Wednesday, November 24, 2010

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Google's Advertiser Assistance Program (Part II: Video Ads) Top
Well, this is interesting. Google’s Advertising Assistance Program extends to video ads. Earlier today I published an investigative post about Google’s relationship with Publicis and other large ad agencies and incentive programs whereby Google pays the ad agencies to use its advertising platform. That post focussed on the demand-side platforms (DSPs) and trading desks inside the ad agencies which sometimes are powered by Google technology under the covers. Well, it turns out that Google also offers ad agencies incentives to adopt its video and display ads. A reader who used to work at Google sent us a tip with some text from a PDF marked “confidential and proprietary” that was circulated to Google sales people back in 2009 detailing the “North America Display & Video Incentive Program.” The handout basically lists some sales talking points, including some stats on the disparity between consumer online video viewing and the amount of advertising dollars going to video. Google never pays rebates, commissions, or kickbacks directly. Rather it clothes the payments in the guise of technical assistance, on-site consultations, industry research, training, and other assistance to help advertising agencies adopt new kinds of advertising formats such as video. Apparently, coming up with their own pre-roll video ads for their clients is too taxing for the ad agencies and they need some help. Google can call these payments whatever it wants, but it has no way of knowing what the ad agencies actually do with the money. Does it really all go towards “research” and “technical support” or does it find its way to help pad their bottom line. If it is the latter, then these payments effectively amount to a kickback. Before I keep beating up on Google, I should note that Google is not alone here. Such commissions and kickbacks are standard practice in the advertising industry. And in fact, when Google tried to stop paying commissions a few years ago, there was an uproar from the agencies (who control the advertising purse strings of most of all the large companies). Here is the part of the PDF about the financial incentives: Financial Incentive The plan includes graduated spend incentives, as well as adoption bonuses to encourage more agencies to try out new media. Participating agencies will receive quarterly reports detailing spend and associated incentives. Incentives will be automatically calculated by Google's Finance team, and paid to qualifying agencies on a quarterly basis. Video Research Google will invest in research initiatives that address both large questions and client specific needs: • Industry-wide research will cover ideal formats and mixes for consumer engagement • Partnership with specific clients and campaigns will focus on ad effectiveness relationship between various media Rich Media & Onsite Campaign Support Since support for constantly evolving rich media formats is both critical and taxing, Google will provide resources to the agency. The program includes, as needed: • Technical support to assist in transitioning video and other assets to rich media, easing the execution of these new formats • On-site operational support to assist creative teams in the implementation of large campaigns Min US Spend Payout % $30M+ 10% $20M – <$30M 8% $10M – <$20M 6% $5M – <$10M 4% $3M – <$5M 2% Min US Clients Payout % 60+ 4% 45 – 59 3% 30 – 44 2% 15 – 29 1% • Annual plan with quarterly cash payment • Based on billed spend during that quarter • Agencies may aggregate to a single entity if contracted under that single entity Payouts matched to quarterly investment Client adoption increases incentives • Annual plan with quarterly cash payment • Client list pre-determined (at the brand level) -exceptions/additions to be approved by Google's Finance team I asked Google if this program is still in place and spokesperson responded that “we work with many advertising agencies and marketers to help them develop and invest in new advertising technologies and formats, including technological assistance, measurement, creative development, research funding and co-marketing.” He also pointed me to the FAQ on this Adwords Help page , which states: From time to time Google offers participating advertisers certain incentives to accelerate the adoption and investment in Google’s advertising programs. Advertisers may receive financial incentives, including but not limited to credits, to help fund their campaigns (e.g., in the Google Display and Video Incentive Program, participating agencies receive financial incentives each calendar quarter based upon the amount of their display and video advertising spend for the previous quarter). In addition, advertisers may receive campaign assistance such as industry research and on-site consultation to support the growth of Google’s advertising programs. If you are eligible for an incentive program, you will be contacted with appropriate opportunities for participation. But just take a look at those incentives. If an ad agency spends $30 million of its clients’ money on video or display advertising on Google, it would get $3 million back in financial incentives. On the lower end, $5 million in ad spending, would generate a $100,000 payment. I’m sure all that would go to “research.” Photo credit: flickr/ Nathan Gibbs CrunchBase Information Google Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Speaking Of… TRON: Legacy – Interviews with Cast & Crew, Part 1 & 2 (TCTV) Top
Ok TRON fans, have I got a treat for you! I just returned from a two day TRON press event with some awesome interviews from the creators, cast and crew of TRON: Legacy and the original TRON. I asked many of the questions I  solicited from TechCrunch commenters  and everyone seemed to love them — especially Jeff Bridges. I mean, maybe they say this to everyone, but his handlers said they had not seen him that animated until our question came along. Bridges was also pretty excited to talk about the tech involved in the making of TRON: Legacy. He took on the project of making the movie with enthusiasm when he realized he could do much of the acting without cameras by using motion capture.  Keep a look out for his interview in part 3&4 along with the super sexy and awesome Olivia Wilde ! Part one (video below) includes interviews with Steven Lisberger , the original writer and director of TRON and co-producer of TRON: Legacy. I asked Steven this question from TechCrunch reader “hmbguy”: “[I] watched the original while in high school. It was a BIG reason I went into computing, the other being Tracy Kidder’s “Soul of a new machine”. I’m curious to know if the original cast thought their movie would have such a huge impact. From what I’ve heard that’s where we get cron on Unix as well.” The second half of part one includes interviews with Bruce Boxleitner , who is well known for his roles as Alan Bradley and title role Tron in the original TRON movie as well as Bruce Sheridan in Babylon 5; and James Frain who plays Thomas Cromwell in Showtime’s The Tudors as well as Clu’s evil sidekick in TRON: Legacy. I loved all of my interviews, but I would have to honestly say that I loved theirs the most. They were super animated and Bruce even got into character for a moment, which was really cool. Boxleitner was genuinely stoked that TRON has inspired a lot of people to get into technology. The first half of part 2 features Beau Garrett (House, former Guess model, Fantastic Four), Michael Sheen (Underworld, Frost/Nixon) and costume designer Christine Bieselin Clark who also designed costumes for Watchmen (she is an avid TechCrunch reader — go Christine!!) My focus on the 2nd half is around the glamor of the TRON fashion world. Beau Garrett plays a role as one of the sirens (I’ll explain what these beautiful women do later..) in TRON and Michael Sheen is in charge of the End Of Line club. Christine led the team that put together the amazing outfits featured in the movie and she’s a true geek and was excited that we were actually interested in how everyone fit into those suits and still looked amazing; let’s put it this way — there’s a LOT of compression. She doesn’t advise that any of us try this at home and suggests that we become familiar with Home Depot and some reflective tape for our own suits. If you decide to take her advice, just be careful that you don’t end up looking like TRON Guy ….
 
