at how PR heads are shifting towards the center of marketing departments. The role shift at top levels evidence of a larger shift for communications and PR as a whole. The media meltdown, combined with the explosion of social media, has served as the great equalizer for the PR and marketing / advertising industries.
Corporations no longer able to leverage “old media” to reach mass or niche audiences with messages are moving their budgets online to new media channels. Channels that are up for grabs in the agency world. And guess what? PR agencies have the early leg up on owning these channels.
PR leads marketing in the management of all social media communications channels.
In 51% of organizations, PR lead digital communications compared to 40.5% where marketing leads
PR is responsible for blogging at 49% of all organizations. Marketing is responsible for blogging at 22% of all organizations. PR is responsible for social networking at 48% of all organizations. Marketing is responsible for social networking at 27% of all organizations.
PR is responsible for micro-blogging at 52% of all organizations. Marketing is responsible for micro-blogging at 22% of all organizations.
Capitalizing on the fact that social media is relationship-based, a top PR characteristic, and that we specialize in creating content, a big part of social media, it’s not that surprising.
However, a troubling stat caught my eye on Mashable earlier this week, given that PR and communications are leading the way with social media. An August 2009 survey by Mzinga and Babson Executive Education found that 84% of professionals using social media – in a variety of fields – don’t currently measure the ROI of their social media programs.
RED FLAG. No wonder the head of the PRSA is calling out the entire industry to establish measurement standards – Fast. The fallout of Madison Avenue, combined with the digital media evolution, is a huge opportunity for the communications and PR industry. One opportunity that we better get right – with measurement. If we’ve learned one thing from our peers in online advertising, it’s that today, companies pay for measurable ROI. While Google may not have been recession proof, it’s successful because it efficiently provides and measures ROI with its search marketing services. If we hope to move corporate communications where we believe it belongs – into a key component of marketing’s media planning stage, we better make numbers (more than 3)a top priority.
Yesterday Google launched Fast Flip, a new service that allows you to read the news in more visual way then through Google News. While the site appears intriguing, it currently lacks content and personalized settings that would make it tool for everyday use (at least for right now). It also seems to take longer to browse through the article as you need to click on the images in order to make them a size that is legible (the picture below is pretty similar to how it appears).
What’s also new about this service is that the Fast Flip only pulls content from specific news outlets that Google has partnered with (currently about 3 dozen are on board). According to Google’s blog post, “these partners will share the revenue earned from contextually relevant ads.”
Yesterday Facebook launched Facebook Lite, a new site that has a much simpler and cleaner look. After taking it for a spin, the site appears similar to its look for a few years ago, when the news feed, highlights and other features weren’t yet active or were in their beginning stages.
This is a very smart move for Facebook, as one of reason many people didn’t like MySpace was because it was deemed to be cluttered. By cleaning out the site and allowing people to have a simple version to access, it will appeal to those that don’t want to be overwhelmed by content. Also, as TechCrunch notes, Facebook Lite runs much faster as well.
Facebook Lite follows Google’s recent announcement that they would be launching an upgraded version of their site, called Google Caffeine. This site will improve the speed, accuracy, size and comprehensiveness of Google search
Both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal are reporting today that Google Inc.’s YouTube is negotiating with several major Hollywood movie studios to begin offering users access to full-length films on the website (for a small fee, of course).
The average consumer visits YouTube to surf free video clips or upload personal videos to share with family and friends. If you could also utilize the site to stream newly released movies, why wouldn’t you?
Both YouTube and several Hollywood studio giants are banking that you will.
For YouTube itself, these kinds of partnerships represent a chance to move out of the red and head down the path toward profitability. The New York Times reports, “. . . much of YouTube’s audience visits the site to watch a random mix of clips generated by amateurs, which advertisers view with trepidation. As a result, YouTube has been on a long quest to obtain more professionally produced video that it can use to generate revenue and offset the enormous cost of streaming billions of free clips.”
For the movie studios, a deal with YouTube means a much wider, global audience for their films, which is critical as the sale of DVDs continue to plummet. The Wall Street Journal agrees, “Though many studios now sell and rent movies online through services such as iTunes and Amazon.com, that has yet to produce meaningful revenue. By cutting a deal with YouTube, which had nearly 428 million global visitors in June, according to comScore, it can potentially reach a much wider audience.”
While both YouTube and the proposed Hollywood studio partners stand to gain substantially if this deal gets the green light, other entertainments outlets such as Netflix, will need a new game plan to keep up.
Currently, Netflix has adapted to the changing media landscape by offering streaming video to its customers in addition to shipping the hard copy DVDs. As the demand for streaming video continues, will a site with only that one function be able to stand its ground?
If you are a Netflix subscriber, would you cancel your membership when videos become available for purchase on YouTube?
Are you having trouble figuring out which search engine is best? There is now an easy way to decide between Google, Yahoo! and Bing – a blind test. A new site called BlindSearch allows you to enter a search term and see the results from each engine, side by side. Once you go through the list and decide which result column you like the most, you can click “vote for this search engine” and it will tell you which one you selected.
I tried this for the NYC Half Marathon and ended up with these results. Only once of the three columns offered the best link at the top of the results page (www.nyrr.org/races/2009/nychalf/index.asp) which happened to be Google. I tried a few additional searches as well (the search engines change columns so it keeps you guessing) and ended up selecting Google again, and again.
TechCrunch noted that other tests in the past have showed that people often select Google as the best search engine just because it’s Google. So while that may be true for some, give it a shot and see which search engine is best for you.
