MSN's version of AdSense is now live for a select group of advertisers who have received invites. Unlike Adsense, MSN uses discretion (for now) and only displays its content ads on its own network of content pages, a.k.a. MSN.com. There is an example of the ad unit at the bottom of this MSN page

Barry first reported this back in Aug and an MSN representative told me these ads went live last night.

In my opinion, I really hope they are strict about what publishers they let display their content network ads as opposed to Google who let everyone and their brother and in my mind was basically the sole reason for splogs and MFA sites. This mistake has virtually diluted the quality of success on the content network for a lot of Google's advertisers. Knowing how MSN operates, I'm pretty sure they won't open it up for everyone and anyone but in case they are thinking about it, don't!

You don't hear sports fans shouting "We're number three" because there is a huge chasm between finishing at the top and getting the bronze medal. This should be a lesson to Facebook, an also-ran social networking site that may have just priced itself out of being acquired by Yahoo for nearly $1 billion. Facebook will likely go down in the annals of history with Pets.com as a coulda woulda shoulda website that never made it, despite lots of hype. Facebook isn't nearly MySpace or YouTube, and hoping for a 10-figure purchase price is insane. Facebook's founders will lament the day that they could have been rich beyond their wildest dreams, but their hubris lost that chance. Facebook will probably stay independent for a few more months, lose market share, and then scramble for anyone to buy them. A perfect fit would be Lycos, the once fourth biggest portal that never could quite be AOL or Yahoo. Aspects of social networking will be incorporated into popular websites, so there soon won't be a need for acquiring a stand alone entity. You'll see MTV, ESPN and the like figure out how to connect their fans and derive extra revenue from the content, but finding like-minded people won't require joining some youth-oriented site. Yahoo should leverage its strength in IM and entertainment and come up with its own social services for a fraction of the Facebook price.

Splogging, or spam blogging, is a growing problem as the web and blog search engines are littered with websites that republish RSS feeds from bloggers without adding any value. These bogus websites generate revenue from AdSense or other programs and steal money from the original publishers.

Unfortunately most bloggers don't have the money to sue these thieves into oblivion, but the ISPs and blog creation companies that enable them should also be held accountable. If it is in the terms of agreement that people don't steal content and violate the Digitial Millennium Copyright Act, those terms should be enforced. The New York Times or Sony wouldn't stand for this type of copyright infringement, and bloggers shouldn't either.

I'm on both sides of this equation as I get my ideas from other blogs or news articles frequently, but I always include links to the sources. Also, as a frequently publshed author in print and online in the "old media sense," my articles are sometimes copied directly or the concepts taken without credit.

I don't buy the argument that producing a full RSS feed on FeedBurner should give bloggers carte blanche to copy your work, as some people who I've contacted after they've taken my words allege. As BusinessBlogConsulting says, scraping is stealing, and it shouldn't be up to the publisher to use technology to prevent copying.

As the wise folks at e-consultancy point on, splogs also increase the ranking of blogs' influence on Technorati. The blog search engines rank site's influence based on the number of blog links, which isn't a true representation of their audience. The metric should also include how many unique visitors and page views a blog gets, with the number of links a tertiary factor. Allowing bloggers to control the influence of blogs creates a 'blog mafia" similar to the way a select group of individuals were controlling placement of articles on Digg. It leads to a protected circle that is contrary to the Internet's open competition.

A few weeks back I told you that I had received a complimentary copy of the book Brand Simple, by Allen Adamson of Landor Associates. Well two weeks ago I had the opportunity to pique Allen's brain about my vision for Marketing Shift and how to implement that vision using the techniques he outlines in Brand Simple. The conversation was chocked full of brand goodness, seriously, I was really impressed.

First off I have a hard time expressing the thoughts in my head in ways others can relate to when it comes to Marketing Shift. I think it's because I'm ADHD and mshift is my baby. Anybody that knows me knows how much I've gone through just to keep mshift and that I'd rather not post an entry for 6 months than put posting something here that doesn't add value to your day.

