This is new.

I was surprised to see this ad, a display unit for YouTube HD running in my Google RSS Reader on a feed from Silicon Alley Insider. Google serving house ads for its own video service, YouTube?

The ad is running in the Google Ad Sense network, the search giant’s broad, yet targeted hyper-advertising distribution network. It’s what amounts to a house ad, meaning either YouTube is spending to advertise its service, which I doubt, or Google is undersold on their inventory and they’re running free ads for their video service. (more…)

There’s a theory that good advertising doesn’t make you buy something, it makes you buy something sooner.

If that’s the case, then most online advertising isn’t good advertising.

But we knew that already.

The inability for the online advertising market to develop standardized metrics that prove real ROI to brands has been a major hurdle in the evolution of a sustainable digital content economy.

But the financial crisis that has so many companies pulling back on spending and laying off warm bodies has a silver lining - it has set the stage for brands to help define the future of online advertising products that most effectively transmit their message. (more…)

It’s advertising week in New York, which means all sorts of banter about how to narrow the gap between Silicon Alley and Madison Ave. The traditional media mindset of reach and frequency doesn’t always mesh with the engagement value that digital platforms are built to offer. But any smart ad man knows that engagement is what builds brands.

I’ve kvetched recently about how I think the world would be a better place if display ads, which are all about scale, were coded out of existence and replaced by contextual ads, which are all about engagement. I stand by that statement, especially now that I’ve seen the nirvana of contextual, rich media advertising.

Check out this Youtube clip for the new Nintendo Wii game, Wario Land. You have to watch it all the way through. I’ll wait. (more…)

Take an hour out of your life and watch this important video. It’s an excellent overview of the evolution of new media’s impact on human interaction. It highlights the role that YouTube is playing in the development of Fan Fiction (a somewhat inaccurate yet my current preferred euphemism for User Generated Content). If you’re short on time, skip to the conclusion at 45:15 and listen to Lawrence Lessig’s take on the cultural inflection point that we have communally reached due to the connectivity and access provided to us through digital distribution.

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If today’s announcement that Google will launch Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane’s original web series across its network of AdSense sites sounds familiar that’s because the same parties made the exact same announcement last year. Someone, however, forgot to tell the New York Times, who managed to dust off the story, give it a fresh veneer and up the ante by quoting AdSense representative Kim Malone Scott as saying “We feel that we have recreated the mass media.”

Kim, you will never live that down.

No matter. I love what this deal represents, although I’m somewhat skeptical that users will adopt the model of clicking what has been defined as an advertisement in order to watch an advertisement in order to then watch a short blast of something MacFarlanely funny. (more…)

Tonight I’m going to hear Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of Wired Magazine, speak about his upcoming book, “Free.” In a previous post I presented my position on the culture of free, the gift economy and how I think it’s driving the quality of content and applications towards amateur hour. It will be interesting to hear Chris address web economics and I hope to engage him in a discussion about what this means for the future of web-based entertainment content.

I’m specifically interested in Google and how they’ve enabled the culture of free online. From my perspective, Google is bad for business. Let me qualify that, bad for business-as-usual (added). By offering everything you need on the web for free, Google has effectively put web-based business opportunities on life support. (more…)

Despite its cliche, the question of “what is the next version of the web” provokes as intense a debate as you’ll find within digital circles. Web 3.0 definitions vary wildly with any number of partisan descriptions coming from very smart, yet fundamentally biased people.

These descriptions are all forward thinking, yet intrinsically flawed. They neglect that versioning, or defining the next version of the web, isn’t just about software or hardware. It’s about culture.

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