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TechWeb | News | Ajax Challenges Web Development Leaders — And Web Publishers And Advertisers | July 15, 2005

Another fork in the pageview model. 

Project Klebnikov global media alliance

Alliance of investigative journalists looking into the Moscow murder of former Forbes colleague, Paul Klebnikov. 

I had heard at some point in the spring that 10 percent of the American public owned an iPod. Today Constantine von Hoffman, editor at CMO Magazine, forwarded this research note to me from The Center for Media Research:

"Upscale Men Dominate Adult iPod Ownership
A national phone survey of adults over the age of 18 by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, found that more than 22 million American adults own iPods or MP3 players. 29% of them have downloaded podcasts from the Web so that they could listen to audio files at a time of their choosing.
"Podcasting" emerged in 2004, as people combined the words "iPod" and "broadcasting." Podcast listeners typically download audio files from the Web onto a computer, transfer the files to an iPod, and listen at their leisure.
Of the 22 million adults who own iPods:

•      13% of men have the players, compared to 9% of women.
•      16% of African-Americans and English-speaking Latinos own iPods/MP3 players, compared to 9% of non-Latino whites.
•      19% of those ages 18-28 have iPods/MP3 players.
•     14% of those ages 29-40 have them
•      11% of younger Baby Boomers (ages 41-50) have them
•      6% of older Baby Boomers (ages 51-59) have them
•      6% of those 60-69 have them
•      1% of those 70 and older have them

iPods/MP3 players are for the upscale. Owners include:

•      18% of those who live in households earning more than $75,000
•      13% of those living in households earning $50,000 to $75,000
•      9% of those living in households earning $30,000-$50,000
•      7% of those living in households earning less than $30,000
• Those who use the internet are four times as likely as non-internet users to have iPods/MP3 players
•      14% of internet users have iPods/MP3 players, compared to 3% of non-internet users.  

     There is no notable gap between those who have broadband access and dial-up users when it comes to podcasting.  "

 Given that this study lists adults, I can assume if you add in the youth market, the penetration is indeed around 10 percent.

The Digital Media Jobs Blog: PaidContent.org

CXO Media: Online Advertising Specialist: CXO Online Media is seeking an experienced online advertising specialist/trafficker to coordinate its online advertising operations. Responsibilities include the scheduling, implementation, tracking, optimization and reporting of client advertising for the company’s network of web sites. The specialist will work with the online salesteam to provide inventory availability reports, act as a liaison between all of the various parties involved in an ad campaign and have a full understanding of today’s online rich media landscape.
Essential duties will include receiving, tracking and accounting for all campaign insertion orders; managing the advertising workflow system; seeking, receiving, and testing advertising creative; trafficking via DoubleClick DART for Publishers; reporting on campaign performance on a weekly and ad hoc basis to sales staff and clients; on-going campaign tracking; optimization of campaigns; management of newsletter advertising, including I/O’s, creative/copy testing, tracking, reporting, and optimization; management of custom publishing campaigns; RSS-based advertising and Webcast advertising.
The ideal candidate will possess a thorough understanding of CPM, CPC and CPA online optimization processes; have a minimum of one year’s ad trafficking experience with a major commercial or in-house ad serving system. DoubleClick DART for Publisher’s preferred. A successful candidate will be organized and detail oriented with excellent follow-through and proficient multi-tasking skills.
To apply please send your resume and cover letter to: cxojobs@cxo.com
About CXO Media Inc.
CXO Media Inc. produces award-winning media properties and executive programs for corporate officers who use technology to thrive and prosper in this new era of business, including CIO, CMO, CSO magazines and websites, Darwinmag.com and two executive communities: the CIO Executive Council and the CSO Executive Council. CXO Media is a subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world’s leading technology media, research and event company. A privately-held company, IDG publishes more than 300 magazines and newspapers including Bio-IT World, CIO, CSO, Computerworld, GamePro, InfoWorld, Network World, and PC World. The company features the largest network of technology-specific websites with more than 400 around the world. IDG is also a leading producer of more than 170 computer-related events worldwide including LinuxWorld Conference & Expo®, Macworld Conference & Expo, DEMO, and IDC Directions. IDC provides global market research and advice through offices in 50 countries.

Ballardvale Blog: Omniture Raises Money — Again

Guy Creese spoke at IDG’s internal online meeting in Boston in June. He’s also chair of the technology committee of the Web Analytics Association, a former Aberdeen analyst, and a total web metrics guru.

Here’s he posts about Omniture’s announcement it had received $40 million in series B financing. CXO is an Omniture client – using SiteCatalyst ver. 12 to track the traffic on its sites. The user manual awaits me. 

Tech Online Recruitment Specialist Dice Inc. Acquired by General Atlantic and Quadrangle Group

Interesting transaction in the IT jobs space (disclosure, I consulted to Dice in 2002).

Colin’s Corner: The threat of disintermediation "We’ve always regarded ourselves as trusted providers of information services but now we also need to recognize that some of the most valuable information comes from outside our traditional content generation mechanism , from our users. We need to be about the creation of strong branded communities where people converse together and share experiences and look for advice and information. We need to focus not only on the distribution of information, but also, and more importantly, on allowing the community to share information while providing the opportunity to interact with editors and vendors. As publishers, we need to view ourselves as managers of content, delivering the right content and tools to our users when and where they want to consume the information"

There’s nothing like a new iPod courtesy of the I/S department — surely one of the most frivilous pieces of hardware they’ve ever had to install. I think I disappointed the poor person who came into my office bearing gifts when I said I would set it up myself. The rationale for getting the company to buy me the new toy is that I need a player to test our nascent podcasting plans here at CXO and to play with iTunes 4.9′s podcast subscription facility.

