Archive for August 1st, 2007
Through a partnership with Pulse 360, MSNBC.com has created a unique online ad network for independent publishers. Sites that opt into the program paste “boxes” on their sites that combine MSNBC.com content with advertising from one of two sources: Today Show or politics. Publishers get a cut of the respective ad revenue, and MSNBC gets incremental revenue and traffic. “MSNBC.com will be able to aggregate thousands of member sites in its own vertical networks and represent this inventory for sale to advertisers,” explains Gina Stikes, MSNBC.com’s director of marketing. Here’s an example of a “video box” from the Today Show, the largest of three available sizes:
Sites that are interested can sign up here for the Today Show and here for politics. I’m a big fan of distributed ad networks, and combining content into the mix is an interesting twist — it’s a widget with a revenue share component. Thoughts?
Adds Rafat in comments: “I wouldn’t call this an ad network..MSNBC is merely syndicating its widgets, like everyone else, embedding ads in it and sharing ad revs…interesting for sure, but not an ad network. If MSNBC was selling ad inventory on the publishers’ sites, then that would be an ad network. And it is not truly viral..they want you to apply and they will qualify you.”
Adds Mark Josephson from Pulse 360: “The thought here is that while this phase bundles the ad inventory with the content syndication, in the (near) future as we see the network grow we can and will be separating the content from the ads. Also, the bundled ads here are MSNBCs ad tags, so they have the visibility into each discrete member and can forecast, track and sell as discretely as they do with their owned inventory on the core domain…just like a network.”
August 1st, 2007
No joke. “The internet has stopped people from going out and being with each other, creating stuff,” Elton John explains. “Instead they sit at home and make their own records, which is sometimes OK but it doesn’t bode well for long-term artistic vision…. Hopefully the next movement in music will tear down the internet…. Let’s get out in the streets and march and protest instead of sitting at home and blogging.” And finally there’s this little quote to polish off the interview: “I don’t have a mobile phone or an iPod or anything.”
August 1st, 2007
The Walt Disney Company purchased social-networking site Club Penguin, which the AP says is all the rage among the 9-14 set. It is a MySpace-type site aimed at the pre-teen set. The key difference for this site is that parents pay $5 a month to get in - and ClubPenguin lays claim to 700,000 subscribers (there’s a nice way to generate $42 million a year). Disney paid $350 million for the site - and for now plans to leave it be.
August 1st, 2007
CNN and CNN.com’s first images from the Minneapolis bridge collapse were from Mark Lacroix, who photographed the aftermath from his apartment window. Lacroix sent the photos to CNN’s I-Report, which celebrates one year on the web Thursday.
MSNBC.com’s First Person also has user-submitted photos here.
Adds anonymous in comments: “I’ve never seen this before: on CNN’s home page they are playing a flash video of the bridge as it collapses. You don’t even have to click play, it’s just there, animated, right where the main news photo usually is. No audio, thankfully. This is something that would be appropriate only in a few circumstances, and this is one of them. Smart thinking to break the mold of “click here for video.”
August 1st, 2007
Various items online as bloggers and the media react to the collapse of the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis:
- At Metroblogging Minneapolis, Erica writes that she learned of the collapse via Twitter
- A Livejournal user has created okayinmpls for friends to post that they are OK
- Star Tribune invites witnesses to share their stories
- WCCO has slideshow of early pictures
- Several bloggers report cellphone service is either out or spotty in Minneapolis area, so many are posting that they are OK and are asking friends to do the same.
- Lots of links and play-by-play in MNSpeak.com comments
- Before and after photos showing up on Flickr
August 1st, 2007
Updated: As soon as the breaking news alerts began to cross, I punched up all of the Minneapolis TV sites and StarTribune.com. I was surprised to see that only KARE11.com was streaming its live coverage on the air and WCCO.com was streaming a live mastcam. Soon thereafter, WCCO began to stream its chopper live — the first aerials I could find online. An hour or so later, the others stations finally popped up live streams.
August 1st, 2007
I think you’ll agree we’ve gone easy here at One LR Plaza on the whole corruption investigation into Sen. Ted “Tubes” Stevens. We don’t believe in piling on.
That is, unless it’s funny.
August 1st, 2007
A bunch of stories of note today, and you don’t need my usual snarkery - so have a look.
Facebook kills audio sharing app over copyright concerns
Discovery Communications acquires Treehugger for its upcoming Planet Green network
Pro sports leagues accused of being overly broad in their warnings about making unauthorized copies of their work
Apple issues iPhone software update, hopes it won’t get slammed at Black Hat this week, will get slammed anyway, ‘cuz that’s the fun of Black Hat
CBS Mobile partners with ad firms to expand mobile ad reach
Casinos kicked out of Second Life (but now welcome in Massachusetts)
August 1st, 2007
Some very popular clips on YouTube are bloopers and blunders made by anchors and reporters. What may be the most troubling is that some of the funniest ones aren’t mistakes at all, but they are just so downright bad they’re hilarious.
August 1st, 2007
