Advertising Archive

Following hot on the heels of Digg, Facebook and Viacom, the “biz dev” boys over in Redmond have been busy doing it again – this time with The WSJ.

The deal means third-party exclusive rights to provide contextual and paid search advertising for its network of sites, including The Wall Street Journal Online, Barrons.com, MarketWatch.com, AllThingsD.com and others.

“This deal is a significant win for Microsoft for two key reasons. First, it makes the extended Microsoft advertising network the premier destination for advertisers interested in reaching financially minded users, as it complements our offering in this vertical through MSN Money and other syndication partners,” said Brian McAndrews, senior vice president, Advertiser and Publisher Solutions at Microsoft.

“Second, this deal is a strong indicator that we’re gaining significant traction with our advertising platform. The Wall Street Journal Digital Network is one of the largest financial services publishers in a very dynamic vertical segment, and we’re delighted to add it to our portfolio.”

What I love is when I see a comment like the below from WebmasterWorld!

Gets me all fired up!

“I always like seeing “positive” Microsoft news. I’ll have to say that MS have been “kicking it up a notch” over these past 90-120 days. TV advertising appears to be stepped up and earnings reports are good. I’m rootin’ for ya MS. We need some balance in our space and between you, Yahoo! and Ask.com, you’re all we have left. 🙂 “

The annual Reykjavik Internet Marketing Conference and Expo (RIMC) will be taking place on Friday 8th February at the Hilton Nordica in Reykjavik, Iceland.

The conference will focus on online marketing and advertising and feature a host of international and Icelandic speakers. The keynote speech will be delivered by the Icelandic Minister of Commerce, Björgvin Sigurdarson.

A number of companies, who work in advertising and publicity on the Internet, will also be exhibiting their products and services at the RIMC Expo which will be held alongside the conference.

RIMC 2008 is geared towards marketing professionals, web editors, sales managers and company directors, as well as anyone who uses the Internet for business. The organisers say the event offers an “excellent chance for peer-to-peer networking and a unique opportunity to learn about the latest developments in marketing and advertising.”

Among speakers attending will be Dennis Mortensen, head of IndexTools, who will speak on web analytics and its importance in measuring website success, and Joost de Valk who is gaining many plaudits from the industry as an SEO expert and designer of WordPress Plugins.

RIMC 2008 will be held in collaboration with Nordic eMarketing and Árvakur on the tenth anniversary of mbl.is – the online edition of the Icelandic national paper, Morgunbladid.

The conference is being organised by Kristjan Mar Hauksson, director of Nordic eMarketing, and Ingvar Hjalmarsson, web editor at mbl.is.

For further information and registration for the RIMC Conference, send an email to skraning@rimc.is

For further information and registration for the RIMC Expo, send an email to expo@rimc.is

http://alpha.search.wikia.com/

OK so it’s only just launched, but the results are pretty bad. I’m struggling to understand the benefits to be honest. But as someone’s just commented at DaveN’s blog, Rome wasn’t built in a day. However I’m sure the Roman’s had better foundations!

I just tried to add an article but it crashed on me 🙁

From About Wikia Search:

“We are aware that the quality of the search results is low.” – No sh*t!

“…before we start, we have no user feedback data. So the results are pretty bad. But we expect them to improve rapidly in coming weeks, so please bookmark the site and return often.” – OK…..

They have picture results returned too – not sure who the guy on the right is!

Will revisit soon….

A couple of weeks ago I talked about how many of us would be shopping on Christmas Day!

Well Netimperative reports Robin Goad from Hitwise saying that keyword volumes for “sale” and “sales” were up 200% and 249% respectively YOY for the week ending 29th December.

Kudos to those retailers savvy enough to have their campaigns set up and already bidding on those KWs, and respect to M&S, Currys, PC World and Argos, who started their sales at midnight Christmas Day and benefited from the great PR it gave them!

PS: John Lewis has just reported a fabulous start to the Sales too – 68% up on last year!

Search engine marketing agency Latitude has been given a nice Christmas present……

Funding from Vitruvian Partners has ensured tonight’s festive party will go off with a bang.

Let’s hope the hangovers get cured before next year, as in 2008 they promise to expand into other geographies, and diversify their portfolio of digital marketing expertise.

More from Matt Brocklehurst in their press release here.

Earlier this year The Search Works got snapped up by TradeDoubler for £56m.

Back then there was speculation as to when Latitude would be next.

Guess they’re in no hurry!

