PV Media Group

The Power Of One

Originally published on the MediaPost Online Publishing Insider
By: Kory Kredit, VP Marketing, PV Media Group

We live in an economy of reduced marketing budgets and increased pressure to reach our audience using fewer resources. While I would welcome a larger budget and a handful of marketing geniuses at my disposal, I was reminded over the past week of the power that one individual could have, given a compelling story and the passion to communicate it.

It’s not likely that you’ve ever heard of Brian Wurzell. He’s not an editor for an online media publication. Brian is not a marketing executive for a fortune 500 brand or a creative director at an ad agency. You won’t ever see Brian’s name featured in MediaPost’s weekly “People on the Move” list or challenging Ashton Kutcher for a popularity contest on Twitter (he currently needs 2,648,546 more followers to catch up to the cinematic genius who gave us “Dude, Where’s My Car?”). 

 Brian is a lot of things including a talented musician, a passionate leader and a man in need of a good shave, but he’s not a media powerhouse. This didn’t prevent him, however, from reaching an online audience of tens of thousands of people across the globe to rally them around a cause that touched him deeply.

On June 29, Brian found out that his friend’s 5-year-old daughter, Kate, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor that would require immediate surgery. The shockwaves of emotion that swept over that family, and those close to them, spurred Brian to take action to mobilize a community of online support for Kate and for his friend.

While Brian didn’t have access to a digital agency to launch a viral marketing campaign or a list of media contacts that could produce and distribute a touching human-interest piece, he did have compelling story to tell, a passion to tell it and access to the same online publishing tools that anyone with an Internet connection can use.

Over the next several days following the diagnosis Brian began sharing Kate’s story online. Brian and his wife Promise (OK – so he had some help, but work with me here) produced a short video interview with Kate’s parents and uploaded it to YouTube. They also posted some photos of Kate on their blogs along with her story. Using email, Twitter and Facebook, Brain began to reach out to friends and his network of contacts online to rally support for her. He also hosted a live streaming video prayer vigil for Kate on the day of her surgery.

As a result of these efforts, Kate’s story has been spread across the globe touching tens of thousands of people from Dr. Phil, who posted the video on his blog, to a talented singer/song writer Audrey Assad who wrote a song for Kate and countless others reaching from Australia to Amarillo, TX, from Kenya to Queen Creek, AZ.

In the six days since the video was posted on YouTube, it has been viewed over 42,000 times. The live streaming prayer vigil, which has continued to play on a recorded loop, has now been viewed almost 35,000 times. Audrey’s song for Kate has been listened to more than 6,100 times. As the message spreads, people have begun to flood to Kate’s blog to follow her story and offer their messages of support and encouragement.

All of this happened because one person was able to leverage a collection of online publishing tools and social media platforms to communicate a story they were passionate about.

What is the story you are trying to tell? Is it compelling? Interesting? While the stories we craft for our companies most certainly will not be as gripping as this one, Brian was able to illustrate how one person with limited resources can reach an audience if there is a story worth telling along with the willingness and resourcefulness to use new tools and mediums to communicate the message.

In the days to come, as you are crafting your story, take a moment out of your busy workday, away from your marketing meetings and creative brainstorming sessions to think of Kate as well. The challenges we are faced with in a down economy quickly fade away when compared to the difficult road that lies ahead for this precious little girl.

Golfing (and Fishing) for Charity

PV Media Group, AdOn Network and Premium Access Media made another attempt at competing in the 5th annual Fore Noah Golf Tournament this year. As evidenced by this photo, our foursome of Josh Hinsch, Seth Page, Dominic Salido and Kory Kredit didn't compete for the title, but we all enjoyed our fishing and golf ball hunting expeditions and even made slight improvements from our score in 2008. Overall the event was a huge success and raised $58,000 for the Children's Neuroblastoma Cancer Foundation.

Check out the rest of the Fore Noah photo album.

What Is 'Better'?

Originally published in MediaPost's Online Publishing Insider

By Kory Kredit

As marketers, we are continually working to position our product or service as something "better": better than it was before, better than our competitor, something that will provide a better quality of life. How each of us defines better, however, depends on the context and the audience.

