Yahoo! Advertising Blog: yadvertisingblog.com Blog
:
Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog: The official blog of Yahoo! Search Marketing
Please join us Feb. 4, 2009 for this free and informative Sponsored Search webinar
We’re offering this free webinar for our Sponsored Search customers, covering two important features: Network Distribution and Import Campaigns.
The Network Distribution feature allows you to target marketing campaigns to the entire Yahoo! Network, including Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! Partners. Learn how you can control where your ads appear, use reporting to help you optimize your settings, and adjust your bids, as well as how to set premiums based on the traffic most valuable to you.
The Import Campaigns feature allows you to import your Google AdWords campaign data into your Yahoo! Search Marketing account. Learn how the tool can help you to import your AdWords campaign data, so you can leverage the insights and know-how from your Google campaign data for your Yahoo! campaigns.
To enter the webinar on February 4, you will need the password you created when you registered.
When: Thursday, Feb. 4, 2009, 11 A.M., Pacific Time
Where: The Internet—go here to register
Why: Because it’s great stuff to know for improving your campaigns and results
Selling the Super Bowl; digital ad budgets to increase; keeping it simple; promote your blog
Selling the Super Bowl
This Sunday is arguably the biggest sporting event of the year, Super Bowl XLIV. Advertisers, according to AdWeek, have shelled out nearly $3 million each for 30-second spots during the big game. “The game is the only significant TV showcase for commercials left in today’s media-fractured environment, and advertisers are frantically putting the final touches on their plays for the day,â writes Eleftheria Parpi. How are they are building buzz around their creative? Hint: the initials are S.M., and we don´t mean the naughty kind.
We´ve got good news and bad news
Remember those old good news/bad news jokes? (Like, the good news: the captain aboard a Viking ship doubles rations for the guys on the oars. The bad news: he wants to go water skiing.) Well, the good news for digital marketers is that two-thirds of marketing execs in a recent CMO.com/Society of Digital Agencies survey say they´ll up their digital budgets in the face of current economic conditions. The bad news? Those conditions still suck.
Keeping it simple
Savvy marketers know that people are suspicious of complexity—and they know that the way to get people to engage is to keep the message simple and straightforward. The Boston Globe´s Drake Bennett shows how “cognitive fluencyâ can help you to get into people´s psyches because, in people´s minds, “easy = true.â
Tips for promoting corporate blogs
Last week, we took note of a recent TopRank survey that showed how blogging can enhance SEO. This week, TopRank blogger Thomas McMahon follows up by offering several useful tips for promoting your blog and keeping it alive. All common sense, but sometimes we all need to be reminded just what common sense is.
—Michael Mattis
Four simple steps to help your campaign keep up with new searches
I can´t possibly be the only person that remembers the line “just set it and forget itâ. Those were the good ol´ days—the same days as when you could just set up a search marketing campaign and leave it alone.Â
Not anymore. Users are more sophisticated in their searches now, and we´ve seen that up to 20% of searches in any given month can be search queries never seen before by a search engine. This means if you leave your campaign untouched, you could be missing 20% more traffic.
So what´s the best way to keep up to speed with the changing search tide while maintaining your sanity? Â Here are our four simple steps that will help your Yahoo! Search Marketing campaign keep pace.
If you´re a do-it-yourselfer, you can use our new Yahoo! Search Marketing Desktop tool. It allows you to easily execute bulk changes and optimizations within an intuitive desktop interface, spending less time on the tactical details of campaign management while maximizing your returns. And if you happen to have your campaigns managed by SEM Agencies, you can check with them to see if they are doing all these things to give you the best performance.
1. First off, let´s set up the campaign properly
Start off making sure your campaign is opted into Advanced Match (this is the default setting). Advanced Match campaign will display ads for a broader range of searches relevant to your keywords, titles and descriptions, or web content than you may have thought of yourself. This includes concepts that are related to your keyword, but that do not necessarily contain your keyword.  Think of Advanced Match as the sales guy that´s going above and beyond to bring in great leads where you least expected them.Â
Which keywords should you start with first? Well, if you have a big budget and want to focus on driving traffic, then you may want more high-volume search terms (e.g. car) in your campaign. If your objective is getting higher conversions, you may want to include more tail terms as they are more product specific (e.g., new 2010 Toyota Prius hybrid car). Make sure to use excluded words (or negative keywords) to avoid matching to terms that are not relevant to your product or service.Â
2. Monitor your campaign regularly
Because search habits constantly change, you should tune your campaigns as regularly as possible. The frequency really depends on you and what your objectives are, and if you´re meeting those goals or not.Â
The best way to determine your campaign´s performance is through the myriad of reports available through our reporting tools. It´s kind of like when you check traffic in the evening to determine the best route to take home. You may choose to take the shortest route but sit in a little bit of traffic (or a lot if you´re on highway 101). Or you may choose a route that is longer but less traveled, and gets you home 15 minutes earlier. The same logic applies to your campaign. Know your objective, and look at the reports to help you get there.
Once you have some insight about which campaigns and keywords are performing, here are some things you can try:
- Work with your account manager to identify additional keywords and bid opportunities.
