Marking its first collaboration with Ben Silverman's Electus entertainment studio, Yahoo Wednesday launched a new video series intended to capitalize on the popularity of TV shows like "Dancing with the Stars" and dance videos online.
"Ready. Set. Dance!" will present a dance competition over 12 weekly episodes on Yahoo Music with State Farm serving as the sole sponsor. Each three- to-five-minute show will feature a pair of contestants, selected through an audition process, who must break into their dance routines on the spot whenever they get a phone call from host Adrienne Bailon.
Online voters will decide which of the two dance contestants take home the $10,000 prize. In the premiere episode, graying, chunky "Will" had to get up and dance on the median just above 23rd St. in New York, while young "Marissa" showed off her moves to a Times Square crowd.
State Farm branding wraps around the "Ready. Set. Dance!" site and a prominent banner ad allows viewers to find their local agent. Bailon also introduces each episode with a brief "Presented by State Farm" message. "Understanding the popularity of dance contests among our target audience, State Farm sees this as an innovative opportunity to connect with young adults in the online space in a fun, engaging way," said Tim Van Hoof, advertising director at State Farm, in a statement.
The new show is among the latest in a line of short-form branded series that Yahoo has rolled out in recent years, including "This Week In Music," backed by Target; "The 411 on omg," sponsored by Starburst; and "Daytime in No Time." And "Ready. Set. Dance!" is the second Yahoo video series sponsored by State Farm after backing "Spotlight to Nightlight" last year, which drew 7.2 million streams.
It's the first program, however, resulting from a partnership earlier this year between Yahoo and Electus, the digital studio started by ex-NBC Entertainment co-chair Silverman and IAC/InterActiveCorp. Before joining NBC in 2007, Silverman's Reveille production company was responsible for producing hits such as "The Biggest Loser," "Ugly Betty" and "The Office." Silverman was also known for embracing branded content.
Jimmy Pitaro, Yahoo's vice president of media, who was quoted in the release about "Ready. Set. Dance!" was reported Tuesday as planning to leave the company soon. Yahoo yesterday, declined to comment on the report and Pitaro, appearing at a Yahoo event in New York for Advertising Week, did likewise.
Separately, Yahoo Wednesday also debuted "Fast Fix," a daily video update on political news featuring Washington Post political reporter and "The Fix" columnist Chris Cillizza.
The new show will be executive produced by Erik Rydholm, who created Emmy-winning ESPN shows "Around the Horn" and "Pardon the Interruption." "Fast Fix" will appear both within Yahoo News and on PostPolitics.com, the Washington Post's hub for political coverage. The one-minute "Fix" installments won't have a dedicated sponsor but will typically carry a 15-second pre-roll spot.
By Mark Walsh
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Exclusive: Major Meltdown at Yahoo as More Top Execs to Depart, Including U.S. Head Hilary Schneider
The executive turmoil at the very top of Yahoo continues, with the company poised to announce the resignations of three top execs, including U.S. head Hilary Schneider (pictured here), according to sources close to the situation.
The other execs also leaving, which Yahoo (YHOO) is planning on revealing Friday: U.S. Audience head David Ko and, as BoomTown previously reported, VP of Media Jimmy Pitaro.
While some at Yahoo are trying to spin it as an ouster, sources close to the situation said that Schneider–who presides over media and advertising sales at Yahoo–has wanted to leave the company for a while, but was convinced to stay on by CEO Carol Bartz.
Schneider will, in fact, stay at Yahoo while it searches for her replacement. Heidrick & Struggles had already been headhunting candidates for her job in recent weeks.
Why Ko, who works directly for Schneider, is leaving now is uncertain, although sources said a lot of product control over properties under him is being moved over to Chief Product Officer Blake Irving.
Irving was hired several months ago by Bartz, and he has brought in many former colleagues from Microsoft (MSFT) to top product jobs at the company. And he’s appeared to have won the latest corporate power play too.
This entire mess–and that’s precisely what it is–calls into question the tenure of Bartz, a tough-talking, cost-cutting exec who was brought in to clean up Yahoo after the maelstrom around the failed takeover attempt by Microsoft several years ago.
She replaced co-founder Jerry Yang and came in with guns blazing and styling herself as an agent of change.
Except not too much as changed–except for finally striking a search technology deal with Microsoft–as the exodus of talent from Yahoo increases, advertising revenue growth is anemic, innovation is stalled, metrics are weak and the stock remains moribund.
In addition, Bartz’s frequent shoot-from-the-hip remarks appear to have alienated a number of partners, most recently in Asia.
This week, according to sources, some board members had an emergency meeting at Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, Calif., HQ to try to figure out how to deal with the burgeoning management issue.
Some speculate that they will hire a second-in-command to Bartz, who might be able to take over for her when her contract is up in 18 months.
Yahoo declined to comment.
by Kara Swisher
The other execs also leaving, which Yahoo (YHOO) is planning on revealing Friday: U.S. Audience head David Ko and, as BoomTown previously reported, VP of Media Jimmy Pitaro.
While some at Yahoo are trying to spin it as an ouster, sources close to the situation said that Schneider–who presides over media and advertising sales at Yahoo–has wanted to leave the company for a while, but was convinced to stay on by CEO Carol Bartz.
Schneider will, in fact, stay at Yahoo while it searches for her replacement. Heidrick & Struggles had already been headhunting candidates for her job in recent weeks.
