Internet Marketing Blog by Winnipeg's leading web agency

Google is known more for its peculiar plain-Jane approach when it comes to Web design. However, the search engine giant has sprung a surprise by recently coming up with something that’s much wackier. They have introduced a ‘Lively’ tool, which lets people embody a cartoonish avatar online and engage in text based conversations in virtual chat rooms with other internet users.

The chat rooms can be added to any website or blog. Google unveiled the new offering in its official blog post. The product can be availed at www.lively.com. It’s officially part of Google Labs. The area showcases projects, which are the experimental, phase. The product development was led by an engineering manager at Google, Niniane Wang.

A host of products in the pipeline have the potential to dramatically alter the way users interact online. Chat rooms on the web are mostly two dimensional; they incorporate text, and often include voice and video. ‘Lively’ is an effort to make the online conversations three dimensional, so that they are more fun and more interactive. What are its features?

• Users select from a gamut of online incarnations.

• Users can build their own rooms that can be posted to another blog or social network profile just as conveniently as a YouTube video.

• Up to 20 users can occupy a chat room and interact with each another wherein text messages figure as comic book style bubbles right atop the unrealistic avatars.

• Users can build their own unique virtual environments, hanging on walls YouTube videos and photos from Google’s photo service Picasa, akin to works of art.

 
A lot of churning is happening in the intensely competitive world of social media. As news reports have already revealed, MySpace is set to acquire iLike, one of the popular music discovery services. It lets users listen to as well as share music across various social networks.

iLike reportedly refused a similar offer from Facebook, where it happens to be the top music app. The firm boasts nearly 55 million registered users. MySpace has been striving to overhaul its business with greater focus on music and entertainment.

According to its CEO Owen Van Natta, the acquisition is a step ahead in their relentless pursuit of innovation. He wanted iLike to branch out into areas such as video, games and film from current from music recommendation.

In an official statement, iLike president Hadi Partovi noted: “We are launching an exciting new journey together. I am enthusiastic about what this combination could mean for our users, advertisers, and artists.” This acquisition is bound to affect relationship between iLike and Facebook, a major source of former’s activity. Nearly 80% of its entire traffic originates from Facebook, it has been estimated.

Facebook has recently overhauled its search engine and taken over a start-up, which some experts term a rival to Twitter. It’s conducting a ‘stripped-down version’ of its service with an aim of improving growth prospects overseas. Facebook is also looking to develop an electronic payments system.

Meanwhile, the world’s largest social networking website has also decided to acquire FriendFeed, a fast emerging social media startup.

AOL is now manufacturing a wide range of digital media offerings free for the grabbing. Almost 300 content producers in its headquarters based in New York is backed by several other freelancers and expert programmers in Bangalore Dulles and Dublin. They tirelessly edit photos and crank out copy for over 80 websites, many of them ranked highly by Technorati.

For instance, Politics Daily that started this April already has close to 3.6 million unique users on monthly basis, according to digital audience measurement firm comScore. Visitors to sites such as FanHouse and Engadget may not even know that they emanate from a firm, which used to confine most of its communication to informing them ‘they have got mail’.

AOL media properties have nearly 76 million unique visitors. AOL has managed to achieve credibility partly is by grabbing abundant talent on the loose. Martin Moe, in charge of AOL news sites at AOL, mentions: “This huge pool of talent has suddenly become available.”

AOL, it was believed, after the merger with Time Warner, would act as a digital outlet for the company’s content, but such potential synergies did not materialize.

Google’s former head of sales and now chief executive of AOL, Tim Armstrong since he joined in April, wanted AOL to become major source of ad-supported content online.

“Advertisers want reach, scale and engagement, and we want this to work,” stated Rob Norman, GroupM Interaction (a unit of ad giant WPP) chief executive. He added that you now have leadership in place at AOL with a clear understanding of the strategies and economics for creating great content.

The throbbing spirit of Bison Sports has been aptly captured in an all new, dynamic website, BisonFans.ca, which has just been officially launched.

Now purchasing your passes has become so much simpler and convenient thanks to this enterprising online outlet. All one has to do is visit the website or give a ring to an up and ticking Bison Sports hotline at (204) 802-6402.

BisonFans.ca has arrived just in nick of time with football fever all set to hit U of M Campus! There are going to be six of the 12 starters on offence and nine of 12 starters on the defense returning to the Bisons squad for the 2009 season.

The action will gather momentum as the Manitoba Bisons football squad, a couple of years removed from securing their 3rd Vanier Cup Championship victory in team history, looks to rebound from missing the playoffs for just the third time in the last decade.

Bison Sports is indeed thrilled to offer the best value in Winnipeg with 5 Different Sport Choices this year. There will be more than 60 events spread over September – March. Fans will witness top CIS University action packed with sport, dance/ cheer teams, promotions, prizes and tons of excitement! Thanks to one low price, the All Sport Season Pass offers the best value to savor Bison Sports.

BisonFans.ca will serve as the official online all sport season pass seller for Bison Sports. It will also provide access to season schedules and complete details of upcoming events with the simple click of a button. Am official release on it mentions the weekly Smitty’s Bison press conferences will be scheduled every Tuesday at around 10:30 a.m. and will run to the end of March 2010 all the way through the school year.

Indeed, the launch of Bisonfans.ca, an online ticket retailing property of ‘Bisons All Sports Season Passes’, could not have come at a better time than this for all diehard fans. The new Web-based interface developed by Webidiotz has been spontaneously welcomed and appreciated by them.