- Take advantage of our keyword suggestion tools & discovery tools to supplement your existing keywords.
- Use organic search results to optimize campaigns and expand your keywords or add excluded words to avoid future matches.
3. Tune your campaign
By now you have a pretty good idea which keywords are doing well in your campaigns, and which ones are lagging. It´s time to take action. Separate lower performing keywords from higher performing keywords so your high performers aren´t dragged down by your low performers. Create a “low budgetâ campaign that includes all of your low performing keywords, and use lower bids so that you continue to participate in the marketplace.Â
Another tuning technique is to separate keywords that get a lot of clicks from low-volume keywords. This allows you to tweak your ad copy for the greatest impact on the high-volume terms. Mixing the two may dilute your campaigns overall performance, and make it difficult for you to determine which keyword is negatively affecting your campaign´s Quality Index.
 4. Sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor…but don´t get too comfortable
Now that you´ve tuned your campaigns, give it some time to see how each campaign performs, but don´t let it simmer for too long. The duration really depends on how much traffic you´re getting. You may notice changes taking effect immediately, or you may have to wait a few days or weeks to see the full impact.  Â
At the end of the day, where does this cycle of keyword addition, monitoring, separating, tuning, re-running your campaign take you? It allows you to improve your ad quality and your campaign performance. The better a campaign´s performance, the less it´ll cost you to participate. And who wouldn´t want a few extra dollars back in their pockets?
Besides, if you´re not managing your campaign regularly, you can bet your competitor is—and possibly taking traffic away from you. To protect your traffic and your business, we encourage you to actively manage your campaign. Don´t just set and forget it!
—Payam Tehrani, product manager, Sponsored Search ad selection
 Author’s note: I welcome your feedback on this blog, and highly encourage you to share your experiences and offer your best practices in managing your Yahoo! Search Marketing campaign.
Quantifiable creative; blogging enhances SEO; search surges; kids more plugged in than ever; celebrating Guy Day, and more
Three simple steps to better creative
Let´s face it, a lot of agency creatives like to blather on about “inspirationâ and the “creative process.â But, says iMedia Connection blogger, Robert Boman, (who is also Javelin´s Interactive Creative Director), “Marketing is a profession, not an art show. Your work´s got to be far more than just eye candy. It needs to be smart. It needs to be trackable.â He offers a handy, three-step process for creating measurable marketing.
Survey says: Blogging enhances SEO
Writing on TopRank´s Online Marketing blog, Lee Odden reveals the results of a TopRank survey that asked 326 marketing pros if they thought blogging had a positive effect on their SEO. Most did. In fact, more than 87 percent of respondents said blogging had “successfully increased measurable SEO objectives.â A common reason why some companies don´t blog or quit blogging? Resources.
Search usage jumps 50% in one year
According a new PC World report, Web search jumped a full 50% from 2008 to 2009. In fact, last year there were more than four billion searches each day. “We knew this was going to happen,â says Tribble Ad Agency blogger TheFounder, “and it´s going to get bigger and bigger for quite some time. Search has become the definition of marketing and advertising.â All true, but you heard it here first.
The 10 habits of highly effective CMOs
You´ve probably heard of the perennial self-help bestseller, “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.â But what´s it take to be a top Chief Marketing Officer? Jim Stengel, the highly effective former global marketing officer at Procter & Gamble, offers 10 tips, for free.
Kids: Plugged in or couch potatoes?
A new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that kids aged 8 to 18 are more plugged in now than ever, spending 7 ½ hours a day, or nearly 53 hours per week, with electronic media. How does that daily usage break down by media and minutes?
- TV: 270
- Music: 151
- Video games: 73
- Mobile phone chat: 33
- Texting: 90
- Computing (non school): 89
Creative Spotlight: Bye, Guy
Today’s Creative Spotlight is not about a piece of creative. It’s about a creative. Legendary ad man and Chiat/Day co-founder, Guy Day, who brought us such compelling creative as Apple´s infamous “1984″ Super Bowl spot, has died. He was nearly 80 years old. Hats off to one of advertising´s greats.
Here’s a clip of the original “1984″ ad. For those old enough to remember, it was just about the darndest ad anyone had ever seen on TV up to that point. Enjoy. And thanks, Guy.
(Logic-Creative image by RabiD Son, via Flickr, CC 2.0)
—Michael Mattis
Â
Network distribution and import campaigns features give greater control over your campaigns
We resolved to deliver to our Sponsored Search advertisers two great new features in the new year: network distribution control and an import campaigns tool. These items may have been on your wish list for a long time, and as of today, the wait is over. Here are the details:
Network Distribution
This new feature enables you to set up campaigns or ad groups targeting Yahoo! Search, Yahoo! Partners, or both.
If you select Yahoo! Search, your ads will appear only on Yahoo! search results pages. If you select Yahoo! Partners, your ads will appear across our partners´ pages, including WebMD, Buy.com, CNBC and CitySearch.
With the network distribution feature, you can choose for your ads to appear only on Yahoo! search results pages, only on Yahoo! partner implementations, or across the entire network. Even if you choose to target a campaign or an ad group to the Entire Network (i.e., both Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! Partners), you have the ability to fine-tune your bids with different bids for Yahoo! Partners.
