But while lots of pay-TV operators are happy to keep things the way they are, Ergen keeps trying to blow them up: The Dish Network co-founder and chairman is constantly fighting with the rest of the TV Industrial Complex, in disputes that often end up in court.

His most recent and prominent battle is also the most important one: Dish’s new “Auto Hop” technology lets satellite TV subscribers automatically skip commercials, and that has both advertisers and TV networks in fits, for obvious reasons.

But that’s just one of Ergen’s recent adventures. He has also bought Blockbuster out of bankruptcy in an attempt to take on Netflix, engaged in bruising battles with Cablevision and its AMC Networks spinoff, and rattled his saber against ESPN and its ever-increasing sports fees.

Oh. He’s also talking to Google, and everyone else, about getting into the wireless business.

All of which means the former blackjack and poker player is someone everyone in the media world watches very, very closely, even though he doesn’t say much in public. Which means we’re very excited to interview him at our D: Dive Into Media conference in February.

Ergen will be joining an all-star cast on Feb. 11 and 12 at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel, Calif. Here’s who we’ve told you about so far: Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, Hearst Magazines president David Carey, Google chief business officer Nikesh Arora, Facebook partnership vice president Dan Rose, HBO co-president Eric Kessler, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, CollegeHumor co-founder Ricky Van Veen, Vice Media co-founder Shane Smith, Intel media head Erik Huggers and Samsung media head David Eun, Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos (and guest), New Republic owner Chris Hughes, and USA Today publisher Larry Kramer.

And there’s more to come! Stay tuned. Meanwhile, we’re getting close to showtime, so make your reservations now.

But you’re probably using it watch stuff when you’re sitting on your couch or in your bed.

That’s not the use case Apple, Google and other gadget makers show off in their ads. But it does seem to be the way people use this stuff in real life, and we’ve been hearing about it for a while.

Here’s the latest data point: Research commissioned by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which says 63 percent of video viewing on phones — not tablets, just phones –happens at home.

And it’s quite likely to be happening in bed. And a lot of the time, the TV’s on, too.

It’s possible that as we get sophisticated phones and higher mobile broadband speeds (ie LTE, etc), that things change, and people start watching more stuff on the go.

But my hunch is that the telcos’ move away from all-you-can eat data plans will make this trend even more pronounced. Important implications for mobile content makers and advertisers.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau says digital ad spending grew 14 percent in the first half of the year. That’s a lot better than traditional advertising, or just about any other industry. But it’s also slower than last year, when digital ad spending grew 23 percent during the same period.

You can pick any excuse you want to explain the slowing growth, and all of them might be true: The economy is wobbly, last year’s growth numbers were still part of the bounceback from the 2008/2009 recession, and/or perhaps digital ads are simply not going to grow as quickly anymore, because they’re not a brand-new industry anymore.

But if you want rocket growth off a small base, you can find that in the IAB report, as well. Mobile ads nearly doubled, to $1.2 billion, during the first half of the year.

Mobile accounted for 7 percent of digital ad spending during the first six months of the year, and 8 percent of spending in Q2, as you can see in the charts below (click image to enlarge):

Look for a version of this report to show up in all sorts of mobile ad start-ups’ pitch decks in the next few months. But do remember that those charts could also be used to make the case for Google: The IAB counts mobile search ads in its mobile-only numbers, which means that a good chunk of those dollars belong exclusively to Larry Page and company.

Here’s that snapshot, from the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s 2011 report.

Two important takeaways:

• Search ads (read: Google) are not only as dominant as ever, but even more so. They accounted for 47 percent of digital ad spend in the U.S. last year, up from 45 percent the year before.
• Mobile ads, which are getting a lot of attention right now courtesy of Facebook, Apple, Google and everyone else, are still fairly small. Last year they accounted for just 5 perent of total spend, or $1.6 billion — less than a couple Instagrams. But they’re growing very fast, up 149 percent over 2010. Which explains some of the ravenous appetite for Millennial Media shares when that mobile ad company went public last month (still, like most other tech IPOs, MM has given up ground since its initial pop.

Bonus chart! Here’s some red meat for people who like to talk about The End Of TV, which they are sure will be brought about by the Web. Lookit here! Last year, Web ads triumphed over cable!

Except this one comes with important contextual caveats:

• Cable TV has two revenue streams — one of them comes from advertisers, and the other comes from you, the cable TV subscriber, whose monthly bill gets redistributed to cable programmers in the form of affiliate fees. And those affiliate fees are still climbing.
• You won’t really be able to argue that the Web is beating TV until TV advertisers start moving their budgets, or big chunks of their budgets, to the Web. And that hasn’t happened yet, which is the reason the Web guys are now trying to ape the TV guys.

