July 8, 2009
Is YouTube's Lack of Profitability a Myth? (And If So, Does Google Perpetuate It?)
The idea that YouTube makes no money for Google is widely held by many. Even yours truly falls for it entirely too often considering I know better.
Last year, at a local interactive meetup, Google employees informed attendees of how advertisers get those specialized YouTube channels. They have to fork over $200,000 in advertising on the Google content network.
Ok, so that doesn't monetize YouTube directly, but Google is likely looking at the big picture of profitability instead of the limited scope of siloed revenues.
Of course, that hasn't stopped Google from traipsing down the yellow brick road of direct monetization. They enjoy contracts with the big music companies and recently launched video ads, which is essentially the Sponsored Links of YouTube.
Over at TechDirt, Michael Masnick is contemplating the idea that Google enjoys the myth that YouTube doesn't make any money. It helps them get bigger contracts and avoid bigger copyright issues (than it already has).
Indeed, with the recent joining of YouTube accounts to Google accounts, it appears that Google doesn't necessarily need YouTube to be a huge cash generator. The integration of Google products across the board is done so slowly, it irritates early adapters, but it quite possibly means a greater number of adapters over time.
All of this is pure speculation for industry observers. Only Google knows. Actually, probably only select Googlers know. But it's fun to speculate.
What are your speculations? Do share in the comments, won't you? (Bats eyes, says "Pretty please."
Posted by Nathania Johnson on July 8, 2009, 3:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
North Korea Using Cyberattacks Against US, South Korea
Since last weekend some government websites in the US and South Korea have been cyberattacked, the New York Times reported. While the NYT has not concluded who is responsible beyond they "appear to have been launched by a hostile group or government", "the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported that the spy agency had implicated North Korea or pro-North Korea groups," NYT noted.
"The Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department Web sites were all down at varying points over the holiday weekend and into this week, The A.P. reported, citing officials inside and outside the American government. The fact that the government Web sites were still being affected after three days signaled an unusually lengthy and sophisticated attack, the news agency reported, citing anonymous American officials."
Running these attacks during the 4th of July weekend and the Michael Jackson memorial is almost like the Vietnamese Tet offensive - a push during New Year;s celebrations.
The attacks were made through infected computers - seems that malware can really cause problems when aimed at certain targets.
Posted by Frank Watson on July 8, 2009, 2:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Travel Search Sites Offer Competing Deals
There's been a flurry of updates in the travel search world and they all have to do with finding great deals. Whether you're a travel provider, advertiser, or just plain need great airfare tix to SES San Jose in August, here's what you need to know:
Mobissimo has added student and youth travel fares to their site. Students can now compare those special fares to normal fares. Hey, you never know when a low-priced carrier might even beat out a student fare on a "bigger" airline. So, definitely check that out.
DealBase.com is all about hotel deals and now offers a personalized newsletter. Get emails that pertain only to the destinations, hotel star ratings, and price range that you select.
Last but not least, Tripeedo.com is a new site entering the competitive travel search niche. Tripeedo is kind of the Dogpile.com of travel search. It searches the search sites, as well as the individual airline sites, hotel sites, etc. However, most of the search sites already offer price comparisons on competing sites. And most of the time, all of the sites have the same prices. What would have sold me on Tripeedo is if they didn't open the search results in different windows. That's, again, what all of the other sites do, but that just clutters up my browser and desktop.
Having said that, Tripeedo's interface is very nice and makes it one of the easiest travel search sites to use. If they ever get the results to load on one page instead of multiple tabs or windows, they might just become my default travel search engine.
Tripeedo has their work cut out for them. In a normal economy, you would see sites compete in this manner, but there's a certain urgency seen in these updates perhaps related to the current not-so-normal economy. It's not just about beating the competition these days, it's about suriviving.
Posted by Nathania Johnson on July 8, 2009, 2:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Google Goes After Real Estate, But Has a Long Way to Go
I don't know what's up with Google lately, but there have been a couple of big launches that aren't quite ready for prime time. Google Squared was released, pretty much as an answer to Wolfram Alpha, but it needs a ton of work.