If you´re familiar with our system of pricing discounts, you know that your clicks are automatically priced according to our assessment of the performance of traffic coming from various sources within our distribution network.
While your campaign objectives will determine the best use of network distribution, we recommend that advertisers target the Entire Network to maximize traffic volume, while retaining the ability to bid up or down on Yahoo! Partners. For more control and optimization capability, you may wish to duplicate key campaigns, with one targeting Yahoo! Search and the other targeting Yahoo! Partners.
The following tools can help you get the most out of this new feature:
- Network Distribution Performance Report Enables you to view reporting by traffic source at the campaign, ad group and keyword levels.
- Ad Delivery Report Provides insight into where your ads are showing on our various partners´ sites, and domain-level performance.
- Blocked Domains Block up to 500 domains that aren´t working for you.
- Conversion-only Analytics Allows you to track conversion events by domain, and record revenue that might be associated with a transaction.
Import Campaigns
This new tool is designed to help you easily and efficiently convert your campaign data from Google AdWords into Yahoo! Search Marketing formats. Simply download your third-party file, then import it from your computer into the Sponsored Search interface. You can import your file by selecting the “Import Campaignsâ button, which is located on the Dashboard and the Campaigns tabs, or by selecting the Import tab.
Once the import is complete, you´ll be able to view any errors and pause the campaigns for review. Learn more about converting and importing your third-party campaign data.
Free Webinar
To get more details on the network distribution and import campaigns features, sign up for our webinar, scheduled for Thursday, February 4 at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time.
— Jeff Hecox
Yahoo! rings in 2010 with search advertising enhancements that deliver
Last fall, I answered the question “Does search still matter to Yahoo!â with a definitive YES. But words only go so far, which is why Yahoo! is rolling out new search enhancements for users and advertisers.
All about control
Next week, we´ll update our Sponsored Search product with two new features aimed at giving advertisers more transparency into and control over their accounts. Our Network Distribution feature will let you run your ads on Yahoo! search pages, our partners´ sites, or both. If you run your ads on our entire network, you can also set different bids for Yahoo! or its partners.
We´re also launching a new tool that makes it easier for you to get started with Yahoo! Search Marketing. We know there are many advertisers who use other search marketing providers such as Google Adwords, so we´ve built a feature allowing easy and efficient conversion of your AdWords campaign data into Yahoo! Search Marketing campaigns. You can import your files by simply clicking the “Import Campaignsâ button. We believe the ease of launching campaigns with your existing data will encourage more advertisers to use Yahoo! search. You´ll hear more about both of these new features in the coming weeks.
Our sales team has some new tools to help advertisers who work with a Yahoo! account representative, including a web-to-mobile migration tool that makes it easy to move a traditional paid search campaign to our mobile paid search platform. Another tool automatically adds relevant new long-tail keywords to a campaign as our systems show that users are now searching for them. Additionally, we know that advertisers can add thousands of keywords/terms into their account at any given time, so we built a tool that can group them into ad groups by relevance automatically.
More relevant searches
More than 2.5 billion searches are conducted on Yahoo! monthly (comScore, November 2009), and we´re constantly tweaking our search results page to make it easier for users to find things. The more relevant our searches, the more targeted opportunities advertisers will find. Our new search results page makes it easier to sort and filter results, including shortcuts that shows up-to-the minute tweets and news links for breaking headlines.
Since not all Web information is text-based, we´ve also launched better ways to sort multimedia searches. Our video search refiner lets users explore their favorite TV shows, movies and musicians in an intuitive way. The image search refiner lets people explore celebrities and places of interest and easily find more contextual information about them.
Better results for advertisers
Are our search initiatives working? That´s what we´re hearing from our advertisers. Covario, a leader in software and services for paid and organic search management, recently reported that the cost of clicks on Yahoo! decreased for their clients by 20-25%, and as a result their clients increased spending on Yahoo! by 36.5% in the fourth quarter of last year. The Pronto Network, a leading shopping comparison site owned by IAC, increased their ROI by 5-8% after seeing a 10-15% drop in the amount they were paying for clicks, and adjusting their bids to secure the best possible placements of their ads.
Try out these new features or talk to your account manager for more information. I look forward to telling you about more search advances in the coming months—and invite you to take a closer look at us to see if Yahoo! can bring you the same kinds of results.
David Pann, Yahoo! vice-president and general manager of search marketing
Using the ADR and blocked domains to your advantage
Back in the day, family road trips were incomplete without maps. Actual, paper maps. The kind that were supposed to fold neatly into a rectangle when not in use, though in most cases, probably ended up crumpled on the floorboard or dash of the sedan.
Luckily for most of us, technology took over, and instead of relying on a state atlas or old-fashioned city grid, we can now print out door-to-door driving directions online, or even fancier, rely on a GPS device. And though some probably still prefer the thrilling adventure of just hitting the open pavement with no specific destination in mind, most of us like to know where we´re going, and the fastest, most logical way to get there.
This is the idea behind our recently launched Ad Delivery Report (ADR.) By navigating to this spot in the account interface and selecting a date range, you´ll get a list of all of domains in our network that are driving traffic to your account. If you´ve installed Full Analytics, you can also access domain-specific conversion data, which is another bonus.