Why Ko, who works directly for Schneider, is leaving now is uncertain, although sources said a lot of product control over properties under him is being moved over to Chief Product Officer Blake Irving.
Irving was hired several months ago by Bartz, and he has brought in many former colleagues from Microsoft (MSFT) to top product jobs at the company. And he’s appeared to have won the latest corporate power play too.
This entire mess–and that’s precisely what it is–calls into question the tenure of Bartz, a tough-talking, cost-cutting exec who was brought in to clean up Yahoo after the maelstrom around the failed takeover attempt by Microsoft several years ago.
She replaced co-founder Jerry Yang and came in with guns blazing and styling herself as an agent of change.
Except not too much as changed–except for finally striking a search technology deal with Microsoft–as the exodus of talent from Yahoo increases, advertising revenue growth is anemic, innovation is stalled, metrics are weak and the stock remains moribund.
In addition, Bartz’s frequent shoot-from-the-hip remarks appear to have alienated a number of partners, most recently in Asia.
This week, according to sources, some board members had an emergency meeting at Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, Calif., HQ to try to figure out how to deal with the burgeoning management issue.
Some speculate that they will hire a second-in-command to Bartz, who might be able to take over for her when her contract is up in 18 months.
Yahoo declined to comment.
by Kara Swisher
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Yahoo Starts 'Powered By Bing' In U.S., Canada
Yahoo searchers later this week will begin to see "Powered by Bing" at the bottom of results pages, as Microsoft starts moving in to support the back-end infrastructure on the Sunnyvale, Calif.'s search engine. The two announce the milestone Tuesday, along with several other updates to a variety of features.
Under the deal inked last year, Microsoft provides the back-end functions such as crawling and ranking search listings for Web, video and image results generated from queries. Yahoo remains responsible for how the content looks on the pages.
Shashi Seth, Yahoo Search strategy and product development lead, says it means creating a series of APIs in the Microsoft back-end infrastructure that allows Yahoo to process a search query and serve up results that meets criteria for relevance, click-through rates, clicks on ads, abandonment rates. "The process has a lot of minutia that includes the information we need to pass to Microsoft such as the IP address and user intent," he says. "In return we might get back questions on the correct spelling, different ways the query can be expressed, and should the results get filtered based on language. And all that happens, along with serving up results, in less than one second."
The organic search transition should take several weeks, estimates Betty Stooksberry, senior director of the search alliance at Yahoo.
Although Microsoft will power search for Yahoo pages, Webmasters that need to report problems or highlight new sites within Yahoo need to use Yahoo's Site Explorer for Yahoo pages, and Microsoft's Bing Webmaster Central for Bing pages. The process needs to occur because of the fragmented rollout. First the U.S. and Canada, followed by Europe.
Yahoo also will begin testing with a small set of advertiser accounts moving in and serving up paid search ads through adCenter. When an advertisers signs into their Yahoo Search account they will see a tab that points them to step-by-step instructions to transition their account. Less than 100 companies are participating in the test, but if all testing progresses as planned, all advertisers will have the ability to transition their accounts in the coming weeks.
Aside from organic and paid search results, Yahoo provided updates on a few development tools such as BOSS (build your own search service), and SearchMonkey.
In the next 30 days, Yahoo plans to announce specific details about how BOSS will change. The company is exploring potential fee-based and ad-revenue models that will enable BOSS developers to monetize their offerings. When Yahoo rolls out these changes, BOSS, Yahoo will begin charging developers to use the service, which had been free.
The SearchMonkey developer tool, gallery and app preferences will be discontinued on Oct. 1. However, Yahoo will continue to leverage and support structured data Web publishers and developers send by marketing up Web pages appropriately. The tools will stop working, but they can use the markup languages to provide Yahoo the data.
Under the deal inked last year, Microsoft provides the back-end functions such as crawling and ranking search listings for Web, video and image results generated from queries. Yahoo remains responsible for how the content looks on the pages.
Shashi Seth, Yahoo Search strategy and product development lead, says it means creating a series of APIs in the Microsoft back-end infrastructure that allows Yahoo to process a search query and serve up results that meets criteria for relevance, click-through rates, clicks on ads, abandonment rates. "The process has a lot of minutia that includes the information we need to pass to Microsoft such as the IP address and user intent," he says. "In return we might get back questions on the correct spelling, different ways the query can be expressed, and should the results get filtered based on language. And all that happens, along with serving up results, in less than one second."
The organic search transition should take several weeks, estimates Betty Stooksberry, senior director of the search alliance at Yahoo.
Although Microsoft will power search for Yahoo pages, Webmasters that need to report problems or highlight new sites within Yahoo need to use Yahoo's Site Explorer for Yahoo pages, and Microsoft's Bing Webmaster Central for Bing pages. The process needs to occur because of the fragmented rollout. First the U.S. and Canada, followed by Europe.
Yahoo also will begin testing with a small set of advertiser accounts moving in and serving up paid search ads through adCenter. When an advertisers signs into their Yahoo Search account they will see a tab that points them to step-by-step instructions to transition their account. Less than 100 companies are participating in the test, but if all testing progresses as planned, all advertisers will have the ability to transition their accounts in the coming weeks.
Aside from organic and paid search results, Yahoo provided updates on a few development tools such as BOSS (build your own search service), and SearchMonkey.
In the next 30 days, Yahoo plans to announce specific details about how BOSS will change. The company is exploring potential fee-based and ad-revenue models that will enable BOSS developers to monetize their offerings. When Yahoo rolls out these changes, BOSS, Yahoo will begin charging developers to use the service, which had been free.
