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Here are the questions you need to answer, to be able to create a web site and make money from it: 1. What to sell (products, services, advertisements or a brand)? 2. How to sell (web design, copy writing… More >>
Webtrends, a company that offers marketers detailed web analytics, has rolled out new measurement capabilities for Facebook, including the ability to view Facebook data alongside data for other channels.
Tools like this are useful because Facebook’s own platform for this, Facebook Insights, runs three days behind, doesn’t measure custom tabs or apps, and doesn’t integrate with analytics for other digital marketing channels.
The tools work inside Facebook to provide detailed analytics data about applications, custom tabs, brand pages, contests and advertisements, among other things. This wasn’t easy to achieve because most of Facebook (Fan Pages included) doesn’t allow JavaScript, but Webtrends developed a custom API to get around that. Third-party applications built on the Facebook platform are easier because JavaScript is permitted.
The special features here are the ones related to comparing data between Facebook and other digital channels. For example, you can see how much traffic is being driven to your Facebook Fan Pages by Twitter updates, or you can overlay Facebook Fan Page activity with that on corporate blog posts.
Here are some images of Webtrends’ Facebook tools in action.
Tags: analytics, facebook, facebook insights, MARKETING, software, webtrends
Digg took a big risk when they added in-line advertisements that users could digg or bury. Four months later, however, early signs indicate that DiggAds are a win for all parties involved: users, advertisers, and especially Digg.
This latest bit of information was shared in a blog post earlier today that details how the DiggAds system actually works and the results thus far.
Here are the key details from Digg’s comments:
- DiggAds is powered by a complex auction-based system that attempts to serve users with the highest quality ads — Digg assigns their own quality score to ads — while factoring in the advertiser’s bidding price. It’s like Google Adsense but with quality scoring. The idea is to reward high quality ads with lower CPCs; the more diggs an ad gets the less the advertiser pays.
- Feedback from users is mostly positive, but one of the biggest user requests is to be able to comment on ads. Users are also confused by buried ads that reappear, but Digg suggests that in this case it’s just advertisers experimenting with ad format and resubmitting.
- DiggAds will evolve to include comments and address the “long-live” ad issue where ads get misleadingly high digg counts.
- The system is working with Digg saying that, “From a revenue perspective, things have been great”.
What’s especially interesting is that DiggAds displays advertisements to site users in the same format as other Digg content — so ads are a part of the Digg stream like other stories — but for the most part users appear to be embracing the model instead of rejecting it (and Digg’s community has historically not been shy over voicing displeasure with things they don’t like).
As Twitter prepares to unveil its own alternative ad platform, we have to wonder if they’ll emulate some of Digg’s tactics and whether or not Twitter’s very vocal user base will be as accepting as Digg’s has been.
Tags: advertising, digg, DiggAds, MARKETING, social media
Microsoft and Facebook have ended their advertising deal in which the software giant sold display ads on the social network, while at the same time expanding their search relationship. The announcement comes as a major Facebook redesign is being rolled out gradually to users.
Microsoft will continue to sell search advertising for Facebook, but the social network will take over the selling of its own display advertisements in the US (it began taking over international sales in the last few months). Microsoft said this was a “mutual decision” since “it just made more sense” for Facebook to lead its own advertising strategy. Nevertheless, it’s hard to believe the company is happy about losing the advertising section of its partnership, although banner ads weren’t doing so well on the site anyway. In fact, Facebook stopped running traditional banner ads altogether when it launched the new design and instead is focusing on selling social campaign display ads.
Meanwhile, Bing will continue to be the social network’s exclusive Web-search partner, and that exclusivity will soon go beyond US borders. Facebook users will also get access to more Bing search engine features, Microsoft said, describing it as “a more complete search experience” with “full access to great Bing features beyond a set of links.”
Microsoft says users will see Bing updates to Facebook roll out over the coming weeks and months. Four months ago, Microsoft announced a global partnership with Facebook that would bring the social site’s status updates to Bing search results, and while the company touched upon that again, it did not give a specific date for when to expect those improvements.
We’ve known for the longest time that Apple was planning something with mobile advertisements, particularly after they purchased mobile ad firm Quattro Wireless for $275 million, but the company has been mum on specifics. As the company behind the phone that built the mobile ad market, I would imagine that it has something juicy planned — especially since the launch of the iPad would bring the mobile ad market to a device that’s not exactly mobile.
Thanks to a recent App Store Tip on implementing location services, we’re beginning to have some idea of what they’re up to. Apple stresses that developers use of location-based information should be beneficial to users, and goes on to say:
If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store.