Ancient history, at least as far as the Internet’s concerned: Marketers spent $7.3 billion on U.S. Web ads in the first three months of 2011. That’s a record for Q1, says the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

That number represents a 23 percent year-over-year increase. I’ve gotten used to adding caveats here, pointing out that these boosts are coming off a low base, but that’s no longer the case, either–2010 was pretty good for most of the Web ad business, too. Unless you’re talking about Yahoo or AOL, which have lagged the market.

And, as always, it’s worth remembering that these stats are largely a reflection of Google’s health, since the search giant represents a big chunk of the IAB’s totals.

[Image credit: Steve Jurvetson]

I don’t have a price for the deal, but from the outside, it looks a lot like the one we saw last month, when Specific Media picked up BBE: A big ad network that doesn’t do much with video buys its way into that business.

A reminder that while video ads are booming, they’re still relatively small: The Interactive Advertising Bureau says marketers spent $627 million on video in the first half of this year. That’s up 31 percent from 2009, but it’s still just 5 percent of the Web ad pie.

And while Google says that YouTube is getting ads on videos seen two billion times per week, there is plenty of room in the market for players most people have never heard of, like Tremor, YuMe and BrightRoll. But we will see more consolidation as the industry grows up a bit.

In 2008, Undertone raised a reported $40 million via a funding round supplied by JMI Equity. I believe that some of that money went back out the door to some managers and early investors. But at the time, Undertone said it would use the money for expansion, so that’s presumably where some of the Jambo money came from.

In both cases, that lurch on the right hand side shows you how unpleasant things got post-Lehman, and the subsequent recovery shows that we’re getting close to where we were back in 2008. So that’s good.

The only problem with the data is that it only goes through this summer, and we’re just about to get a new set of Q3 numbers, starting with Google’s (GOOG) on Thursday. So best to check back then to get an updated sense of how things really stand.

If you’re in a hurry, though, you can get a good sense of Denton, at least in present tense, via this clip. It’s an abridged version of my onstage chat with the Gawker Media founder at an Interactive Advertising Bureau event last month, and the editors have done a nice job of distilling it down to seven minutes. Bonus for you guys: This thing is so well-edited that I don’t appear in a single frame.

And if you’re in a real hurry, here’s the money quote, which I extracted from Denton by asking him if he thinks what Gawker does is “journalism”:

In the U.S., traditional media has killed itself. And it’s provided a great opportunity for organizations like us, because they have cared too much about the journalism, about the Pulitzers, about the respect of their peers–and too little about the entertainment of their readers.”

If you’re looking for more detail from our talk, which included Denton lavishing praise on Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs but refusing to shed any light on the Gizmodo/iPhone 4 case, check out David Kaplan’s summary at PaidContent.

One cure: Move those ads to your phone or your iPad. Where for whatever reason, you are much more likely to pay attention. At least for now.

Citigroup (C) analyst Mark Mahaney, who just stopped by the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s mobile conference, offers up these data points from digital ad shops JumpTap and PointRoll:

• JumpTap says surfers are three times more likely to click on a “rich media” ad on a smartphone vs. a traditional banner ad on a PC. And they are two times more likely click on movie trailer ads on a smartphone.
• PointRoll says that people click on traditional ads a mere 0.26 percent of the time, but that that number increases to 0.5 percent on smartphones and 1.10 percent on Apple’s (AAPL) iPad.

Confirmation bias and limited data set aside, the numbers make plenty of sense: Of course people are more prone to click on these things on their phone or their tablet. Because people will always be prone to check out a novelty.

In fact, you could argue that the newness factor here isn’t nearly as powerful as it should be: When Hotwired started running the first browser-based banner ads for AT&T (T) 15 years ago, the campaign boasted a staggering 78 percent clickthrough rate.

Meanwhile, for all the years of hype, the mobile display ad market is barely there–it may hit $150 million or so this year. The iPad ad market is even smaller, of course. But they’re both going to grow, which means any novelty they do have will wear off. What then?

[Image credit: Paleontour]

Pick your data point:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau says U.S. spending on Web ads hit $5.9 billion in the first quarter of 2010. That’s a record for the first quarter of the year, but it’s a relatively modest 7.5 percent increase over a very crummy comparison in 2009.

And bear in mind that the IAB’s data include search spending, which means that the spike is in large part a reflection of Google’s (GOOG) health.

Want a bigger number? Try comScore, which says that the volume of display ads, i.e., the kind you might see on this page, shot up 15 percent in the last year. But while comScore (SCOR) says total spending on display ads hit $2.7 billion for the quarter and that the average CPM (cost per thousand impressions) hit $2.48, it isn’t reporting how those numbers compare to last year’s results.

ComScore spokesman Andrew Lipsman says his company isn’t putting out comparative numbers because it has changed its reporting methodology, so it doesn’t have apple-to-apples data. But he allowed that overall spending, and prices, have at least increased “modestly” in the last year.

