What I Am Reading | November 12, 2008

November 12, 2008 | By Marc Porcelli | No Comments »
  • Google Flu | By Google. “Each week, millions of users around the world search for online health information. As you might expect, there are more flu-related searches during flu season, more allergy-related searches during allergy season, and more sunburn-related searches during the summer. You can explore all of these phenomena using Google Trends. But can search query trends provide an accurate, reliable model of real-world phenomena? “
  • Facebook Tries to Woo Marketers by Jessica E. Vascellaro | The Wall Street Journal. “Despite its surging Internet audience, Facebook Inc. has yet to prove it can wring steady revenue out of advertisers. Now it’s trying a new tactic to woo Madison Avenue.The Palo Alto, Calif., company is rolling out a new ad format called “engagement ads” that further     blurs the line between marketing and social networking. The new ads appear on the main screen when a person first logs in to Facebook. They prompt a user to do something within the ad, such as comment on a movie trailer or RSVP for the season finale of a TV show.”
  • Why Silicon Valley Should Be Worried by Om Malik | Gigaom. “At the turn of the century, everything went to hell with the dot-com bust. Then the pendulum started to swing the other way; the pessimism that once reigned supreme was being replaced by wild-eyed optimism. Now Silicon Valley is in for a long-overdue reality check, one that should worry one and all. Why? Because the news coming out of advertising-focused companies is not good.” A Radical Business Plan for Facebook by Farhad Manjoo | Slate.com. “A couple of weeks ago, TechCrunch, a blog that hit it big by chronicling the rising fortunes of Web startups, launched a decidedly downbeat new feature: a layoff tracker. Silicon Valley insiders have long wondered how deeply an economic downturn might hurt tech firms; after all, companies here in the Bay Area weathered the worst of the last recession, and since then, they’ve all adopted leaner, less profligate business practices.”
  • Technology Options Sink by Scott Morrison | The Wall Street Journal. “Silicon Valley is drowning in “underwater” options. But with the stock market in turmoil, investors might be uneasy bailing out high-tech employees. Employees at scores of companies, including Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc., are holding stock options, the right to buy shares at a preset price, that have been rendered virtually worthless because those companies’ shares have fallen below the exercise prices.”

***Must Read***

  • Slump Prompts Focus On Targeted, Accountable Ads by Mark Walsh | MediaPost. “With ad budgets coming under growing pressure from a contracting economy, we asked Christopher Vollmer, who leads Booz & Company’s North American media and entertainment practice, for his views on how the downturn will impact the digital media landscape. Vollmer is the author of “Always On: Advertising, Marketing, and Media in an Era of Consumer Control,” released earlier this year. “
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Category: Ad Networks, Marketing Strategy, Online Marketing, Recession Marketing

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