Online Ad Industry Foolishness
Get Your Stinking Brand Out of My Social Network
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008Great article today from Adweek’s Alan Wolk, who hammers decisively at the idiotic idea that people on social networks will respond positively to the big brands increasingly infesting these networks. As Wolk notes, “the last thing they want is some salesperson trying to have a “conversation” with them while they’re figuring out what movie they’re […]
Earth to Online Ad Industry: Prepare for a Planetary Crash
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008Sometimes reality just creeps up on you and slams you with a 2 by 4, and this is exactly what seems to be happening with the online ad industry. Slowly, it’s dawning on people that you can’t run an industry on nothing more than hot air, whatever fancy names (”brand engagement, view-through conversions) you come […]
Make No Mistake: Microsoft Called Carl Icahn
Thursday, May 15th, 2008So what do you do if you’re Steve Ballmer and you’ve had it up to here with the juvenile antics of your takeover target’s board? You call Carl Icahn and tell him to go to work. I’m completely convinced that Icahn (who will announce Yahoo’s alternate board today) has already gotten firm agreement from Microsoft […]
Social Networking Gets a Much-Needed Downgrade
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008A blistering new report from EMarketer hammers a couple of much-needed nails into the coffin of social networks as ad media. The fact that advertising doesn’t work on social networks is obvious: users are too busy diddling around with some doo-dad to pay attention to marketing pitches. Here’s more bad news for social networking hype-meisters:
Revenue […]
When Will We Finally Abolish the Banner Ad?
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008Sean X Cummings, of Ask.com, writes a witty, well-reasoned article on how ad agencies consistently fall down when designing those horribly ubiquitous banner ads we see almost everywhere on the Web. According to Cummings, just about everything is wrong with ad banners, from their conception to final delivery. Unfortunately, he offers no real corrective remedy, […]
E-Commerce Will Take Big Hit as States Close “Amazon Loophole”
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008Last Friday, Google’s chief economist pointed to figures suggesting that even a severe recession won’t dent e-commerce (which apparently has grown 22 percent in the past two years). The economist went so far as to claim that a recession helps e-commerce, “because cautious consumers are doing more research and comparison shopping online before making a […]
Online Ad Network Bubble Will Soon Burst
Monday, April 21st, 2008Remember, about a million years ago in Web time, when all the pundits were saying that the Net was going to “disintermediate” all of those obnoxious middlemen skimming pennies from every commercial transaction? Well, exactly the opposite’s happened, at least in the world of interactive advertising: today, we’ve got more than 200 ad networks, each […]
Dave to Online Ad Industry: Let’s Abolish The Childish Company Names
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008Azoogle. Vonba. Zango. Vringo. Quigo. PopCap. These are just a few of the childish-sounding appellations adopted by online ad companies. Others sound like the crude speech of some doomed aboriginal tribe. Of course, it’s true that the name “Google” sounds like baby talk, so these companies are in good company, but I wish somebody would […]