The SearchMonkey developer tool, gallery and app preferences will be discontinued on Oct. 1. However, Yahoo will continue to leverage and support structured data Web publishers and developers send by marketing up Web pages appropriately. The tools will stop working, but they can use the markup languages to provide Yahoo the data.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Yahoo Starts 'Powered By Bing' In U.S., Canada
Yahoo searchers later this week will begin to see "Powered by Bing" at the bottom of results pages, as Microsoft starts moving in to support the back-end infrastructure on the Sunnyvale, Calif.'s search engine. The two announce the milestone Tuesday, along with several other updates to a variety of features.
Under the deal inked last year, Microsoft provides the back-end functions such as crawling and ranking search listings for Web, video and image results generated from queries. Yahoo remains responsible for how the content looks on the pages.
Shashi Seth, Yahoo Search strategy and product development lead, says it means creating a series of APIs in the Microsoft back-end infrastructure that allows Yahoo to process a search query and serve up results that meets criteria for relevance, click-through rates, clicks on ads, abandonment rates. "The process has a lot of minutia that includes the information we need to pass to Microsoft such as the IP address and user intent," he says. "In return we might get back questions on the correct spelling, different ways the query can be expressed, and should the results get filtered based on language. And all that happens, along with serving up results, in less than one second."
The organic search transition should take several weeks, estimates Betty Stooksberry, senior director of the search alliance at Yahoo.
Although Microsoft will power search for Yahoo pages, Webmasters that need to report problems or highlight new sites within Yahoo need to use Yahoo's Site Explorer for Yahoo pages, and Microsoft's Bing Webmaster Central for Bing pages. The process needs to occur because of the fragmented rollout. First the U.S. and Canada, followed by Europe.
Yahoo also will begin testing with a small set of advertiser accounts moving in and serving up paid search ads through adCenter. When an advertisers signs into their Yahoo Search account they will see a tab that points them to step-by-step instructions to transition their account. Less than 100 companies are participating in the test, but if all testing progresses as planned, all advertisers will have the ability to transition their accounts in the coming weeks.
Aside from organic and paid search results, Yahoo provided updates on a few development tools such as BOSS (build your own search service), and SearchMonkey.
In the next 30 days, Yahoo plans to announce specific details about how BOSS will change. The company is exploring potential fee-based and ad-revenue models that will enable BOSS developers to monetize their offerings. When Yahoo rolls out these changes, BOSS, Yahoo will begin charging developers to use the service, which had been free.
The SearchMonkey developer tool, gallery and app preferences will be discontinued on Oct. 1. However, Yahoo will continue to leverage and support structured data Web publishers and developers send by marketing up Web pages appropriately. The tools will stop working, but they can use the markup languages to provide Yahoo the data.
By Laurie Sullivan
Under the deal inked last year, Microsoft provides the back-end functions such as crawling and ranking search listings for Web, video and image results generated from queries. Yahoo remains responsible for how the content looks on the pages.
Shashi Seth, Yahoo Search strategy and product development lead, says it means creating a series of APIs in the Microsoft back-end infrastructure that allows Yahoo to process a search query and serve up results that meets criteria for relevance, click-through rates, clicks on ads, abandonment rates. "The process has a lot of minutia that includes the information we need to pass to Microsoft such as the IP address and user intent," he says. "In return we might get back questions on the correct spelling, different ways the query can be expressed, and should the results get filtered based on language. And all that happens, along with serving up results, in less than one second."
The organic search transition should take several weeks, estimates Betty Stooksberry, senior director of the search alliance at Yahoo.
Although Microsoft will power search for Yahoo pages, Webmasters that need to report problems or highlight new sites within Yahoo need to use Yahoo's Site Explorer for Yahoo pages, and Microsoft's Bing Webmaster Central for Bing pages. The process needs to occur because of the fragmented rollout. First the U.S. and Canada, followed by Europe.
Yahoo also will begin testing with a small set of advertiser accounts moving in and serving up paid search ads through adCenter. When an advertisers signs into their Yahoo Search account they will see a tab that points them to step-by-step instructions to transition their account. Less than 100 companies are participating in the test, but if all testing progresses as planned, all advertisers will have the ability to transition their accounts in the coming weeks.
Aside from organic and paid search results, Yahoo provided updates on a few development tools such as BOSS (build your own search service), and SearchMonkey.
In the next 30 days, Yahoo plans to announce specific details about how BOSS will change. The company is exploring potential fee-based and ad-revenue models that will enable BOSS developers to monetize their offerings. When Yahoo rolls out these changes, BOSS, Yahoo will begin charging developers to use the service, which had been free.
The SearchMonkey developer tool, gallery and app preferences will be discontinued on Oct. 1. However, Yahoo will continue to leverage and support structured data Web publishers and developers send by marketing up Web pages appropriately. The tools will stop working, but they can use the markup languages to provide Yahoo the data.
By Laurie Sullivan
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Yahoo-Bing Search Alliance: Four Steps Advertisers Should Take to Transition to the Unified Platform
By Matt Lawson
The Yahoo-Bing Search Alliance will result in a dramatic shift in the paid search marketing industry, changing the way advertisers manage their pay-per-click marketing programs. Under the new alliance, which starts this fall for U.S. accounts, advertisers will be required to use Microsoft's adCenter to manage both their Yahoo and Bing paid search advertising programs.
