To all the Web 2.0 sites that think they are going make a fortune off of “free” user-generated content — it's the users calling…they want their money. And if you don't give it to them, they are going to take their content elsewhere.
I think the real winners long-term will be platforms that enable a new generation of content producers to break free from the old media content hierarchy and make money from their creativity. As Umair reminds us, it's all about enabling creativity.It
AdWords worked because it offered advertiser a much more accountable, more controllable, and, thus, more efficient advertising system, but it was only a transitional stage. The real question now is which system(s) will drive the next big leap in efficienc
Looking at the big picture, Inform's approach speaks to a future where the competition over relevant links, the coveted click, and the holy grail of meaningful actions will become ever more intense.
The explosion of web-based technology is undoubtedly a huge opportunity — but it is also a huge pitfall. Beta is fine, and working out the kinks is fine — but at some point, it has to just work.
As I've said before, I think the big opportunity is in giving users a piece of the action.
So for me, the radical long tail notion is that it's no longer necessary to “buy” a hit — you can leverage the socialization of the web — combined with the web's unlimited shelf space — to generate a hit from the bottom up, virtually for fre
Even those who believe a digital takeover is inevitable don't want to admit it because it puts their existing revenue streams at risk too soon, before they've built the ark that will carry them safely to a new business model.
News Corp needs to stop thinking in terms of “owning” MySpace's page views — advertisers don't want to advertise on those pages because News Corp doesn't control the content. And MySpace users don't want the ads appearing on “their” page
But what if there were an approach to cost-per-action that could overcome these problems?
Navigating Google ads feels like Yahoo circa 1997 — a lot of clicking and browsing in hopes of finding the right fit. The organic search results may be super-relevant, but the “sponsored” results are of limited value because the cost-per-click bids
I asked a diverse set of advertisers whether they planned to use Google Checkout — NEVER, was the near universal answer. I'll never share my data with Google. I'll never put my data into Google's black box, because then they will know how much I
Want to have a blog that engages your readers on an emotional level, scores no-cost links and traffic, and takes your business to an entirely new level?Tell great stories.
Here's the bottom line: what's inside our minds is no longer private (or a lot less private). Nothing we do on the Internet is private. And there is a not insignificant risk that if we don't come to terms with this as a society, there will be many u
Well, it turns out that the digital generation does care about their privacy (and they are a lot smarter than you think).
This type of advertising is as intuitive as search advertising — target consumers when they have indicated an intention to shop, in this case by visiting an online retail site. It's strange that it took this long and that everyone isn't doing it yet
Good marketers aren't liars, except to the extent all people are—because we all lie to ourselves constantly. We want to hear stories that fit our existing world views, whether those views are accurate or not. And we want to primarily satisfy emotional
There's no shame in not having the answer. Nobody's got the answer yet. But admitting that you're just making it up is a critical step in actually figuring it out.
It's easy to criticize NBBC and MySpace for not taking 2.0 ideological openness to the extreme, but the truth is that nobody has demonstrated yet how to maximize profits while ceding all control. Google, for all the leveraging of open architecture and n
It's one thing to leverage the previously untapped pool of brand enthusiasts who might be capable of producing ads that are as good as or better than those produced by “professional” marketers. It's quite another to try to take advantage of consum