Now, they've launched real estate search in Google Maps, but it's mostly a big dud. Realtor.com, Zillow.com, and Trulia.com are still way better and I absolutely wouldn't recommend ditching them to make Google your primary real estate search.
Of course, we can't discount Google either. They obviously rock the house on so many other products. But I guess because of this I expect a lot more from them.
I entered the search just the way they said you should: "homes for sale in Columbus, OH."
When the results come up, you have to click again to get the real estate search. That should come up right away. Kill the extra click.
Notice that when I refine my search, I see no searches from any of the top 5 real estate sites. According to Hitwise, they are:
- Realtor.com
- Zillow
- Yahoo! Real Estate
- Zip Realty
- Trulia
Also, for Google's real estate search, I'd like to see the option of displaying more than 10 results before having to click to the next page of results. I think when it comes to real estate search, possibly more than other searches, users are going to be considering many more options because the investment is so large and the factors to consider in the purchase decision are so many.
But hey, that's just my opinion. Disagree? Think Google real estate search rocks? Leave a comment and tell me how it is.
Posted by Nathania Johnson on July 8, 2009, 1:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Ex-Bebo Chief Kate Burns to Head Up AOL European Sales
Kate Burns has been tapped by AOL to lead its European Sales division. Burns formerly ran social network Bebo, which was acquired by AOL last year. Prior to that Burns spent time at Adlink and Google UK.
"AOL has a solid foundation in Europe, with a strong Web presence in many countries and a leading advertising network, and I'm looking forward to working with my colleagues and with AOL's partners to build on this foundation," said Burns.
Burns will report to AOL Global Advertising and Strategy President Jeff Levick
"Europe is key to realizing our mission of being the largest global platform for online display advertising. Kate is the right person to build our European management sales team and lead this effort," said Levick. "Kate is a well recognized and highly respected leader in Europe who has the talent, energy and determination to scale our European operations and deliver on this strategy."
AOL maintains ad operations in nine European countries including Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the UK.
Posted by Nathania Johnson on July 8, 2009, 12:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
YouTube Biz Blog Touts Social Media and Video Strategies Forum
How cool is this? On Monday, I posted "Social Media & Video Strategies To Be Held With SES San Jose:. It broke the news that ClickZ, YouTube and Google will be holding an event on August 11, 2009, in conjunction with SES San Jose 2009.
Then on Tuesday, the YouTube Biz Blog posted "Join Us at the SES Social Media & Video Strategies Forum." Kristin Kovner, the Industry Marketing Manager at YouTube, said, "We're excited to be a part of this first-time ever event. SES is one of the best places for businesses to learn about search; now that YouTube has millions of searches each day, it's only fitting that ClickZ and SES are expanding the agenda to include a full day dedicated to video and social media."
Just as importantly, the YouTube Biz Blog embedded the featured video on the SESConferenceExpo's Channel on YouTube. Views of the video, which was uploaded four months ago, shot up immediately. You can see the video for youself below.
Search Engine Strategies Conference & Expo
This illustrates the link between search and social media that I mentioned on Monday and Mike Grehan writes about in his cover story in the latest issue of SES Magazine.
Additional evidence can be found in research conducted by TubeMogul entitled "How do people discover videos online?" Here's the gist of what they found:
-- 45% of all videos are found on a video site, i.e. going to YouTube and doing a search or clicking around featured and related videos.
-- 44% of all videos are found embedded in blogs.
-- 6% of all videos are found with search engines, like Google.
-- 2% of all videos are found in social networks, like Facebook.
-- 2% of all videos found in social bookmarking sites.
-- Less than 1% of all videos are found with video search engines, like Google Video.
So, optimizating the title, description and tags of your YouTube video is half of the success formula. But the other half is engaging what Google calls "the buzzing blogger community."