If you are a part of Twitter nation, you may subscribe to the "less is more" theory. Better means 140 characters as opposed to a lengthy email. Alternately, to an email marketer, bigger might be better (at least that is what I'm led to believe if I scan the subject lines in my junk mail folder).

If you're an AIG executive, bigger bonuses are definitely better. As a taxpayer, my definition of better would involve less money out of my pocket that gets funneled to failing financial institutions.

According to Steve Austin, the cost of building a better, stronger, faster man has a six-million-dollar price tag. Alex Rodriguez tried to achieve the same results with a little cash under the table and the helpful assistance of his cousin at the other end of a needle.

Who's right? Is better defined as bigger or smaller? Larger government stimulus payouts or a smaller tax bill? It all depends on whom you ask. The same is true in online advertising. We all want it to be better, but there are apparently many different paths to Internet advertising nirvana. How do we find the greener grass in this digital pasture?  Let's look at a handful of ideas that have generated recent headlines.

Size Matters

According to the Online Publishers Association (OPA), the key is bigger ads. In a recent announcement, OPA proposed three new larger ad units. The theory is that one big ad will replace several smaller ads, increasing revenue potential through higher CPMs, and improving the user experience with a less cluttered page.

While there are valid reasons for these larger formats, we'll have to give this idea some time to see how it works in reality. However, I have a difficult time believing that publishers will not give in to the temptation to simply add the larger formats to their pages in addition to their existing ads, in an effort to generate incremental revenue. I'm also not aware of any uproar from consumers pleading with us, "Please give us bigger ads!"

Create Better Creative

Randall Rothenberg, President & CEO of the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), is on a crusade to improve the creative element in our industry. Rothenberg blogged his "Manifesto on Interactive Advertising Creativity" prior to the 2009 IAB Annual Leadership Meeting, trying to ignite a conversation about the need for agencies, advertisers and publishers to increase their focus on creativity in the online advertising space.

 This culture of creativity seems to have been lost in translation, somewhere between the teams of creative geniuses who collaborate on a 30-second TV spot and the single graphic designer churning out a 768x90 banner ad. Rothenberg's closing statement from his manifesto challenges our industry to get back to its roots: "Let's return to a time when advertising and media conversation was owned by the creatives, the editors, and the impresarios -- when it was dominated by debates about the craft of persuasion, about what moves people. After all, isn't that the reason we're in this business?"

Premium Pricing

Much has been written and discussed about the falling value of display ad pricing and how to build a foundation for premium pricing models. From the commoditization of ad inventory to the failing economy, there is no shortage of theories for the decline. Some would say that online publishers need to regain control of their ad inventory so they have more control over pricing. Others would point to the overemphasis on direct-response metrics that devalues the significance of brand advertising. There is also the simple law of supply and demand coming into play. The overabundance of inventory, combined with shrinking advertising budgets, are major factors in this conversation.

User Experience

Let's not forget about the other side of this equation: the consumer. We all have our opinions and theories on how to improve online advertising to increase revenues for our industry, but who is speaking up for the consumer? As we look for new ways to monetize digital real estate, is there sufficient focus on the user experience?

So, how do we make Internet advertising better? Do we need bigger ads? Better creative? Different pricing models? What is your definition of better -- and how do we get there?

Prime Invincibility

How a Long Island lawyer with little technology skill built a successful Internet company

Originally published by The New York Enterprise Report

The former president of NBC Universal doesn’t come knocking on everyone’s door, offering to buy their company. But that is just what Steve Rosenberg did for Prime Visibility, an Internet marketing services firm specializing in search engine optimization (SEO ), website on-page optimization, and pay-per-click management. The company’s 2007 revenue was nearly $5 million and was ranked on Inc.’s 5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies in America in 2007 and 2008. Their clients include Fox News, Brother Printers, Norwegian Cruise Line, and Nielsen. Prime Visibility CEO and founder Andrew Hazen has come a long way from his days as a lawyer doing mortgage foreclosures.