After the usual USB plug-in and configuration I moved about five hours worth of IT Conversations and other assorted geek casts (along with some hilarious Tour de France commentary performed by two slightly drunk Brits in a Wayne’s World format) over to the 6 gig mini, then walked it out to the car and set up the Belkin charger/gooseneck holder gizmo and the Belkin FM transmitter.

I tried to listen to an excellent Gillmor Gang conference call featuring Dan Bricklin, Doc Searles, Dan Farber and other, but the cell phone interrupted me and actually wasted 30 minutes of bumper-to-bumper commuting/listening time. Excellent discussion and evidence that great content quality can be delivered with little to no production value.

I got home, changed into my cycling gear, filled up the water bottle, and hopped aboard my fixed-gear — the legendary "Snotrocket", an old Bianchi ten-speed that I spray-painted black and stripped of all gears and non-essentials. Fixed-gears are basically what urban messengers and track racers ride in the velodrome. One gear and no coasting. If the rear wheel is moving, so are your feet. Want to brake? Use your feet.

The nice thing about fixed-gear cycling, other than the purity of no gears to click, is the total focus on cycling and the extreme effort required to ascend hills, etc.

I broke a cardinal rule and brought along the mini so I could finish the podcasts. This is a rule for safety sake — you can’t hear approaching traffic with your ears filled with music or talk radio — but I was on some serious back roads through farmland and gave it a go.

 There was something appropriate about listening to homebrew radio, on a device with one of the simplest user interfaces ever invented, on a homebrew cycle with no extraneous parts.

 Great workout and I filled my head at the same time.

Mens sana in corpus sano

A VC: Really Simple Stealing

RSS theft is nasty but happening everywhere. Shades of the old frame-and-scrapers of the mid-90s. I really like Fred’s Internet Axis of Evil, but he misses a couple, like pop-ups, meaningless registration, page takeovers ….

Internet Banner Ads Look to Get More Interesting (and Thus Less Easy to Ignore) – New York Times

Worth keeping an eye on. Contextual comparison shopping banners. 

Matt McAlister :: Goodbye IDG, Hello Yahoo!

"I’ve had the good fortune of working with a bunch of really smart people over the last several years at Macworld, The Industry Standard and InfoWorld. Now I have the good fortune of joining a new team of really smart people at Yahoo. IDG is a great place to work, and I’m sad to be leaving. But I’m also thrilled to be joining the Yahoo team and getting deeper into RSS and open media. Fun times ahead."

I use a spam blocking service called Messagefire that sends me a daily report of stuff it’s snagged. I skim it every morning to find any misdirected good mail. Two themes seem pretty hot in the subject line. First is the "jack rabbit vibrator" (I don’t want to know). Today sent a winner, "Hot Latina Wearing Diapers."

 My heart be still.

iPod Your BMW

This is my next mission. To get rid of the transmitter link to the FM radio and integrate the iPod into my X3.

"Principle 13: Omit Unnecessary Stuff

"Vigorous Web Design is concise. A page should contain no unnecessary stuff, a nav bar no unnecessary choices, for the same reason a sentence should have no unnecessary words and a machine no unnecessary parts."

With apologies to William Strunk and E.B. White.

 One of the producers just came in with a redesign proposal for one of our sites. We went over the page, mostly deleting, deleting, deleting, when I recalled some stuff I scraped this morning from Amazon.

Look at the progression of the famous Amazon horizontal nav, the tabs that launched a thousand imitators.

1999

2001

Today, less is more

AdTension | Doc Searls’ IT Garage

"There are some other cases of value-increasing advertising. For trade and fashion magazines, the advertising often serves as a form of editorial."

What I said in the previous post — the prevalent pageview model is further toast if Adblocking takes off. And it will. Look at the conniptions caused by DVR technology so people like me can blast over the commercials. I’ve seen surveys of site readers where as many as 75% claim to be deploying ad blockers — no popup blockers — but ad blockers.

Doc is right — it’s the old Cluetrain Manifesto central tenet of the conversation with the audience, not treating them like anonymous eyeballs. 

Marketers See Opportunity as a Web Tool Gains Users – New York Times

While the silent avalanche of online sweeping over print that has overtaken many MSM publishers in the past two years continues, another equally dramatic shift is hanging over online itself, threatening a publishing model that has sustained the business for the last decade.

I speak of the pageview, that holy measurement that combined with unique visitors represents the canon of reach and popularity among publishers and marketers.

In the vaunted world of Web 2.0, the pageview is dead, done in first by the search driven behavior of users who avoid branded-browsing (typing in URLs and flocking to known sites) and do rifle-shots based on keyword and keyphrase-driven "need" sessions; and now by the "Tivofication" of the online experience thanks to RSS.

Matt McAlister, the online GM at InfoWorld, has sounded the alarm that old online models of building audience and attempting to build pages viewed per sesssion from 2 to 3, to beyond is at risk thanks to the user-aggregated time shifting brought on by RSS and podcasting.

While RSS advertising is at its infancy — think of the days when HotWired started serving 468×60 banners in ’95 — publishers need to start freaking out now, not later, and give up any shred of hubris that they will be able to build audiences within their sites.

The implications of this sift from building pages to building streams is huge, and will have a big ripple-down effect on infrastructure from content management to measurement.

The fact that InfoWorld is now pushing all of its content down the RSS pipe is an indication of McAlister’s conviction that the avalanche is ready to start rolling.