As an advertiser, what do you need to do to prepare your search engine marketing campaigns for the transition? There are several steps you can take to ensure your campaigns continue to function smoothly before, during, and after the transition to the new unified management platform.
Before we dive into the nuts-and-bolts of what you can do to prepare your campaigns for the transition, it's important to point out that you should start the process of transitioning to Microsoft adCenter now; waiting will cause undue headaches a few months from now, when you'll be deep into launching your critical Holiday 2010 campaigns. In our own research at my company, Marin Software, we've found that about two-thirds of large advertisers have begun to prepare their campaigns for the transition to a single Bing-Yahoo platform. If you're one of those advertisers who hasn't started the transition yet, it's time to get cracking!
For most search advertisers, the move to a single Bing-Yahoo platform will require adjustments to keywords, creative, bids, and analytical reports in order to maintain existing programs. Remember, this change isn't just a chore, but an opportunity. By combining your Bing and Yahoo programs on a single platform, you'll be able to streamline your search marketing efforts and more easily access the combined query volumes of these two engines.
Here are some strategies to make the Search Alliance transition as painless as possible:
Take stock of your programs. Among advertisers spending more than $100,000 a month on paid search, the average marketer spends 17% of its budget on Yahoo and only 5% on Bing. What's more, about 13% of advertisers do not currently run any campaigns on Bing. If you're one of the many search marketers with a smaller or non-existent Bing program, you'll need to invest in new keywords on Microsoft adCenter to maintain your paid search marketing revenues after the transition. Taking stock of the state of your Bing campaigns today can help you to assess the priority and level of effort required.
Decide on a transition plan. Before you begin adding keywords to your adCenter accounts, it's important to have a strategy. There are three options for getting your adCenter campaigns to parity with your previous Yahoo programs: you can augment your adCenter campaigns manually; you can copy your campaigns over from Yahoo; or you can attempt to replicate your Google campaigns in adCenter. If your adCenter campaigns are reasonably built out already, then the first option likely represents the least work and the lowest risk. The second option, copying your Yahoo campaigns over to adCenter, is supported by the Search Alliance. Adding Yahoo campaigns will be the easiest way to capture the same traffic you were receiving before, but remember Yahoo uses different match types and has different character limits for ad copy than adCenter does. If you plan to port Yahoo accounts over to adCenter, make sure to expand keywords to include misspellings and plurals, and modify creative to meet adCenter character limits. If this option isn't appealing, your Google campaigns have a similar structure to Bing campaigns, but copying these over will require a manual effort to download, format, and upload bulk-sheets to adCenter. Regardless of the option you choose, make sure to double check your landing pages and tracking URLs to avoid issues with missed traffic or miscounted conversions.
Prepare to bid with little history. As you build out your unified Bing-Yahoo search program, the new keywords you create in adCenter will lack the click and conversion history required to make effective bidding decisions. Adding to the complexity, the bid settings of any old keywords on Yahoo will be irrelevant, because the traffic and auction characteristics for the combined engines will be different. To prepare for this situation, make sure your bidding solution can create bids for new keywords and adjust quickly to changing traffic data. In order to start bidding accurately with a limited history, use data from similar keywords to determine bids. As individual keywords accumulate history, you can begin to weight their data more heavily into bidding decisions.
Monitor performance and react quickly. The transition itself will be a period of change, with keyword auctions clearing at new prices and traffic levels for some keywords rising dramatically. The best way to capitalize on this change is to proactively monitor keyword and campaign performance. Set up automated alerts that notify you when a keyword or group hits a specific threshold in terms of clicks, conversions, quality and cost. For terms that exceed benchmarks for performance, you can add similar keywords to your programs using misspellings, plurals, or even raw queries associated with the keyword. For high-volume keywords that end up lagging in quality and ROI, try switching out the copy to see if you can boost overall relevance and conversion. The Search Alliance transition is an opportunity for the smart marketer to optimize for the new combined traffic patterns.
The transition to a unified Yahoo-Bing ad management platform doesn't have to be a nightmare. Use this opportunity to fine tune campaigns, jettison poorly performing keywords, and analyze gaps in your programs. In six months time, you'll benefit from a streamlined search management process that gives you more time to invest in optimizing campaigns. More importantly, with lower management overhead and increased inventory, the Search Alliance represents an opportunity to grow your paid search programs through the new combined channel.
The Yahoo-Bing Search Alliance will result in a dramatic shift in the paid search marketing industry, changing the way advertisers manage their pay-per-click marketing programs. Under the new alliance, which starts this fall for U.S. accounts, advertisers will be required to use Microsoft's adCenter to manage both their Yahoo and Bing paid search advertising programs.
As an advertiser, what do you need to do to prepare your search engine marketing campaigns for the transition? There are several steps you can take to ensure your campaigns continue to function smoothly before, during, and after the transition to the new unified management platform.
Before we dive into the nuts-and-bolts of what you can do to prepare your campaigns for the transition, it's important to point out that you should start the process of transitioning to Microsoft adCenter now; waiting will cause undue headaches a few months from now, when you'll be deep into launching your critical Holiday 2010 campaigns. In our own research at my company, Marin Software, we've found that about two-thirds of large advertisers have begun to prepare their campaigns for the transition to a single Bing-Yahoo platform. If you're one of those advertisers who hasn't started the transition yet, it's time to get cracking!