So that’s not-bad news for display giants like Yahoo (YHOO) and AOL (AOL). And most definitely not for Facebook, which is now selling more ad impressions than any other Web publisher in the U.S.

Online ads bumped up 2.6 percent in the last quarter of 2009, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. That’s much less than anecdotal reports from some publishers would lead you to believe. On the other hand, Q4 was up 14 percent compared with Q3, so that gives you an idea of where things are going.

And this graph is particularly instructive. Note the sickening drops in the last two years, and the hopeful up-slope (click to enlarge):

Bear in mind that the IAB’s numbers are for all Web advertising. Which is to say, they’re in large part a reflection of Google’s (GOOG) performance, since search accounts for nearly half of the IAB total.

You can read the full report below, or check out a press release summary here.

IAB-Ad-Revenue-Full-Year-2009

Internet advertising increased a bit–1.7 percent, precisely–over the past three months. But that’s only when compared with the previous three months, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Compared with the same period a year ago, Web ads are still down 5.4 percent, the trade group said (see chart below; click to enlarge).

Given that I work for a free, ad-supported Web site, I’m anything but an unbiased observer here, and I’d like to put a sunnier spin on things. But recall that the economy started its freefall well over a year ago, so comparisons to Q3 2008 should be particularly easy to beat. Even the boosterish IAB can only call the numbers a “hopeful sign” at best.

Still, if you’re looking for positive signs, you can take Google’s (GOOG) declaration that the worst is over, and I’ve heard plenty of anecdotal stories from small online players that spending is perking up again–though I’m also beginning to hear that some folks may have been overly optimistic about Q4. We’ll know soon.

Noting the new guidelines have created a “firestorm of controversy within the ad-supported interactive-media industry,” Interactive Advertising Bureau President Randall Rothenberg suggested the FTC rescind the new guidelines.

“These revisions are punitive to the online world and unfairly distinguish between the same speech, based on the medium in which it is delivered,” he wrote in an open letter to the FTC on Thursday. The online-advertising trade group suggested the FTC try a do-over, after opening up the issue for discussion with bloggers and online advertisers…

Read the rest of this post on the original site

According to numerous sources, Yahoo has been shopping around Zimbra, the open-source email company it bought in late 2007 for $350 million.

Zimbra is only one of the many assets of Yahoo (YHOO) that are now on the block, including its personals business, its HotJobs online classified unit and many more to come, said sources.

The effort to unload Zimbra is yet another sign that the company is trying to slim down its diverse portfolio, even as it strives to redefine itself this week with a new, pricey marketing campaign that seeks to position Yahoo primarily as a consumer company.

As first reported by BoomTown last week, Yahoo will be introducing a massive branding campaign tomorrow on the second day of Advertising Week in New York.

The new focus Yahoo is aiming for with advertisers is to stress its huge size and scale with consumers. The troubled Internet giant is still one of the most trafficked sites on the Web.

And consumers will also be reminded of this. The Wall Street Journal wrote a follow-up story yesterday on the marketing effort, noting that the $100 million campaign’s tagline is “It’s You.”

Get it? The “Y” in Yahoo is the same as the one in You!

The details of the plan will be made public tomorrow at a press conference immediately after a keynote speech–titled “Yahoo’s Consumer Revolution…Round II”–that the company’s new CMO, Elisa Steele, is set to deliver at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s MIXX conference.

The goal, said several sources at Yahoo, will be to stress Yahoo’s consumer business over all others, which are supported mostly via brand advertising, leaving more extraneous ones out in the cold.

Which is why Zimbra–like a lot of other Yahoo properties–is being shopped around by its top mergers and acquisitions exec, Greg Mrva and others.

(Mrva’s new job title should be: VP of un-mergers and de-acquisitions.)

Backed by Benchmark Capital, Redpoint Ventures and Accel Partners, Zimbra was an innovative start-up whose main business was to provide clients–including Comcast (CMCSA), many ISPs and a number of colleges–with white-label email software capabilities.

Yahoo bought the company to goose that business, whose main rival has been Google (GOOG)–along with using Zimbra technology to improve its massive consumer email offering, also under siege from Google.

That integration has gone slowly, and Yahoo now has less interest in selling email products to others.

But the price Yahoo would get, many think, would be significantly lower that what it paid for Zimbra.

Nonetheless, potential buyers include Comcast and Google, as well as private-equity investors.

In addition, it is not out of the question that its former venture investors could be interested in a classic Silicon Valley buyback.

Zimbra’s founder and CEO, Satish Dharmaraj, who left Yahoo earlier this year, is now working at Redpoint.

