Last week the King Farouk of social media platforms, Facebook, announced a raft of changes set to hit in coming weeks. Before you criticise, imagine the possibilities.
Online advertising
Facebook flogs your personal profile to advertisers
Got U2 as your favourite band on Facebook? Expect ads to appear flogging tickets to see Bono play in your hometown. As Facebook prepares to go public sometime next year, its advertising mines user data like never before.
Just Chew it: click go the marketers in online assault
With nearly 1.4 million kids under the age of 12 online it’s no wonder Australia’s biggest food brands use the net to spread their message. And they’re really good at it.
BBC joins the land of the free
In a bid to grab more US media dollars the BBC will today launch its own US news site. But will an editorial expansion prove to be a smart move?
Media briefs: Murdoch struggles with online control … SBS draws crowds …
Rupert Murdoch struggles to control online content distribution, the SBS is drawing the crowds with its World Cup coverage, Perez Hilton may be in hot water and other media news of the day.
Twitter: We’ve found our ad model
Twitter has finally found a way to make money (or so they hope): “promoted tweets” that will appear at the top of searches on the site. Founder Biz Stone explains how it will all work.
How ad blockers hurt your favourite websites
Internet ad blocking software and plug-ins may stop you from being annoyed by intrusive flash ads and videos, but they also stop the sites you like and visit from making money, argues web editor Ken Fisher.
Dell tweeps equal US$6.5 million in sales
Twitter ain’t no time waster down at Dell, with promotions on Dell’s 35 various Twitter accounts responsible for bringing US$6.5 million in sales of personal computers.
Twitter goes commercial in 2010
Twitter will start selling ads in early 2010, company founder Biz Stone says, in what he promises will be a “very non- traditional” advertising model. Pfft, it used to be about the music.
Cash for tweets: advertisers now recruiting Twitter users
Is that an ad or a tweet? It’s getting harder to tell, as advertisers pay regular Twitter users to post personalised spruiks and links for their products. Will Twitter’s effectiveness as an advertising medium ultimately spoil it?
Should readers click the online ads?
Should you support your favourite news websites by clicking on their ads — and does it even help? Derek Thompson takes a look.
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Who’s lining Google’s pockets?
A whopping 80% of online advertisers do their advertising through Google, with ads accounting for 99% of the search giant’s revenue. So who are the biggest advertisers, and how much are they spending?
Sacrificing privacy to save the news
Would you let marketers track your online browsing and shopping habits if it helped raise much-needed revenue for news organisations and promised to provide you with more relevant articles catered to your tastes?
Craigslist: an ugly, anarchic success
Classifieds website Craigslist is ugly, run by an eccentric introvert who pretends to be a squirrel, does no marketing and employs only a handful of staff — yet it attracts millions of visitors (and dollars) every day. Wired examines the internet’s most unlikely success story.
MasterChef cooks up big numbers online
MasterChef didn’t just rule Australian TV screens last month: it dominated our computer monitors, too, with the show’s website drawing huge traffic. Come series two, advertisers will be scrambling to get a piece of the action online as well as on the box, predicts Ben Shepherd.
Shield your eyes: intrusive web ads set to rise
More online news sites, including The Wall Street Journal and Reuters are set to experiment with full-screen auto-play ads that block content when users arrive on their sites for up to 10 seconds.
Sponsored Tweets: Twitter jumps the shark?
After plenty of hype, a new platform called Sponsored Tweets, where Twitter users to hook up with advertisers and earn money for tweeting about their wares, has finally launched. Is this the beginning of the end of Twitter as we know it?
Jobs ads continue to decline more slowly
The Australian labour market is stabilising, judging by the ANZ Jobs Ads survey for July.
Gawker Media empire a “lean, mean money-making machine”
Nick Denton, the king of the Gawker Media empire (responsible for sites like Gawker, Gizmodo and LifeHacker) says business is booming, despite the slim-picking elsewhere in the media, with 45% revenue growth in the first quarter.
Web ads are not TV ads
Advertisers need to rethink web ads in light of the current recession and focus more on tracking customers’ data rather than bombarding with traditional TV style ads, say media execs.
News Digital sites ban uninvited audio ads
News Digital Media will not run online ads that unexpectedly autoplay audio on its websites in light of a study that found 70% of visitors to News sites are bothered by them.
YouTube takes drastic online action: allows obvious external links
Introducing the Call-To-Action Overlay available on YouTube tomorrow, allowing specific advertising over videos that will send users off-site.
Recession saves online ad networks
Although the GFC has seen the general demand for advertising shrink, ad networks are thriving, due to “a shift to performance advertising and audience targeting” which ad networks excel at, according to one expert.
Brisbane band sells music for tweets
Brisbane band Yves Klein Blue are offering fans free downloads of their latest single for free — under one condition: they must tweet about the lengths they would go to see the band play at the Splendour in the Grass festival next month.
Craigslist‘s revenue: $100m? More like $300m
The press are all excited over a report that online classified site Craigslist will defy market trends to make $100m this year — but Wired crunch the numbers and come up with a much higher figure.
