Maroon Ventures Blog

Via Greg Sterling, Dynamic Logic research shows consumer reaction to ads in various media. Perhaps surprisingly, consumers are a lot more amenable to ads in traditional media than new, and newspapers are at the top of the heap with 42% of respondents having a “somewhat positive” view of newspaper ads.

Is it time for print to start borrowing some of the measurability that’s common online? Why don’t more papers use 800-numbers in ads so they can track the actual phone calls their ads drive? How about the ability to track e-mail or web responses using proxy server technology (think of something like Tiny URLs in print ads that help the paper measure how many people are going to the advertiser’s site based on what they saw in print)? Online products have been doing this for a long time.

It would be really interesting to see someone buy one of the myriad newspapers on the market based on a pro forma that would allow for a sane, easy to understand rate card that completely rethinks some of the gouging that’s created advertiser disdain for newspapers.

Yes, newspapers have lost much of the marketplace status they once held. But most of them still have significant classified franchises and ad volume. And they have substantial, albeit dwindling, local audience. Cutting rate (sorry, Mark, someone had to say it) might be the right, if counterintuitive, way to re-establish some of that clout with advertising that consumers actually like. What if you coupled this with a compelling online strategy that isn’t afraid to put advertisers on the web — even at the expense of the print product if it makes more sense for the advertiser?

Maybe it’s not too late for a truly innovative — even disruptive — approach to print advertising. But it probably will have to come from someone arriving fresh to the industry with a sober view of the current economics it faces. Recent “fresh” arrivals haven’t followed this route …

Dynamic Logic research results

I discovered the Wall Street Journal’s Blackberry app via Silicon Alley Insider a few weeks ago, but I waited a while before posting a note on it to see if it’s the real deal. It is.

It’s a great, utilitarian way to browse the Journal, and it’s free. Not sure how long that will last, but enjoy it while you can. It gives you access to pretty much everything that’s in the Journal. I like the tabbed approach to browsing, and it downloads headlines and summaries quickly and efficiently. While I like Yahoo! Go on the Blackberry, it’s slower to launch and more cumbersome to maneuver through. I often find myself just going straight to the WSJ now because it’s faster and easier.

Two complaints: I had one instance where the app stopped downloading new headlines. I shut off and restarted my phone, which seemed to unkink it. Also, I haven’t been able to get the Keyword tab to work. I enter the keywords I want to track, but it doesn’t seem to retain them. Not sure if I’m doing something wrong or if this is a bug.

I guess a third complaint would be that an iPhone version isn’t available. But I’ll leave that for my iPhone-fanatic Partners to voice. If you had to start somewhere, Blackberry is the right place with a bigger install base and business-focused users.

Want to check it out? Download it here.

I am. Drop me a line if you want to get together to compare notes, hear about Maroon Ventures’ schemes for world domination or just get caffeinated …

I’ll be participating in the Optimize and Monetize panel on Friday, Sept. 12 from 2:30 to 3:45. Here’s a PDF schedule for the entire conference, and here are details on the Optimize and Monetize panel …

“Master the art of online advertising and understand what works for your site. Are you using excess inventory to your advantage? What do advertisers need? What do marketers think when they decide what to spend and where to spend it? Where are you going wrong?
“Panelists: Ken Doctor, news industry analyst for Outsell; Mark Rose, director for sales strategy, Tribune Company; Bob Benz, partner, Maroon Ventures.”

Aurora (Part 1) from Adaptive Path on Vimeo

Via LifeHacker, I came across this intriguing guess at what life on the Web will be like 10 years from now. Is it just me, or does it seem rather Apple-esque? And that creepy music in the background. It’s just a little too close to the airy-yet-ominous soundtrack on the Epic 2015 video.

But all snarkiness aside, Adaptive Path’s Aurora represents some fascinating thinking. Definitely worth a look.

And while we’re talking about user interface, check out “The Creative Destruction of a Website” post on Innoblog. It looks at the disruptive implications of ad agency Modernista!s new home page design. It takes the disaggregation that’s occurring on the web to the next level, essentially conceding that users will find, gain and access information in their own way. Modernista! just provides navigation and tools that allow its users to learn about the agency in a way that isn’t predicated on everything residing on the agency’s site. It’s almost the navigation equivalent of RSS ..

Update: Part Two of the Aurora video is now online.

Root Clip, which has emerged from the innovation group at Scripps newspapers, has opened voting on its second film, Chance Encounters. The site has come a long way since I initially took note of it in this blog. Clearly, Erik Luchauer and Kevin Antoine are iterating as they go, refining the process and streamlining the user interface.

The premise of the site is that Erik and Kevin post a short video, a root clip, and other filmmakers are urged to submit the next video in the sequence. Users vote on the best submission with the winner becoming the second installment. Then on to the next round. In the end, if all goes well, you end up with a short video story that is created by myriad filmmakers in a collaborative process. Talk about social media.

The major obstacle I hit when voting on Chance Encounter was the need to register. While I understand why it’s necessary to avoid voting fraud, it was a pain to have to go and register just as I was about to vote. But go ahead and register. Then vote. It’s an interesting project that’s worth checking out.

And why would a newspaper company be messing around with this? I’m not sure, exactly. But there’s something cool here, something outside the bounds of what newspapers traditionally do that could help as they cast around for what role they’ll play in an interactive world. It doesn’t take much extrapolation to come up with ideas that could apply in local markets, advertising and news.

Greg Sterling discusses Local and the Future of Ad Serving on his Screenwerk blog, and it’s definitely worth a look.

In short, he argues that sophisticated ad serving platforms are moving us much closer to true one-to-one marketing, and the end result will be the ability to mix and match creative on the fly to target specific demographics and behaviors in a very complex — yet easy to execute — process.