I’m en route now to Seattle from Las Vegas. Watch out for a post on PubCon 2007 later, but today I just want to wrap up The Travel Convention I attended in Tenerife…..

I had met Paul Evans from LowcostBeds on the plane who gave me a bit of advice:

Be short, be funny (erm thanks Paul) and to not think of the delegates as a bunch of travel agents (very few of them were) but as the travel community.

Just as well really because my part of Riding The Wave was to outline what is going on with Web 2.0, communities and social networking.

It was broad brush, high level 20 minutes, littered with facts, figures and off the wall stories about how the web is changing people’s lives by connecting them in so many different ways, and how companies like Microsoft and Google are helping advertisers connect with those audiences.

This kind of set the scene for Kevin may to go macro and talk about the travel industry, letting the conference know that perhaps they weren’t embracing this new way of doing things, suggesting some things hadn’t changed much.

The screen shots of Expedia’s homepage were telling – not changed in 10 years! Citing a couple of new sites that were doing thing’s slightly differently helped to hammer the point home.

Kevin posted on the Travolution Blog his main bullets and encouraged a discussion which has seen people initially disagree with him but end up talking themselves round – check out the thread here.

The travel industry is a very much a tight knit community – everyone seemed to know each other and boy do they party hard!

Thanks to Kevin, Simon Ferguson and Charlotte Davies for the opportunity to get out there and spread the news.

Thanks also to Dan Robb and Robin Frewer for picking up the dinner tab. Always nice when Google pays!

You can find our travel presentations here.

And if anyone bumps into Paul, let him know I was short, people did laugh, and I hope I’m now an honorary member of their community.

Can’t wait for next year!?

So I felt like a bit of a plum last night as I came back into the Wynn Hotel, having spent a couple of hours blowing $300 on slot machines at Treasure Island. I foolishly thought the change of scenery to a hotel across the road would change my luck, as I’d blown $200 the night before at The Wynn.

As I enter the hotel and I hear Rand Fishkin and Gillian from SEOMoz calling me from the other side of a yucca plant in the lobby. I told them I’d lost some dough – enough to pay the tiler for some work on my kitchen – and they felt sorry for me and took me for a slap up Italian dinner, which was jolly nice of them.

Fast-forward 22 hours….

I get back from the convention centre where PubCon 2007 is being held, (watch out for coverage later!) and walk through the casino to get to the lift (elevator) to my room.

In amongst the heaving throng of elite gamblers I spot my favourite slot machine, which has a kind of Wheel of Fortune thingy on the top. I hesitate because this one has a minimum stake of $5, and you have to bet $10 per spin to get a chance of spinning the wheel and collecting a fortune.

So like an idiot I get $10 out and stick it in!!!

The wheels spin for what seemed like eternity……………………Bar…………..Triple Bar…………………….FORTUNE SPIN!!!!!!!

I look up and I see I’m going to win AT LEAST $100 – not bad for a $10 stake – so I press the button and wait………..

The wheel stops on $500!!!!!!!!!!

So I “high 5” the nearest attendant (who tells me the biggest win he’s ever seen was $100k!) and cash out 🙂

Now I’m still only half way to the lift and I happen to pass another Wheel of Fortune machine which has a minimum 25c stake, so I think “it’s only ten bucks” and shove it in.

30 seconds later………….$252.25!!!!!!

So I’m now $250 up and never going to gamble again………….ever!!!

Just goes to show although gambling does not pay, persistence obviously does!

I have arrived in Vegas now.

A lady on the plane asked if I lived here. Without thinking I said “god no!” loudly enough for the passengers that did live here to overhear me……oops 🙁

Staying at The Wynn, which is very nice, at the conference rate, which is even nicer.

But where do they get off charging $25 just to use the gym?

I’m also $5 up having dabbled on the slots while I waited for my luggage to arrive at the airport 🙂

Still writing up the conference summary but Kevin May’s just sent me a podcast we did a few minutes after we got off stage.

Riding The Wave Podcast – Travolution & Microsoft

Myself and Kevin May from Travolution have just done our slot at The ABTA Travel Convention – Riding The Wave – Out in Tenerife.

Over a 1000 people in the audience and they appeared to love it!

Jeremy Vine from the BBC is a nice guy – much taller in real life and a real pro at MCing the conference.

He did complain about his mobile phone not working properly though, but then acknowledged Windows Mobile 5 probably wasn’t in my remit, so we talked about Genesis and OMD instead:)

Full round up tomorrow – got to catch a flight!

Kevin May – Jeremy Vine – Me!

Very Impressive Staging