I mentioned this a year ago at SES San Jose 2008 during a video interview with Liana Evans, who was then with KeyRelevance and is now with Serengeti Communications. Looking at it again a year later, I wouldn't change a word. (And I can't anyway.)
VSEO - Video Search Engine Optimization - with Greg Jarboe at SES San Jose 2008
So, stay tuned. Because this year's events -- as you can see in the SES San Jose 2009 agenda and the Social Media and Video Strategies agenda -- are likely to demonstrate the link between search and social big time.
Posted by Greg Jarboe on July 8, 2009, 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Google Chrome Is Now An Operating System
The Official Google Blog announced the launch of the Chrome Operating System - late night in California - the entry is timestamped 9:30 pm PST - but an hour and a Twitter link ago - I found it. A number they claim - "30 million regular Chrome browser users" - seems high. But who cares Chrome is now an operating system. It will run on the web with interaction through browsers based in most OSs. If they can flip a decent percentage of the browser users, get a good number of laptops and other methods of connecting to the web it could be something Microsoft will notice diving deep into a field they have just begun to test. As Google blogs "Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google"Browser Statistics Month by Month
| 2009 | IE7 | IE6 | IE8 | Firefox | Chrome | Safari | Opera |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| June | 18.7% | 14.9% | 7.1% | 47.3% | 6.0% | 3.1% | 2.1% |
| May | 21.3% | 14.5% | 5.2% | 47.7% | 5.5% | 3.0% | 2.2% |
| April | 23.2% | 15.4% | 3.5% | 47.1% | 4.9% | 3.0% | 2.2% |
| March | 24.9% | 17.0% | 1.4% | 46.5% | 4.2% | 3.1% | 2.3% |
| February | 25.4% | 17.4% | 0.8% | 46.4% | 4.0% | 3.0% | 2.2% |
| January | 25.7% | 18.5% | 0.6% | 45.5% | 3.9% | 3.0% | 2.3% |
| 2008 | IE7 | IE6 | IE5 | Firefox | Chrome | Safari | Opera |
| December | 26.1% | 19.6% | 44.4% | 3.6% | 2.7% | 2.4% | |
| November | 26.6% | 20.0% | 44.2% | 3.1% | 2.7% | 2.3% | |
| October | 26.9% | 20.2% | 44.0% | 3.0% | 2.8% | 2.2% | |
| September | 26.3% | 22.3% | 42.6% | 3.1% | 2.7% | 2.0% | |
| August | 26.0% | 24.5% | 43.7% | 2.6% | 2.1% | ||
| July | 26.4% | 25.3% | 42.6% | 2.5% | 1.9% | ||
| June | 27.0% | 26.5% | 0.5% | 41.0% | 2.6% | 1.7% | |
| May | 26.5% | 27.3% | 0.7% | 39.8% | 2.4% | 1.5% | |
| April | 24.9% | 28.9% | 1.0% | 39.1% | 2.2% | 1.4% | |
| March | 23.3% | 29.5% | 1.1% | 37.0% | 2.1% | 1.4% | |
| February | 22.7% | 30.7% | 1.3% | 36.5% | 2.0% | 1.4% | |
| January | 21.2% | 32.0% | 1.5% | 36.4% | 1.9% | 1.4% | |
