Filed under: Blowback, Brand Protection, Brand Reputation, Case Studies, Citizen Media, Content Filtering, Content Management System, Controversial Marketing, Copywriting, Corporate Partnering, Corporate Responsibility, Google, Google YouTube, Honesty, Industry Reputation, Influence, Information Technology, Intellectual Property, Invasion of Privacy, Legal Issues, News Organization, Online Applications, Online Brand Protection, Online Copywriting, Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management, Online Video, Personal Privacy, Personal Responsibility, Privacy

U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton may have opened up a Pandora’s box.

Last year, Viacom, the owner of  such major cable networks as Black Entertainment Television, MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon, sued YouTube and Google because YouTube, through it’s uploading system, was allowing it users to upload Viacom copyrighted videos.  YouTube was profiting from this as it increased its audience and, thus, advertising revenue.  Viacom was, in turn, losing online audience and potential revenue.  It saw itself, legitimately in my mind, as a content provider for YouTube, without receiving compensation.

YouTube immediately began scouring its databases and removing copyrighted video from Viacom. But considering the amount of videos that are uploaded - every hour on the clock, 780 hours of video are sent to YouTube’s servers - the task of finding and identifying copyrighted material is daunting.  A lot can get by the YouTube’s regulators, so to speak.

So the lawsuit stayed, with Viacom demanding access to YouTube’s database of user info.  The database is larger that that of the Library of Congress mind you.

YouTube’s database essentially contains four pieces of info:  the user’s unique login ID, their IP address, the time frame that the video was watched, and the video itself.  Usually, a login ID and an IP address can’t be used to identify an individual, but “usually” is a very inexact word.

Viacom is saying that they aren’t doing this to go after individuals.  They’re not doing this to nail someone who uploaded last night’s The Daily Show.  I believe them, at least for now.  But that doesn’t mean that they keep to that forever.

It makes no sense for them to try to use this data to sue people who have been uploading copyrighted videos at this juncture.  The ‘YouTube culture’ is one that has permitted this to happen and Viacom needs to work to change that culture over a year or two.

Viacom is saying that it wants to gauge the popularity of its copyrighted material.  Again, that makes sense.  We are talking revenue generating material that, while on YouTube, ins not directly generating measurable video.

There is some good news here.  Google, while not appealing, has asked Viacom to give them time to erase user names and IP addresses.  Viacom is open to the idea.

That’s great.  But that’s only this case.   You can be that this is opening a can of worms.

I’ll be investigating this further.  Stay tuned.

No Comments » Posted on July 6th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Ad Budgets, Ad Buys, Ad Sales, Online Advertising, Online Video, Search Engine Marketing, Social Meda, search

Jupiter Research is reporting that online ad spending should grow about 20% this year from $19.9 billion in 2007 to $23.8 billion for 2008.

By 2013, it will increase to $43.4 billion, for an annual rate of 13%.  Offline advertising is expected to grow only 4% per year for the same period.

I never know how they come up with these numbers.  But they may well be right.

It’s my guess that search, video, and sponsored communities will see the greatest growth.  Search and video are what everyone says, but my guess is that with social media growing the way it is, we’ll see sponsored, semi-private networks emerged, composed of fans or product users.

This, of course, is happening now.  It will catch on as many of us transfer more and more of our lifestyle online.

No Comments » Posted on July 1st, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Ad Budgets, Ad Buys, Advertising, Online Ads, Online Advertising, Online Brand Promotion, Online Branding, Online Video, Television

The Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Reseearch are pointing out the 62% of marketers now believe that TV advertising has become less effective over the past two years.  That’s an amazing number.  Hopefully it will serve as a clarion call to those same marketers and to the ad agencies that serve them  Sometimes I think that many marketers see the changes that are happening but choose to not adapt because they assume no one else will.  But when statistics showing more than 60% of marketers showing doubt on th most well known medium for advertising, it means that they can’t delay changes in methods and mediums.

This is a major reason why the same survey had 87% of marketers planning to spend more on web advertising this year.  Or that eMarketer is saying that ad spend should reach $28.5 billion, up 23% over last year.  That includes an 74% increase in spending on online video.

The odd thing is that the models for online video advertising are not even close to being set.  Pre-roll is a mess.  Net shows aren’t necessarily a huge success.  And we keep on hearing that people are looking to interact with their friends on social networks and not with brands.

No Comments » Posted on March 27th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Online Advertising, Online Branding, Online Video, Web Ads, Web Advertisers, Web Advertising

Yesterday, on Twitter, new follower Mike Keliher (@mjkeliher) pointed out how he wouldn’t tolerate being forced to see an pre-roll ad in order to view a 15 second story. When I asked him why he felt so strongly, his answer was:

@jptrenn 99.9% of the time: entirely irrelevant. More importantly, disrespectful of my time.

I’m no where nearly as absolute on that. I realize that these media properties need to make money and I see pre-roll as a legitimate concept in theory. Still, I don’t blame him for feeling that way. Media properties apply pre-roll entirely wrong, with no concern for the viewer. So here’s a few suggestions. Strong suggestions.

1) Above all, don’t put pre-roll on tragic stories

The last thing I want to see when I click on a story about that tragic accident that killed 68 people, including 23 children, is a frigging commercial for indigestion. While other times pre roll ads are inconvenient, at times like this, it is completely offensive.

2) Don’t put pre-roll on breaking stories

Sorry, but while these stories are the ones most likely to be clicked on, when people click on them, they often so so with as sense of urgency. To the viewer, the content is compelling and they don’t want an interruption. It could hurt the advertiser as it hurts the viewer experience.

3) Make the ads relevant

If I go to view an add about baseball spring training, give me a travel ad to Florida or Arizona. Or one about sports. Don’t just something up there. As Mike says, 99.9% irrelevant.

4) One pre roll per user session please

Otherwise, it begins to ruin the experience.

5) If more than one…

…then make sure there’s about 4-6 news stories viewed between ads. And don’t show the same one twice.

I write all of this because I understand a believe that most news sites thankfully don’t come with subscription fees. They make their money by advertising. So I’m trying to find a reasonable balance.

What are your thoughts?

5 Comments » Posted on March 7th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Online Video

quarterlife, the relatively successful online show that features artistic and single white urban based twenty somethings living their lives out in stereotypical hip fashion debuted Tuesday night on NBC to absolutely abysmal ratings. It received the worst ratings of a 10:00 show in ten years and for NBC itself, it had the worst ratings for a show in 17 years. An estimated 3.1 million viewers watched it.

It has a relatively successful online presence, which is why NBC purchased the rights to it last November. But this whole thing seems ridiculous to me.

First, I agree with series co-founder Marshall Herskovitz that the series should be on cable. The audience for broadcast TV seems to be so dispersed these days. And the likely viewers of a show like this aren’t necessarily the broadcast TV watchers.

Second, maybe it’s me, but doesn’t it seem the concept of artistic and single white urban based twenty somethings living their lives out in stereotypical hip fashion seem, well, OVERUSED? Everyone is a hottie. Everyone has angst. Everyone has artistic interests and seemingly works in a cool sounding job. That’s not the real world.

Three, they shouldn’t be measuring this show as it relates to its time slot. It was on the same time as the latest Democratic debate…something that’s gotten the attention of the EXACT type of people this type of show would appeal to.

I’ve seen an episode of Quarterlife and didn’t think it was bad. It fit it’s purpose and had a decent size audience via the net. It may not hop over to cable where it could do fine. But unfortunately, for now, it fulfills one of my predictions for 2008.

1 Comment » Posted on February 29th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn

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