While it may seem like Apple is doing this to keep developers from spamming users with location ads, the truth may be more insidious. Gizmodo points to a tweet by iPhone and Mac developer Craig Hockenberry, who says, “Looks like Apple is going to keep location-based advertising to themselves.”
The move wouldn’t be unlike Apple. It was the same line of thinking that led to Apple rejecting the Google Voice iPhone application, even though the company would like us to think it did so because it was worried about “duplicating core functionality” on the phone.
If it were to control location-based advertising on its platforms, Apple would have a stranglehold on one of the most appealing features of mobile ads. Consider how important contextual advertising has been to Google’s domination of the internet ad market. Location information is that extra layer of context that will make mobile ads more beneficial to users. It’s the difference between being recommended to various pizza restaurants in New York when reading a pizza-related news story, and being recommended to a great pizza joint a block away from where you’re standing.
Ultimately, Apple could tempt more developers to integrate their ad solution by holding key features like location hostage.
Given that Google recently purchased AdMob for $750 million— which Apple also eyed, and is the other major player in mobile advertising aside from Quattro — it’s clear that this market is set to explode in the coming years.
We don’t yet know how restrictive Apple will be about location-based ads, but considering the furor over the iPhone application review process, it’s not likely that they’ll continue to rule over it with an iron fist.
Microsoft has filed for a patent related to how users can generate their own advertisements on social networks, according to a published report.
In the patent, the company notes that ads in social networks aren’t that effective because of the low relevance to the users. With this technique, an original, less-effective ad can be supplemented with users reviews, both positive and negative.
Inventors say that subsequent visitors to the web site are shown reviews based on relevance. In one quoted example, Microsoft says, “Advertisement 400 includes objective information 401 describing a product or service that is the subject of the advertisement 400. The objective information 401 is generally provided by a promoter of the product.”
“In other information fields 403, 405, and 407, information is presented that was provided by users of the social networking web site. This information can be subjective in nature, such as the accolade provided by “USER1″ in other information field 403.” The user reviews can be presented to other users who are part of the same social network.
By comparison, Facebook users can choose to “like” an ad, which can help determine what other ads are shown to the same user. Microsoft will measure the level of user engagement and then use that information to determine what ads are shown to the user next.
Chrome only: Firefox users can already use the VidzBigger Greasemonkey script to tweak and customize popular video sharing sites like YouTube, and now the script has been ported as a full Google Chrome extension.
After installing the extension, you simply can browse to any YouTube, MetaCafe, or DailyMotion video to see the layout changes—everything on the page is rearranged to show the video in a bigger size, and it keeps the video in place while you scroll the page to view suggested videos, so you can keep watching while looking around.
The biggest set of features is hidden in the preferences menu, where you can change dozens of options including disabling auto-play, skipping warnings and advertisements, tweaking the layout further, or even enabling a set of download links so you can keep a copy of the video for later.
Better avoid any Freudian slips on Twitter!
TweetPsych, an app that uses two linguistic analysis algorithms to compare a person’s last 1,000 tweets against the ones in its database, now looks at lists.
The project uses the Regressive Imagery Dictionary, which measures primordial versus conceptual thinking, and the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, which looks for positive and negative emotions and references to topics like work, religion and eating. TweetPsych takes both of those approaches and can tell if your list tweets about “sex” more than the average one, for example.
Creator Dan Zarrella launched the service back during the summer, but he added lists today. As an example, I decided to psychoanalyze Venturebeat’s team list. In keeping with our brand, we are decidedly business-oriented. We tweet 187 percent more than the average list about ‘Media’, 113 percent more on ‘Money’, 44 percent more on ‘Numbers’ and 31 percent more on ‘Work’. We also tweet 50 percent less about sex. (Sorry, you’ll have to go somewhere else.)
Some food for thought: if there are fun, little free apps that do this already on the web, expect many more to crop up that do it for commercial purposes. Facebook, for one, already studies your stream data and status updates to help match advertisements.
We’ve written about projects that analyze tweets from the masses like FlixUp, which uses Twitter to gauge how good movies are, but we have yet to see any for-profit ventures that do deeper psychological profiling of users. That doesn’t mean it’s not out there though, so watch what you tweet!
Online ad network Rocket Fuel has brought in $2.85 million in equity with additional commitments bringing the total to $3 million, the company says. The company uses social, behavioral, contextual, geographical and search data to target advertisements to customers at an extremely high level. Based in Redwood City, Calif., Rocket Fuel it is backed by DLA Piper, Labrador Ventures, MF Capital, Mohr Davidow Ventures and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
Black Friday: It’s a day when you can either score killer deals on gear or pay way too much for too little. The amount of planning and strategy you use is the biggest factor in whether or not you’ll get burned.
