Ad spending stats

Poynter's Tidbits page has a useful link to some useful stats on online ad spending (with the usual high predictions for this year), as well as the interesting quote: "Also interesting in the statistics section, Internet Explorer users are at least four times as likely to click an ad than a Mozilla FireFox user." Probably more to do with the type of person currently using Firefox (techy, more ad-blind) than the technology itself.

Blogging ethics

Disclose your interests, basically.

Publicity stunt fools Sun

Brilliant story about how two rappers from Scunthorpe duped the Sun and femail.co.uk into running a piece saying they'd been signed to Eminem's record label. It all centres around a fake website - I'll quote at length:

"...it took just 20 days to devise the scam which centred on a phoney website complete with doctored pictures of 50 Cent.
""[We] scraped together a couple of photos of 50 Cent, put our name on his hat, took videotape of our journey living with prostitutes and sold them the story," he added. "The response from record labels has been crazy."
""There was a risk that they could have discovered that G-Unit Soul is not a record label but that's one we had to take," he said, indicating that a simple Google search would have revealed that it was a fictitious label."

The growing Chinese market...

...for online advertising, according to The Guardian. The county is relatively new to advertising and has 90 million people online - more than Europe. Sample quote:

"In the UK we pushed e-commerce from day one and we're now running branding campaigns online. China is the opposite. As paying online is not always easy, or even possible, and people are worried about paying for goods they haven't seen, we're finding the big brands are starting off with branding campaigns and then expect to move in to direct response campaigns later."

More control for Google AdWords advertisers

According to this article.

Users don't know search results are sponsored

According to this piece in Wired, and this article on BBC, "only one in six users of internet search engines can tell the difference between unbiased search results and paid advertisements, according to The Pew Internet and American Life Project" (Wired). Useful links nabbed from the BBC include:

Pew Internet and American Life Research

Pew Search Engine habits summary

Pew Search Engine habits report (PDF)

Stopping 'comment spam'

Google has introduced a new control - or tag - that blog publishers can use to stop 'comment spam' - people using the comment feature on blogs to create links to their own sites and so improve their rankings on Google. The tag will essentially tell Google to ignore comments on the site - although how quickly that will stop comment spammers is a different issue.

Viral ads get their own awards

According to the MediaGuardian, who frustratingly fail to provide any links (instead you can find the shortlist here, and the site itself here). A good overview of the form mentions that:

"Some winners simply took the form of funny or entertaining TV ads that had been encoded for the internet, with or without permission, and went global. Alex West, who founded the awards, said Euro RSCG - the creators of the successful Citroen "carbot" ad featuring a dancing vehicle - did not even know the ad was being viewed by millions around the world as well as on TV.

"Others are created specifically for the internet, with agencies able to bend taste and decency rules much further. And some take the form of games or interactive clips, designed to fill up a spare five minutes while pushing their sponsor."

Perhaps most useful is a mention of Lycos's viral chart, which has now been going for three years, and BoreMe.com's excellent collection of virals and overview of 2004's viral trends.

Google bombing

Interesting stuff from the claimed original Google bomber about how he manipulated search rankings on the site.

Market information

Interesting product. Hitwise "provides users with insights into the performance of their online presence within their industry."

How craigslist is reshaping ads market

Online advertising fuels stock growth

Shares of both Google and Yahoo have risen after Goldman Sachs cited strong Internet advertising trends. Sample quotes from Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto:

"The strength in online advertising demand did not appear to abate" in the quarter. "In fact, our discussions with media buyers indicated that major portals had significantly more demand than supply during the quarter."

"Demand -- particularly from seasoned online advertisers rather than new entrants -- is increasing, says Noto, particularly for more elaborate advertising, also known as "rich media," and particularly for placement on major portals, starting with Yahoo!.

"We believe that branded online advertising," writes Noto, "is ... beginning to transition from a test or trial marketing tactic for large branded advertisers to a more permanent component of the overall advertising/marketing mix."

"Branded online advertising is "poised for a breakout year in 2005," writes Noto."

You can also read coverage at Yahoo! News, while at the same time AOL has posted ad revenue near 1 billion dollars.