For most search advertisers, the move to a single Bing-Yahoo platform will require adjustments to keywords, creative, bids, and analytical reports in order to maintain existing programs. Remember, this change isn't just a chore, but an opportunity. By combining your Bing and Yahoo programs on a single platform, you'll be able to streamline your search marketing efforts and more easily access the combined query volumes of these two engines.
Here are some strategies to make the Search Alliance transition as painless as possible:
Take stock of your programs. Among advertisers spending more than $100,000 a month on paid search, the average marketer spends 17% of its budget on Yahoo and only 5% on Bing. What's more, about 13% of advertisers do not currently run any campaigns on Bing. If you're one of the many search marketers with a smaller or non-existent Bing program, you'll need to invest in new keywords on Microsoft adCenter to maintain your paid search marketing revenues after the transition. Taking stock of the state of your Bing campaigns today can help you to assess the priority and level of effort required.
Decide on a transition plan. Before you begin adding keywords to your adCenter accounts, it's important to have a strategy. There are three options for getting your adCenter campaigns to parity with your previous Yahoo programs: you can augment your adCenter campaigns manually; you can copy your campaigns over from Yahoo; or you can attempt to replicate your Google campaigns in adCenter. If your adCenter campaigns are reasonably built out already, then the first option likely represents the least work and the lowest risk. The second option, copying your Yahoo campaigns over to adCenter, is supported by the Search Alliance. Adding Yahoo campaigns will be the easiest way to capture the same traffic you were receiving before, but remember Yahoo uses different match types and has different character limits for ad copy than adCenter does. If you plan to port Yahoo accounts over to adCenter, make sure to expand keywords to include misspellings and plurals, and modify creative to meet adCenter character limits. If this option isn't appealing, your Google campaigns have a similar structure to Bing campaigns, but copying these over will require a manual effort to download, format, and upload bulk-sheets to adCenter. Regardless of the option you choose, make sure to double check your landing pages and tracking URLs to avoid issues with missed traffic or miscounted conversions.
Prepare to bid with little history. As you build out your unified Bing-Yahoo search program, the new keywords you create in adCenter will lack the click and conversion history required to make effective bidding decisions. Adding to the complexity, the bid settings of any old keywords on Yahoo will be irrelevant, because the traffic and auction characteristics for the combined engines will be different. To prepare for this situation, make sure your bidding solution can create bids for new keywords and adjust quickly to changing traffic data. In order to start bidding accurately with a limited history, use data from similar keywords to determine bids. As individual keywords accumulate history, you can begin to weight their data more heavily into bidding decisions.
Monitor performance and react quickly. The transition itself will be a period of change, with keyword auctions clearing at new prices and traffic levels for some keywords rising dramatically. The best way to capitalize on this change is to proactively monitor keyword and campaign performance. Set up automated alerts that notify you when a keyword or group hits a specific threshold in terms of clicks, conversions, quality and cost. For terms that exceed benchmarks for performance, you can add similar keywords to your programs using misspellings, plurals, or even raw queries associated with the keyword. For high-volume keywords that end up lagging in quality and ROI, try switching out the copy to see if you can boost overall relevance and conversion. The Search Alliance transition is an opportunity for the smart marketer to optimize for the new combined traffic patterns.
The transition to a unified Yahoo-Bing ad management platform doesn't have to be a nightmare. Use this opportunity to fine tune campaigns, jettison poorly performing keywords, and analyze gaps in your programs. In six months time, you'll benefit from a streamlined search management process that gives you more time to invest in optimizing campaigns. More importantly, with lower management overhead and increased inventory, the Search Alliance represents an opportunity to grow your paid search programs through the new combined channel.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Yahoo Ready To Fix Advertising: What Will it Take?
Ramsey McGrory, Yahoo's vice president of North American Marketplaces and newly appointed head of Right Media, says fixing advertising requires the industry to focus on the "simple stuff." That means spending time on figuring out the standards for content classification, ad verification and data use. It's critical that the industry also addresses standards issues for order processing.
Bringing standards into digital advertising will bring down the cost of executing campaigns. Citing industry stats, McGrory says on average, digital campaigns cost about 25% to 30% to run, compared with 2% to 4% for TV. "We can't sustain that when the relative cost is much more, compared with other mediums," he says. "We also need better understanding at federal and state levels, as well as finding the appropriate use of data to give consumers what they expect."
They may not be the sexiest things, but they are the most important in the industry to address, McGrory says. Especially if agencies want to convince the largest brands that spend the majority of their dollars in television to have a reason to invest more in online campaigns.
The need for standards signals a maturing online advertising industry, although the industry remains in its infancy as it tries to support growth. There are disparate systems, aging technology platforms, ad-serving units and emerging ad video networks. "The industry feels somewhat like a gangly teenager in that you know all the capabilities are there," he says. "Someday that gangly teenager will grow into something bigger, but there are still things we must work out."
That maturing industry has left some companies admitting the need to update equipment. Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz recently spoke to analysts, pointing to the search engine's aging technology as a contributing factor to the company's declining performance. Similarly, Jay Herratti -- chief executive officer at CityGrid Media, formally Citysearch -- spent the last couple of years working to upgrade ad servers and platforms. Some might argue that many companies updated their infrastructure 10 years ago to deal with Y2K issues, but the technology has come a long way in the last decade.
Continued changes in digital will see traditional fixes move over to support customers, discover how to reach them, and determine the impact. The industry must take it back to core processes and implement them in digital, such as how to generate interest, intent and action.