Photo by mecredis.
Black Friday marks the traditional point in the year when retailers stop operating at a loss (in the red) and start turning a profit (in the black), and they manage to accelerate that shift by separating lots of people from their money with Thanksgiving sales. If you plan well, this separation can result in a fantastic deal for you. If you plan poorly, it’ll result in not only a lack of a good deal but a day wasted out in the cold.
The following tips, tricks, and resources can help you avoid wasting a perfectly good day off and ensure you get what you’re looking for at the price you want.
Before you even begin to contemplate running the Black Friday gauntlet, you need to ask yourself how much your time is worth. If you’re throwing a wrench into plans to spend time with friends and family to save a couple hundred bucks on a laptop that isn’t all that great to begin with—and the store only has 5 in stock—it’s likely worth more just to enjoy your time with family and keep an eye on our Dealhacker posts here at Lifehacker. We pore over hundreds of deals a week and can say with authority that Black Friday-like deals happen all year long thanks to the magic of the internet.
The best way to decide if it is indeed worth your time is to take the next tip to heart.
Don’t fall into the trap of buying something just because it’s such a great deal. A $250 laptop that doesn’t do half the stuff you really want it to do is not a bargain compared to a $500 laptop that does. Research relentlessly, take the stack of advertisements and your list of Black Friday sites, and get information about the purchases you want to make. Reading reviews by fellow consumers and consumer-friendly publications is invaluable. You want to buy a super awesome and cheap GPS-EleventyBillion+1 unit? Hit some of these sites to make sure it’s not crap and that the price is right:
If you find reviews on both Amazon and Newegg from hundreds of customers talking about how bad the signal reception is on the GPS-EleventyBillion+1, you’ll know it’s not worth waiting in line for—even if it is dirt cheap. If you have a cellphone you can browse the web on, now would be a great time to bookmark the mobile versions—when available—of the sites above. When you’re in the Black Friday trenches, you can pull out your cellphone and check the ratings and prices right in the store.
More and more retailers are trying to grab a slice of the online market while more and more consumers are opting not to brave Black Friday for deals. This works strongly in your favor. Check out sites focused on deal hunting like FatWallet, SlickDeals, and Black Friday-focused sites like BlackFriday.info, BlackFriday Ads, and TgiBlackFriday. Not only will you get info about regular in-store Black Friday deals, but you’ll find out about online deals. We don’t know about you, but staying up until midnight on Thursday night to score a few good deals online and then going to bed is way better than sitting on a sidewalk outside of Best Buy only to find out that you weren’t early enough for the good stuff. Photo by mborowick.
Not reading the fine print is a sure fire way to get burned on Black Friday. Whether you’re looking at the fine print on the bottom of a newspaper circular or a web site, you need to check it closely on Black Friday deals. What time does the store open on Black Friday? Are some or all of the deals time sensitive? Often stores will run deals like 15% off all electronics until 10AM or some such variation. How many of the deep-sale and door-buster items will they have in stock? How do they handle door buster items? You don’t want to go to a store where people have to stampede to get to the good items; you do want to go to a store that hands out door tickets to the early shoppers so nobody gets hurt trying to scramble for the good items.
How early? Real early. You think you’re a serious Black Friday shopper, but you’re not. Not by a long shot. Some people have been planning for Black Friday all year. They read deal sites like you read the news, make spreadsheets to compare prices over the year to Black Friday and argue with other deal hounds about the ethics of bribing your relatives to help get extra loot or just how evil it is to hide merchandise in washing machine at Sears.
You’re not going to just stroll into the line at 7AM to get that $2,000 HDTV marked down to $999—you’ll be standing behind deal hunters who have been camped out since the day before. You’ll need to scope out your local stores on Thanksgiving day to see just how crazy the line build up is. Again, referring to the first tip in our list: How much is it worth to you? A grand off a high-end television might, for some, be worth spending the night huddled outside a Sears. Wear layers, bring something warm to drink, and be courteous to the people in line with you. Aside from just being an upstanding person, being courteous can pay off when someone holds your spot when you have to use the bathroom or offers to buy an additional item for you when there is a one-per-customer limit.
Black Friday shopping tips and tricks abound, and we certainly can’t cover every one. Let’s hear about your best tips, tricks, deal sites, and other Black Friday-related tales in the comments below.
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