Is the future of positive social approval changing?

Almost two years ago, I have written about the development on Twitter that positive comments are not rated in a way they should (in my eyes). Those days I asked the question if the RT (Retweet) becomes a killer for the positive blog comment. Many people tapped my shoulder virtually and agreed with my observation.

In some way the RT “button” is similar to Facebook’s LIKE button. It is a given opportunity to automize a process of agreement. And I am asking myself if Facebook’s LIKE button -launched one year ago- has the same “negative influence” on our positive comment on reviews in the future. Although it was meant to give its members an easy way to show approval for products, services, content and thoughts. I am coming back to these thoughts as I stumbled upon an interesting local study.

According to a recent study released by CityGrid Media, conducted by Harris interactive, that did some research on Web properties focused on local merchants, consumers prefer the “Like” button to writing a positive review for a local business. The study polled 1,006 adults in the U.S. over the phone between March 16 and 20.

OK, this is restricted to local only. But do we doubt that there is a difference in the regional and global attitude and behavior of humans? Especially as 52% of respondents said they visited more than two websites before visiting a local business, and Google plus Facebook were the most popular first sites those people accessed.

The study states that 20% of respondents say they show support for local businesses by clicking the “Like” button for that business on Facebook versus 13% who write reviews. The offline way is still the most successful method according to the study. The verbal way of telling a friend was the most popular method (75%). Not surprising as most of the consumers are still more listening than telling.

However this is just a local research, I asking myself if this s a good development, for us, for retailers, for brands and for the Social Web in general. Bearing in mind how much our written reaction on products and services influences our buying behavior, I think, it is not good if only the negative comments get (negative) credits while positive comments and reviews just find the automated, lazy “push a button” credit – no sentiment, no conversational reward, no tapping on the shoulder virtually…

How do you see this development?

Real-time-bidding: How publishers and advertisers leverage online ads (a Michael Barrett interview)

One-on-one interview with Michael Barrett.

Michael Barrett joined Admeld from Fox Interactive Media, where he was Executive Vice President, Chief Revenue Officer and oversaw worldwide revenue for all properties, including MySpace, IGN, FoxSports.com, Fox.com, AmericanIdol.com and Scout.com. Before Fox, Mr. Barrett held senior sales positions at interactive leaders AOL Media Networks, GeoCities/Yahoo! and Disney Online.

The Strategy Web spoke briefly with Mr. Barrett about Real-Time-Bidding (RTB) and the benefit that Admeld can offer to publishers… and advertisers.

What is a private Ad Exchange and which role does Admeld play in this context?

The private exchange is built on Admeld’s core technology, it is an invite only marketplace. First, it leverages our yield optimisation engine, which connects to every major programmatic buyer. Second, it has an audience analytics module which enables the publisher to identify their most valuable users. And third, it has the analytics and controls necessary to help them stay aware of buying trends, price effectively and sell only to those they want.

Do you think, this model is right for every publisher?

The model makes sense for many large European publishers, but the solution isn’t right for every publisher. It’s meant for those that have the scale and brand equity to attract advertisers into their own marketplace. The private exchange is customized to a publisher’s needs, and delivers cutting-edge control over how you sell your inventory, to whom, and for how much.

Can you still put inventory through RTB on private exchange?

Yes, Admeld’s private exchange platform has been developed to primarily handle RTB and gives the publisher unprecedented, direct access to Admeld’s audience analysis and optimisation technology. The exchange platform works in concert with a publisher’s ad server and demand flows from the trading desks, DSP’s, and direct sold deals. This methodology gives the publisher truly informative access, control (including the ability to set price floors), and insights on their inventory, regardless of demand source.

Spot On!
The RTB technology approach is still quite new to the advertising industry. Admeld just recently launched a RTB network with quadrantOne on premium local audiences. sociomantic entered the European market last week – just some weeks after my company IDG signed a global agreement with Admeld to start their own RTB system called Techmediaexchange which will be going live soon. One of the latest studies by Forrester claims that RTB is accounting for 8% of the online display ad market in 2011. An interesting market for clients and publishers in the future…

News Update – Best of the Day

The latest market outlook by Deloitte predicts that in 2011 social networks are likely to surpass one billion unique members and may deliver over 2 trillion advertisements. Although this sounds impressive, it is modest compared to other media, the CPM remains low and the market share remains at only 1% of the global online ad spend. The per member annual advertising revenue is approximately $4 which implies total 2011 advertising revenues of about $5 billion.