After failing out of SUNY Oswego twice (a result of excessive partying) Hazen graduated in 1995 and went on to attend Thomas M. Cooley Law School from 1996 to 1998. During his studies, he took a class in cyber law. It was in that class that Hazen created his first website; it was a simple site that helped law students. He linked to different case laws and old exams to help students prepare for class. Soon after launching the class project site, an attorney in Texas found the website and wanted to hire him to do case law research. He figured if an attorney was willing to pay him for research, there must be a huge market of lazy students who would pay him, too. In 1996, he registered Lazystudents.com and launched an online business while still a full-time law student. The website offered two services: a subscription-based database of useful links for students in all subjects and a custom research service. “Google didn’t even exist yet,” says Hazen. “What I was doing was almost like a mini Yahoo. But I’m not a techie or a programmer. The funny part was I charged everybody a $9.95 fee, but I gave every person the same password, which was, ‘lazy link,’ because I couldn’t figure out how to create multiple passwords.”

The Start of SEO

Hazen wanted to market his site online, but with his student loans piling up he couldn’t afford to advertise with services such as Collegeclub.com and Student Advantage. Instead, Hazen set the goal of getting his website to appear on the first page of Yahoo results for the search “term papers.” He began reading online forums and getting ideas. Through a lot of trial and error, he got his website to appear third in a list of 8.8 million results.

In addition to running his online business, Hazen graduated a three-year law program in two years. He passed the bar, returned to Long Island, and began practicing law. “I was doing mortgage foreclosures,” says Hazen. “I was going to court and throwing people out of their houses and feeling terribly guilty about it. Then I had this idea to put all the Long Island businesses on the Internet and get them found.” In 1998, without discussing his plan with his wife, he went into the office of the owner of his law firm to resign. “I told him I’m going to follow my dream and start an Internet company,” says Hazen. “That conversation turned into the owner offering to back me, give me seed money, and be my partner.” The law firm moved a couple of administrative assistants out of a corner, put up drywall, and that was the first Prime Visibility office.

Growing the Company

According to Hazen there were two major catalysts for the growth of his business from two slabs of drywall to millions in revenue. In 2000, Tourneau and Lauren Hutton signed on as clients, giving the company a higher level of credibility. The second catalyst was a 2003 documentary called “The Google Boys” that appeared on A&E’s Biography channel. It was a one hour special about Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founders of Google, and the producers interviewed Hazen about SEO. He appeared in the documentary for only three minutes and fifty-two seconds, but the publicity was priceless. “If you go to YouTube right now and type in ‘search engine marketing,’ that video is number one,” says Hazen. “So now, people actually think that Google’s recommending me because they see me on a special with Larry and Sergey—not in the same screen, but one minute they’re looking at Larry and Sergey, the next it’s this guy from Prime Visibility.”

Hiring for an Emerging Industry

Since Prime Visibility was a pioneer in the SEO industry, finding qualified employees was a major challenge for Hazen. “There wasn’t a real career for search engine optimization,” he says. “So, I hired web designers that I could teach to do optimization. Unfortunately, we went through a period when people would come to us for a year or two, get paid about $30,000 or $40,000 and learn optimization. Then, they’d take what we taught them, and go get a job in Manhattan and make $70,000. I used to call it Prime Visibility University.” Prime Visibility now combats turnover with employee stock options. The benefit has increased employee retention and employee commitment to the success of the business.

Selling the Business

Hazen’s partners from the law firm did not interfere with the running of the business nor did they take any money out of the company. However, the company was making millions in revenue and Hazen wanted to buy them out. After years of working on a deal, he bought out his partners in 2006. “I finally closed a deal where I bought out my original partners from the law firm,” says Hazen. “In theory, nothing changed with the operations, but I just felt good that I owned a hundred percent of the company.”