The concept behind the ADR is really one of transparency. We believe that rather than sharing a high-level list of partners in our network—which may or may not be sending traffic to your account—it makes much more sense to provide you with the actual list of domains that are contributing to your clicks. This way, you´ve got a clear view of where your ads are served, something that will aid you in your quest for tailoring the traffic mix at the account level.
Meaning?
Well, by poring over the ADR—and either our Full Analytics conversion data or your own third-party conversion stats—you can make informed decisions about which domains do or don´t meet your performance thresholds. This, in turn, will factor into your decisions relating to domain blocking, which is a great way to improve the overall performance of your account.
Say, for example, that you´d like to eliminate referring domains that are contributing more than 100 clicks and are converting at less than 0.05%. By reviewing the ADR combined with your conversion information, you can isolate any domains that meet that criteria and then block those using our blocked domains functionality. This essentially removes those domains that aren´t performing to your standards, which ultimately will benefit your traffic quality mix.
And unlike the sometimes illogically persistent and oftentimes monotonous tone of the voice-enabled GPS, our ADR will simply show you the stats and let you navigate from there.
— Malin Kennedy, Senior Manager, Advertiser Experience
Yahoo! and Electus´ Ben Silverman announce new content, ad delivery concept
Three words: Content, content, content.
Over the past decade, cable TV has experienced tremendous growth because of its ability to develop programming for very specific audiences, telling the stories that those audiences love to hear. At the same time, it has provided opportunities for advertisers to reach their core audiences, telling the stories that advertisers need to tell.Â
Like cable, online today is poised to do just the same, and more. Yet, despite the targeted programming capabilities available, online publishers and advertisers have yet to take full advantage of the medium in terms of content development. That´s where today´s announcement comes in.
Yahoo! has just announced a partnership with Electus, a new venture headed by Ben Silverman, former co-chair at NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios, who has been involved with such hit shows as “30 Rock,â “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon,â “Saturday Night Live,â “The Biggest Loser,” “Celebrity Apprentice” and “The Office.â This guy knows how to tell a story.
The Yahoo!-Electus partnership is all about producing original programming, as well as giving advertisers new opportunities to integrate their brand messages—their stories—into the next generation of online programming.
We look forward to working with Ben and Electus, and getting your messages and stories out.
—The Team
The top 7 how-to´s of 2009
Well, it´s not quite like “Dear Abby,â but last year´s how-to posts from the Yahoo! Search Marketing blog and the Yahoo! Advertising blog are the next best thing. In the last year of the “aughts,â we tried to help show you the way to more effective Sponsored Search, and more effective Web advertising in general, with a bevy of posts that answered your most pressing questions—everything from how to develop strong keywords to how to keep those keywords and descriptions from facing rejection, to how to use social networks like Twitter and Facebook to get your messages out.
Here´s just a sample of what we shared (for more, visit the Yahoo! Search Marketing blog archive):
1. Build your foundation with strong keywords
When it comes to keywords, one way to get more conversions is to get really nitty-gritty. Consider bidding on more specific keywords that contain things like the brands you sell and even specific model numbers. In other words, think like your customers.
2. Tidy up to improve account performance
You know how it is with your garage, your desk at work, your computer´s desktop and files—just about everything gets cluttered, and thus, difficult to manage. Here are five ways to increase your performance by tidying up your account structure, keywords, ad quality and so forth. What was true in 2009 is just as true today.
3. Improve your quality score
We know you probably weren´t an English major, but even if you were, writing search marketing ads probably wasn´t taught in that Victorian Lit class you so enjoyed and got an A+ in. It´s a tricky business, writing high quality search ads, what with a slew of products and services and just 40 characters with which to promote your business. Here are four ways to improve your ads for lower cost and higher placement.
4. Rejecting rejections
Ouch! Rejection hurts. But we in Internet advertising have our standards. At least with us, it´s not personal. In fact, there are at least five pretty simple ways you can can use to help your ads avoid rejection by our editors. Forewarned is forearmed, and a little knowledge up front will help get your ads through the gauntlet. If only Internet dating was this easy!
5. Start out on the right foot
Listen, no one is a search advertising expert, at least not right off the bat. But you want to start out on the right foot. Smart starters focus on three major areas: keyword selection, good copywriting (which includes your title keywords) and testing two or more ads against one another. Give it a shot.
6. Bidding with your brain
When bidding on keywords, it all comes down to arithmetic, to wit: profit, CPA, ROAS and ROI. Good ad writing isn´t all fun, games, and cute wordplay—it´s an admixture (sorry for the pun) of both. To paraphrase Chuckles the Clown it´s, “a little song, a little dance and little arithmetic down your pants.â Oh, you want the algebraic details? Look here.
7. Marketing with social networks
This one´s a freebie. Yahoo´s got relationships with social networks like Facebook and Twitter—hey, they´re on our new homepage—but we don´t own ´em. So if you want to promote your business through ´em, we´re all for it. In this post, author and entrepreneur Clara Shih offers three solid tips on how to do just that.
