Google to Offer a Tool To Measure Web Hits

WSJ.com: "Google's approach, aimed at bolstering its ad-sales business, could pose a major threat to the Web measurement services that are available now, ad executives say. The two main players in the business -- comScore and Nielsen Online -- gather data on Internet use largely by tracking what panels of people do online or by conducting surveys, and their results can be inconsistent and incomplete."

Symbian, iPhone & the New Mobile Reality

GigaOM: "Nokia, already a stakeholder in mobile OS maker Symbian, has announced that it will buy the remainder of the company and throw all the assets into a new platform called the Symbian Foundation, which will unite all the flavors of Symbian into a single, common software platform that will go open source in two years. Major mobile players such as Motorola, NTT DoCoMo, AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone have all signed on."

Q1 ad spending: print flat, internet way up

WWD.com: "And while print was relatively flat, the Internet was way up: Internet advertising impressions rose 14.7 percent in the first quarter, driven by sponsored search, Nielsen said."

Blogger arrests hit record high

BBC: "More bloggers than ever face arrest for exposing human rights abuses or criticising governments, says a report.

More than half of all the arrests since 2003 have been made in China, Egypt and Iran, said the report."

Web Do-Over: ABC Gives TV Advertisers Makegoods--Online

MediaPost: "Broadcast networks are starting to experiment in giving makegood inventory in digital streaming episodes in lieu of traditional TV commercial time."

Study: Americans use Net to look beyond sound bite

Yahoo! News: "the Pew Internet and American Life Project said that nearly 30 percent of adults have used the Internet to read or watch unfiltered campaign material — footage of debates, position papers, announcements and transcripts of speeches.

'They want to see the full-blown campaign event. They want to read the speech from beginning to end,' said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew group. 'It's a push back from the sound-bite culture.'"

Where TV and the Web converge, there is Hulu

Los Angeles Times: "The issue boils down to this: Will low-cost original programming, à la 'lonelygirl15' or those grainy, amateur YouTube clips, continue to dominate online video? Or will the little guys get crowded out in a new, heavily commercialized era, led by expensive, slickly produced studio shows that premiered on broadcast or cable?"

eBay Shutters Ad-Sales System

Adweek: "Online auction house eBay has shuttered its Internet-based system for buying and selling TV and radio ads, the company has confirmed on its Web site. The system had been up and running for just over a year.

The system was controversial from the start and received little support from the cable network industry, which eBay had hoped would contribute significant amounts of inventory. But the networks by and large stayed away fearing the process would cheapen the value of their ads."

YouTube: You Created the Content, Now Sell the Ads

Advertising Age: "Professional content producers -- those who come equipped with their own ad-sales teams -- are now able to sell advertising on their YouTube channels. That includes the click-to-expand overlays that run across the bottoms of YouTube videos and display units on the page that hosts the video player. The revenue is split between the content creator and YouTube, just as it would be if YouTube sold the ads."

Google CEO Eric Schmidt: "The next big wave in advertising is the mobile internet"

Netzökonom: First: There is still a lot of revenue in search - as we get the technology better or as we can do more targeted ads. There is no limit for search marketing. People assume that there is a limit, but we have many more ideas about technology. Second: The most obvious large space of advertising is the mobile internet. Every German has a mobile phone. Just take the success of the iPhone: It has the first really powerful web browser on a mobile device - and many more are still coming. Nokia has one coming, Blackberry has one and Motorola has one. They are all supposed to be released this year. By these products, the advertising gets more targeted because phones are personal. So targeted ads are possible. And that means the value of the ads will grow. The next big wave in advertising is the mobile internet.

Google co-founder pushes TV white space plan

Reuters: "Page highlighted the benefits of making more spectrum available, while downplaying opposition from broadcasters, and makers and users of wireless microphones, who fear the wireless devices would cause interference.

'I think the debate's really been politicized,' Page said.

Page said making more spectrum available would benefit computer users, giving them Internet connections with greater range and speed."

Craigslist Tops U.S. Mobile Browsing

PC World: "U.S. users spent about 1 hour, 39 minutes per month on Craigslist, M:Metrics said. The site has two big factors in its favor as a mobile destination, Donovan said. It's text-based, so it's easier to load with a weak signal, and it emphasizes local information. Donovan believes mobile users are visiting local listings for events such as yard sales along with the site's popular personal ads."

Diller: Social nets are nice but where’s the money?

Reuters.com: "Barry Diller likes social networks. He says they function as telephones used to: they help us communicate with each other. But one thing they don’t do is make money."

Are social networks dragging down CPMs?

Calacanis.com: "Again, communication services are amazing for traffic, but they suck for advertising. High CPMs are going to be reserved for vertical content and search, where people are in the cognitive mindset to consume sponsor messages, which when correctly aligned are perceived as content."

Why Twitter Matters

BusinessWeek: "Businesses such as H&R Block (HRB) and Zappos are now using Twitter to respond to customer queries. Market researchers look to it to scope out minute-by-minute trends. Media groups are focusing on Twitterers as first-to-the-scene reporters. (They were on top of the May 12 China earthquake within minutes.) Loads of new applications and services are growing around the Twitter platform, leading some to suggest that the microblogging service could become a powerhouse in social media."

YouTube launches Buzz Targeting

MediaPost: "YouTube buzz targeting works on an algorithm that looks at a number of viewer activities, including how many times a video is chosen as a favorite, how favorably it's rated, and how quickly it picks up views, to determine which clips are about to 'go viral.'"

Google triumphant: Search wars look settled

FT.com: "It is a stunning victory that raises two overriding questions. Will Google be able to use the respite provided by the disarray at Microsoft and Yahoo to carry its dominance of search over into other areas of online – and broader digital – advertising? And should it now be a cause for alarm that one company is in a position to control so much of the lifeblood of the internet?"

MySpace Embraces DataPortability, Partners With Yahoo, Ebay And Twitter

TechCrunch: "MySpace is announcing a broad ranging embrace of data portability standards today, along with data sharing partnerships with Yahoo, Ebay, Twitter and their own Photobucket subsidiary. The new project is being called MySpace “Data Availability” and is an example, MySpace says, of their dedication to playing nice with the rest of the Internet."

Smaller Newspapers Still Thriving

MediaPost: "Amid all the dire talk of falling revenues at big newspaper publishers, some good news gets lost: Many smaller operations are doing quite nicely--even during an economic downturn. Above all, smaller newspapers are benefiting from their still-unchallenged ability to deliver local audiences for local advertisers."

Inside Microsoft's War Against Google

BusinessWeek: "For Ballmer, however, the game is far from over. Even before yanking the Yahoo offer, he had begun laying the groundwork for a strategy to compete with Google in online advertising. He's convinced that getting the online ad business right is essential to Microsoft's future. The reason: Consumers and businesses increasingly are switching from desktop software like Microsoft's to free online services that do the same things. 'We are absolutely committed to be the leading player in that endeavor,' Ballmer told employees at a recent gathering."