Three months later, in November 2006, Hazen was introduced to Steve Rosenberg, the former president of NBC Television. When Rosenberg left NBC in 2004, he noticed a seismic shift in advertising dollars going from television to digital and decided to invest in Internet companies. After being introduced to Hazen, Rosenberg decided to examine the idea of acquiring Prime Visibility “Steve basically went out, raised money, and acquired my company,” says Hazen, who closed on the sale December 28, 2007; he now owns a stake and also serves as CEO.

Hazen captured the trials and tribulations of the selling process with a reality show called “STARTUP.” He co-produced and starred in the program, which appeared on hdonlinecinema.com. The show featured Hazen stressing out about his company “showing really good numbers” to the investors. “I had to run the company lean and mean. It got to the point when my wife called me to tell me that my seven year old went to go get a haircut and the credit card was declined because I owed American Express $185,000.”

Hazen says he’s a workaholic, and he means that in a good way. “I know that whether you’re Donald Trump or Andrew Hazen or Guy Kawasaki, there are twenty-four hours in a day and what you decide to do with them will make or break your future.”

Q&A with Guy Kawasaki

Originally Published in MediaPost's Online Publishing Insider
By: Kory Kredit

"I'm kind of a big deal." Those are the immortal words of the legendary Ron Burgundy as he introduces himself to lovely Veronica Corningstone in the movie  "Anchorman" (One of my all-time favorite films). As an accomplished newscaster, pseudo-celebrity and owner of many leather-bound books, Mr. Burgundy carries himself with an air of confidence and arrogance that allows him to approach anyone he chooses with an expectation of their immediate acknowledgment of his awesomeness.

As a marketing guy for an ad network, I'm certainly no "big deal" and would have about as much of a chance to successfully approach and interview someone like Guy Kawasaki as any one of you might have to become Commerce Secretary of the United States -- although I understand they are still accepting applications. However, as a columnist for MediaPost's Online Publishing Insider, I am VERY loosely associated with the press, which has provided me opportunities to speak with industry experts and thought leaders who most likely would not have given me the time of day under normal circumstances. (Disclosure: My company, PV Media Group, sells advertising for Kawasaki's company, Alltop.com, but it's a safe bet that, if not for this column, he would just as soon have kicked me off the bridge like Ron's dog Baxter as he would have carved out 30 minutes of his day for me.)

While I'm no Ron Burgundy (although I do own one leather-bound book), I put on my press hat last week to conduct an interview with Kawasaki, Alltop.com 's co-founder  and managing director of Garage Technology Ventures. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. Guy has written nine books including his most recent, "Reality Check."

Kory: What was the market opportunity that you identified that led you to create Alltop.com?

Guy: I had another Web site called Truemors where people could upload true rumors.  It was placed on an aggregation page called PopURLs.com. We noticed that PopURLs was sending us as much traffic as Google search, so I got curious about what PopURLs was and talked to PopURLs founder Thomas Marban and asked if he was going to do anything besides tech and business. He said 'no,' so I decided I was going to do all the rest. We saw what PopURLs was and decided to put it on steroids.

Kory: Is there anything that would stop anyone else from recreating a model similar to Alltop?

Guy: Nothing. Theoretically someone could grab our OPML files and recreate Alltop. I've come to believe in my career that there aren't really too many companies that are defensible for technology reasons. What makes Twitter defensible? Is Digg defensible? What is defensible about Digg is that they have reached critical mass. So, it's kind of a catch-22, if you reach critical mass you're defensible, if you're defensible you reach critical mass. I think it is not a chicken and the egg thing, it's a matter of reaching critical mass. So, what will make us defensible -- and I don't think we're defensible yet -- is, when generally speaking someone asks 'how do I find a good food blog?' because when they search on Google they get 38 million matches. Instead, someone suggest that they go to food.Alltop.com. That's when I win.

The problem is people will write that down as if achieving critical mass is a strategy, but that's not a strategy, that is the end goal.

Kory: If critical mass is the key, how are you currently driving traffic to Alltop.com?

Guy: Twitter is very good for us and sends us a lot of traffic (more on that later in the interview. You can also read an article he wrote on that topic here ). We are also very high on Google searches, typically ranking on the first page for any topic. Many of the blogs that we aggregate will write about being listed on the Alltop site, which creates a lot of high-quality links and traffic back to our site.