—Michael Mattis
(Image by awezmaz, CC, 2.0)
What can you do with a Yahoo! display ad? More than just display, for starters
Whether video, Web or mobile, Yahoo! display ads are rocking the house down, branding your products, sending the messages you want and getting the ROI you want, as this video shows. Enjoy, and happy new year!
—The Team
Yodel Anecdotal:
Mashable!: Founded in July 2005, Mashable is the world’s largest blog focused exclusively on Web 2.0 and Social Media news. Mashable is the most prolific blog reviewing new Web sites and services, publishing breaking news on what’s new on the web and offering social media resources and guides.
This isn’t the way you should learn about the death of your 17 year old brother.
According to Syndey’s The Daily Telegraph, twins Angela and Maryanne Vourlis had just woken up on their 20th birthday. Like most young adults, they logged onto Facebook to check their walls and inboxes for birthday greetings.
Instead of finding happy birthday wishes, the two twins found messages of “RIP Bobby” (their brother) and “RIP Chris Naylor” (a friend of his) all across their Facebook news feeds. Completely shocked, baffled, and hurt, the two rang their brother’s phone in the hopes it was a mistake. It was to no avail.
Next, they rang their mother. While she didn’t receive any word from the police or others about Bobby or Chris Naylor, she did know that Bobby was with his friend that night. After a call to the police, they confirmed what they had learned on Facebook: that Bobby Vourlis was dead. He passed away along with Chris Naylor in a fatal car accident that also took the life of a third teenage passenger.
You can read the whole heartbreaking story over at the Daily Telegraph, but it’s clear that the real-time nature of the web spread information far faster than even the police or phone calls could. While we understand it takes time to identify victims and send an office to a residence to inform family of the news, the process can simply take too long in today’s world.
We offer our condolences to both families for the tragedy they are enduring. We could not imagine learning about it the way they did.
[via CNET]
Tags: Brothers, death, facebook, Twins
Award-winning director (and three-time Oscar nominee) David Lynch (of Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks fame) and the David Lynch Foundation have teamed up with mobile video marketer Mogreet to bring video MMS messages to Lynch fans.
We spoke with Mogreet and the David Lynch Foundation about the technology, the purpose of the campaign and how the DLF is using social media and technology to further its message.
Spreading a Message With Mobile Video
The ever-increasing pace of smartphone adoption only underscores the growing importance of mobility. As we’ve seen with everything from mobile app stores to the Red Cross’s text message for Haiti campaign, mobile is an extremely valuable platform for brands and nonprofits to get their messages across.
Video is an important communication driver, too, and when you combine the two technologies together, you end up with something potentially amazing.
Last month, we wrote about Thwapr, a company that specializes in doing mobile-to-mobile video. We see mobile video messaging as something that’s only going to continue to grow, especially as more and more companies realize just how many users are able to actually view video on their phones.
One of the companies that is really focused on mobile video marketing is Mogreet. Mogreet works with companies so that they can send video MMS messages to users that request their information. Because virtually every mobile phone sold since 2005 or so can support MMS messages that include video playback, the potential audience for these sorts of messages is huge.
I spoke with James Citron, the CEO of Mogreet, and he told me that the company has more than 2,700 device profiles in its database, meaning that if you have a cell phone, chances are, it can play one of Mogreet’s video MMS messages. Each video is encoded in a variety of different formats and it is sent to phones in the best format for that phone, so that users of an iPhone get a different experience than someone using a Motorola Razr, but each user gets the best possible experience for his or her device.
While this has primarily been used for commercial advertisers, Mogreet is interested in getting into the non-profit space too, because that’s perhaps an even better market for this sort of service. Think about it, what if you could donate and then get a video message back showing someone who is helped by your donation saying thanks? Or what if you could see what is going on in Haiti or some other place that needs aid? The non-profit organization’s message might be that much more powerful. After all, images often speak louder than words.
To that end, Mogreet decided to work with the David Lynch Foundation and bring some of Lynch’s talents — and messages — to his fans.
David Lynch Goes Mobile
The David Lynch Foundation is dedicated to documenting programs that awaken creativity and transform lives. To that end, the foundation has a website, DLF.TV, that has lots of video content of David Lynch and of people the Foundation has helped, as well as of other artists and friends who have support the Foundation’s vision.
The first mobile video message that the DLF will be sending to fans is of a short film that Lynch directed featuring the musician and artist Ariana Delawari. Delawari’s debut album, Lion of Panjshir was recorded in Kabul and Los Angeles, and reflects the cultures of both places. Delawari’s decision to return to Afghanistan in 2007 to record the album influenced her work and its overall sound. Like Lynch, Delawari is a student of transcendental mediation and like Lynch, it has also influenced her life and her work.
Lynch directed a six-minute short showing off Delawari’s style and voice. The style is unmistakable Lynch, from the background to the sound mix to the camera angles. It’s also a piece that works well when viewing on the web or on a mobile phone.
To spread the word about Delawari — and to kick off a mobile-type of initiative — fans can text ‘LYNCH’ to 647338.
It’s an interesting approach to spread a message from an always-interesting director. It’s also something we expect to be a growing trend, especially as nonprofits start to embrace the power of mobile.
