Insider Chatter by Donna Bogatin

Are VideoEgg’s ears ringing? Just days ago, VideoEggg rocked Manhattan’s Times Square with the message that IT’S THE ONLINE ENGAGEMENT METRIC, STUPID, at its sponsored affair designed to spur Madison Avenue agency interest in VideoEgg’s new pay for engagement performance ad offering.

Today, Microsoft declares–via three short on details PR paragraphs–a “new reporting standard” for digital campaign performance dubbed “engagement mapping.” Will VideoEgg feel one-upped? Unlikely, Microsoft signed on as the flagship VideoEgg “engagement” debut advertiser!

Engagement is expensive, though, as the VideoEgg “Engaement Debate” host, CMO Troy Young, reiterated at the Hard Rock Cafe last week, via a rolling overhead message. Microsoft ought to know! Redmond is paying “under” 50 cents per “view,” according to Universal McAnn, as cited by AdWeek via VideoEgg.

Talk about CPMs! How about “under” $500 for 1000 “views.” What exactly is a view, though? Engagement is not only expensive, it is ambiguous!

Advertisers pay on an “engagement” basis – that is when a user rolls over the ad and the advertiser’s full screen creative is displayed.

It doesn’t SOUND very engaging! How engaged are prolific Web multi-taskers, after all?

The allmighty Google click isn’t all it is cracked up to be either, though! SEE my VideoEgg report: MySpace To Google (Round 2): Text Clicks Do NOT Rule! VideoEgg Report

Bottom advertiser ROI line? Savvy, deep pocketed brand advetisers will continue to conduct their own, proprietary econometric modeling to ensure that every single penny they disperse on Web advertising–regardless of mechanism or venue–yields measurable contibution to sales of product, as CPG advertiser Bayer Healthcare underscored repeatedly at the VideoEgg conference.

Bottom brand advertising line for the Web’s front runner? Top tier marketers are not swayed by any media platform’s noble talk of “accountabiltiy,” including Google speak. The only accounting Bayer relies on, for example, is its own.

MORE: VideoEgg Rocks: Debuts AdFrames in Silicon Alley: Google Next?

ALSO:  MySpace On Google: Sorry, ‘NO Truth’ To $900 Million Rumors and Facebook Meltdown: Is Twitter Next? and FriendFeed: Got Google Millions? Who Needs Revenues! and Google vs. Microsoft: The REAL Health Platform War Story

PLUS: Why Obsession is GOOD for Startups, and Microsoft

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN 

Spot Runner has acquired GlobeShooter videographers network, continuing to strengthen a portfolio for competing against Google. At the same time, however, Spot Runner is selling up a storm on behalf of arch rival Google.  

Is $200 billion market cap Internet juggernaut Google a direct competitor to startup Spot Runner, a Web-based television advertising production and media buying venture? I asked Nick Grouf, CEO, Spot Runner, just that almost one year ago. Grouf responded with a resounding “You got it.”

I chatted with Grouf on the heels of Google’s public acknowledgement that it is “running a small, early phase trial” of a cable TV ad delivery system last year. The Spot Runner claim to fame is: “the first Internet-based ad agency that makes it easy and affordable for local businesses to advertise on TV.”  Not surprisingly, SpotRunner did not welcome the Google television advertising initiative.

Grouf’s public reaction to the Google announcement of its entry into television advertising was to warn consumers of a nefarious Googleplex:

“Watching people watching TV,” is how Grouf characterized the prospective Google targeted TV advertising platform to me. Google will seek to leverage knowledge of viewership habits, Grouf believes, by using set-top box data collected without explicit consent of subscribers to “target ads according to the viewer.” Google’s end-game? Manipulate viewer data to sell ads at a higher price, Grouf indicated to me.

Interesting then that Grouf’s Spot Runner is now a proud seller of Google products, even as Spot Runner widens its sphere of operations with Google looming ever larger as the key competitor to beat. Spot Runner nevertheless has joined the ever growing ranks of would be Google killers that do their darndest to help Google’s core business grow ever unstoppable!

Spot Runner’s general ambitions are Googley indeed:

Revolutionize the way advertising is created, targeted, bought and sold, focusing on automating many of the more inefficient aspects of the advertising process and creating turnkey ways for busineses of all sizes to access creative and media planning and buying services.

Spot Runner even wants to help with buying Google services! Want a Search Ad with your TV ad?

Let the Spot Runner Search experts focus on the complexities of search advertising so you can focus on running your business.