So when I started talking to Allen, I was going 100mph about where I want to take mshift, the theme I wanted to go with, the areas of content I wanted to break into, yada, yada, yada... and the amazing thing is that he got all of it. He was able to break through some of my notions of what were important to the real core of mshift's essence. When it was all said and done, I felt like I had enough information and direction to take mshift to the next level and with the confidence needed to be able to stand behind the changes because I know why they're going to be made.

Some of the things Allen pointed out that really hit me dealt with things I took for granted and didn't really think about.

• The more focused the company, the better the brand. Find the areas I want to focus mshift's content on and run with them. As you broaden your business' scope this becomes much harder.


• Look at the tagline of your company. My mshift tagline says "Now with more data!" What the heck is that about? I just slapped it up there a while back cause I thought it was funny, but that does nothing for my brand. I should be using more of a competency line in it's place like... "Interactive Marketing Magazine"


• Your competency line should say where your brand is going instead of a cheezy tagline.


• List the areas you're focuing on.


• What is your brand's high level promise?


• You must be able to get a handle on what the brand stands for with just a glimpse. So mshift visitors should see the logo, the tagline and the main nav and have a great idea of what we're all about. I can say with 100 percent certainty that this is not currently the case.

Parting Shots
Allen is one of the most down to earth Marketing / Advertising / Branding Executives I've ever had the pleasure of speaking with. He was friendly and didn't mind me dragging him through the mess that is my blog in an effort to apply the principles and ideas his book talks about. Maybe it's because he has children and understands that no matter how big our egos get, we're still just dad to our kids. I don't know, but I was impressed.

Something he said that caught me as funny was...

"Is your head like a desktop"

Meaning, is your brand so cluttered and full of stuff that has nothing to do with what you're trying to accomplish that it confuses everyone but you? Well I know that description fits me to a T and now I'm going to make some changes about it.

Guess LK is pretty happy with the insane popularity of Zecco. Congrats guys!

I just spoke with Martin Schaedel of Lund Kenner about all of the hype around Zecco, here's what he had to say...

"Zecco have been gorwing with outstanding speed, and we've had a mega response to our launch having been featured on CNBC, Cnn etc the number of account openings have been amazing..."

I received this email informing me of the delay in getting my account completed and open...

Hello,

First of all, thanks for joining the Zecco revolution! We received your application to Zecco Trading, and normally, we’d have your new account up and running in anywhere from a few minutes to a few days. However, we had no idea we’d be quite so popular: the response to Zecco’s free online trading has been overwhelming, and as a result, we're catching up on the application backlog right now.

Please bear with us; we will have you up and trading shortly.

Thanks for your patience. And thanks for leading the way to the Zecco revolution!

Stephen Oliveira
President, Zecco Trading

Securities products and services offered through:
Zecco Trading
A Division of Equinox Securities, Inc.
2084 E Francis Street
Ontario, CA 91761
909-657-6655 Office
909-657-6638 Facsimile

What is Zecco?
"At the heart of our market-busting change lies our promise of zero dollar trade commissions. That’s right. The price war is over. You won. Unless you’re a day trader, you won’t spend a penny on commissions ever again. Day traders – you’re in luck, too. You can make up to 10 trades in any one day up to a total of 40 trades a month at no cost, and after that you only have to pay a paltry $3.50 per stock trade.

It all started with a complete re-think of the industry and a dedication to a minimalist business model that cuts out the fat like those big, expensive TV commercials and wall-to-wall online advertising. Instead, we focused on beefing up the important stuff like market data, tools, news, opinions and insight. Then we really went to work, harnessing the full power of the Internet to provide an array of user-matching capabilities which let people trade ideas and network with experts and like-minded investors for an unparalleled investment experience.

And the best part? It’s all free."

While the Republican-led Congress just passed a law strengthening the ban on online gambling, the fortunes of people who like to wager is likely to change soon. The simple reason: the majority of people want it legalized, and more importantly, it is big money for marketers and the states.

Today it is simple to start playing poker or betting on sports online, and virtually no one has been prosecuted for placing bets online. It is a multi-billion dollar industry that today isn't being taxed, with most of the money heading to the U.K. and the south Atlantic islands.

The revenue potential of legalized online gambling and all of the marketing dollars surrounding could challenge alcohol as the top money making vice. While the casinos (both tribal and those in Las Vegas and Atlantic City) have had powerful lobbies to buy Congress' support (see Abramoff, Jack), and the religious right has decried gambling of the non-bingo or horse racing type as sinful, public opinion and marketing dollars can be stronger.

