Yet another survey confirms that small businesses are still marketing like it's 1989. Nearly 60 percent of local businesses say they don't need no stinkin' search marketing, according to an Opus Research study.

Small business remains the undiscovered country for search and online marketing. Google, Yahoo and the yellow pages directories are still getting their game plans together, but they may be too late.

A serial entrepreneur has registered more than 100,000 domains related to local categories, according to Fortune. frittered away in print and radio advertising, local online advertising is ready for the taking.
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Online TV network/application Joost has updated its user interface and has signed deals with sports leagues to add to its content roster. While Joost's Skype pedigree has given the company incredible buzz, Veoh is now a close second as the "most likely to replace YouTube" category.

The new user interface of Joost is more Web 2.0-ish, according to Efluxmedia. The company also grabbed a deal to stream the baseball post season games after they are over to all of the world -- unless you live in the biggest markets for baseball, namely the U.S. and Japan. So that leaves Latin America, Korea, Canada and Australia as baseball-friendly countries that can see the games via Joost.

I'm surprised that the protective MLB granted rights outside of its own website, but I guess they are comfortable with Joost's ability to lock out geographies. We'll be seeing more of companies using online to target areas where TV can't reach. Joost will also broadcast games from the Canadian Football League.

Joost is slick, but it requires a large application download to take advantage of the peer to peer technology, and you can only see programs that the company has licensed.

Veoh, on the other hand, can grab any kind of content, so it could have broader appeal. Both companies have a chance to become profitable in their own niches, but Veoh is the more likely to have a chance at surpassing YouTube as a market force. Game on!

Feeling the heat from Facebook and MySpace, buttoned-up LinkedIn will allow users to post one photo of themselves.

I've always preferred LinkedIn's more serious approach for my business networking. Adding photos can help to make sure that you are contacting the people that you've met before.

Maybe it's my age (40+), but for work purposes I don't want the clutter of seeing people's favorite movies and music when I'm looking to network. LinkedIn won't get the traffic of the other social networking sites, but by offering pay-for services and retaining its business focus, it can be a profitable alternative.

Rudy Giuliani and Barack Obama recognize the value of a LinkedIn presence.

LinkedIn is reportedly developing an open API so that developers can create their own mash-ups, a strategy which has made Facebook the current darling of the social scene.

Microsoft has smartly re-jiggered its video content-to-ad ratio to allow more uninterrupted content watching.

According to MediaPost, ads now run no more than every three minutes of content, replacing the scheme of after every two videos.

Basing the ads on the time of the content makes sense for advertisers and viewers since so many clips are less than a minute. While YouTube won't use pre-roll ads, MSN video still puts ads ahead of content.

MSN is underutilizing the potential of its video by not promoting it anywhere on MSN's home page and by limiting the video news to those from its MSNBC partner. Microsoft has great reach, but limiting its video to its own archives is so AOL 1998-ish. Open the gates and promote video more prominently if you want to compete with YouTube.

The web is awash in rumors that Microsoft or Google might buy into Facebook and that the company's value could be as high as $10 billion. I've always been skeptical of Facebook's long term prospects, and Ovum principal analyst
David Bradshaw is in agreement, according to e-mailed comments:

"There are some problems with Facebook, for instance the current legal action between the founder and his former room-mates over the alleged theft of intellectual property, the increasing concerns over protecting children against 'grooming' by paedophiles (though Myspace with its younger audience seems more at risk here), and the increasing hostility in corporations to employees using social networking in work time - to the extent that some are now blocking access. Longer term, we believe that social networking sites have to evolve further. Users need much better privacy controls, for example to protect against identity theft and stalking.”

He doesn't hold back in stating Facebook as being more evolutionary than revolutionary.

“It's therefore my view that Facebook is no more than a step along the way and that there's something further to come. Maybe we need bubble 2.0 to burst before we can get to that - but let's hope not.”

When this bubble bursts, it will leave disgruntled venture capitalists and angel investors in the wake, not average investors. Pride comes before the fall, so this is a proud moment in Web 2.0 history.

If Wikipedia and YouTube had a baby, it would be Graspr.com.