In other words, let Spot Runner drive more business to Google AdWords! Why not, every one else wants to do it too! SEE: Yellow Pages Get Reprieve? The Myth of King Google Local Advertising ROI

MORE: Reach Local Advertising? How Google Squeezes SEMs and AdWords Buyers and
Local Ad Sales War: Why Google is a Guaranteed Winner and
Google AdWords Plus Box: Local CPC Bidding War Unleashed! and
Google Apps & Maps: Enterprise and Local Business STILL Missing and
Local Advertising Online: SMEs Hold the Billion Dollar Keys, ILM ANALYSIS and
Google Zeitgeist: $200 University Payola AdWords Scam and
How Google AdSense FAILS Better Business Bureau and
Frugal Google.org: How NOT To Save the World On $159,000 a Day

ALSO: Why Zynga, NOT Scrabulous, Has a Lucky Facebook Charm

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Who says Hulu.com doesn’t have a (good) shot at weakening Google’s YouTube online video dominance? A confident George Kliavkoff, NBC Universal’s Chief Digitlal Officer, laid out a welll thought out Hulu.com business model strategy this morning at the OMMA Conference in New York City to conclude that “quality” will always wins out.

The three core foundational principles of the NBC Universal-Nes Corp. Hulu.com Joint Venture, acccording to Kliavkoff:

1) Premium, professionally produced video content will be the ultimate winner online,

2) There is huge value in aggregating content,

3) NBC believes in ubiquitous distribution.

The three-prong philosophy will be implemented using multiple networks, multiple providers and a new best video practices destination site launching next month: Hulu.com.

Hulu.com aggregated content from participating video partners will be available at Hulu.com and at consumer portals, such as Yahoo and MSN, representing an effective 98% reach. Viewers at the destination Hulu.com, however, will enjoy “additional benefits” such as a higher quality video experience and personal video tools, Kliavkoff said.

Distribution partners are obligated to promote Hulu.com content at their sites with guaranteed page view commitments. A proprietary recommendation engine will help drive increased usage and site loyalty.

Distibution partners are also obligated to use “affirmative IP filtering,” guaranteeing ”legitimate” and monetizable quality viewing experiences.

NBC believes in the long-term appeal of episodic broadcast quality video, over YouTube’s clip-culture low-brow fare. Kliavkof underscored that snack-sized short-form ”entertainment” has dominated online video to date because “nothing else was available untill a year ago,” noting that 83% of “people who start to watch a full length show, finish it” along with the advertising.

While Kliavkoff predicts a winning business strategy for Hulu.com, the ultimate winning video ad formats are yet to be determined. NBC is open to trying and testing all types of creatives and strategies. Kliavcoff made an open call to advertisers and marketers in the OMMA audience to collaborate on innovative ad delivery, offering to “set aside” ad inventory for experimentation.

Bottom line? Call Hulu.com “ClownCo” if you like, but Kliavkoff and company are on a serious mission to unseat YouTube at the head online video table, and the Hulu.com charge will undoubtedly have legs.

MORE OMMA REPORTS: OMMA Advertising Cat Fight? Google’s Media Chief Gets Defensive and NBC’s Defense Against YouTube IP Abuse? Carrot, NOT Stick: OMMA Report

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

The blogosphere debate underway–Who needs A-Listers after all?–centers on “social networking” as the new communications sphere of influence:

“Along comes stuff like Twitter and Facebook. Suddenly, social networks start being successfully created withouth the “A-Listers” having to act like “Hubs.” The need for A-Listers to arbitrate “Who the cool kids are” (and who they aren’t) is rapidly and thankfully diminshed,” Hugh MacLeod.

REALLY? Robert Scoble counters to MacLeod, in his own defense:

“death to the a list. Well in two weeks I have gotten 2000 friends on facebook and 600 on pownce.”

YAY! And soon to be 2600 of Robert’s closest “friends”? As the virtual social networking “friendship” race to claim more “friends” than the next Web guy (or gal) intensifies, the real value of REAL social networking is obscured amidst the online popularity game.

Should face TIME not rule over face BOOK? SAVVY (ex) Facebookers are having a real world change of social networking heart. Joel Keralis, Texas A&M class of 2009:

As some of you might have known, I recently took myself off of the popular social netwroking site facebook. This was, first and foremost, a move to free up some of the time that I was basically wasting on that site.

I have to say it was pretty hard to do for the first few days…It was almost like trying to break an addiction. But I prevailed, I have been “facebook-free” for a couple weeks now, and doubt thta I will pick it back up anytime soon. And more amazingly, I am stil alive and socially active.

Twittering your virtual time away with idle self-absorbed gossip? OR, publicly “unloading” incessantly?

Are the lives of Scoble’s 4464 Twitter “friends” really enriched by Scobleizer'’ “sharing” (venting), sponsored by “Ads by Google” for PayPerPost!:

PayPerPost: Make Money
Get paid to blog about the things you love with payperpost.

Irony of ironies in the not quite consistent A-Lister sponsored by Google AdSense blogger world: A Scobleizer post on “Why I won’t use PayPerPost is FINANCED by PayPerPost!

In lieu of online self-indulgence, a novel social networking strategy of spending real TIME with real people TALKING about real things beyond one’s own inconsequential daily routine just might be the “A-List” ticket for the “Bs” and “Cs” of the blogosphere.

