Category: Web 2.0 & Democracy

Google: Cash, not Quality, Redefines Top Paid Search Placement

As Google changes its policies so it can dramatically broaden its reach for advertisers, esp. the ones with the deepest marketing pockets, it’s key to understand what it means for the future of democratically distributed content. We believe Google’s recent change to its “top rank” formula for paid search ads is important to note. One day, “quality” can be a parameter is helping define what sites show up first; the next, as it works to generate greater revenues, it’s who can pay the most. Here are key excerpts from a two-part story on ClickZ: [my italics] “The change is to the formula used to calculate whether Google gives the advertiser (and specifically, the ad) top placement. Top slots are defined as the slots above the organic results, as opposed to ads shown down the right rail…What changed is the formula Google uses to decide whether to show your ad in the top portion of the page or leave it in the right rail. To have an ad considered for top placement, you need a minimum Quality Score…Assuming you have a sufficiently high Quality Score, the new formula uses a combination of maximum bid and Quality Score to determine eligibility subject to a new minimum price for top placement set by Google.

This allows Google to decide, on a keyword-by-keyword and SERP-by-SERP basis, how much it wants to earn for the top spots. The minimum bid price for top positions is undisclosed and subject to change.” [blog note: SERP is the search engine results page]

The search function has become an important part of democratic media. Keeping the leading search engine accountable and transparent—let alone ensuring competition and meaningful access for diverse information—is key. All of the major search engines, btw, inc. Yahoo! and MSN, require serious public interest scrutiny.

Google’s Ad Industry-related Job Openings: help us become the “definitive source of marketing intelligence”

These three job announcements from Google are too good to ignore. They say a lot about where Google–and global society–are headed. I’ve excerpted from the complete ad (but links are there if you want to apply!). Take a look esp. at # 2.:

1. “The role: Industry Marketing Manager, Advertising Agencies – New York

As an Industry Marketing Manager in Industry Development, you’ll establish and build marketing strategies and tactics for Advertising Agencies. This involves positioning and tailoring Google products to the Advertising Agencies Vertical, staying current with consumer and industry trends, developing a reputation as a thought leader, contributing to effective collateral and interactive presentations, and working with Research on identifying your sector’s needs, contributing to the custom research scope and packaging the results. Expertise in the Ad Agencies Vertical is preferred…

Responsibilities:

  • Create and execute strategic marketing plans and programs to support Google’s advertising sales efforts in search, display, TV, audio, print, online video and commerce…”

2. “Consumer Advertising Insights Director… As the Consumer Advertising Insights Director, you will develop and grow our existing team of consumer and industry research analysts. Working with stakeholders across functions here at Google, you will drive the overall advertising research business strategy. Your team will be responsible for developing external communication frameworks for proprietary insights, primary research roadmaps, and secondary research programs. Working with the world’s leading marketers, your team will provide actionable marketing insights across industries, brands, and customers, informing the very marketing decisions that get executed through Google and beyond.

Key responsibilities will include demonstrating the value of Google as a brand-building platform, providing unique insights into consumer perception, behavior, and attitudes around the brands we are building, and managing relationships with vendors and clients. This role will provide the opportunity to work side-by-side with Google’s sales organization to provide subject matter expertise for our customers’ marketing and consumer research functions.

Responsibilities:

  • Establish Google as the definitive source of marketing intelligence.
  • Produce actionable and industry-leading insights around consumer web behavior.
  • Assess online advertising effectiveness and manage related programs.
  • Develop correlations between online and offline media and become an intelligent broker of media mix solutions, by client, industry, and marketing objective.
  • Analyze consumer web behavior for macro insights and trends.
  • Develop new industry intelligence by conducting independent primary research studies.
  • Partner with leading think-tanks (industry groups, academia, consulting firms).”