While the discussion on how to fix advertising began during a panel at Internet Week, "much of the foundation to support processes will set in within the next three to four years," McGrory says. "It's already happening. Setting the foundations will reveal that the large digital companies and large industry organizations such as the IAB and 4As have a growing influence."
by Laurie Sullivan
Bringing standards into digital advertising will bring down the cost of executing campaigns. Citing industry stats, McGrory says on average, digital campaigns cost about 25% to 30% to run, compared with 2% to 4% for TV. "We can't sustain that when the relative cost is much more, compared with other mediums," he says. "We also need better understanding at federal and state levels, as well as finding the appropriate use of data to give consumers what they expect."
They may not be the sexiest things, but they are the most important in the industry to address, McGrory says. Especially if agencies want to convince the largest brands that spend the majority of their dollars in television to have a reason to invest more in online campaigns.
The need for standards signals a maturing online advertising industry, although the industry remains in its infancy as it tries to support growth. There are disparate systems, aging technology platforms, ad-serving units and emerging ad video networks. "The industry feels somewhat like a gangly teenager in that you know all the capabilities are there," he says. "Someday that gangly teenager will grow into something bigger, but there are still things we must work out."
That maturing industry has left some companies admitting the need to update equipment. Yahoo Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz recently spoke to analysts, pointing to the search engine's aging technology as a contributing factor to the company's declining performance. Similarly, Jay Herratti -- chief executive officer at CityGrid Media, formally Citysearch -- spent the last couple of years working to upgrade ad servers and platforms. Some might argue that many companies updated their infrastructure 10 years ago to deal with Y2K issues, but the technology has come a long way in the last decade.
Continued changes in digital will see traditional fixes move over to support customers, discover how to reach them, and determine the impact. The industry must take it back to core processes and implement them in digital, such as how to generate interest, intent and action.
While the discussion on how to fix advertising began during a panel at Internet Week, "much of the foundation to support processes will set in within the next three to four years," McGrory says. "It's already happening. Setting the foundations will reveal that the large digital companies and large industry organizations such as the IAB and 4As have a growing influence."
by Laurie Sullivan
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Yahoo to turn subscribers' e-mail contact lists into social networking base
By Cecilia Kang
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Yahoo plans to announce Tuesday that it is jumping into social networking by using its massive population of e-mail subscribers as a base for sharing information on the Web.
Over the next few weeks, its 280 million e-mail users will be able to exchange comments, pictures and news articles with others in their address books. The program won't expose a user's contact list to the public, as was done by Google through its social networking application, Buzz. But unless a user proactively opts out of the program, those Yahoo e-mail subscribers will automatically be part of a sweeping rollout of features that will incorporate the kinds of sharing done on sites such as Facebook and MySpace.
The plan could spark criticism from Yahoo e-mail users, who signed up for the free service perhaps never imagining the people they e-mailed would become friends for sharing vacation videos, political causes and random thoughts throughout the day. And the move comes amid growing concern by federal lawmakers and regulators over how firms such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft have handled the privacy of Internet users.
After backlash, Facebook last week announced new privacy tools to make it easier for users to block Web sites from tapping into their information, as well as a simpler way to configure who on the site can see personal data. Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, asked Facebook on Friday to explain what kind of user data it had shared with third-party sites. Conyers also asked Google to retain, for federal and state regulators, the data the company scooped off WiFi networks as it collected Street View mapping photos around the country.
To allay privacy concerns, Yahoo said it would give users a week's notice before launching the new features and provide a single button on the site for opting out entirely.
"We've been watching and trying to be thoughtful about our approach," said Anne Toth, head of privacy for Yahoo.
Specifically, the company will launch a product called Yahoo Updates that allows e-mail users to see what other contacts on their lists are commenting about or sharing on sites like Yahoo Finance, Facebook and the photo sharing site Flickr. Updates will initially include 15 sites and partnerships and will eventually expand to include partners such as Twitter this summer.
Yahoo has tiptoed into social media, launching a similar tool last year called Connections, which allowed each user to customize a list of contacts with whom to share information. The company also tried two years ago to build a competitive product to Facebook, where users sought "friends," or contacts, to join micro-networks within Yahoo in the same way Facebook users amass friends through requests. Yahoo abandoned that project and instead decided to tap into its captive audience of e-mail users.
The move is part of a revamping of the once-rudderless Internet pioneer. Chief executive Carol Bartz, brought in last year to lead the firm, has stripped the company of unprofitable business units to focus on its greatest strengths -- its popular free e-mail and messaging programs, and its library of sports, news and finance sites -- to keep users in the Yahoo universe longer.
The longer a user stays on the site, the more advertising dollars and e-commerce it generates. But it remains to be seen if users will view their contact lists as the kinds of people they choose to socialize with on the Web. When Google launched Buzz, some users complained that they used Gmail for business and to correspond with strangers and that they didn't want to share birthday videos with their plumbers or bosses.
Yahoo will begin notifying users of the change on June 7, one week before the launch. Users who don't want to participate can click one button on the settings page to opt out. Or they can customize each piece of information -- a Facebook update or a comment on a Yahoo news story -- to either be shared with Yahoo e-mail contacts or Facebook. Eventually, Twitter and other partners with social-networking platforms will also be included.