Kory: The way people consume content online is evolving from a more traditional publisher-controlled model to a user-controlled model via social media tools/RSS feeds/aggregation sites. With that evolution, how do you think publishers/brands must adapt to remain relevant, position themselves as a trusted source of information, and drive traffic to their sites?

Guy: If I knew that, I could solve the newspaper industry crisis. That's a real concern. My fear is that with all of this user-generated content/citizen journalism stuff, how do you do the deep background research, nine months of investigative reporting about the addictive qualities of cigarettes, or others stories like that?  Who does that if the newspapers go away? Because the odds of somebody tweeting that they just saw a memo from a tobacco company that says they are addicting people to cigarettes on purpose is not very likely.

It may be that the model eventually is that foundations have to support investigative reporting. That would be an interesting model. Let's say that the MacArthur Foundation, in addition to doing genius awards, now funds journalism, too. That would be cool.

Kory: Now that you've solved the newspaper crisis, let's circle back something you mentioned previously, which is your use of Twitter. I heard you say in a recent interview that Twitter was more critical to you than your cell phone. Why is that?

Guy: There are substitutes for my cell phone. There are landlines or email that my wife can use to contact me. There are no substitutes for Twitter. In Twitter, I have 63,000 close friends, I can reach millions of people and there is no other marketing tool that is free and can do that. The only equivalent is maybe a Super Bowl commercial, but that isn't free. I would die without Twitter. And I don't mean because I need friends and I need to have social relationships. Twitter to me is a weapon.

Kory: How do you think publishers/news outlets should be using this weapon for themselves?

Guy: At the very least they should be auto-tweeting their news feeds. So one tactic is pushing their own stuff out, and the other tactic is to monitor it to keep up with current events. I also think that you can foster loyalty. If I were a newspaper and I'd just published my quarterly venture capital roundup, I would be searching for the string 'venture capital.' Every time I found that string, I would send that person a tweet that said, 'my newspaper just published our Q1 venture capital roundup and you would probably be interested in it because I see you tweeting about venture capital.' Who is going to resist clicking on that link? The person that gets that message is going to be flattered that my newspaper even found him, is going click on it, read the report and retweet it. And this can all be accomplished with one $10/hour intern. We're not talking about a $5 million acquisition.

Final Notes:
While my interview skills leave quite a bit to be desired, I was able to unearth a few nuggets of wisdom and insight from Guy -- including how he drives traffic to his Web site by utilizing Twitter and Google, and how to solve the newspaper industry crisis. It's still not up to the standards one would come to expect from the Action News team, but acceptable for a marketing guy masquerading as a member of the press. You stay classy, MediaPost subscribers!

Mostly Dead

Published in Media Post's Online Publishing Insider

By: Kory Kredit

"It just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead." Those are the infamous words of wisdom  uttered by Miracle Max (played by Billy Crystal) from the movie "The Princess Bride," after Max finished examining a seemingly lifeless hero named Westley.

Aside from my fascination with classic movies and TV from the '80s, there is a point to this retro flashback. There has been much written about the demise of the display ad. If you look at the numerous columns and blogs written on this subject over the past year you might be inclined to believe that display ads are either dead, mostly dead or at the very least badly broken.

Do a Google search on "Display ads are dead" and you'll find plenty of articles from every major online publication relating to the death of display ads as we know them. Even my fellow Online Publishing Insider columnist, David Koretz, recently wrote a column entitled  "Display Advertising Needs To Die."

However, as Miracle Max points out, if you're mostly dead, you're also slightly alive. While there is no shortage of opinions expressing doom and gloom about the life span of the display ad, there are just as many in the industry that would argue the opposite point of view. Some would even argue that it is not the display ad vehicle that is broken, but rather the methods of targeting and tracking that are in need of an overhaul.