Federal Prosecutors: Supply Line Leaks May Constitute Insider Trading Top
A new federal investigation is focusing on the legality of supply line leaks and their consequences on Wall Street. The poster boy for this would have to be Apple, around which an entire manufacturing and distribution channels has grown, and which is now too big to plug every leak — especially now that memetically propagating news magnifies every murmur into a clamor, for better or for worse . The subjects of the probe are some research firms that make it their business to know what’s going on in, say, Shenzhen or Taiwan, where friends and industry experts dispense information that may or may not be confidential about such things as big new orders, equipment changes, and meetings with other companies. The feds say that at some point, these things must constitute insider trading. I say good luck drawing that particular line. It’s funny watching various sectors react as their perimeters begin to come in conflict with the internet. Not only because that initial reaction usually simultaneously overreaches and underestimates , but because I relish that moment when an industry or person realizes exactly what a den of vipers they’ve stepped into. I wish I could actually be in the room when they first understand the situation. The financial industry and its regulators demonstrate a strange mix of progressive and antiquated thinking. Not to get into political or big money issues here, but even the limited democratization of information currently underway could have serious implications, though there are channels of information deep enough and obscure enough that even 4chan might not be able to uncover them for quite some time. In the meantime, more public forms of “inside” information are becoming public knowledge, and I think the feds are going to have a hell of a time laying down the law on what is confidential, what is privileged, what is within the bounds of journalistic anonymity, and so on. They’re getting hit with the industrial equivalent of privacy concerns. For example, what role do confidentiality agreements signed in China by factory workers have in our laws? What about temporary agreements when they do contract work for an American company? Is a factory floor employee allowed to connect the dots by himself, with knowledge only of, say, what size the current iPad is and what size the unbranded display he’s assembling is? Is it the corporation’s responsibility to compartmentalize and enforce secrecy, or is it each individual company’s? Whose is the liability when a truck delivers an iPad 2 to the wrong address, and some Hong Kong blogger picks up on it? The SEC and whoever else is involved here will have to make a huge number of judgment calls, and a large portion of them will be wrong. Not that I blame them, or that I could do much better myself. But I will say this: any government effort to make illegal the free passage of publicly available information will meet with failure. How can you forbid a research company from making use of anonymous information provided to an industry outlet like Digitimes? They publish “insider” information every day, and I check it every day, because that is valuable information for what I do . Is similar information made confidential simply by the fact that it hasn’t been reported yet? There is a chance that citing such information in decisions to sell, buy, and so on will become illegal. Think about how stupid that is. Yet the regulators are caught between a rock and a hard place, and either the law must change or they must disregard the now-outdated law in light of (relatively) recent developments in technology and information markets. At the moment, however, it’s still appears to be just a preliminary investigation, so there’s no need to get too worked up about it. Still, be prepared for some strange and labyrinthine regulations concerning what information does and doesn’t constitute a breach of confidentiality. And then watch every single party affected sidestep those regulations. “Better luck next time” is all we’ll be able to say.
 