3. “The role: Industry Marketing Manager, Brand Advertising Solutions

The Industry Marketing Manager for Brand Advertising Solutions will work to define and execute marketing programs that help drive advertiser adoption of Google’s online display and video advertising solutions. With the rapid evolution of the online advertising landscape, and Google as the leading innovator in that market, this role will be at the center of much industry change. You’ll work closely with both Google and YouTube sales management on marketing programs that educate and influence the world’s largest advertisers and ad agencies. You’re an outstanding writer, an excellent communicator and a team leader. You also have the ability to create effective, interactive presentations and deliver them in front of large groups. Your thought leadership, excellent client-servicing and relationship skills, and entrepreneurship allow you to make persuasive presentations in front of new and existing customers.

Responsibilities:

  • Create and execute strategic marketing plans and programs to support Google’s advertising sales efforts, with focus on YouTube ads and online display ads.
  • Analyze data, trends and client performance, contribute to solid strategic sales plans, and prepare research and data for presentations the Sales team will use.
  • Create marketing materials such as case studies, thought-leadership pieces, client presentations, executive presentations, videos, media kits and white papers.
  • Provide insights and case studies that promote Google’s advertising platforms in your proposals.
  • Develop event strategy and drive your sector’s visibility by speaking at industry events and interacting with the media.”

Knight Foundation and a Grant for Viacom’s MTV: Funding a giant on its Journalism advisory committee

We have long had concerns about foundations funding media conglomerates to provide public service content. So, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s recent award of $700,000 to MTV was troubling for us. The grant, part of Knight’s News Challenge awards, was so MTV can create “a Knight Mobile Youth Journalist (Knight “MyJos”) in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia to report weekly – on cell phones, and other media – on key issues including the environment, 2008 presidential election and sexual health.” Viacom’s 2006 revenues were $11.5 billion. Don’t you think there’s enough left over to pay for the mobile journalism program! The idea that MTV should be subsidized for contributing to public service is wrong-headed. Besides, MTV is engaged in such mobile activities to help build up its brand so it can earn more online advertising dollars.

Journalism foundations such as Knight–and J-Schools–should be holding the media industry’s editorial feet to the fire, shaming them to spend more money on serious journalism. Knight should not be funding media conglomerates whose owner resides comfortably in Beverly Hills. Meanwhile, it what raises some interesting questions about “insider funding,” we note that Viacom’s MTV VP Ian Rowe serves on the Knight Foundation advisory committe for journalism. Rowe is quoted in the Knight Foundation press release announcing its News Challenge grants as a grantee spokesperson.

PS: What timing. Broadcasting & Cable just reported that Knight is again teaming with Viacom’s MTV to give away $500,000 to support “young people who have ideas for pushing journalism into the digital age.” It’s called the “Young Creators Award.” We hope all the money has come from Viacom. By the way, Knight and media beat reporters should be asking what MTV is doing with the data it can collect from mobile users. Will it engage in targeting for its other products? In what ways are the Knight supported work designed to build up the commercial role of MTV? How much is such pro-social ad campaigns worth to Viacom’s bottom-line?

Yahoo! has unveiled an online targeting ad category for elections–raising serious questions about privacy and potential voter manipulation. Now, in addition to fast foods and cars, marketers can use Yahoo!’s ad platforms to target voters. Here’s what Yahoo! says it can do [excerpt]:

“The most sophisticated targeting tools that allow micro-targeting of audiences… We offer the most targeted elections audiences with more options than any other network or media…
Control and manage your message with paid media solutions designed to deliver on your objectives…
Create impact with rich, interactive ads designed to allow data capture and video…
Extensive data and analytics that ensure strategic measurement of results…
Access tools that provide detailed information on who is interacting with your ads. Gain an extra edge during your campaign with detailed trial and repeat data on consumers exposed to your messages…Yahoo! offers consulting on rich media solutions—ensuring your campaign is maximized to meet its target objectives and is leveraging the latest technology and most cutting edge learnings in creative and technical best practices.”

Among the targeting tools Yahoo! offers candidates and campaigns are [excerpt]:

“Behavioral Targeting
Target visitors by what they are currently doing and have been doing. Looking for car shoppers, soccer moms or recent shoppers in any category? We have them.