Whether display is mostly dead or not is clearly still up for debate. What isn't up for debate is that the Internet landscape is constantly evolving, and that evolution encompasses the advertising model that sustains it. So, rather than debate the current state of display advertising, why not consider where it is headed? If advertising dollars continue to flow from traditional advertising into the online space, what additional or innovative advertising solutions will our industry have to offer other than paid search, which will continue to be the industry's cornerstone for the foreseeable future?

Does the future lie with some new advertising model? Better ways of targeting and tracking? Let's take a brief look at some of the options that have emerged:

Social Media Ads & Widgets
The popularity and growth going on in the social media space has advertisers, publishers and networks scrambling to figure out ways to leverage and monetize this new form of online networking and collaboration. There are several solutions that incorporate social media technology into display ads, widgets or integrated content solutions from companies like Pluck and Gigya or the "SnaggableAd" from Clearspring and PointRoll. The social media avalanche has even prompted one network, Federated Media Publishing, to abandon its display ad focus to focus on what they refer to as "conversational marketing."

It is too early yet to know if any of the these solutions are the answer, but it is clear that developing a solution for monetizing social media will be critical this year and could be a game-changer both for advertisers and publishers.

Mobile Ads
It seems that every year in recent memory has been predicted to be the "Year of Mobile." 2009 may finally be that year. The iPhone and other touch-screen handheld phones, along with high speed networks, have opened up opportunities for advertising in ways that simply didn't exist a year ago, as people use their mobile phones more and more to consume digital content and information. This could be the year to finally explore the potential of mobile before the gold rush truly arrives and the barrier to entry increases.

In-Game and In-Application Ads
While advertisers and publishers have gone to sometimes excruciating lengths (i.e.,  ESPN's prestitial home page takeover ad ) to monetize every pixel, click, view and digital movement, online activity only represents one segment of time spent on a computer. While in-game advertising has established itself as a viable alternative for advertisers looking for new ways to reach their customers, the development of ad-supported software applications is coming soon. This may open up new recurring revenue streams for software publishers, which is welcome news for companies like Microsoft, but doesn't really benefit Web site publishers looking for better ad solutions.

Alternative Forms of Targeting & Tracking
The methods and metrics that we use to target and track the success of display ads may also be part of the problem. "While display ads are effective tools for brand advertisers, they can also become an important tool in the arsenal of direct response advertisers as well," says Chad Little, CEO of FetchBack. The challenge is to educate advertisers on the importance of tracking the impact of an ad beyond the click. Atlas Engagement Mapping is an example of a solution that can provide a more in-depth view of the true impact of a display ad.

I don't believe that display ads are dead. I certainly don't want them to die, since they are partially responsible for paying my salary (though I'm not affiliated with any of the companies I've mentioned). That being said, I welcome the innovative ideas and fresh perspectives that are needed to help display ads evolve and take advantage of the new technologies and usage trends that continue to shape our online interaction and activity. If the industry doesn't evolve, however, display ads could be on the path to becoming "all dead" -- and not even Miracle Max could breathe life back into it then.

Ch-Ch-Changes

by Kory Kredit, VP of Marketing, PV Media Group -- Published on MediaPost's Online Publishing Insider

As 2008 mercifully draws to a close, we begin to look forward to a new beginning in 2009 -- or at least we can fool ourselves into thinking things will be different as a result of flipping the page on the calendar.

Whether you're inspired by New Year's resolutions, the "change" mantra of our incoming president, or just simply like to mix things up regardless of the month of the year or who resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I thought that it might be a good time to explore some new ideas related the online advertising and marketing in 2009.

I polled some colleagues (and added a few thoughts of my own) about what changes they would like to see next year -- with the exception of achieving world peace through increased ad spending -- and these are some of the ideas, musings and nuggets of wisdom that made the cut:

• Move toward standardized reporting standards so ad networks and analytics can work together to reduce discrepancies and eliminate the need for publishers to use multiple analytics tools to measure performance.

