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More Ranting on Blognation: Poor advertising

Sorry, I can’t help myself tonite - I don’t mean to be double posting on sordid BlogNation. That being said: It would seem to me that the business purpose of organizing bloggers into country-oriented verticals (as BlogNation did, for instance, at BlogNation Canada) would be to sell nationally focused advertising to keep food on the blogger’s tables and make everyone happy. Have a look at this screengrab from ca.blognation:

Capital! An advert for “Footy247″ which directs the reader to a blog at http://www.footy247.co.uk/. FYI: The only people in Canada who know what “Footy” is are British ex-pats. Our football comes with pads and is played with a helmet on.

There’s basically nothing redeeming that can be said about this ad. If Footy247 is paying for it, they’re getting scammed on zero-relevance impressions. If its BlogNation’s attempt to fill remnant inventory, it would be better if they didn’t because all this does is detract from the experience.

advertising blognation

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I hate Zwinky’s

…because I’m clearly not in the target demographic. Every time I load Desktop Tower Defense (DTD), I have told “MochiAds” (the in-game ad company that apparently sells DTD inventory) just as much by choosing 1/5 under “Rate this Ad.” And yet, 97% of the time I go to DTD, I get one of the same three stupid Zwinky ads.

So - is the “rate this ad” feature a sham designed to increase ad-memorability by driving a response? Or is MochiAds incapable of selling anything other than Zwinky ad units? Whatever the case, why are they wasting an opportunity to improve the ads served and increase the likelihood of a clickthrough? If I were an advertiser, I’d be annoyed. If I were the DTD people, I’d be annoyed. As a game player, I’m annoyed. Basically, MochiAds seems to be underserving everyone in the value chain here.

And, I know they could improve. MochiAds plants a browser cookie (look for “Mochibot”) that lists my “mochiGUID” - which FYI is “e421d88403a601f70149a530d06c1229.” So - they know who I am and how I’ve rated each ad I’ve seen. So why doesn’t Mochi try to provide me with ads that I do like?

Then again, Google’s vaunted AdSense can’t serve ads for DTD worth a damn either. HandDrawnGames is really missing out.

adsense, adunits, advertising, desktop+tower+defence, desktoptowerdefence, dtd, flash, google, handdrawngames, mochiads zwinky

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Odiogo transforms blog posts into podcasts

Odiogo is a San Fran startup that provides a quick and easy means to genete podcasts from your blog on a post by post basis. Odiogo monitors your RSS feed and converts posts to MP3 “podiocasts” using a typically Stephen Hawking-esque text-to-speech converter.

Odiogo hosts the generated MP3’s and makes them available in your posts with an unobtrusive “listen” button. Clicking it expands a nice embed player (example):

The player currently includes a pre-roll audio ad for Odiogo itself; Odiogo’s business model includes selling ads for this inventory, and their hosting of the MP3’s makes it possible to do so. You can see their business illustrated here. It also makes it possible to look at the complete back-catalog of MP3 inventory that Odiogo will accumulate over time as active inventory - as the host, Odiogo can switch out adds on podcasts of any age. Odiogo includes an element of revenue sharing, although the thresholds and percentages involved are not publicized.

Clicking the “Get this feed on your iPod/mp3 player” link takes you a hosted Odiogo page with subscription and download options:

Odiogo also includes an Odiogo Wordpress Plugin, and somewhat more cubmbersome instructions for getting Odiogo links on Blogger.

Summary

Odiogo takes your text blog and automatically creates a podcast from it. Is there a market from this? The existence of the service seems predicated on the existence of a segment of a consuming public that given the choice would rather listen to than read blog posts. Personally, its not for me; refer to my feelings on vlogging for further explanation. As to whether there’s a larger market - train commuters who want to take some blogs with them on their ipod, for instance - that remains to be seen.

That being said, I wish the Odiogo folks all the best - I’m a big proponent of automated language & media shifting services, and I like the notion of “write-once” content that automatically ports to entirely different consumption modes.

Other Coverage

1. 901AM covers the Listen Button.
2. The Red Ferret puts it to use.
3. Jumbledthoughts also points us to Odiogo competitor Talkr.
4. A Chess World points out Odiogo’s utility for the visually impaired.

advertising, blogging, mp3, odeo, odiogo, podcast revenue

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Google Buys DoubleClick: 3.1 Billion

Wow - Google has snapped up DoubleClick from under Microsoft for 3.1 billion, reports the New York Times. Implications:

1. More Inventory for Google on MySpace, and elsewhere
2. Established relationships with advertisers, site publishers, and ad agencies that do big media buys
3. Various software components, from ad-serving, to an ad-unit “exchange”
4. Keeping DoubleClick out of Microsoft’s hands: Priceless

NYT wonders how Google will avoid channel conflict/conflict of interest with its other advertising channels. I’m very curious as to how this will fit into Google’s product shelf - perhaps doubleclick will be positioned as a “pro” product vs. regular adsense?

Interesting also that Friday afternoon was chosen to announce this. Talk about hype killer. Does Google’s relatively flat stock of late incorporate the probability of this news or is it going to jump?

[from SearchEngineLand]

acquisition, advertising, billions, doubleclick, google microsoft

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