Database Targeting
You’ve done a lot to build your database, how about putting it to work on Yahoo!? Match your customers with ours, use your own segmentation, target messages to your best customers, and find lots more who look-like them too.”

None of these new media marketing approaches should be used by candidates and campaigns. There first should be a broad public debate about the power of these technologies and how they might be used. Only after we have the appropriate national privacy policy and the development of ethical and legal standards for electoral digital micro-targeting and marketing, should we see campaigns embrace the full range of online advertising approaches.

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Murdoch’s MySpace expands data collection/ad targeting, including on whether users say they smoke, drink, religious beliefs, etc.

The powerful commercial forces shaping new media platforms like MySpace–so they can better reap big dollars from powerful brand advertisers– should raise user alarm bells. MySpace is going to [our italics] “leverage the data input by each MySpace user into their profile from a group of predefined menu choices (related to questions such as drinker, children, education, smoker, religion, college, employer, etc). Within the next year, MySpace will be able to target ads based on what users write and place on their Myspace page itself, such as what TV shows members like to watch or music they listen to. Aside from focusing on members’ login pages, the ad targeting will be used across all of the MySpace-programmed, “safe” advertising sections, such as the Music homepage and MySpaceTV.” That’s according to a 8/24 report from paidcontent.org

On August 17th, Coca Cola also paid $1 million to “have its logo splashed across the entire home page of the Fox Interactive Media social net for the entire day.”

Such news follows last week’s report from the Wall Street Journal on Facebook’s plans to expand the role of advertising and targeted marketing as well. Much more work needs to be done to create social networks where marketing is done responsibly in terms of privacy, environmental sustainability, and with the focus on revenues serving community interests.

Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission should open up an investigation. It’s additional evidence that the agency has to swiftly act to protect consumers, including youth. The upcoming town hall on online marketing and data collection–done in response to a complaint filed by this blogger’s group and USPIRG–is insufficient. What will it take for the FTC to be proactive in this area? Congress should hold hearings on how well the agency is truly addressing the ever-growing threats to online privacy from interactive marketing, including its impact on the public health.

PS: Just a reminder about what a former Fox Interactive president said about MySpace, according to trade reports: the “digital gold inside of MySpace wasn’t the number of users, but the information they’re providing, structured and unstructured data” …

PPS: More on what to expect from profile-based targeting via MySpace [excerpt from 8/7/07 Mike Barrett interview] :”By October or November we’ll have broken these 11 segments into 100 segments. So you can target people who are not just interested in beauty, but makeup. Or people not just interested in travel, but safari travel. Being able to break down the segments even more finely will add more value to marketers.”

Social Relationship data collection and targeting [via imediaconnection]: “Conventional wisdom says that MySpace and Facebook are powerful because of their massive reach and addictive usage. While true, they are in fact even more powerful because they are able to add significant layers of data to make their advertising more relevant. Indeed, very few properties other than social networks collect the various layers of data necessary to provide true relevance. Social networks have the potential to serve advertisements based on a user’s age, sex, interest, relationship data, and with some modifications, they could add the rest of the data as well.”

The imediaconnection piece says that social network marketers can define relationship data by asking itself: “What do we know about the user’s friends that can enable us to better target the advertising.”

FCC Commissioner Copps is Right. U.S. Needs Broad Debate on Media Policy: Past, Present & Future

Last Friday, FCC Commissioner Michael Copps was a guest on the Bill Moyers Journal public television program. Copps urged the country to have a serious discussion about the future of the U.S. communications system during this crucial period of transition from old to digital media. He is correct that we deserve to make what’s going on–and will likely occur–as conscious and participatory as possible. It’s not a mystery that the corrupt politics of media policy-making and greed have left our journalistic and entertainment institutions largely bereft of public service, deprived us of vibrant journalism, and has prevented diversity of ownership control by both people of color and women. It’s not a secret to see the broadband world we are headed towards, unless we create a national movement focused on creating democratic structures for broadband communications (both policy and market-based).