What do you think about mobile video? Are you a fan of David Lynch? What do you think of this initiative? Let us know!
Tags: david lynch, MMS, Mobile 2.0, video, video messaging, web video
Netflix plans to bump the video quality of its Watch Instantly streaming service up to 1080p on some devices, CNET claims. It will also roll out 5.1 surround sound support. Both upgrades will occur by next year.
Currently, Netflix Watch Instantly is available in 720p HD on the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3, and some set-top boxes. 1080p is a much higher resolution, and the existing devices don’t stream Netflix content with 5.1 surround sound.
Netflix’s CEO has in the past predicted that streaming will overtake DVD-by-mail as the company’s main business. The library keeps on growing for example, the Criterion Collection just contributed a ton of art-house and foreign films and the number of devices you can watch the content on is growing too.
No time frame for the upgrade has been given, but the core technology that powers Netflix Watch Instantly Microsoft Silverlight got the capability last year. You can already watch 1080p streams on the Xbox 360 through the Zune Marketplace using Silverlight.
In some ways, streaming stole HD’s thunder. While the high definition digital video disc format Blu-ray was counting on viewers’ interest in quality, it turned out that more users have been interested in the convenience of watching content when and where they want. That has meant a sacrifice in resolution among other things, but 1080p Netflix is a first step towards closing the gap between quality and convenience.
The highly compressed 1080p streams that are possible over the United States’ broadband infrastructure are still not high enough on the quality scale to beat Blu-ray head-to-head, but they will still be better than most people are used to.
What was your favorite moment during the Super Bowl? Was it the fast-paced game or the ads that got your attention?
If the ads caught your eye, which moment stood out for you? If it was the game, which play was most memorable? Why did it stick with you? We want to know!
FLO TV, which ran its “Moments” commercial as one of the Super Bowl ads this year, has provided three FLO TV Personal Televisions (value: $290 each with 6 months free service) as prizes for this contest.
To enter, leave a comment on this post telling us your favorite Super Bowl moment of 2010, either during the game or the ads. We’ll pick three winners based on the originality, humor and creativity of your comment.
Because FLO TV works in the US, this contest is US-only. The contest will run for 24 hours and winners will be notified via email by Friday February 12.
About the Prize: FLO TV Personal Television
The FLO TV is a way to watch TV on the go. Here’s how the company describes the device:
FLO TV brings live mobile TV to the small screen. The FLO TV service combines the best content, an intuitive user interface and a superior multicast network to deliver a true quality TV viewing experience for consumers. FLO TV offers fulllength simulcast and timeshifted programming from the world´s best entertainment brands, including ABC, CBS, CNBC, COMEDY CENTRAL, Disney Channel, ESPN, FOX, FOX News Channel, FOX Sports, FUEL TV, MSNBC, MTV, NBC 2Go and many more.
The FLO TV Personal Television is available through Amazon.com, Best Buy and RadioShack among other leading retailers at a suggested MSRP of $199 and comes with 6 months free service, for a total retail value of about $288.94 USD.
Disclosures: FLO TV is not a Mashable sponsor or partner. Mashable and its staff receive no payment or incentives for running this contest.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Willard
Tags: contest, flo tv, moments, Super Bowl, Superbowl
We’ve already looked at how on-air Super Bowl advertisers fared with audiences during the Big Game, but how did online viewers react to the spots? Check out which ads were the biggest winners — or losers — with the Hulu crowd.
The 2010 Super Bowl was a big win for more than just the New Orleans Saints, CBS scored big-time, too, garnering the biggest Super Bowl audience on record, and, with 106 million U.S. households tuned in, the most-watched television program of all time. That means a lot of eyes were on the ads — both online and on-air. And now more than ever, we can ascertain almost instantly how these commercials resonated with viewers.
Similar to YouTube’s AdBlitz channel, Hulu’s AdZone features all of the nationwide Super Bowl spots and lets viewers vote, Siskel & Ebert-style (that’s thumbs-up or thumbs-down) on which ads worked and which ads fell flat. You can even see how many users from different demographics and locations liked or disliked certain ads, and you can compare those metrics with other ads.
Hulu explains the whole process in its blog, and voting continues until tomorrow night should you choose to check it out. Still, Hulu shared some of the rating charts with us (at least as they stand right now), and we think the results are pretty interesting:
Motorola clearly scored big time with its Megan Fox photo ad. Why? Not only is it the most-viewed commercial, it is the fifth most “liked” ad and the third most “disliked” ad. That’s some pretty serious buzz.
Other big winners? Doritos’ “House Rules” ad got high marks from viewers and racked up the online views. Likewise, Google’s big Super Bowl ad played well with audiences and got lots of views.
Proving that controversy does indeed lead to viewership, Focus on the Family’s Tim Tebow ad is one of the most watched, even if it is also the most disliked.
What was your favorite ad from the Big Show? Least favorite? Let us know!
Tags: ads, hulu, MARKETING, Super Bowl, super bowl as, video
There’s some good news and some bad news. First, the good news: sources tell Engadget that multitouch browsing will be added to the Motorola Droid in its next software update.