Will the publishing industry see a revival of print again? Everybody says social media is challening the print publishing industry. All of a sudden, the Content Marketing Institute has launched a media that is in some way a spin-off of the modern social web development, Chief Content Officer. The circulation is 20,000 marketers, with additional digital distribution. Yes, obviously there is a “digital spin” off as well…

Nike signed a big sponsoring agreement with the national football association of France (FFF). After years with Adidas, France signed a contract with Nike for their national football dress. And then they did this fantastic commercial with reference to my most admired work and poem from “Cyrano de Bergerac”, ending with the famous words “J’ai touche!”. Let’s wait and see what the French team will touch us in EURO 2012…

PS: At Starbucks mobile payment becomes reality. At least in the US where you can swipe your phone in front of a scanner that is checking your Starbucks account.

News Update – Best of the Day

According to a Microsoft research the time peole are online in Europe will be more than the length of time they spend watching TV – and this will already be the case in June 2010. The outlook of the software giant predicts that people will spend on average 14.2 hours a week online and 11.5 hours a week watching TV.

Although YouTube is ot the easiest site for Google to bring to advertisers minds, it still does some good results – and has increased ad selling from 6 to 9% – in terms of its video views. Nevertheless, revenues are still low – as for all competiors like Hulu or MySpace, said AdAge. Again it shows, content is king from revenue perspectives…

“The gain in YouTube’s U.S. business is the result of a number of factors, including more content agreements with partners such as CBS, MGM and, more recently, Disney, expanding YouTube’s partner program to thousands of indie and small producers and successfully guiding YouTube visitors to content it can sell to advertisers.”

Some fashion spots are just cool… and find a great ending.

News Update – Best of the Day

What’s Google’s next big revenue driver? Capturing one of the biggest markets owned by platform owners? If so, there are 3 things Google needs to make display ads a big business, says Google CEO Eric Schmidt…

“The first problem if you have a display property, it’s very difficult to figure out which ad to show. Because there are multiple vendors who show you these ads. We’re in the process of building the equivalent of an ad exchange which will allow you to do that automatically and do it with scientific measurements. So today what people do is they use heuristics, and the heuristics in that space are terrible.”
“The second issue in display has to do with the standardization of ad formats. There’s not agreement at the level that it needs to be on the standardization of the delivery of the display, and especially around interactive and video ads. The future of display ads is not a static picture, but an ad that brings you in. That tells you a narrative.”
“Third in our case is the construction of the business relationships with the large advertisers, which we’re still working on.”

What’s the future of direct mail spending like in the U.S.? One of the latest reports on ‘A Channel in Transformation: Vertical Market Trends in Direct Mail 2009′ by marketing consultancy Winterberry Group says, the outlook is not positive… Reasons are: recession, rising postage rates and marketing trends – combination is affecting direct mail spending.

What is the new idea on response driven advertising? Barcoded ads! At least Volvo shows a very interesting approach for the launch of their C70 series. The pan-European advertising campaign will include print ads with a specially integrated QR (Quick Response) barcode and uses the print ads to provide readers with instant access to additional web content on their mobile.

Safer Internet: Social Networks want to protect children

Let’s hope this was kind of a historical day, yesterday… The day against ‘Cyber-Mobbing’ was called the Safer Internet Day. One reason why 18 companies signed a new kind of declaration of a self-imposed obligation named the Safer Social Networking Principles for the EU contract.

In order to prevent the misuse of new technologies companies go hand-in-hand on their social networking future. Probably, much appreciated from parents is that big social networks have signed the agreement, i.e. MySpace, Facebook, Habbo or Bebo – but also Google and Yahoo belong to the group of signatories.

Spot On!
Children and young people face many risks with new technologies: i.e. cyber-bullying, grooming, privacy violation or exposure to harmful content (pornography, racism, etc). The contract is like a company-grouped agreement to protect young people online more than European legislation already does. As a dad of two kids I definitely appreciate the effort and will keep an eye on it.