That’s why the plea by Commissioner Copps should serve as a call-to-action for advocates and others concerned about the future of our media system (hello, J-School Deans and foundations, for example). It’s time to discuss the very rapildy emerging future, as we close the door on the 20th Century struggles that have exemplified broadcast and media ownership policy. Let’s tackle how the “public interest, convenience, and necessity” should be defined in this part of the 21st Century. Before it is entirely decided by the same powerful forces which determined the fate of radio, broadcast T.V. and cable.

When Do Google, Washington Post, Time Warner, Disney, Microsoft, Cox et al. work together lobbying? As they help IAB make the U.S safe for Internet Advertising practices

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has stepped up its efforts as a lobbying force in D.C. The group wants to make sure we don’t have laws and regulations which would meaningfully protect the public, including consumers. Here’s how the IAB describes its “Public Policy Council” (one of the groups many standing councils and committees):

“Proactively lobby Congress and Federal Administrative agencies on privacy issues, with a focus on educating key decision-makers on the importance of the interactive advertising industry. 2. Help craft meaningful legislative proposals that protect consumers’ privacy interests without unduly burdening legitimate interactive advertising practices. 3. Engage the Federal Trade Commission to influence future enforcement proceedings, potential rulemakings, and public workshops on issues central to the interactive advertising industry.”

Here is their mission statement and a list of the policy council members:

Mission

Lead the advocacy efforts of IAB’s membership as they engage all levels of government on key policy issues in order to ensure continued growth of the industry.

Committee Leadership
  • Dave Morgan, Tacoda, Chair
Committee Participants
  • Alan Davidson, Google, Inc.
  • Alan Roth, Zango
  • Alexandra Wilson, Cox Newspapers, Inc.
  • Alissa Kaplan, 24/7 Real Media, Inc.
  • Andrew Moskowitz, Vizi Media
  • Anne Lucey, CBS Digital Media
  • Bennet Kelley, ValueClick Media
  • Bennett Zucker, Right Media Inc.
  • Bill Bailey, Walt Disney Internet Group
  • Bob Filice, Blue Lithium
  • Brad Aaron, Q Interactive
  • Brent Thompson, IAC Media & Advertising
  • Brooks Dobbs, DoubleClick, Inc.
  • Bryce Harlow, CBS Digital Media
  • Caroline Little, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive
  • Charles Curran, AOL
  • Chris Kelly, Facebook
  • Chris Lin, comScore
  • Cliff Harris, Cablevision Advanced Systems
  • Colin Johnson, Motive Interactive Inc
  • Craig Spiezle, MSN (Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions)
  • Dan O’Connell, WeatherBug
  • Danny Choriki, ADTECH US, Inc.
  • David Cancel, Compete, Inc.
  • David Green, NBC Universal Digital Media
  • David Payne, CNN.com
  • Diane McDade, MSN (Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions)
  • Don Mathis, Azoogle Ads, Inc.
  • Erin Miranda, Weather Channel Interactive (Weather.com)
  • Frank Torres, MSN (Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions)
  • George Pappachen, Dynamic Logic
  • Greg Berretta, Zango
  • Gregg Pendola, Walt Disney Internet Group
  • Henry Goldstein, CNET Networks, Inc.
  • Hillary Smith, Right Media Inc.
  • Ho Shin, Advertising.com
  • Jeff Long, Revolution Health Group
  • Joey Lesesne, Cox Newspapers, Inc.
  • John Barabino, Google, Inc.
  • John Hopkins, WebMD
  • John Orlando, CBS Digital Media
  • John Wilk, WorldNow
  • Jonathan Meyers, Forbes.com
  • Josh Brown, CBS Digital Media
  • Jules Polonetsky, AOL
  • Karl Gallant, ValueClick, Inc.
  • Ken Levin, Edmunds.com
  • Ken McGraw, Zango
  • Laura O’Daly, iVillage, Inc
  • Lesley Grossblatt, I/PRO
  • Leslie Dunlap, Yahoo!, Inc.
  • Linda Chan, SourceForge Inc.
  • Linda Schoemaker, aQuantive, Inc.
  • Lisa Anderson, AOL
  • Louis Hengen, Tacoda
  • Marilyn Cade, AT&T
  • Mary Berk, MSN (Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions)
  • Matt Kaminer, WebMD
  • Matthew Stern, Musicloads
  • Melissa DeVita, MediaFLO USA, Inc.
  • Michael Drobac, Ask, Inc
  • Pablo Chavez, Google, Inc.
  • Pesach Lattin, Vizi Media
  • Phil Stelter, Range Online Media, Inc.
  • Richard Bates, Walt Disney Internet Group
  • Rick Lane, News. Corp
  • Robert Gratchner, Atlas Solutions
  • Sarah Deutsch, Idearc Media Corp.’s SuperPages.com
  • Shayne Bryant, Idearc Media Corp.’s SuperPages.com
  • Shayne Wiley, Yahoo!, Inc.
  • Sheri McGaughy, Weather Channel Interactive (Weather.com)
  • Sherrese Smith, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive
  • Steve Emmert, LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell
  • Susan Fox, Walt Disney Internet Group
  • Tom Bartel, Return Path
  • Tom Beck, Enlighten