“It’s a bit of a “Zen” thing,” Sterling writes. “First there was simplicity, followed by complexity and then there will be simplicity on the other side of complexity.

“In other words, all that the agency and marketer will eventually have to know about digital marketing (including mobile) is that they want to target women, 18-34 who live in New York, San Francisco or Chicago and are interested in certain product categories. They’ll create their ads accordingly. Then they’ll deliver electronic data feeds of their creative and the platform will determine what to show when. They won’t have to figure out much tactically or mechanically. The complexity of the entire system will be in the ‘black box’ of the platform and buried for both the marketer and the end user, who will just see an ad and respond or not respond.”

Ken Doctor is a smart guy, and I enjoy reading his assessments of the industry. But I think he’s overreacting a bit in his recent post on the turbulence at Yahoo! and its impact on the newspaper consortium. Without a doubt, the papers I’m talking to are concerned. But they also realize there are several important things that are playing in their favor:

1. On Yahoo!’s search deal with Google: Ken is right that it’s unknown what the newspapers will get here. But it’s important to note that when the deal was negotiated, the guaranteed revenue was based on how Google, Yahoo and other contextual ads were performing on newspaper sites. Even if the Google ads were made available to the newspapers, there’s a strong chance the newspapers have a better deal as it’s currently structured than they would with Google contextual ads instead of Yahoo!

2. On the turbulence at Yahoo!: Yes, they are seeing a lot of turnover. But where AMP is concerned, we’ve seen nothing but razor focus and dedication. Yahoo! has staffed this effort very adequately and has significantly increased staff to work with the newspapers. With one exception, I’m not aware of any Yahoo!’s who are involved with the consortium who have moved on to other companies. In addition, Yahoo! is doing a bang-up job on AMP. It’s freakin’ impressive and I believe it will be a game changer for newspapers

3. On the contention that graphical and text ads will converge, Ken does have a valid point where yield is concerned. I don’t think the two ad formats will merge. They serve significantly different purposes. The real merger comes on how pages are monetized. A product like AMP might be able to look at all the available advertising opportunities on a page and decide which mix of graphical, text and other formats will drive the highest effective yield. If it happens to be a Google ad, so be it. Where I think Ken misses the point is that the potential to serve Google ads via AMP wouldn’t be detrimental to Yahoo! It’s actually to their advantage to have a mechanism that can make these decisions on pages across the Internet, helping myriad content providers to get the highest yield possible on their pages, regardless of the inventory served to get that yield. If I’m getting the highest yield possible, I’m not sure if I care if the ads come from Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft or the TV station I compete with in my market.

4. While Yahoo!’s woes do cause turbulence, I don’t think it calls into question the deal newspapers did with Yahoo! If anything, it makes the newspapers a key player in these talks and a force to be reckoned with regardless of the outcome. Without going into details, the Yahoo! deal has considerable change of control language baked into it (as every good contract does), and I think the newspapers are well protected.

Was the deal with Yahoo! a bad idea, or “playing with fire”? I really don’t think so. Yahoo! has been a stand-up partner thus far and I believe that will continue. The deal was a calculated risk, as are all major partnerships. But I wouldn’t call it playing with fire. If Yahoo! were to change hands, it puts the newspapers in a good spot to be a player in whatever emerges. I’m not saying I”d want Yahoo! to change hands. I think the newspapers are better served as things stand. But I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the newspapers emerge stronger in a change of control.

In short, don’t count Yahoo! out. They still have incredible audience, great technology and smart people. And their current leadership strongly advocated the newspaper deal. Hang on to your hats. This is going to be an interesting ride.

Full disclosure: I was one of the newspaper execs who helped negotiate the deal with Yahoo!, and Maroon Ventures is acting as general manager of the newspaper consortium.

Mark Glaser had a good post today on MediaShift that looks at academic responses to the disruptive hit journalism is suffering. He notes that lots of universities are talking about the problem, but some also are doing something about it. His post includes the beginning of a list and he encourages readers to amend it with more examples.

“My hope is that these various centers will do more than simply spend huge sums of money on buildings and make big pronouncements,” Glaser writes. “If they can help change the old mindset at educational institutions, with students, with faculty — and with the larger media business at large — then they will have proven their worth.”

Amen.

Via Lost Remote, I stumbled across this Slate piece on how we read online. Fascinating and pretty much on the mark. So much so that as I was reading it, I found myself skimming through the denser paragraphs and gravitating toward the bullets and short graphs.

And I love this quote, comparing people who are reading in a utilitarian, gain-information fashion and those who read for the sheer joy of it:

“I suppose ludic (pleasure) readers would be the little sloths hiding in the jungle while everyone else is out rampaging around for fresh meat.”

Gotta run now. I smell fresh meat out there somewhere …

adolphus_dallas.jpg

Originally uploaded by Suffering the Benz

The Rooms with a View group that I started on Flickr is starting to get some traction, at times looking like an interactive media all star team. Bill Blevins, Howard Owens, Ron Feinbaum and Eric Luchauer all have contributed as has David Gans, who runs the Dead Hour radio show.

This is my latest contribution. It’s from my fifth floor room at the Adolphus hotel in Dallas. Overall, it’s a great, older hotel. I was glad I didn’t get stuck at the Magnolia this time, which is next to the Adolphus.

Last time I was at the Magnolia, I couldn’t open the door with my room key. Or the new one they made for me. Or the one they brought up to try to let me in. They ended up having to call someone in from home to open my room. I didn’t get in till 2 a.m. and had an 8 a.m. meeting the next day.

To their credit, they refunded that night’s fee, but I still avoid the place. It has bad travel karma for me …

What are you waiting for. Join the Rooms with a View group and submit those photos …