While I personally don't care much for gambling, we could certainly use the tax revenue, the business opportunity opportunity should not stay offshore. Like it or not, gambling is what the people want, and they tend win out.

Cable companies might be a better bet than TiVo as the DVR champions of the future, according to ABI Research.

The company says that DVR subscription services will jump by more than 1000 percent during the next five years with much of the recorded programs stored on network servers, not home DVR boxes.

It is much cheaper to store programs centrally because network storage is much cheaper, and companies don't have to send technicians to repair DVRs if the hard drives crash. Also, the boxes can be less-complicated "thin-client" machines where most of the intelligence is on the network.

But media companies could stop this from happening by demanding higher royalty payments, according to ABI Research. CBS, etc. might demand payment for each time a show is watched, not just for the original airing.

It is inconsistent to demand that cable companies pay more depending on where a digital copy is stored. What needs to happen is for advertisers, cable companies and the media companies to figure out a better method of tracking when shows and their ads are viewed and for sharing the revenue.

Creating a comprehensive ad-supported video-on-demand archive of shows is a tremendous opportunity, not a threat. All sides must sit down and decide the new technologies that can extract the maximum ad revenue, and how to slice up the pie.

I'm a believer that short pre-roll ads are acceptable viewing when watching a video, but TVEyes says I'm wrong. The company is offering a contextual ad system that analyzes the spoken words during a video and creates relevant ads.

I'm skeptical that AdSense or Yahoo Publisher ads will get decent click-through rates as users will become engaged in the video and not move their eyes to the text ads. When you are scanning for video, I would guess that graphical ads would have a much better chance at grabbing someones attention.

Also, how do you determine relevant ads? If your drama show is talking about the crime scene, do you really want to see ads for cleaning products? What ads get placed around political talk shows?

Tell me if I'm wrong about pre-roll ads, but I think video ads are more likely to be successful when watching streams online.

Another television program that was first shown online has now been added to the cable lineup. Mr. Meaty, a show about workers at a fast food chain, is now a regular on Nickelodeon, according to Media
Life. Vegetarians are protesting the show, which features serving seal as a meal, but the ratings are strong.

This is the second instance I can think of where a web trial has led to a TV show, and I would expect that more networks will give shows a trial run before putting it on the schedule. Brilliant But Cancelled, which helped to revive one show, now has a death watch contest where viewers guess which show is next on the chopping block.

"Smith" was the first show to get the boot this year after just a few weeks, and more are on the way.

Going directly to online viewers instead of trusting the braintrust at the networks to give the go ahead for a prospective show seems like acost-effective decision. The networks produce dozens of pilots each year that are never aired, so why not have a contest (ala American Idol) where viewers vote for the shows that will make the cut? They could get some advertising revenue by streaming online, build interest in the shows, and netizens would compete to make sure their shows survive. Are you reading this CW?

Now that Google has swallowed YouTube we have an even more dominant video search engine. But Google's ownership of the video search market is far from ordained. Watch out for Blinkx, which will provide ample competition for the search giant, and may wind up being more profitable.

Blinkx has a plethora of content deals with the leading news
publishers and wire services as well as video publishers such as the TV networks. They provide video to AOL and Lycos and just added MSN as a distribution partner.

Today the field looks anything but level, but Blinkx offers the best user interface and superior search technology. The content partnership deals and development of channels of quality programming on Blinkx provides a superior experience for "serious" viewers online. Selling advertising against this kind of content is straightforward, and Blinkx is well down that path.

The formidable hurdle of course is YouTube's millions of contributors and dedicated audience of watchers. But now that Google's deep pockets are ripe for copyright lawsuits, a not insignificant percentage of its content will be taken offline. Google has a ad model in place for publishers, but organizing and compensating the contributors will take
time away from what Google does best.

So today, AOL/MSN/Blinkx video search may not compare with YouTube for volume, but quality may eventually win out. Even if GoogleTube continues to get the most eyeballs, they may never win the battle for the best bottom line.

It's just about done. Google has made their biggest purchase in company history and bought up first year upstart YouTube.com for $1.65 Billion, all in Google stock.