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Facebook’s new Digital Ad Plan: FTC Needs to Act Now!

Today’s Wall Street Journal story on Facebook’s plans to expand one-to-one interactive ad targeting is just the latest example of the growing threats to personal privacy online [“Facebook Gets Personal With Ad Targeting Plan.” Vauhini Vara. Aug. 23, 2007. sub. required]. The story notes [my italics] that “Facebook Inc. is quietly working on a new advertising system that would let marketers target users with ads based on the massive amounts of information people reveal on the site about themselves. Eventually, it hopes to refine the system to allow it to predict what products and services users might be interested in even before they have specifically mentioned an area.

As the industry watches the Palo Alto, Calif., start-up to see if it can translate its popularity into bigger profits, Facebook has made the new ad plan its top priority…”

Online marketers such as Facebook and so many others want to harvest the ever-flowing rich vein of personal/ behavioral-related info flowing over websites–our friends, interests, media consumption and buying habits, etc.–all so we can be targeted by precision multimedia marketing techniques. The FTC’s recently announced “town hall” meeting about online marketing and privacy–spurred principally by this blogger’s group and US PIRG with our 11/06 complaint–is a completely inadequate response to the problem. Frankly, the FTC cannot act as if they are clueless here, or suggest that the town meeting is part of an intense analysis. The problems are glaring and evident, as we’ve been making clear to the FTC for almost one-year now. It’s time for major policy action to protect the public from unscrupulous marketing techniques designed to invade our privacy and manipulate our behaviors. Facebook should be a wake-up call to the folks at 600 Pennsylvania Ave. and the Hill. If we can’t especially protect Facebook’s young users, (as well as with other social networking sites) it reveals how inadequate our governmental watchdogs are.

PS: It’s worth watching this Ad Age video on how marketers are flocking to Facebook. But a sub. may be required.

Latest stats on Facebook, via MediaPost:”

Facebook has grown three times as fast as MySpace in the past year, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Seeing a massive influx of first-timers, Facebook U.S. visitor numbers reached 26.6 million in May–up a full 89% year-over-year and 3.6 million more than in April, according to comScore.  Worldwide, comScore reported, Facebook reached 47.2 million visitors in May–8.4 million more than in April, and with an average of 20.6 visits per user.”

PPS! Yesterday, the Financial Times had an important story about the CIA using Facebook and other sites to target their recruiting. Here’s an excerpt [my italics]: “Underscoring the power of social-networking sites, the Central Intelligence Agency recently used Facebook to help boost applications for the national clandestine service. The move sparked concerns that the CIA was monitoring members, which the agency denies.