Multitouch was one of the most requested features on Android, at least until the Nexus One gained multitouch browsing last week.
The bad news: the update won’t add the ability to install live wallpapers, a coveted feature of Android 2.1 seen in the Nexus One.
The point of live wallpaper is essentially to let your homescreen behave like an application, making it animated and interactive. Live wallpapers have the same access to the platform functionality that apps do, giving your homescreen the ability to change dynamically and to bring relevant information to the background of your phone. There’s no word on when or even if the Droid might support live wallpaper, but it looks like it won’t be included in this upcoming update.
Other tidbits from the new build — based on Android 2.1 version 1 — include pre-installed Google Goggles experimental visual search, and versions of the news and weather widgets first included with the Nexus One.
The official word on the street from Motorola is that the new update will roll out this week, so it won’t be long now before Droid users finally get to enjoy the multitouch browsing experience their Nexus One counterparts have been privy to since last week.
Tags: android, android 2.1, droid, live wallpaper, Motorola, multitouch, verizon
iPhone repair shop iResQ claims that it has the front panel component of the next iteration of Apple’s iPhone, and it has posted a few photos to demonstrate a couple of ways the handset will differ from its predecessor.
If these pics are legit, then the new iPhone will actually be one-fourth of an inch taller than all of the previous three models. Presumably this is to make room for a new component or more than one new component.
iResQ also observes that the front panel has a “reflective, mirror-like surface” near the top of the phone, and speculates that this is a relocated proximity sensor. The current iPhone’s proximity sensor is used to detect when you’re holding the phone up to your ear. If you are, it shuts off the screen to save battery life and to avoid blinding you with light.
If the reflective surface is the proximity sensor, then Apple might be planning to use the sensor for other functions as well.
If Apple is planning to launch a new iPhone this year, it will likely be announced at WWDC this June. We’ll have to wait until then to see if these photos are real. Take a look at the photos below, but remember that it’s best to pile this in with the rest of the rumors for now.
[via MacRumors]
Tags: apple, iphone, iphone 4g, trending
While the Nook — Barnes & Noble’s $259 e-reader and Kindle rival — has been available for purchase online since November, it has yet to be sold in the company’s brick-and-mortar stores. Come Wednesday, however, that will all change.
The New York Times is reporting, “Barnes & Noble, the country´s largest bookselling chain, said that its Nook electronic reading device would be available for purchase in its stores starting Wednesday.”
Barnes & Noble originally made a big splash with its Nook announcement in late October, but its digital book reader has since been met with mixed reviews and suffered from stock shortage problems around the holidays.
The push to finally get the Nook in Barnes & Noble stores is likely the result of the hoopla involving Apple’s iPad. As Google is learning via lackluster Nexus One sales, consumers haven’t exactly embraced the online-only purchase model when it comes to electronics. With its physical debut coming several months prior to the iPad’s, Barnes & Noble might have an opportunity to land key sales before consumers can hold the iPad for themselves.
Tags: barnes & noble, ereader, nook
The 2010 Technology Entertainment Design conference will be kicking off tomorrow in Long Beach, California, bringing the leading minds of many fields together to talk shop about innovation, change, and what the future holds.
As social media has become a game changer for industries across the board, you can bet the experts at this year’s TED conference will have their sights set on peeling back the hype and getting at the core of what social technology has in store for this year and beyond.
Perhaps the best part of the TED conferences is that videos of the talks are archived and free to view right on the organization’s website. Given the wealth of insight we’re sure to see tomorrow, we thought we’d whet your appetite by highlighting a few recent and exceptional talks from TED’s past, with a focus on social media.
1. Alexis Ohanian: How To Make a Splash in Social Media
We’ll start things off with a real-life social media parable about how the biggest and most effective forces on the web usually take shape by accident. Alexis Ohanian of Reddit.com tells the quick and hilarious story of how the social web provided some unexpected help to Greenpeace in halting the Japanese whaling industry. Internet marketers take note: The meme is all powerful, and it cannot be controlled.
2. Clay Shirky: How Social Media Can Make History
In this talk, consultant, professor and author Clay Shirky discusses the unprecedented immediacy of real-time citizen journalism made possible by social media and the nearly ubiquitous access to mobile web technologies. From the election crisis in Iran to the massive earthquake that shook China in May of 2008, Shirky discusses how media is made on the ground, as-it-happens, via the social web.
3. Evan Williams: Listening to Twitter Users
With a couple of anecdotes building the ultimate social media case study, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams discusses how a little side project called Twitter became a game-changing phenomenon with the help and input of the very users who made the service a success. From innovative marketing uses to core functionality, Williams provides the evidence for what we knew all along: Users know best.
4. Stefana Broadbent: How the Internet Enables Intimacy
As social media changes our social lives, speculation has abounded for years on how the web may be disconnecting us from intimate interactions in favor of meaningless quests to rack up followers and “friends.” Not so, says Stefana Broadbent, who explains that social networks function the same way online as they do in real life. While we may have lots of friends, we only really communicate regularly and meaningfully with a handful of them, and social technologies like e-mail, texting, and tweeting allow us to do so more often across time and space.
