After months of rumors and hinting, we've learned AdBumb is being sold and sister sites 92.5 and New Media Reports are being folded. Publisher Pace Media is, on January 6, 2006, launching Adotas, a blog formatted site which will be staffed by writers from the three publications. After spotting an initial design of the site Spunker's Ben Popken writes, "Pace sales guy Ron Cummings the Second told me that if I act now, I can get 400k impressions for only $20,000, a $47,500 value. Furthermore, he said 'Since we are both located in New York let me know what kind of food you like and I can meet you for a lunch meeting.' Ron, my favorite food is green spam and eggs." Ouch. Here's a screenshot if the site has moved.
In a measure of quality versus quantity, RSS search company Feedster has launched its Feed of the year countdown. One finalist will be announced daily beginning today and at midnight on December 31, the "Feed of the Year" will be announced. The new "Feed of the Year" award was created to honor writers who have displayed continued excellence in blogging. A panel of independent judges reviewed each 2005 Feed of the Day and rated them for uniqueness, freshness, presentation, usability, and community. Prizes will be awarded to the "Feed of the Year" recipient and the top two finalists including iPod nanos and the new Video iPod.
This morning, we received this eager request from an ad network sales rep. This is exactly the sort of thing that really doesn't help the online advertising industry's image and, while this company may be populated with a fine bunch of folks, the message irked us one too many times.
"My name is XXX, from the online ad agency XXX {really an ad/affiliate network). I came across your site and was wondering if you would be interested in getting some business going. Currently we are looking to sell some traffic but we do buy traffic so feel free to make us an offer. We specialize in Pop-under, Floating Ad, and Interstitial formats and work on CPM, CPC, and specialty CPA terms. E-mail me back or give us a call so we can perhaps discuss getting a campaign going with you. Hope to hear from you soon."
First of all, don't come across my site. That's just nasty, Second, it's not traffic. It's impressions. Why is it that reputable companies refer to this ad metric as impression and others refer to it as traffic? Traffic connotes mindless, scatter shot reach to anyone, anywhere without regard for targeting. With impressions, at least the word alludes to leaving an impression which alludes to something with purpose. Oh, sure, you can argue they're the same thing. After all, not every impression is seen by human eyeballs. So hey, it's all just mindless traffic anyway and publishers and advertisers are simply putting up toll booths to collect cash. But, at least for me, talking about the selling and buying of online advertising, which, when done right, involves targeting contextually, behaviorally and demographically, among other things, as if it were all just traffic greatly devalues the medium and its capabilities as an advertising channel.
And thirdly, Pops? Floating ads? Do these companies realize they are pimping the most hated form of online idiocy? Do they care? Of course not. As long as the ROI math works out positively, pops are here to stay. Unfortunately, for us, the math does work out and we have to suffer. It still doesn't make it right.
Catching up on this week's TV last night during a date with the DVR (no TiVo baggage here - just a straight forward, simple cable DVR) we realized a few things. Aside from the usual hits everyone watches such as Survivor, Lost, Grey's Anatomy and ER (well, it used to be a hit), there's a few shows that are getting some attention but deserve more. While racing, blissfully, through a few commercial-free hours of saved programming, we realized there's a few lesser known shows worth mentioning: - UPN's Veronica Mars is a brilliant show. Each episode is a mini-mystery that Veronica, who's Dad is a private eye, solves all while wondering what she's doing in this really strange world they call highschool. In addition, each season contains an arching mystery that drops clues each episode. Smart strategy. Each episode can stand on its own while the viewer is rewarded with an in depth story if they stick with the series.
- FOX's Reunion, while not brilliant, has an amazingly intertwined plot which spans the live's of six people over 20 year from 1985 to 2005. Each episode represents a year. Because each episode jumps back and forth between present day and the episode's year, it can get a bit confusion following the plot. Perhaps that's one reason why its rating are in the toilet. This show's really a perfect candidate for DVD when you can sit down and watch big chunks of it at a time. Though FOX has done a good job with episode recaps for those who want to catch up.
- ABC's Invasion finally moved the plot along a bit this week with an episode that revealed a bit more behind the alien assimilation thing and the lead characters long involvement with it. It's the better of the several alien shows airing right now. The show has a blog which is nice but they do a terrible job of referring to it on the show misusing the terms blogs when they mean posts on a blog. Does anyone else think the actress playing the Sherrif's daughter, Alexis Dziena, is oddly attractive?
While UPN's Veronica Mars and ABC's Invasion will see future seasons it's likely, but unfortunate, Reunion will be cancelled after this year.
Donny Deutsch will announce the 2005 "Media Person of the Year" on his CNBC show, "The Big Idea," this Monday, Dec. 5. Each year, I Want Media runs a poll to find the "Media Person of the Year" defined as the figure who had the most impact on the media landscape. Last year's "Media Person of the Year" was the Daily Show anchor Jon Stewart.
This year's 10 candidates, submitted by the site's readers are CNN's Anderson Cooper; Gawker Media's Nick Denton; Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin; Apple's Steve Jobs; Author Judith Miller; media mogul Rupert Murdoch; Craig's List's Craig Newmark; Viacom's Sumner Redstone; Howard Stern and Martha Stewart (who was named the 2002 "Media Person of the Year").
I'm voting for underdog Nick Denton. You should too. He, and blogging, have significantly altered the media landscape in recent years. The online poll closes this Sunday evening.
Richard Branson really does own everything. We knew he was airline guy and cell phone guy but we didn't know he was train guy too. To promote Branson's Virgin Trains, glue London has created a series of online films (they call them viral but we'll see if they earn that moniker) which illustrate how much smaller Britain has become because of Virgin Train's fast service. The first film unleashes a giant cock (no, not that kind you freak) on an unsuspecting British neighborhood to, you know, show how small Britain is compared to, um, a giant cock.
The films were shot by web guys Ben Wheatley, Joel Veitch and Rob Manuel through Tomboy Virals. The first film "Cockerel" was released this month, with the rest to be released at regular intervals up until the World Cup eight months from now. blue has placed all the films neatly on a microsite called Little Britain for our viewing pleasure.
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