The social site is composed of user-generated videos that provide instructional information about tasks from cooking to health to home repair. Graspr, which was unveiled at DEMO, offers 10,000 videos across 15 channnels.

People can comment on, rate and share videos from amateurs and professionals. The company also is develing an online video editor that simplifies creating videos.

Like YouTube, the company will share some of the revenue from the accompanying ads with video producers.

The concept is straightforward as some folks prefer watching content instead of reading. The challenge will be getting the critical mass of community and high quality content producers who are willing to contribute in the hopes that someday they might see a return on their investment. There are lots of know-it-alls, and this is their chance to prove it on video.

Sling Media was purchased by Dish Network parent EchoStar for $380 million. I'm fearful that the acquisition could limit the useful Slingbox' future.

Sling Media, through its Slingbox devices, is all about freeing content by enabling television content to be relayed from a home TV to any Internet computer. I was hopeful that a company such as TiVo, Google or Blinkx would buy Sling Media and use the technology in both directions -- to watch any 'Net content on your TV as well. We desperately need an open platform for moving content between the Internet and TV, and I was hopeful that Sling Media would be the answer.

Being owned by EchoStar complicates deals with other content partners such as CBS. While the Dish Network service isn't "old media," it is not on the cutting edge of TV/Internet integration. Hopefully Sling Media will change EchoStar more than the reverse.

Today I'm in Cambridge at the 2007 MIT Emerging Technology Conference on the MIT campus. The subject matter today will be a focus on women in technology. The President of MIT Susan Hockfield will spend 15 minutes or so giving some opening comments and then Robert Birgeneau (Chancellor at UC Berkeley) will spend 45 minutes on the keynote. I must admit a personal bias in today's sessions... I have two daughters of my own and I want to know what I can do to make it easier for them to be professionals in technology but I'm not sure I'll really learn anything that I don't already know in that regard. Who knows, we'll see how it goes. I'll keep you posted.

FYI, this conference was on the list of conferences I want to attend that I posted in March of 2005... I wonder if that's how Kathryn Ghita of KMC PR found me.

ABC and NBC are partnering with Cox Communications to enable top shows to be watched on demand through their cable boxes. This acquiesces to advertiser wishes and could increase the programs' audience, but a more strategic advertising plan is needed.

By simply repeating the ads that are broadcast live and disabling the fast forward button, the networks are prompting customers to order a DVR service. Consumers will accept ads during TV programs as they've always done, but the DVR crowd wants shorter or at least more targeted ads.

Plans are in the works for dynamic ad insertion and geotargeted ads, technologies which are the future of TV. While the networks will hold onto the mass advertising rates and model for as long as possible, less ads that are targeted to consumers AND interactive will inevitably rule the day.

Someday TV ads will be judged by the same click-through rates as the online world. This will be a huge shift when it happens.

Source: MediaPost

This week is DEMO, the Web confab where startups strut their stuff for VCs. One of the select present companies is Sway Online, which showed off its Shoutlet platform for distributing and tracking "social media marketing."

Sway integrates managing e-mail, RSS, podcast and text messaging under the Web 2.0 umbrella of marketing tactics. Web content can automatically be turned into widgets that can be easily shared.

The differentiator is that Shoutlets automatically track interactions and aggregate the data so that marketers don't have to load multiple applications and reports to figure out what's going on with an integrated campaign (eg. email and RSS feeds). This can save substantial time by eliminating learning how to decipher multiple reports and can enable you to adjust campaign strategies more quickly.

Microsoft has upgraded the its MSN video ad management system to
dynamically insert local and national ad campaigns. The company has
leveraged technology from its aQuantive acquisition to enable tracking
for the Associated Press' network of affiliate publishers.

Video ad management is currently on par with the display network ad
capabilities of 2004. It will likely take another 18 months for video
ad networks to catch up in their implementation of geotargeting and
behavioral marketing as ad management services slowly recognize the
opportunity.

Who will be come the AdSense of the video world? Does Google's display
ad dominance make it a shoo-in for owning video? I'm not so sure.
Microsoft hasn't been able to lead in any aspect of advertising, but
with the broadest reach and a fully-stocked inventory of subsidiaries,
don't underestimate the company's potential.

Source: ClickZ.