Carol Ploen-Hosegood of Bison Sports generously appreciated the role by Webidiotz in helping them to reach out to fans and establish an effective communication channel with them by stating: “Webidiotz has been fantastic to partner with; they have been prompt and professional through out our project. Even though we gave them a very tight time frame to work with they responded and delivered the site we were looking for. There insight and knowledge has helped us take our ideas to the next level”

Webidiotz is happy for the fact that we have been able to assist Bison Sports in their endeavor to provide best value and ultimate joy for their fans.

BisonFans.ca fully reflects the true spirit of an institution proud of its rich legacy and popularity! It has been a great experience interacting with them and making a meaningful contribution to their goal and visions.

A recent study on the online advertising expenditure patterns of the top marketers in India concludes that only a small percentage of the total marketing budgets are currently allocated to viral advertising.

Importantly, the study conducted by leading Internet firm WebChutney suggests the online medium is fast gaining in prominence thanks to its effectiveness coupled with growing awareness of the inherent benefits of the medium.

The total ad-spend on viral marketing is expected to go up by almost 90 percent in 2009-10, the study points out. With ad-budgets shrinking during times of recession, viral marketing has a huge potential as a powerful solution to meet the brand/marketing objectives.

Leading creative agencies are striving to create a niche for themselves in the emerging viral marketing space. The study is another pointer to the rapid growth of video as a brand building medium. Viral marketing campaigns will gain in momentum and strength. Importantly, it hardly costs anything to promote a viral ad once it’s ready to be ’seeded’.

The study is another pointer to the rapid growth of video as a brand building medium. Viral marketing campaigns will gain in momentum and strength. Importantly, it hardly costs anything to promote a viral ad once it’s ready to be seeded.

To reach out to potential viewers viral ads greatly rely on Internet buzz at a minimal cost unlike a TV commercial. Importantly, consumers can become active participants in the online brand building exercise.

Online video advertising still accounts for a comparatively tiny share of Internet ad spending. It tends to get dwarfed by TV advertising budgets.

According to eMarketer study, online video spending in the US will account for just about 4-5 percent of total online ad spending. The figure stands for a mere 2 percent of TV ad spending. On the positive side, online video advertising is fast growing.

Established sites such as Digg, Reddit and YouTube, or popular networking platforms like Facebook, MySpace and Orkut can well make sure the ad or video will remain in circulation for a longer period of time.

To leverage the potential of the online medium, a tech-savvy marketer comes up with the right idea. The rest will be taken care of by Cyber contagion.

Viral marketing campaigns created for companies build on the power and reach of the Internet. Social networking websites and blogs are the basic ingredients needed for the concept to really take off.

The interactive nature of a well-conceptualized and executed viral will ensure higher brand recall value. Importantly, virals are self-sustaining. An idea reverberates through the peer-to-peer platform on send-to-a friend links, SMS links and emails.

In this backdrop, it needs to be emphasized that eMarketer estimates online video spending to account for nearly 11 percent of overall online ad spending and close to 6 percent of the TV ad spend by 2013.

In the context of sheer velocity of rapid technological changes encompassing Second Life and Twitter is not easy to grasp and to keep pace with. And marketers are now spending more to catch attention of consumers through media channel where they are spending a larger chunk of their viewing time.

Experts think anything, which entertains people and incentivizes them for the time they have spent with the brand message, is always a good thing. A section of them feels interactivity is not the universal answer. As more people start to view long-form episodic TV like on Hulu, one has to ponder, ‘is that a lean-in or a lean-back experience?’ Online video in a way is a lean-forward medium.

It’s about fortifying relationships between brands and people. Another issue is whether short-form video content (say, a minute or even less) can be monetized.

As of now, we do not have an economic model for building a standalone digital video advertising business that is sustainable. We have some way to go from a usability standpoint. And creatively we still have some more distance to cover.

Of course, viewing habits are changing fast. Today, children prefer watching Disney programming episodes on their iPhones. So will interactivity within video ads work in that mode?

YouTube has already shown that a platform for successfully delivering ads can be developed. In the creative community there’s a lot of traction around that. If you see how campaigns get launched now, that’s typically happening with one or other form of YouTube video.

Marketers need a model where if their creative power is compelling enough and if (they are allowed to) spend more online, they will draws attention of consumers who now tend to spend lots more time on the Web.

However, an engagement metric needs to be delivered, which will reflect the fact the changing viewing and information seeking pattern. The marketers need to change the media mix accordingly to spread brand messages.

Not only the tech-savvy youth, but a large chunk of the affluent middle aged consumers with immense power, are now venturing into the cyber world with great enthusiasm. The `viral marketing’ techniques collate the traditional word-of-mouth publicity approach with interactivity made possible on the Internet.

The combination leaves behind a cost effective dissemination of data, leading to brand awareness. The immense potential of this evolving marketing concept has been understood by savvy marketers in today’s growingly digitalized society.

The inherent interactive aspect of the effective Web marketing sure makes it a catchy proposition. In fact, it has turned into an essential ingredient of every marketing mix. Marketers, having grasped this reality, have opted to combine it with other existing traditional media resources, to a great effect.

Interactive online marketing deftly incorporates creative usage of viral marketing and smart advertising techniques to leverage power and reach of popular social networks.