Now I'm not going to go into all sorts of crazy details like the rest of the blogosphere will undoubtedly do, but I will make a few points and ask a few questions.

Google gives these two 20-something year olds $1.6 BILLION in Google stock. Now to put that into perspective you can take out the 30% that Sequia Capital owns and these two guys get to split up *que Dr. Evil* $1.1 BILLION DOLLARS. Imagine starting your current company a year ago and having someone buy it for over a BILLION dollars. I can't even imagine. Well, yes I can, if you have a spare $1.6 billion laying around, I can come up with something to sell.

I digress. Now this is an all stock deal so that $1.6 BILLION DOLLARS (saying that never gets old) could go up or *gasp* even down. For example. Let's say a meteor hits Moutain View, CA and Wall Street thinks that Sergey and Larry have perished under atmospheric rock, the Google stock tumbles, falling 25%. YouTube-Teens only get to split $825 million. I can barely hold the tears back.

Ok, so these two guys have $1.1B to split, they could buy MySpace, TWICE! For those who don't remember Fox bought MySpace.com just over a year ago for $580 million. A blockbuster deal at the time for sure, but that is less then ONE THIRD of what Google is paying for YouTube only a year later. Wow! is right.

There have been a lot of voices speaking out on this suspected but no one has been a bigger advocate of the 'Do Not Buy YouTube' theory then Mark Cuban. Cuban is the first among the blogosphere to put up his reactions to the acquisition and it doesn't disappoint
Mark Cuban states "It will be interesting to see what happens next and what happens in the copyright world. I still think Google Lawyers will be a busy, busy bunch. I dont think you can sue Google into oblivion, but as others have mentioned, if Google gets nailed one single time for copyright violation, there are going to be more shareholder lawsuits than doans has pills to go with the pile on copyright suits that follow."

It will be intersting to see how the rest of the blogosphere reacts, but we will probably have to wait until tomorrow for that.

Motorola's iRadio currently offers commercial-free radio stations and soon will add a digital music service, according to Information Week. This combines the best features of satellite radio (no commercials and accessibility from almost anywhere) with the iPod's music storage.

IF mobile phones can offer a gigabyte of storage and decent quality sound, they may be able to take market share from both markets. The interface for downloading music on the phones has to be dead simple, likewise with the Bluetooth connection that allows the music to be streamed over a car speakers.

I'd much rather carry one device than two, and being able to hear my tunes anywhere I walk or drive is an attractive option. Could this be the beginning of the end for iPod and XM? I wouldn't rule it out.

As one of the top marketing blogs on the web, MarketingShift.com is an excellent place to get the word out about your product or company. Sponsoring MarketingShift will put your site in front of the right people. Our audience consists of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, early adopters, people of influence and journalists.

Mshift offers a variety advertising options and gives you one of the best CPM's in the industry. If you want to get the word out about your brand contact MarketingShift today!

You may also contact Evan directly at advertise@MarketingShift.com

Google execs recognize that advertising revenue from video should be one of the centerpieces to the company's continued growth, hence the reported interest in YouTube. Now they are hiring a director of video advertising (according to MediaPost), only about a year too late.

YouTube would be a smart purchase because it would keep someone else from owning the biggest player one of the fastest growing traffic areas. But whether or not Google gets its money's worth depends on the advertising and compensation model.

Google can make money from the search traffic by displaying some banner and contextual ads, but that' small potatoes. And they can charge advertisers to promote movie trailers or promotional videos, and to push free TV content with inserted ads instead of asking 99 cents.

The challenge is to get advertisers to buy into pre-roll ads before user-generated videos. This requires selling ads against the user-generated stuff that is not objectionable while still streaming the risque or potentially offensive video as a cost of doing business. If Google were to start sensoring content, they would lose a lot of users, so that is not an option.

Google should adapt its CPM model for video by paying the individuals who create lots of traffic for them. If a blogger can put AdSense on her site and get paid, then certainly the vlogger who submits a video also deserves compensation. This means creating millions of new accounts, but Google has familiarity with the process.

I'm not sure that Google will do the deal with YouTube; perhaps it will be Yahoo that will try to level the ad revenue playing field.