• Appoint a Trade Show, Conference and Summit Czar who can make sense of the dizzying number of events in our industry that I can no longer keep track of. The new Czar would also have the power to eliminate events that have no real merit, or are held in the Northeast in the middle of February. This person would also control the selection of speakers to insure that I wouldn't have to hear exact the same group of experts at every event I attend -- except for Gary Vaynerchuk from Winelibrary TV, who should speak at every conference (actually he might already do that).

• Get beyond shortsighted near-term ROI goals and educate advertisers on the importance of branding for long-term success and long-term ROI.

• More straight talking and risk-taking. Surviving and succeeding in a slow economy requires that we cut through the clutter to focus on the things that really matter to our business. It also provides opportunity for individuals and companies alike to stand out from the crowd by taking risks and daring to move forward when others will choose to step back, cut back and become more conservative out of fear and uncertainty over when the economy will recover.

• Have the ability to find inspiration for my monthly column at any time during the month that is not on the exact same day it has to be submitted to the editor.

• The development and adoption of more standards for the social Web. With the expansion of social media across the Web, the potential for increased fragmentation in this space accelerates. With a growing number of social tools, sites and applications built on proprietary platforms, the online community could quickly grow weary of maintaining multiple profiles, connections and conversations across each platform. If you have any ideas on this one, you can contact me on Twitter, yammer, Facebook, LinkedIn, mySpace, email (I think I have 8 of those) IM, Google Talk or iChat.

While this is far from an exhaustive list, it is a decent place to start. If you were the Czar of Online Publishing, Marketing and Advertising, what changes would you make in 2009?

PV Media Launches BreakingNews.com

Hybrid online social net/aggregator caters to news junkies

(Posted on AdWeek -By Steve McClellan - Nov 20, 2008)

NEW YORK PV Media Group, parent of the AdOn Network, a contextual and behavioral targeting online ad net, has launched a hybrid online social network catering to news junkies and news aggregation Web site called BreakingNews.com.

The company has hired veteran newspaper journalist James McDonald to run the service as president and CEO. McDonald was part of the team that developed and launched The Washington Examiner in Washington D.C.

PV will use its search engine optimization firm, Prime Visibility, to enable BreakingNews to quickly capture paid search words for breaking stories, the company said, thereby insuring that the new site is prominently ranked in consumer searches.

Although, as PV CEO Steve Rosenberg noted, the term "breaking news" is one of the most searched terms on the Internet, "A highly trafficked domain name like this, encompassing a term that has become such a significant part of the global vernacular, holds tremendous value for advertisers seeking prime online real estate," he said.

In addition to news that runs the gamut from international, political, entertainment, business, health and science, the site will feature blogs, videos and podcasts, widgets and other commentary and discussion forums from a network of pre-screened contributors.

PV will promote the new site through its online ad networks AdOn and Premium Access Media, providing millions of additional impressions to create brand awareness and traffic, said Rosenberg, a former TV executive who ran the Universal Television Group before forming PV in January 2008.

What’s in A Name?

by Kory Kredit, VP of Marketing, PV Media Group -- Published on MediaPost's Online Publishing Insider

For those of you old enough to have watched the ’70’s television classic, “WKRP in Cincinnati,” you will remember the straight-laced, bumbling and insecure newsman from the lowest-rated radio station in Ohio. In one episode, he is having a discussion with a man named Steel in which Steel makes the comment that he feels a man’s name says a lot about who he is. He then asks the geeky, balding newsman what is name is. The reply: “Les. Les Nessman.”

In the same way that “Steel” was a fitting name for the steroid-enhanced deliveryman, “Les” perfectly described the diminutive and incompetent news director.

Over the past two weeks, I’ve been wrestling with the significance of names from a business perspective. While my focus has been on the name of a new vertical ad network rather than a fictional television character, the primary question is the same. What should a name communicate?