Android Market To Show Content Ratings. Devs: Get Them In Or Be Labeled "Mature" Top
As Apple CEO Steve Jobs like to point out , the Android Market is great for users who want to find porn. While that may not be exactly true, other Android-based stores are trying to make it true . And perhaps perception was getting too close to reality, as today, Google has announced that in the next few weeks, they’ll be showing content ratings for all apps listed in the Market. While Android has previously had a content rating policy , prior to this, these ratings were not surfaced to users. Nor does it seem like they were strictly enforced. As a result, it was difficult to distinguish an app with mature content from those that were meant for kids. Now, all apps in the Market will be required to show one of four content rating levels: All, Pre-teen, Teen, & Mature, Google’s Eric Chu writes today. Starting next week, Android developers are going to be required to submit new or updated apps with one of these ratings if they want to be included in the Market. Developers not doing updates or new uploads are also being asked to add a rating to their app, and they’ll have “several weeks” to do so. But be warned: those that do not will find their apps default to the “Mature” rating. “ This new capability will provide users with additional information to help them select the best applications for them ,” writes Chu. CrunchBase Information Android Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Hitwise: Visits To Black Friday Sites Up 18 Percent, Searches Up 31 Percent From Last Year Top
All signs point to this holiday season being a prosperous one for retailers. Hitwise is reporting that searches around Black Friday are up 31%, and the share of visits to Black Friday websites are up 18% from last year during the same time. Hitwise’s data also shows that more women than men are visiting the Black Friday websites with visits split 59% female and 41% male and visitors to Black Friday sites tend to be younger with 59% of visitors under the age of 35. In terms of the retailers who are receiving visits from interested consumers, Walmart was top retail site receiving traffic from Black Friday sites for last week. Target was top retail site receiving traffic from Black Friday searches for last week and Walmart takes the top spot for searches this week. Interestingly, referrals from Facebook.com and Twitter.com to Black Friday sites are up 36% in 2010 vs. 2009, indicating that more consumers and retailers are looking to social media to spread information about deals. In terms of emails about Black Friday deals Hitwise is reporting that email marketing volume is up 23% in 2010 vs. 2009; with Black Friday emails hitting consumer inboxes as early as Oct. 1 of this year. While we don’t know how profitable Black Friday will be for retailers, an increase in searches and traffic shows that consumers could be pulling out the credit card more often this holiday season. Yesterday, comScore forecasted that online holiday spending would increase by 11 percent to $32.4 billion. You can check out our Black Friday survival guide here. CrunchBase Information Hitwise Information provided by CrunchBase
 
Will 2011 Finally Be the Year of the Cleantech IPO? (TCTV) Top
In retrospect, Tesla may have been cleantech’s Netscape moment. It didn’t get off to the world’s greatest start, but like a few other venture-backed IPOs , lately it has been trading at nearly double its opening price. Meanwhile, a few other cleantech companies have filed S-1s and several more are waiting in the wings, watching to see what the market does. To continue the Netscape analogy, 2011 could even see Elon Musk emerge as the new Jim Clark if one of his other companies SolarCity files, as some in the industry expect. Nat Goldhaber of the venture firm Claremont Creek Ventures argues that 2011 will be the year of the cleantech IPO, and it’s not just because of those handful of hot companies are finally ready for primetime and bankers are itching to take them out. Several factors are finally coming together including general improvement in the economy, soaring global demand for energy and a sense that more favorable cleantech regulation is inevitable, at least on a state level. Goldhaber joined me by Skype to talk about what sectors and companies could lead next year’s IPO wave and which company in his portfolio has him the most excited. (There’s also talk of jetpacks and robot butlers…)
 
