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Today In Online Marketing News – Wednesday May 7, 2008

Here are some of the articles that caught my attention today: Wednesday May 7, 2008

• When Everything Is Media, What Is Media Worth? By Troy Young | Advertising Age. This is a great article. “The market has struggled to place value on social media as an ad vehicle, but with more than 30% of Internet traffic driven by social activities, a lot is at stake. This struggle is part of a larger media phenomenon that is raising significant new challenges for publishers and media professionals. Specifically, what is inventory worth, how do media channels compare and what creates premium value?… Let’s think about the implications. First, more monetizable ad inventory will pressure media prices as a whole. This is a function of volume and the cost structure of emerging media platforms. Content and distribution costs are significantly reduced or eliminated in many new platforms. We are seeing this today with sub-50-cent CPMs on basic bulk inventory.”

• Social networking Web sites compete with class reunions By Associated Press | Technology Review.

• New Firm Combines Social and Behavioral Ad Targeting By Zachary Rodgers | The ClickZ Network. Media6degrees uses a combination of cookies and ad server logs to pinpoint a person’s interests and generate anonymous profiles of their real friends.

• Addressable Advertising Gets Closer to Reality By Betsy Cummings | BrandWeek. Is there competition on the horizion in the world of online marketing? “Marketers, media buyers and network executives heading into the upfronts this month have all been looking at a new technology that could revolutionize the industry. That technology—addressable advertising—has been mostly hype. Until now. Industry watchers say addressable advertising—the ability to target TV ads by household so that, say, a 50-year-old man watching Lost would see a different ad than a 14-year-old girl watching the same show next door—is getting closer to a national rollout.”

• Andreessen to Facebook Board? By Kara Swisher | All Things Digital. Silicon Valley luminary Marc Andreessen has been asked to join the board of Facebook, according to several sources with knowledge of the situation. Anderson co-founded Netscape and currently is working on Ning.

• IAB Introduces Online Video Ad Guidelines By Mike Shields | MediaWeek. The IAB’s new guidelines cover three basic forms of online video ad formats.

• Survey: Short Form, Multiplatform Content Will Drive Growth By By John Eggerton | Broadcasting & Cable. Accenture Poll of Media Executives Says Online, Mobile Content Will Drive Revenue Growth.

• The True Story of a Bogus Blog By Andrew Adam Newman | AdWeek. A class project, sponsored by Coach, highlights the fuzzy world of online ethics.

• The Hard Sell: How to Market Products That Are No Longer Popular By Knowledge@Wharton.