| 2007 | IE7 | IE6 | IE5 | Firefox | Mozilla | Safari | Opera |
| November | 20.8% | 33.6% | 1.6% | 36.3% | 1.2% | 1.8% | 1.6% |
| September | 20.8% | 34.9% | 1.5% | 35.4% | 1.2% | 1.6% | 1.5% |
| July | 20.1% | 36.9% | 1.5% | 34.5% | 1.4% | 1.5% | 1.9% |
| May | 19.2% | 38.1% | 1.6% | 33.7% | 1.3% | 1.5% | 1.7% |
| March | 18.0% | 38.7% | 2.0% | 31.8% | 1.3% | 1.6% | 1.6% |
| January | 13.3% | 42.3% | 3.0% | 31.0% | 1.5% | 1.7% | 1.5% |
| 2006 | IE7 | IE6 | IE5 | Firefox | Mozilla | N7/8 | Opera |
| November | 7.1% | 49.9% | 3.6% | 29.9% | 2.5% | 0.2% | 1.5% |
| September | 2.5% | 55.6% | 4.0% | 27.3% | 2.3% | 0.4% | 1.6% |
| July | 1.9% | 56.3% | 4.2% | 25.5% | 2.3% | 0.4% | 1.4% |
| May | 1.1% | 57.4% | 4.5% | 25.7% | 2.3% | 0.3% | 1.5% |
| March | 0.6% | 58.8% | 5.3% | 24.5% | 2.4% | 0.5% | 1.5% |
| January | 0.2% | 60.3% | 5.5% | 25.0% | 3.1% | 0.5% | 1.6% |
| 2005 | IE6 | IE5 | Firefox | Mozilla | N7 | O8 | O7 |
| November | 62.7% | 6.2% | 23.6% | 2.8% | 0.4% | 1.3% | 0.2% |
| September | 69.8% | 5.7% | 18.0% | 2.5% | 0.4% | 1.0% | 0.2% |
| July | 67.9% | 5.9% | 19.8% | 2.6% | 0.5% | 0.8% | 0.4% |
| May | 64.8% | 6.8% | 21.0% | 3.1% | 0.7% | 0.7% | 0.6% |
| March | 63.6% | 8.9% | 18.9% | 3.3% | 1.0% | 0.3% | 1.6% |
| January | 64.8% | 9.7% | 16.6% | 3.4% | 1.1% | 1.9% | |
| 2004 | IE6 | IE5 | Mozilla | N3 | N7 | N4 | O7 |
| November | 66.0% | 10.2% | 16.5% | 0.2% | 1.2% | 0.3% | 1.6% |
| September | 67.8% | 11.2% | 13.7% | 0.3% | 1.4% | 0.3% | 1.7% |
| July | 67.2% | 13.2% | 12.6% | 0.4% | 1.4% | 0.4% | 1.6% |
| May | 68.1% | 13.8% | 9.5% | 0.6% | 1.4% | 0.4% | 1.6% |
| March | 68.2% | 14.6% | 7.9% | 0.8% | 1.4% | 0.6% | 1.4% |
| January | 68.9% | 15.8% | 5.5% | 0.4% | 1.5% | 0.5% | 1.5% |
| 2003 | IE6 | IE5 | Mozilla | N3 | N7 | N4 | O7 |
| November | 71.2% | 13.7% | 7.2% | 0.5% | 1.6% | 0.5% | 1.9% |
| September | 69.7% | 16.9% | 6.2% | 0.6% | 1.5% | 0.6% | 1.8% |
| July | 66.9% | 20.3% | 5.7% | 0.6% | 1.5% | 0.6% | 1.7% |
| May | 65.0% | 22.7% | 4.6% | 1.0% | 1.4% | 0.9% | 1.4% |
| March | 63.4% | 24.6% | 4.2% | 0.9% | 1.4% | 1.1% | 1.2% |
| January | 55.3% | 29.3% | 4.0% | 1.2% | 1.1% | 1.7% | |
| 2002 | IE6 | IE5 | AOL | N3 | N5 | N4 | IE4 |
| November | 53.5% | 29.9% | 5.2% | 1.1% | 4.9% | 2.0% | |
| September | 49.1% | 34.4% | 4.5% | 1.3% | 4.5% | 2.2% | |
| July | 44.4% | 40.1% | 3.5% | 1.2% | 3.5% | 2.6% | 0.5% |
| May | 40.7% | 46.0% | 2.8% | 1.2% | 2.7% | 3.4% | 0.7% |
| March | 36.7% | 49.4% | 3.0% | 1.2% | 2.4% | 4.1% | 0.7% |
| January | 30.1% | 55.7% | 2.8% | 1.3% | 2.2% | 4.4% | 1.0% |
Thank you w3schools for the stats
Posted by Frank Watson on July 8, 2009, 1:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