Here is a video interview I did with Dharmaraj in early 2008, after the Yahoo deal was struck:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090921/yahoos-adds-zimbra-to-the-garage-sale-as-it-tries-to-shed-what-isnt-you/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20090913/exclusive-yahoo-set-to-unveil-massive-new-marketing-campaign-at-advertising-week-declaring-size-does-matter/ http://allthingsd.com/20090913/exclusive-yahoo-set-to-unveil-massive-new-marketing-campaign-at-advertising-week-declaring-size-does-matter/#comments Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:32:49 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=18450

Yahoo is set to unveil a major marketing campaign to reset advertiser and consumer perception of the long-troubled company during Advertising Week in New York, which starts a week from tomorrow.

According to numerous sources BoomTown has spoken to about the campaign, Yahoo (YHOO) is–at least with advertisers–going to focus on stressing the size and scale of the Internet giant.

The details of the plan will be made public Tuesday, Sept. 22, at a press conference.

It will take place immediately after a keynote speech–titled “Yahoo’s Consumer Revolution…Round II”–that the company’s new CMO, Elisa Steele, is set to deliver on the second day of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s MIXX conference.

MIXX is a two-day event, run by IAB, focused specifically on online advertising.

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is also going to be attending Advertising Week–during which all the major players in the advertising business gather in Manhattan for a series of events–for a plethora of meetings with big Yahoo clients.

It is likely she and several other senior Yahoo execs will be at the press conference, sources said.

That press event will also include Penny Baldwin, a well-known industry exec Yahoo hired as its SVP of global integrated marketing and brand management in July.

The main message Bartz is set to deliver is that Yahoo is a powerhouse unlike any others on the Web when it comes to online display advertising.

And, in fact, Yahoo–despite all the internal and external turmoil it has undergone in recent years–remains one of the largest sites on the Internet, and is the top player in what is also called graphical advertising, as well as online media and communications.

“The whole push seems to be to remind people of vibrancy of the brand and exactly how huge its reach is,” said one person who has seen parts of the presentation. “It is less Yahoo is back than Yahoo has never left.”

Sources also noted that Yahoo is likely to stick to its plan to push the idea of “your home on the Web” to consumers, which I had previously posted about earlier this summer.

The idea of the Silicon Valley icon being the key hub destination for Internet users does dovetail with pushing its size to advertisers–major marketing messages that will also likely cost a pretty penny.

They will have to–Microsoft (MSFT) has been in the midst of a $100 million campaign for its new Bing search site and will likely spend more when it unveils updates to the service, dubbed Bing 2.0–within the next few weeks.

The company showed the changes it showed to its own employees last week, which was the subject of much tweeting on Twitter.

Yahoo will apparently give more specifics as to the spend for the marketing push at the press conference.

But, many sources said, the company is already out in the advertising market now, buying tens of millions of dollars in advertising online and offline to hawk Yahoo in print, on television and elsewhere.

(Full disclosure: Sources said that campaign will include The Wall Street Journal network, which includes this site.)

“It’s dramatic,” said one source about the marketing outlay.

Since she got to Yahoo, Bartz has continually stressed the need to promote Yahoo products and services more, including in an interview last week on CNBC (you can see that longish video here).

And, in the July earnings call for Yahoo, Bartz said: “In addition, we’re hard at work on plans to reposition our most valuable asset: Yahoo’s brand. Our Q3 plans include an initial wave of incremental marketing spend which will increase substantially into Q4 and next year.”

Also, in a Q&A in the same call, she added more about the long-term nature of the spending on branding:

“The branding and our whole campaign of advertising is just starting; however you have to understand that this is an ongoing campaign so it’s not transient at least for the next year or so. We’re really going to move to reposition the Yahoo brand and Yahoo Company, so right now, consider that as cost that’s in the system.”

What Bartz and other Yahoo execs will likely stress less is search, due to the search deal Yahoo struck in July with Microsoft in which the software giant will take over the back-end technology and Yahoo will sell search ads for both companies.

The company will compete with both Microsoft and Google (GOOG) in garnering the search market still, once the partnership is approved by regulators, with Yahoo focusing on differentiating itself via innovative user interface, design, features and functionality.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090913/exclusive-yahoo-set-to-unveil-massive-new-marketing-campaign-at-advertising-week-declaring-size-does-matter/feed/ 4 http://allthingsd.com/20090820/media-links-michael-kassan-and-wenda-millard-from-a-boat-somewhere-near-slovenia-speak-about-their-new-myspace-gig/ http://allthingsd.com/20090820/media-links-michael-kassan-and-wenda-millard-from-a-boat-somewhere-near-slovenia-speak-about-their-new-myspace-gig/#comments Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:48:36 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=17840

Wenda Harris Millard–calling in to BoomTown HQ from a cruise either on the way to or the way from Slovenia, since she said she was not exactly sure, given that it was the middle of the night there–wanted to make one thing clear:

She is still working for her dozens of other clients at Media Link as its president, but also has a big new gig helping MySpace get its advertising sales house in order, especially related to strategy and execution.