The Black Friday Survival Guide Top
It wasn’t easy accumulating the research data displayed in the following guide. I saw horrific sights working retail for seven long years in both a big box electronic store and a major shopping center. I saw things that will haunt me the rest of my days. I watched two kids get trampled by what I call Double-Wides because Circuit City clearanced-out Dreamcasts for $80 on Black Friday. I once hid behind a massive video display just for a few moments to myself during the chaos. I’ve seen people fight, bite, and trample other members of our human race just to save a few dollars. What follows is perhaps the most comprehensive Black Friday guide ever assembled. There are shopping tactics, buying guides, survival tips, and a thorough rundown of the different types of Black Friday shoppers you will encounter. Please, if you’re considering shopping on Black Friday, think about your family, your dog, your livelihood and reconsider. If you’re still convinced that it’s the right thing to do, be sure to click through to The Black Friday Survival Guide. Your life literally depends on it. Read More
 
Twitter: "No Plans For A Twitter News Network", But It's Still An Interesting Idea Top
Earlier today, Reuters ran a short interview with Twitter co-founder Biz Stone in which he talked about the possibility of tweets being used to create a “Twitter News Service”. It seems pretty likely that Stone was just running with a hypothetical idea that was on his mind at the time of the interview. (Okay, it seems very likely .) And in fact, it’s hardly the first time a Twitter co-founder has talked about similar ideas in the press — which nothing ever came of (at least not yet). But that doesn’t mean it’s not an interesting idea. As Stone tells Reuters about Twitter, ” From the very beginning this has seemed almost as if it’s a news wire coming from everywhere around the world. “ Back in the early days of Twitter, it wasn’t the mundane updates from web people that made the service so interesting to me, it was when it started being a go to place for realtime news. This started with Twitter’s ability to spread links faster than other services at the time. But it quickly escalated into something much more when an earthquake would happen somewhere else in the world, or a massive fire would break out. People would be there, on the ground, tweeting about it in realtime. It made the traditional news outlets look like absolute dinosaurs. So it shouldn’t be any surprise that now, a few years later, many of them are using the service on a daily basis to augment their news coverage. Ask yourself this: if a news story was breaking right now, which would you turn to first: your television or Twitter? For many people, it’s now the latter . Twitter is simply a faster way to watch events unfold, and to get more information from all sides. Sure, a lot of misinformation is spread on the network too, but the ecosystem is actually pretty good at quickly filtering out what’s fact from fiction. And it sounds as if Stone is thinking about this as well. “ Stone said he envisaged other news organizations might take more specialized access ,” according to Reuters. That seems to imply that Twitter could potentially create a new, focused tweet firehose that news organizations could use. Perhaps they could be given all the information coming into Twitter about a story, and they’d be in charge of sorting through it and picking fact from fiction. If Twitter had a way to quiet the noise and focus the stream in such a way, this would be very valuable information to any news organization. Further, Stone later says that Twitter could also offer a service where the outlets could easily get in touch with Twitter users on the ground of a story, to perhaps turn them into instant embedded reporters. Of course, the big question in this big hypothetical scenario would be if Twitter could or should make money from this? Reuters notes that Twitter sells access to their firehose of data to Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, implying that such a news firehose might be for sale as well. And many news outlets would likely pay for such a thing. But Stone uses the words “open” and “shared” in his actual quotes. If Twitter actually wants to “ be a force for good “, perhaps such a service is better left free. Otherwise, they’d be dictating who got access to potentially important information based on financial agreements. Of course, all of this is just hypothetical anyway. Again, Twitter has “ no plans for a ‘Twitter News Network’ “. But never say never. Especially when there’s clearly something to an idea. @SG Sean Garrett Ask @ biz a "can you imagine Twitter doing…" Q, & he's going to get creative and imagine. Related: No plans for a "Twitter news network". about 3 hours ago via web Retweet Update : And here’s a link to the video of Stone’s interview with Reuters. Note that Stone says Twitter would obviously be open to partnering with any news networks on such an idea. [image: Optimum7.com ] CrunchBase Information Twitter Information provided by CrunchBase
 

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