"What Yahoo has done is recognized that your e-mail or messenger network is a useful resource and that you may be interested in knowing what your contacts are interested in knowing about, and they stop there," said Jules Polonetsky, the director of the Future of Privacy Forum, a privacy think tank. "That's opposed to the idea that then, therefore, your relationship with them risks being exposed."
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Yahoo plans to announce Tuesday that it is jumping into social networking by using its massive population of e-mail subscribers as a base for sharing information on the Web.
Over the next few weeks, its 280 million e-mail users will be able to exchange comments, pictures and news articles with others in their address books. The program won't expose a user's contact list to the public, as was done by Google through its social networking application, Buzz. But unless a user proactively opts out of the program, those Yahoo e-mail subscribers will automatically be part of a sweeping rollout of features that will incorporate the kinds of sharing done on sites such as Facebook and MySpace.
The plan could spark criticism from Yahoo e-mail users, who signed up for the free service perhaps never imagining the people they e-mailed would become friends for sharing vacation videos, political causes and random thoughts throughout the day. And the move comes amid growing concern by federal lawmakers and regulators over how firms such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft have handled the privacy of Internet users.
After backlash, Facebook last week announced new privacy tools to make it easier for users to block Web sites from tapping into their information, as well as a simpler way to configure who on the site can see personal data. Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, asked Facebook on Friday to explain what kind of user data it had shared with third-party sites. Conyers also asked Google to retain, for federal and state regulators, the data the company scooped off WiFi networks as it collected Street View mapping photos around the country.
To allay privacy concerns, Yahoo said it would give users a week's notice before launching the new features and provide a single button on the site for opting out entirely.
"We've been watching and trying to be thoughtful about our approach," said Anne Toth, head of privacy for Yahoo.
Specifically, the company will launch a product called Yahoo Updates that allows e-mail users to see what other contacts on their lists are commenting about or sharing on sites like Yahoo Finance, Facebook and the photo sharing site Flickr. Updates will initially include 15 sites and partnerships and will eventually expand to include partners such as Twitter this summer.
Yahoo has tiptoed into social media, launching a similar tool last year called Connections, which allowed each user to customize a list of contacts with whom to share information. The company also tried two years ago to build a competitive product to Facebook, where users sought "friends," or contacts, to join micro-networks within Yahoo in the same way Facebook users amass friends through requests. Yahoo abandoned that project and instead decided to tap into its captive audience of e-mail users.
The move is part of a revamping of the once-rudderless Internet pioneer. Chief executive Carol Bartz, brought in last year to lead the firm, has stripped the company of unprofitable business units to focus on its greatest strengths -- its popular free e-mail and messaging programs, and its library of sports, news and finance sites -- to keep users in the Yahoo universe longer.
The longer a user stays on the site, the more advertising dollars and e-commerce it generates. But it remains to be seen if users will view their contact lists as the kinds of people they choose to socialize with on the Web. When Google launched Buzz, some users complained that they used Gmail for business and to correspond with strangers and that they didn't want to share birthday videos with their plumbers or bosses.
Yahoo will begin notifying users of the change on June 7, one week before the launch. Users who don't want to participate can click one button on the settings page to opt out. Or they can customize each piece of information -- a Facebook update or a comment on a Yahoo news story -- to either be shared with Yahoo e-mail contacts or Facebook. Eventually, Twitter and other partners with social-networking platforms will also be included.
"What Yahoo has done is recognized that your e-mail or messenger network is a useful resource and that you may be interested in knowing what your contacts are interested in knowing about, and they stop there," said Jules Polonetsky, the director of the Future of Privacy Forum, a privacy think tank. "That's opposed to the idea that then, therefore, your relationship with them risks being exposed."
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Yahoo Looks To Direct Mail Partner To Help it Crack Local Ad Markets
While Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) executives are preparing to discuss the company’s partnership with Nokia (NYSE: NOK) at a Monday morning press conference, other parts of the organization are also looking to outside alliances to extend its reach into local advertising. In a conversation with paidContent, Lem Lloyd, Yahoo’s VP of channel sales, said the company would be working with direct marketer Valassis on attracting local telcos to the online ad space, as these companies still tend to focus on affiliate TV stations and direct mail.
Yahoo’s targeting of telcos comes after a few months of aiming its local ad services at fast food franchises (in a sign of Yahoo’s attempts to woo these companies, it uses the preferred marketing jargon of “quick serve restaurants.”)
“All media companies are putting a focus on local ad spend, which still remains largely untapped,” Lloyd said. “Local represents half of all the $250 billion marketing spend in the U.S., but only a fraction is online. There are a lot of reasons these companies aren’t spending online. For one thing, many local ad buys are bought on a regional basis, as opposed to the more audience-targeted online ad sales structure. But mostly, it’s because companies haven’t put the time in to talk to all the various franchisee groups.”
As it seeks to reach out local marketers, Yahoo is partnering with companies like Valassis, which provides direct mail services to many telco companies. Yahoo believes it will open the door to moving more of that money online.
The partnership with a direct mail company also represents an evolution of the model behind the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium. As newspapers opened a lot of doors to Yahoo across local ad markets, the same is true of direct mail providers like Valassis. Also, in much the same way that Yahoo has provided ad sales training to newspapers through the Consortium, the company will also work with direct marketers to expand the digital possibilities there as well.
While Yahoo is looking to do more partnerships, it also has been cutting some ties to others. Over the past few months, Yahoo has parted ways with a handful of newspapers in the 800-member Consortium, as some members haven’t responded well to the company’s ad sales guidance.