“I guess it’s a matter of semantics, but I will be leading the engagement,” said Millard. “But, we have a whole team here too, and I am also still working for all our great clients.”

Okay, people?!? Which is, in Slovenian, in case anyone asks there, Wenda: Vidirati narod?

Which is precisely what All Things Digital had written in a previous post: That Media Link was the hired gun on a strategic basis, with Millard as the point person on fixing the ad sales structure, strategy and more at MySpace.

In an internal memo today, MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta said the same: “As part of this process on an interim basis the firm will help manage our day-to-day sales organization under the leadership of Wenda Harris Millard.”

Still, the New York and Los Angeles media consultancy definitely wanted to make clear, both internally and externally, that their hiring had nothing to do with the departure today of MySpace Sales and Marketing President Jeff Berman.

And, indeed, according to both Media Link founder and Chairman Michael Kassan, whom I also spoke with today, Media Link had been talking to MySpace–including Berman, who decided to finally leave only today–since January.

Got it! Media Link also did not hip-check Berman to the curb!

Still, it is a huge and deeply involved job for Media Link, and especially Millard, who will be working with ad sales until a replacement is found for Berman, and then after.

Millard stressed that her new role does not mean spending all her time cussing out ad sales folks who did not make their numbers.

“Media Link will be working on big-picture strategy related to ad sales, product development and structure,” she said. “But, of course, I will be very involved and this is a huge assignment.”

She certainly has the experience to take on the ad troubles of MySpace.

Millard–who was the top ad exec at Yahoo (YHOO) in its glory days and who recently left her job as co-CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO)–has been a longtime online exec, working at Ziff Davis Media and DoubleClick in the very early days of the Web. She was also chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau last year until this past April.

But she also noted that she did not want people to be confused, pointing out that many others at Media Link will also be working on the fix-MySpace assignment too, even as she will also be tending to Media Link’s stable of clients.

“This is an engagement to help its management drive forward a lot of initiatives,” said Millard. “It is the management of MySpace who are the ones in charge.”

It’s a point that Media Link’s Kassan also made in a conversation I had with him today.

“I am very excited, since it is an important strategic assignment and part of the promise of Wenda’s unique set of skills,” he said, acknowledging that this was an unusually large job, very complex and unique for Media Link. “That said, this kind of work is our sweet spot.”

(Full disclosure: News Corp. owns MySpace and Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090820/media-links-michael-kassan-and-wenda-millard-from-a-boat-somewhere-near-slovenia-speak-about-their-new-myspace-gig/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20090820/myspace-to-hire-millard-and-also-media-link-to-take-over-ad-sales-whither-berman/ http://allthingsd.com/20090820/myspace-to-hire-millard-and-also-media-link-to-take-over-ad-sales-whither-berman/#comments Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:26:35 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=17792

UPDATE: In an internal memo, MySpace is now telling employees that current ad sales head Jeff Berman is leaving the company.

In a move that will surely have Madison Avenue talking, well-known online advertising sales executive Wenda Harris Millard (pictured here)–who is now president of New York- and Los Angeles-based media consultancy Media Link–is poised to take over all advertising sales at MySpace, sources said.

But, in an unusual twist, she will remain in her job at Media Link, which has also been hired by MySpace to advise on restructuring the social networking company’s salesforce.

Sources said the arrangement is expected to be announced sometime today.

While details are still being hashed out, Millard–who was the top ad exec at Yahoo (YHOO) in its glory days and who recently left her job as co-CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO)–will apparently report to MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta directly.

In turn, all regional advertising vice presidents at MySpace will report to her. Millard is likely to work out of New York, where she lives and where the Beverly Hills, Calif.-based MySpace also has offices.

(You can see a video interview that BoomTown did with Millard a year ago below, when she was still at MSLO.)

This is a big coup for Media Link, which was founded by Michael Kassan, given that it will essentially be running a major part of the business of MySpace as MySpace seeks to reinvigorate itself, spur innovation and reset its product strategy.

Media Link hired Millard in April, which turned out to be a good move as she appeared to be the obvious draw for MySpace, as well as News Corp. (NWS) execs.

She is well known to them, as well as to many in both the Internet and advertising industries. Millard has been a longtime online exec, working at Ziff Davis Media and DoubleClick in the very early days of the Web. She was also chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau last year until this past April.

MySpace also reportedly talked to several big online advertising sales execs like Millard about the job, according to several sources outside the company.

This development now leaves the fate of President of Sales and Marketing Jeff Berman (pictured here) unclear.

But several sources told me Berman–whom I wrote earlier this summer was “rumored to be on the bubble,” but remaining for the time being–has been actively looking for a new job in the past few weeks and even told at least one person he spoke to that he was going to be “gone from MySpace by Labor Day.”

