DMEC

Sounds like Adobe and Yahoo are getting together on a plan to include ads in Adobe PDF documents.  Are you serious?  As if I needed another reason to be annoyed by Adobe’s reader… long load times, countless frustrations with digital rights management procedures… I’m not saying they won’t make any money from it, and this is just my initial reaction without knowing all of the details, but at least give me something in return: additional features, exclusive content, something to justify interrupting my document reading experience.
If you have a Mac, you probably love to use Preview, which opens in a snap and is a great viewer for PDF’s, JPG’s and more.  If you don’t, you might want to look into Foxit…

I saw the following at the end of a Google Groups email:

…

Regards,

_name_

---

Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage.
–~–~———~–~—-~————~——-~–~—-~

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups “_group name_” group.
To post to this group, send email to _group abbreviation_@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to _group abbreviation_-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/_group abbreviation_?hl=en
-~———-~—-~—-~—-~——~—-~——~–~—

The contrast between the information shown above from Yahoo! and Google reminds me of one of the main reasons I stopped using Yahoo! Mail altogether: I don’t like serving as a billboard. Others have felt similarly for many years now. The message from Yahoo!, appended to the sender’s email because she uses Yahoo! Mail, is irrelevant to most recipients. Most web surfers are well aware of what yahoo.com has to offer. If they wanted to set it as their homepage, they would have long ago. In contrast, the message from Google contains information relevant to many recipients of the email (albeit probably more information than needed by most).

I realize I’m comparing email appendages to mailing list appendages. In the case of email, Google does not advertise to recipients at all. Don’t even get me started on the corruption of messages from Yahoo! Groups…

I’m curious: has Yahoo! reevaluated the decision to append advertisements to their members’ emails, or has improving existing services been lost in the (literal) shuffle? (I hope I get called out.) Has Yahoo! decided their target market doesn’t mind having the Yahoo! brand clutter up their email conversations and they’re willing to pass on people who care? Granted, maintaining an email platform may be a secondary concern as communication shifts to authenticated mediums like IM and other social networking tools.

Advertisers insist on Prime Time because they can catch the whole demographics with one Ad. We stay tuned because the man on the TV said “8/7 Central” and sit through commercials because they subsidize our monthly bill. Or do we?

How are the changes in viewing habits affecting the ubiquitous 30 second Ads?

In a recent article, How the Ad World’s Dealing With the Decline of the :30 AdAge talks about the changes taking place in the creation of those 3 second Ads and the challenges in reaching the viewer. If the next generation isn’t going to wait in front of their TV for a program or sit through commercials that doesn’t even talk their language why are there Prime Time shows and why are nearly 60% of the Ads run during Prime Time?

“It’s easier for [agencies] to make money on a 30-second spot,” said Tim Williams, founder of Ignition consulting group. “They know the process. It flows through their system easily.” It’s not so simple for newer approaches such as viral and video tailored specifically for the internet. “[Agencies] don’t know how to price it; they don’t have the systems for it. It almost always becomes more labor-intensive.”

Status quo is simpler and no one gets fired for doing what the boss did. Finding a breakout solution needs effort and courage.

Now if you could excuse me, I have to stay tuned for my local news, I am awfully worried about that Dog that needs a new home.

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In a previous post here at DMEC, Matt talked about Yahoo moving ahead of others in mobile advertising. I remembered some data on web site access from Smart phones. Shown below is the graph with data sourced from M:Metrics. What is a Smart Phone is not well defined and the number of phones that can be qualified Smart Phones is not clear. The data shows Google at the top, with almost twice that of the second place player, Yahoo. With so much lead in website usage, it is conceivable that Google won’t yield its lead in mobile advertising to others. Another caveat is, this data from M:Metrics is at least six months old.

Bad news comes in twos, even for Google. Before Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer derided Google’s mobile strategy by calling it just “some words on paper”, Yahoo! SVP and former >play keynote Marco Boerries announced his companies efforts in locking up some early advertising deals. http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN0740726020071107

Is Google so focused on the fight for an open mobile platform they forgot what pays their bills in the first place? And is Yahoo! going to be able to act fast enough to lock-up the mobile advertising business in Google’s (alleged) absence?