5. Seth Godin: The Tribes We Lead
From professional sports mascots to balloon animal makers, some communities are so extremely niche that they could only properly thrive on the Internet. So argues blogger and author Seth Godin, who believes that our revolutionary new connectedness has brought human culture back to its roots, and that tribes (groups of people mobilized around a shared interest) are the present and future of all web content.
What are your favorite TED talks about social media? Which did we miss? Let us know in the comments.
Tags: future, List, Lists, social media, social networks, technology, TED, TED Talks, twitter, video
In this week’s Free Music Monday we offer you 10 free downloadable MP3s (or the occasional full album) for your eclectic listening pleasure. If you haven’t checked out Free Music Monday before, we’re giving away free and legal tracks in honor of the #musicmonday tradition on Twitter.
We also gladly accept your submissions for Free Music Monday — please find information about how to submit your tracks or music from artists you represent at the end of this post. Now without further ado, let’s roll some tracks!
1. [DOWNTEMPO] Cosmo D’s Sauce: “Metroid (Brynstar)” — Jazzy horns and downtempo beats from one of several acts from the Brooklyn-based Smoothe Moose label and artist collective. Right-click to download this track, and grab lots more from Smoothe Moose’s mixtapes at Soundcloud. The We Love Video Game Music sampler featuring this track is also embedded below for streaming and download.
Smoothe Moose Mixtape #3 – We Love Video Game Music by smoothemoose
2. [OPERA] The Knife: “Colouring of Pigeons” — It’s The Knife like they’ve been heard before. Right-click to snag a track from the electro-opera the brother and sister duo were commissioned to compose, Tomorrow, In a Year, based on the infamous Charles Darwin text The Origin of Species. The digital release on the 92-minute opera is out now, with the two-CD physical album to arrive March 1.
3. [STONER ROCK] Ancestors: “The Ambrose Law” — If you like Sabbath-influenced progressive rock, right-click to check out this track from L.A.’s Ancestors. [via Stoner Rock]
4. [ELECTRONICA] Four Tet: “Essential Mix” — Almost two hours’ worth of mixes and remixes are included in this set from UK’s Kieran Hebden, better known as Four Tet. Download the entire set from Soundcloud or from the streaming player below.
Essential mix (January 2010) by Four Tet
5. [ROCK] Martha and the Muffins: “Don’t Say Anything” — To get your free download from the recently released new album Delicate (their first studio release in 18 years), head on over to MatM’s site to sign up for the mailing list and get a copy of “Don’t Say Anything” from these Toronto-based rockers.
6. [INDIE] Thunderhawk: “King Basement” — Get your right-click on to snag a track from the forthcoming VI release from Indianapolis’ Thunderhawk, slated to drop in March. Check out more about the band on their MySpace page and at Standard Recording.
7. [EXPERIMENTAL] Primary Colors of Sound: “bAg” — Chill, downtempo beats characterize this experimental electronic outfit, who offer a free download of the track “bAg” along with several others on their iLike artist page.
8. [GUITAR ROCK] Gary Reynolds and the Brides of Obscurity: “Three Angels” — Songwriter, guitarist and Electrokitty Studios owner Gary Reynolds has embarked on an ambitious plan to release a new track per week and a full-length album every month in 2010. New tracks go up every Monday, and you can always download the latest on Gary and the band’s website. This week’s track is “Three Angels,” described as “religion and spacemen done to a Zeppelin style groove and a nice backwards guitar solo.”
9. [DUBSTEP] Derivate: “L2 (Beto Narme’s Dense Subspace Remix)” — Netlabel Sublime Porte from Istanbul offers this remix (right-click to download) of Derivate’s recent EP, Lagrange Points I. You can also download the release in its entirety at Sublime Porte, plus follow the label for future releases on Twitter.
10. [SINGER/SONGWRITER] GarageSpin: “Spinning Daydream” — This track about “embracing all experiences in life, good and bad” from singer/songwriter and music blogger Mike B, recording and blogging as GarageSpin, is available for the low cost of your right-click. Snag another free track and free stream from the GarageSpin Music page.
As always, thank you for tuning in to Free Music Monday! If you like this feature, please help us out by sharing it with your music-loving friends. You can always find the latest edition of this feature by hitting up the Free Music Monday tag page, so please check back. We’ve appended the list of past Free Music Mondays at the end of this post in case you missed any of the back catalog.
Big thanks to everyone for the great submissions we’re getting. If you sent us tracks and we haven’t featured them yet, stay tuned for a future Free Music Monday. If you’d like to submit tracks for yourself or an artist you represent, give us a shout at barb AT mashable DOT com. Be sure to send us an MP3 or two we can use (no more than 25MB file size total please) or send us a link to listen to tracks you’re willing to provide as a free download. Thanks everyone!
P.S. Bonus tip: They’re not “free” but they are low cost — be sure to check out Amazon’s 100 albums for $5 through February.
Free Music Monday Back Catalog
- Covers, Remixes, and Mashups Edition
- Free Downloads for Your Ears (Feb. 1, 2010)
- Fresh and Free Downloads (Jan. 25, 2010)
- Your Submissions, All Downloads Edition
Tags: downloads, free music monday, mp3s, music