Probably sooner, now that MySpace is about to hire Millard and her firm to take over a big part of his job.

Yesterday, MySpace made another splashy move by buying the social music site, iLike, the first acquisition by its new exec team, as part of a move to push the “socialization of content.”

In a statement in the press release about the iLike acquisition, Van Natta might be seen as tipping his hand a little bit: “We are deeply committed to bringing world class talent into all areas of the company….”

Seasoned and experienced management was a point he also emphasized in a conference call with media yesterday about the iLike deal.

Millard is certainly that.

And, in fact, there has been a clearing out of almost all of MySpace’s former top execs and replacement with new blood–such as former Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN) and Facebook alum Katie Geminder as SVP of user experience and design and Mike Macadaan, who is VP of product.

It is a process that is doubtlessly going to continue as Millard comes in and cleans house–and it will be interesting to see just what talent comes in next.

Here’s Millard in action in my video interview with her last July, in which she talks about advertising on social networking sites and lots of other stuff:

(Full disclosure: News Corp., owner of MySpace, also owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090820/myspace-to-hire-millard-and-also-media-link-to-take-over-ad-sales-whither-berman/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20090629/is-bigger-better-here-come-the-supersized-web-ads/ http://allthingsd.com/20090629/is-bigger-better-here-come-the-supersized-web-ads/#comments Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:01:16 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=8767 Earlier this year an online publishing trade group promised to get its members to start running new, bigger, harder-to-ignore ads by July. So here they are: The Online Publishers Association says 37 sites, including the New York Times (NYT), News Corp.’s (NWS) Wall Street Journal and Time Warner’s (TWX) CNN.com, will start selling the plus-sized ads this week.

Some sites, like Discovery’s Planet Green, have already been playing around with the new OPA ads, but if you haven’t seen them yet, you can do it with a little bit of imagination. Think of a traditional Web ad as the equivalent of a yard sign. The new ones are billboards.

Like your descriptions more literal? Here’s the technical description of the new formats. By way of comparison, the column of text you’re reading now is 350 pixels wide.

The Fixed Panel: 336 wide x 700 tall, remains constant as the user scrolls to the top and bottom of the page.
The XXL Box: 468 wide x 648 tall, opens for seven seconds to 936 wide x 648 tall with 1/24x frequency.
The Pushdown: 970 wide x 418 tall, opens to display the advertisement and then after seven seconds, rolls up to 970 wide x 66 tall, with 1/24x frequency.

And um, here’s what a really big ad might look like on your desktop (click to enlarge).

If you’re knee-deep in the online advertising business, you’ll be interested in why these ad formats are being pushed by the Online Publishers Association instead of the better-known Interactive Advertising Bureau. I have heard some baroque/petty descriptions of squabbling between the two groups, whose membership overlaps but isn’t identical. But maybe we’ll come back to that some other time.

For now, let’s see if these deliver as advertised–that is, whether they get marketers to spend more money on the Web, without just plowing the money into Google (GOOG).

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090629/is-bigger-better-here-come-the-supersized-web-ads/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090611/internet-advertisers-say-internet-advertising-keeps-america-strong/ http://allthingsd.com/20090611/internet-advertisers-say-internet-advertising-keeps-america-strong/#comments Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:08:53 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=8131 Congratulations! Just by reading this, you are contributing to a $300 billion industry and keeping America strong! Easy, right?

That’s one takeaway you can draw from a new study commissioned by an Internet publishing trade group, which concludes, astonishingly, that Internet publishing is an important and vibrant industry.

The data are being served up via the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which tells us the advertising-supported Web industry “directly employs more than 1.2 million Americans with above-average wages in jobs that did not exist two decades ago, and another 1.9 million people work to support those with directly Internet-related jobs.”

Note the “advertising-supported” modifier in the above paragraph, because that’s the real thrust of the IAB’s study/press release: The trade group is trying to get Congress and Washington to let members like Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO) and Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL regulate themselves when it comes to hot-button issues like behavioral targeting.

Hence this quote from IAB boss Randall Rothenberg: “By understanding the total contribution of the Internet to the U.S. economy, we can more accurately assess the impact of potential legislative changes on the Internet’s operations, particularly the consequences of any actions that would alter ad-supported business models.”

OK. Fine. But regulation is tomorrow’s problem. Today, let us celebrate the fact that some of us have jobs! And also, according to the IAB, we’re providing the following:

• Universal access to an almost unlimited source of information
• Increased productivity (output per unit of capital or labor, or increased consumer utility at a lower cost)
• Innovation in business practices, consumer behavior, commerce and media
• Empowerment of entrepreneurs to start small businesses, find customers and grow
• Environmental benefits derived from saving natural resources lowering pollution through the reduced use of petroleum-based fuels and paper

Cool, right? And all this time I thought I was just blogging. You’re welcome! And please keep reading.