Lloyd declined to discuss the specific issues there, or identify which members have left the fold, saying it was less than a dozen papers among hundreds. “We’re very selective on who we work with on a reseller basis,” he said. “One of our strategies is to have relationships that allow us to better go after specific industries. We simply want to focus on partners who put the same commitment into local ad sales as we do. It would be easy sign reseller agreements and brag about the numbers of partners. But we’re interested in quality, not quantity when it comes to who we work with.”
Yahoo’s targeting of telcos comes after a few months of aiming its local ad services at fast food franchises (in a sign of Yahoo’s attempts to woo these companies, it uses the preferred marketing jargon of “quick serve restaurants.”)
“All media companies are putting a focus on local ad spend, which still remains largely untapped,” Lloyd said. “Local represents half of all the $250 billion marketing spend in the U.S., but only a fraction is online. There are a lot of reasons these companies aren’t spending online. For one thing, many local ad buys are bought on a regional basis, as opposed to the more audience-targeted online ad sales structure. But mostly, it’s because companies haven’t put the time in to talk to all the various franchisee groups.”
As it seeks to reach out local marketers, Yahoo is partnering with companies like Valassis, which provides direct mail services to many telco companies. Yahoo believes it will open the door to moving more of that money online.
The partnership with a direct mail company also represents an evolution of the model behind the Yahoo Newspaper Consortium. As newspapers opened a lot of doors to Yahoo across local ad markets, the same is true of direct mail providers like Valassis. Also, in much the same way that Yahoo has provided ad sales training to newspapers through the Consortium, the company will also work with direct marketers to expand the digital possibilities there as well.
While Yahoo is looking to do more partnerships, it also has been cutting some ties to others. Over the past few months, Yahoo has parted ways with a handful of newspapers in the 800-member Consortium, as some members haven’t responded well to the company’s ad sales guidance.
Lloyd declined to discuss the specific issues there, or identify which members have left the fold, saying it was less than a dozen papers among hundreds. “We’re very selective on who we work with on a reseller basis,” he said. “One of our strategies is to have relationships that allow us to better go after specific industries. We simply want to focus on partners who put the same commitment into local ad sales as we do. It would be easy sign reseller agreements and brag about the numbers of partners. But we’re interested in quality, not quantity when it comes to who we work with.”
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Yahoo Beefs up B2B Marketing Team to Present Consistent Message
Yahoo's top business-to-business marketing exec has rounded out her team. After just a few months with the firm, Mollie Spilman, SVP of global b-to-b marketing, has hired former Tremor, Viacom, and Cisco marketing and research execs to help present a more consistent message to agencies, publishers, developers, and other non-consumer Yahoo customers.
Shane Steele, former VP marketing at video network Tremor Media, will start with Yahoo later this month as VP global b-to-b marketing communications and operations, and will report to Spilman. Spilman came on board in January as part of a marketing department restructuring devised by Yahoo CMO Elisa Steele. Shane Steele will be responsible for Yahoo outreach to industry through its advertiser and publisher portals, blogs, and other operations. She'll also head up an industry-aimed ad campaign set to break in June, according to Spilman.
Newly-hired senior director of b-to-b insights marketing, Lauren Weinberg, hails from Viacom, where she handled research for digital sales at the media firm. Reporting to Shane Steele, Weinberg is tasked with presenting a more comprehensive story to the market from an audience and consumer research and data perspective. She'll work alongside Yahoo research teams including its ad insights group, which is part of the sales division.
The goal, said Spilman, is to bring "more consistency to the message of all the work we do...it seemed schizophrenic to the market." She explained that currently some clients "have a hard time navigating" Yahoo's proprietary research, and "don't even know who to call to dive deeper."
Tanya Andrade, previously with Cisco, started today as Yahoo's new executive director of events, and will guide the company's business-aimed events team of around 30 people. "The volume and sophistication of the events could probably turn up a notch," said Spilman.
Spilman said her hiring spree is "done," adding, "I really felt like I wanted to bring some fresh perspective and fresh ideas into the company."
By Kate Kaye
Shane Steele, former VP marketing at video network Tremor Media, will start with Yahoo later this month as VP global b-to-b marketing communications and operations, and will report to Spilman. Spilman came on board in January as part of a marketing department restructuring devised by Yahoo CMO Elisa Steele. Shane Steele will be responsible for Yahoo outreach to industry through its advertiser and publisher portals, blogs, and other operations. She'll also head up an industry-aimed ad campaign set to break in June, according to Spilman.
Newly-hired senior director of b-to-b insights marketing, Lauren Weinberg, hails from Viacom, where she handled research for digital sales at the media firm. Reporting to Shane Steele, Weinberg is tasked with presenting a more comprehensive story to the market from an audience and consumer research and data perspective. She'll work alongside Yahoo research teams including its ad insights group, which is part of the sales division.
The goal, said Spilman, is to bring "more consistency to the message of all the work we do...it seemed schizophrenic to the market." She explained that currently some clients "have a hard time navigating" Yahoo's proprietary research, and "don't even know who to call to dive deeper."
Tanya Andrade, previously with Cisco, started today as Yahoo's new executive director of events, and will guide the company's business-aimed events team of around 30 people. "The volume and sophistication of the events could probably turn up a notch," said Spilman.
Spilman said her hiring spree is "done," adding, "I really felt like I wanted to bring some fresh perspective and fresh ideas into the company."
By Kate Kaye
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