”Earlier this year, the CIA used Facebook – an excellent peer-to-peer marketing tool – to advertise employment opportunities with the agency,” said George Little, a CIA spokesman. “This effort, part of a much broader campaign leveraging traditional and new advertising media, was used strictly for informational purposes.” [source: US launches ‘MySpace for spies’. Demetri Sevastopulo. FT. Aug 21, 2007. ]

New York Times Co. & Behavioral Targeting: When will the paper really cover the privacy and related threats?

The New York Times Co. has long been a leader in the online advertising field. But it has consistently failed to cover/meaningfully report on the implications of what it has been doing and intends to now do. The emergence of online advertising is one of the most important stories affecting our society, in my opinion. More than privacy is at stake, although that issue should be at the forefront of our concerns. We have spoken to reporters and others at the Times about the lack of coverage. We believe that there is a major problem at the paper seriously examining this issue (which, frankly, the paper shares with other major news organizations that also use behavioral targeting technologies, including USA Today and the Wall Street Journal). As we have stated before, the Times Co. is also on the executive committee of the board running the key online advertising issue trade lobbying group working to protect the industry from criticism and policy safeguards.

Yesterday, the New York Times Co. announced a partnership with behavioral targeting firm Revenue Science. The release from Revenue Science explained that: “Revenue Science, Inc., offering the most widely adopted, powerful, and flexible targeting platform for digital media, today announced that The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) has selected the company to provide its best-in-class behavioral targeting capabilities for NYTimes.com, About.com and IHT.com.

The addition of The New York Times Company increases Revenue Science’s roster of leading media brands, which includes the Wall Street Journal Online, FT.com, Nikkei Net and Reuters. Revenue Science’s ability to reach high-value audiences makes it the industry’s premier targeting provider.”

Here’s what Revenue Science says it provides its clients. Tell me, after reading it and other information on its website. Don’t you think it cries out for a very serious story, with continued follow-up? There also must be consistent disclosure from the Times and its news outlets as it covers the online ad industry that they are both politically and financially involved with the issue.
From Behavorial Science (excerpt): As a Revenue Science advertiser, you can take advantage of our Revenue Science Targeting Marketplaceâ„¢ with our Audience Connectâ„¢ solution. Audience Connect enables you to find key audiences for your message across thousands of sites in the Revenue Science Targeting Marketplace, using any of these proprietary targeting techniques:

  • Search Re-Targeting™—You spend a large part of your budget driving search traffic to your site. Once they get there, are they staying? How valuable would it be to reach them again? Now you can find out.
  • Re-Targeting™—Use sophisticated re-targeting technology to move your prospects through the buying cycle.
  • Reach—Segment and qualify people based on interests, behaviors, workplace attributes, geography, and results.
  • Behavioral Segments—
    • Revenue Science Behavioral Segments
      Revenue Science Segments enable advertisers to reach high-quality audiences across the Revenue Science network. Revenue Science provides marketers with access to hundreds of distinct behaviors within each segment. Our industry-leading targeting platform identifies the specific behaviors that best achieve your campaign goals and optimizes your campaigns to use only the strongest-performing behaviors. We offer segments in automotive, travel, technology and finance to name a few.”

Google & Doubleclick: Merging the No 1. Video Platforms

It’s important to follow the online ad marketplace for video-based advertising. Note what a Doubleclick top exec said in a ClickZ interview: ” We claim we do the most video on the Internet.” The same exec also said that “[A]ccording to all the figures, as far as we can tell, we’re the second largest rich media vendor.”

Of course, Google’s YouTube is the number one online video brand as well [a Google rep. is quoted saying that it’s now the eight largest website]. As YouTube explains, it is “the world’s largest online video community allowing millions of people to discover, watch and share originally created videos. YouTube… acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small.”

In other words, the merging of Google with Doubleclick will create an online video and search advertising and marketing powerhouse–one which threatens both competition and privacy (among other issues).