[Image credit: respres]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090611/internet-advertisers-say-internet-advertising-keeps-america-strong/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090518/online-ad-snoop-nebuad-gives-up-the-ghost-whos-next/ http://allthingsd.com/20090518/online-ad-snoop-nebuad-gives-up-the-ghost-whos-next/#comments Mon, 18 May 2009 21:47:27 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=7485 Talk to online ad folks for any amount of time and you’ll walk away thinking that behavioral targeting–whereby marketers track and chase Web surfers based on which sites they visit and what they do there–is both old hat and the wave of the future. But I’m still convinced that there’s a very big gap between the way the ad industry views this stuff and the way politicians and average Americans do.

And I think that gap is going to trip up a lot of big players in the years to come.

For a reminder, head on over to NebuAd’s Web site, which no longer works. That’s because the targeting firm, which once employed 60 people, closed up shop on Friday, according to MediaPost.

NebuAd was supposed to work with various Internet service providers and track Web surfing behavior of the ISPs’ customers, then sell that data back to the ISPs. That plan blew up last summer when the company became the subject of congressional hearings, and by last fall just about all of its former clients had run screaming from the company.

The standard response here from ad folks is that NebuAd was a bad apple that practiced a particularly noxious version of targeting. And that the press, lawmakers and the general public don’t really understand how targeting works.

And all of that may be true! But even if it is just a perception problem and the online ad business has only the best intentions when it comes to collecting and using personal Web data, it’s a perception problem that the industry has done a lousy job of fighting.

So said my lunch date today, who’s a veteran of several big online publishing companies, and who tells me that the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the industry’s trade group, is petrified of more NebuAds because they will likely lead to regulation.

Recall that Rick Boucher, a conservative Democratic congressman from Virginia, has already promised to regulate behavioral targeting at the likes of Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO) and Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL. If the thought of that sort of thing is so distasteful to the ad guys, they’re going to have to start selling much more persuasively than they’re doing right now.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090518/online-ad-snoop-nebuad-gives-up-the-ghost-whos-next/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090330/pessimists-web-ad-growth-ground-to-a-halt-last-year-optimists-web-ad-growth-still-exists/ http://allthingsd.com/20090330/pessimists-web-ad-growth-ground-to-a-halt-last-year-optimists-web-ad-growth-still-exists/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 22:04:41 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=5789 Here’s your daily chance to pick: Glass half-full? Or who the hell broke this glass?

The opportunity: The Interactive Advertising Bureau’s numbers for the fourth quarter of 2008–remember all the way back then? If you do, then you won’t be shocked to see that Web advertising slowed way, way down during the last three months of the year. And it did much worse than that at some shops, like Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL.

If you’re a professional optimist, like the IAB’s Randall Rothenberg*, you’ll note that ad dollars are still moving from offline venues to the Web, which makes sense, because that’s where people’s eyeballs have moved. For the year, Web ads grew 10.6 percent, while the overall ad market contracted by 2.6 percent.

But the sourpusses among us will note that Web ads ground to a halt at the end of the year. The IAB says U.S. Web ads grew a mere 2.6 percent during Q4, to $6.1 billion. The year before, they had grown at a 24 percent clip.

Here’s a sector-by-sector breakdown of last year’s market. No surprise: The lion’s share of the business goes to Google (GOOG), as it does every year. (Click to enlarge).

Side note: The video ad market, which was supposed to be a geyser, still has yet to be unleashed, despite the best efforts of YouTube, Hulu, et al. Advertisers spent just $734 million on digital video–about three percent of the market. Positive spin: That’s more than twice the amount they spent in 2007.

* Prior to his career as a professional optimist, Randall used to do excellent work reporting on the ad business. Highly recommended: “Where Suckers Moon,” his 1994 book that went behind the scenes during the creation of a Subaru campaign. Great stuff.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090330/pessimists-web-ad-growth-ground-to-a-halt-last-year-optimists-web-ad-growth-still-exists/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090312/aol-gets-a-new-ceo-google-sales-boss-tim-armstrong/ http://allthingsd.com/20090312/aol-gets-a-new-ceo-google-sales-boss-tim-armstrong/#comments Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:40:44 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=5183

Everyone who wondered why Randy Falco and Ron Grant were still running AOL gets an answer: Time Warner (TWX) was lining up their replacement.

Google (GOOG) sales chief Tim Armstrong becomes chairman and CEO of the troubled Web property, effective immediately.

The move is getting immediate cheers from current and former AOL employees I’ve talked to. The snap consensus is that anyone would have been better than Falco, a longtime NBC executive, and Grant, who was Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes’s chief lieutenant before being elevated to his role as President and COO of AOL.