ONLINE-OFFLINE connections can (easily) be had via Meetup.com. REAL social networking in NYC is off to a roaring post July 4ht holiday start next week:

NY Video 2.0 Meetup on “What’s Next for Online Video Advertising,” according to those who are helping determine just that: NBCU, OMD, DoubleClick, ScanScout.

NY Tech Meetup, hosted by Meetup’s own Scott Heiferman, with demos of six (potentially) next big things.

I will be joining the hundreds of REAL LIVE social networkers expected at the NYC meetups AND blogging about them and their ventures (but not Twittering!) here at InsiderChatter.com.

STAY TUNED! In the meantime, some recent Insider Chatter real world first-hand social networking reports: Social Networks: We are ALL Accidental Influentials and NBC: Millions in Upfront Video Ad Sales

ALSO: Facebook Grows Old: Goodbye Trendy Demographics

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

Is the (promised) soon to be launched News Corp./NBC Universal online premium video joint venture a good buy at $1 billion is (one of) the blogosphere’s questions du jour.

Dow Jone’s Kara Swisher weighs in, succintly: “NO,” billion dollar case closed. Swisher did not promise a rationale for her “conclusion”; Her “story” is headlined “In a Word.”

Is it really video valuation case closed though? I heard the NBC ad sales point man for the News Corp./NBC Universal JV give his (inherently rosy) take yesterday on prospects for the soon to be launched “high quality” video intitiative.

READ my first-hand report: NBC: Millions in Upfront Video Ad Sales

Regardless, online video beauty is in the eye of the holder. YouTube was a $1.65 billion in GOOG beautiful thing, for search-driven Google. Google itself implicitly acknowledged the “price” was substanially all goodwill during its Wall Street conference call:

QUESTION: Any idea on what you used to value this acquisition? Were you looking at cash flow returns or any kind of help you can give us on that?

GOOGLE, David Drummond, SVP Corporate Development on the “structure” of the deal: We model this on a more or less synergistic kind of a model. You can imagine that it might be difficult to sort of do this on a standalone basis. We feel that we arrived at a purchase price that’s very fair and reflects the great value that’s been created at YouTube.

We structured this as a stock transaction in order to make it tax free for the YouTube shareholders, which we think is a good transaction for them and for us, in the sense that it in some ways made it cheaper for us. There is some very slight dilution, but we think this was a good structure.

Good for Google, direct “cost,” wise yes, BUT not from the perspective of potenitally massive indirect “costs” it assumed when acquiring the DMCA fueled no need to pay for the content of others buisiness model.

Google is currently exposed to billions of dollars worth of copyright infringement lawsuits, literally.

Viacom’s $1 billion copyright slap at Google may end up being mere peanuts.The copyright infringement class action currenlly being prosecuted against YouTube by Proskaeur Rose is opened-ended with no theoretical bounds on the financial liabilites Google may incur.

READ my exclusive interview with Proskaeur Rose: YouTube Copyright Infringement Claims ‘tip of the iceberg’

In the event of such a Google meltdown, a News Corp./NBC Universal copyright friendly online video venture could be worth not just one, but several billions.

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN

News Corp. is on a video roll. MySpace TV is set to debut tomorrow and its premium video joint venture with NBC Universal is making a multi-million dollar upfront ad sales splash, according to the man integral to the JV sales charge: Kevin McGurn.

McGurn addressed “disruption” in the online video space this morning at the Advertising Research Foundation’s Audience Measurement 2.0 conference underway in New York City.

The NBC-Fox JV sold $2 million in advertising to ten charter advertisers, including General Motors and Cisco, within four hours upon the announcement of the venture in March, McGurn proudly underscored. What‘s more, online video ad sales for the JV in the current upfront market is “extremely favorable,” and the yet to be named and launched high-end video property is already “highly valued” and doing millions of dollars in business, he indicated.

McGurn believes it is incumbent upon networks to “focus on the content” because “the audiences will come along with it.” McGurn believes the NBC-Fox joint video entertainment venture is poised for success as “demand for high-end video inventory exceeds supply.” Professionally produced, episodic long form content is the focus of the NBC-Fox joint venture, McGurn said.

The NBC-Fox joint video venture is to formally launch its video destination site and distribution network in late summer in advance of the fall season. Extensive research is currently being conducted in order to gauge “users’ threshold for pain in advertising as a tradeoff for free content,” McGurn indicated.

All manner of video ads are being explored: “Takeovers, bottom-thirds, video during pre-roll for good exposure and then receding into some form of persistent background messaging…” In “experimenting,” advertising effectiveness and user acceptance are evaluated.

Thousands of hours of full-length TV programming, clips and movies, representing premium content from close to twenty networks and major television and film studios will be featured by the joint venture, according to News Corp. and NBC Universal. Distribution portal partners include AOL, Yahoo, MSN and MySpace.

CONTACT DONNA BOGATIN