With the proliferation of ad networks and online media companies, how does a company set itself apart in a crowded marketplace? With ad:tech and OMMA AdNets approaching in a month, I thought it would be interesting to look at the names of the exhibiting companies to figure out what their names communicate, or fail to communicate, about their respective companies. I’ve selected a handful of names and separated them into the following categories:

Obvious/Descriptive (Think of this like opening a shoe store, and calling it The Shoe Store)

AdBuyer.com

Advertising.com

Permission Data

Prime Visibility

ListMarketer

Vaguely Familiar (Make up a word that sounds like a word, but isn’t really a word)

Acquisio

Alterian

Atrinsic

Etology

Infegy

Alternate Spelling (Take a word that you like, ask a 6-year-old to spell it for you, and presto — you’ve got a name!)

Wyndstorm

Xtranormal

NeuStar

Personifi

Prospectiv

??? (Quick - you’ve got five seconds, tell me what you think these mean)

Goolara

Lat49

Tinbu

Jivox

mZinga

eZanga

Bango

Rextopia

xy7

W3i

IZEA

Qoof

Naming a company is clearly an inexact science, and while a name may seem odd to some, it may someday become accepted as part of the culture like Google (not likely, though).

As a professional in the online advertising, marketing or publishing world, what do you think a company name and URL should communicate, if anything? Should it be easy to remember, easy to type in the URL, short, descriptive, clever, unique?

Does your company name make it help stand out in a crowd, or make those in the crowd scratch their heads? If you are attending either  ad:tech or  OMMA AdNets in November, take a few extra minutes to look at the names of the 300-plus exhibitors and let me know which names you think you will remember the week after the conferences are over. While you are there, make sure to look me up. I’ll be the guy wearing the Les Nessman name badge.

What is a Publisher? It Depends on Your Perspective…

by Kory Kredit, VP of Marketing, PV Media Group -- Published on MediaPost's Online Publishing Insider

On a recent flight from Phoenix to attend Ad:Tech Chicago, I was sitting near a young boy and his father. As we accelerated down the runway, the boy beamed with anticipation for the moment we would leave the ground. As we lifted off and began our rapid ascent, he gazed out the window and proclaimed to his father, “Look dad, the earth is tilting.” From his perspective, it seemed perfectly logical to conclude that the earth must be tilting since he was still sitting in his seat and the horizon was no longer flat. While my perspective in that airplane led me to a different assessment of our situation, I understood the alternate view from the four-year-old boy sitting across the aisle from me.

Individual perspective can cause two people who observe the exact same thing to interpret it differently. Such was the case in a recent Online Publishing Insider column I wrote about Facebook. In that column I referred to Facebook as a publisher. From my perspective, working for an ad network, there are two very broad categories for companies that conduct business on the Internet: advertisers and publishers. From that vantage point, Facebook falls into the publisher bucket. That perspective, however, was not shared by one of the column’s readers. In his comment posted to the Online Publishing Insider blog, he wrote, “They [Facebook] are a content aggregator or a repository of their user’s content,” inferring that they were not a publisher. I apparently lost all credibility in his eyes when referring to Facebook as a publisher since the company clearly doesn’t publish any of its own content.

Unsure of the validity of my perspective, I went to Ad:Tech seeking out some additional opinions. In one of the sessions I attended, Liz Ross, CEO and Global Chief Marketing Officer at Tribal DDB, made a comment that caught my attention. She said that one of her agency’s clients, Pepsi, produces so much online content that it would consider itself an online publisher. While that may be a stretch, even for me, it was clear that the traditional definition of an online publisher might need to be expanded.

While at the conference I also had the opportunity to speak with Shiv Singh, vice president of social media & global strategic initiatives for Avenue A | Razorfish. I asked him for his definition of a publisher, and his response was sufficiently broad as well. Singh said that a publisher is, “Anyone who has an audience and accepts advertising.” He added that he believes that more traditional publishers are going to start looking like the Facebooks and MySpaces of the online world as they integrate social network features that will create blurring from both directions (social networks and traditional publishers).

If you agree with his definition, then an individual blogger could potentially be a publisher as well. With advertising widgets like lemonade  and blog-centric ad networks, bloggers that can attract an audience can also monetize their content.

Is the earth tilting or is the plane ascending? Is a publisher defined as a media site that produces and publishes its own content, or could a publisher be just an individual blogger? It all depends on your perspective. What’s yours?