But they’re particularly happy to see a sales guy running the organization: AOL once had a much admired sales operation. But in recent years, the group has been roiled, as a series of sales chiefs came and went. (From Kara Swisher, here are more details on the shakeup, and an interview with Armstrong. And here’s some early betting on Armstrong’s replacement at Google — former Doubleclick CEO David Rosenblatt has a lot of fans).

The current AOL sales chief, former Yahoo (YHOO) sales boss Greg Coleman, was installed just last month. He’s been deep into a reorg of his own.

It was desperately needed after AOL’s miserable performance in 2008, which concluded with a quarter that saw ad revenue drop 18 percent. But those plans may be up in the air now.

In any case, here is the full press release from Time Warner about the firing of Falco and Grant, after the jump:

NEW YORK, March 12, 2009–Tim Armstrong, Google Senior Vice President, has been named Chairman and CEO of AOL, LLC, Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX) Chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes announced today. Current AOL Chairman and CEO Randy Falco and President and COO Ron Grant plan to leave the company after a transition period.

In making the announcement Mr. Bewkes said: “Tim is the right executive to move AOL into the next phase of its evolution. At Google, Armstrong helped build one of the most successful media teams in the history of the Internet–helping to make Google the most popular online search advertising platform in the world for direct and brand marketers. He’s an advertising pioneer with a stellar reputation and proven track record. We are privileged to have him preside over AOL as its audience and programming businesses continue to grow and its advertising platform expands globally. He’ll also be helpful in helping Time Warner determine the optimal structure for AOL.”

Tim Armstrong said: “I’m very excited about the opportunities presented in leading AOL. AOL has a wide-ranging set of assets and audience. The company is well positioned to enhance those assets into a larger share of the Internet audience and advertiser communities. AOL and Google have been partners for years and I look forward to collaborating with Jeff Bewkes and his team as we explore the right structure and future for AOL.”

Mr. Bewkes added: “Randy led AOL in its transition from a subscription business to an audience business. Under Randy and Ron, AOL’s programming sites exhibited year-over-year growth in unique visitors for 23 consecutive months with many of its sites now in the top five of their categories. They also assembled Platform-A, the number one display ad network in the U.S. with a reach of more than 90%. They also aggressively cut costs as they restructured the Audience business portion of the company into three distinct operating units: People Networks, MediaGlow, and Platform-A. As Randy and Ron move on, they leave AOL with our gratitude and appreciation for remaking the company and bringing it to a new and promising level.”

Tim Armstrong was a member of Google’s Operating Committee and served as the president of the Americas Operations. Under the Americas Operations, Armstrong’s team managed publishers and advertisers’ relationships and platforms with some of the world’s most widely recognized media and agency brands.  Armstrong started at Google in the year 2000 and opened the first office outside of the Mountain View, CA headquarters.

Mr. Armstrong joined Google from Snowball.com, where he was vice president of sales and strategic partnerships. Prior to his role at Snowball.com, he served as director of integrated sales & marketing at Starwave’s and Disney’s ABC/ESPN Internet Ventures, working across the companies’ Internet, TV, radio, and print properties. He started his career by co-founding and running a newspaper based in Boston, MA, before joining IDG to launch their first consumer Internet magazine, I-Way.

Mr. Armstrong sits on the boards of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the Advertising Council, and the Advertising Research Foundation, and is a trustee at Connecticut College and Lawrence Academy. He is a member of Mayor Bloomberg’s MediaNYC 2020 committee.  He is a graduate of Connecticut College, with a double major in economics and sociology.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090312/aol-gets-a-new-ceo-google-sales-boss-tim-armstrong/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081120/online-ad-growth-already-over-except-for-google/ http://allthingsd.com/20081120/online-ad-growth-already-over-except-for-google/#comments Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:14:51 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=1250 Are you still thinking there might be growth in the online ad market next year? Perhaps this will disabuse you of the notion: New numbers from an industry trade group indicate that growth has already stopped for everyone except Google.

That’s not what the release from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and Pricewaterhouse says, of course. It notes, instead, that the industry notched 11 percent year-over-year U.S. revenue growth in the third quarter of this year, and two percent growth compared to last quarter, which it says indicates a “stabilized” market.

But when the trade group for an industry known for go-go growth says things have “stabilized,” you know things are grim. Here’s what “stabilized” growth looks like in graphic form (click to enlarge):

But here’s the really disturbing thought for everyone who depends on Web ad revenue, or the promise of Web ad revenue (and yes, I’m talking about my employer as well): What would that chart look like without the contributions of Google, which grew 31 percent in the last quarter (and two percent compared to the previous quarter)?

By the IAB’s own count, search revenue makes up a little less than half of its total (44 percent in Q2), and Google (GOOG), of course, accounts for the majority of that market. You do the math. Or better yet, spend that time figuring out how to stay afloat for the next year.

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