Well as you may have noticed there is not much activity on here. As a matter of fact the last thing I wrote about was Streaming Media East which is coming up again next week. My guess is that this is the last post I will be making here.

I have however started a new blog called Jesse’s Space (http://www.jesses-space.com). It is less industry focused and will have more of a personal flare to it. Check it out if you get a chance.

Cheers,

Jesse

Streaming Media East has been making a comeback these last few years and this year is by far the best that I have seen in a long while. The floor is buzzing with talks about advertising, IPTV, convergence and the panels are reflecting those themes as well. Many thanks to Dan Rayburn and everyone involved in putting together this show. I will be there again today and I highly recommend it to anyone who might be in the NY area.

POINT: BEHAVIORAL TARGETING REPRESENTS A media option that promises to expand and improve upon the marketers’ ability to engage with the right consumers. However, currently the opportunities are somewhat limited for most advertisers, in part due to the low adoption rate of the available technology, little standardization of behavioral segments across different sites, and publishers’ inability to package the inventory at scale. Click!

Here is a good back and forth on behavioral targeting up on MediaPost. It doesnt dive to deep into specifics but really looks more at its relevance for different publishers. I think what they are missing is that the mid size sites should be working with an ad network or advertisers on cross site targeting. That is where things become really powerful. When you know that your visitor has seen your ads across several sites and can combine that intelligence things get really interesting.

Up In Boston Today

Originally uploaded by jessechenard.

Be back down tomorrow for Streaming Media East. If you are going to be there and want to hookup drop me a line.

iMedia Connection has a piece up quoting Jason on the AOL/Lightningcast deal. From the article.

“This deal further validates the online video space as the big media players are stepping into the game,” says Jason Glickman, CEO, Tremor Network.

Glickman also said that with the recent news on some large advertisers (Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola Co.) sitting out the TV upfront buys, “We are anticipating that the held back budget will shift towards online. Instream online video really speaks to the consumers and advertisers are taking notice. On the agency side, marketers can now go back to their clients and increase their online video budgets.”

Well the space is sure heating up!

It looks like LC will now become an operating unit of ad.com. It makes sense as I think AOL was one of their largest customers and going forward it’ll be a big leg up for them to have this kind of expertise in-house. Now the only question in my mind is what was the purchase price. Judging from Tom MacIsaac’s recent blog post on Massive I would bet it is definitely north of 100M. Also the fact that the market is so hot, they were one of the leaders and the boatload of VCs that had invested in them wouldnt accept a low return at this point tells me that they didnt go cheaply.

As MacIsaac said in his blog, hopefully it will create a good comparable for Tremor!

Waiting for the train

Originally uploaded by jessechenard.

Ahh good old Metro North. The 8:55 is 5-10 minutes delayed due to mechanical difficulties. At least it’s a nice day!

That is the title of this article up on Ad Age. In it Cathy Hetzel makes the following claim about cable vs broadband when it comes to tracking.

“What you get in [online] broadband is clicks. You can’t get data on what is viewed, for what duration or information on what was paused, fast-forwarded or rewound.”

Au contraire Ms. Hetzel. You could not be more wrong on that point. Here at Tremor we can track all these things and more. Not only that but we can take action on those interactions. If an ad isnt performing well we can swap it out on the fly. If a user has seen one ad already but is re-watching the same content we can serve him a completely new ad in the same spot. Heck in the next paragraph she acknowledges one of the major shortcomings in VOD is that the ads are hard coded in and difficult to replace. Not so when you use our Ad-inStream technology.

If you are looking for a fair and balanced piece about cable vs broadband this might not be something worth your time to read. However if you would like to see an example of the cable industry puffing its chest and trying to spread some FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) then by all means have a look.

NYC Public Library

Originally uploaded by jessechenard.

Another shot from the walk this morning.

Walking To Work

Originally uploaded by jessechenard.

God I love working in New York!

According to this article up on news.com YouTube has taken on more venture money to expand operations, sales and marketing. This after they took $3.5M from Sequoia five short months ago. My guess is that with those 35M streams a day they desperately needed this cash. My conservative estimate would put it at 35 TB a day. At a bargain basement price of say 25 cents a GB that would still see them burning well over a quarter million a month just for bandwidth. Add on salaries and all the overhead they are sure to have and you can see they probably didnt have much left in the bank. The crazy part is that if they continue on this growth path and still arent able to find a revenue model this funding wont last much longer than the last round did.

Snowing in NYC

Originally uploaded by jessechenard.

This is the view out my office window today. Bring back the sun please!

That seems to be the gist of this article (free reg. req.) up on Ad-Age. I am not sure I agree. I think it is just a function of tight inventories creating heavy demand. Everyone piles in up front and there is very little left after that. Although we have a fancy name for it in the advertising world it really is just a function of supply and demand.

As you may have noticed I am making some more changes around here (more on
that later). One of them is the ability to do some moblogging. Woohoo!

It is 64 degrees in Connecticut today. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping and there is a cool breeze. Pretty much a perfect Sunday with the family.

This is very interesting indeed. It seems the marketing folks over at GM decided to allow users to create their own advertisements for the Chevy Tahoe and share them with their friends. The problem (or GM’s problem anyway) is that users have taken advantage of this to make video ads that are somewhat unflattering, highlighting some of the environmental concerns associated with SUVs. Check out this one, which starts with the message “Dont Buy Me”. There are more here.

At Tremor we are constantly asked about this type of thing and if we see a future in user-generated advertisements. The answer is that every situation will require a complete analysis and whatever is decided, the user cannot be enabled to “hurt” the brand. Looks like they kind of missed this process eh!

That is according to the latest study by the Online Publishers Association. Clickz has a good article up giving an overview of it.

I find it amazing how far we have come in so short a time. When we started Dynadco, pre-roll advertising was in practice at a handful of sites and was a big unknown as to whether consumers would accept it. Now just a year and a half later we are seeing video everywhere and studies like this are validating the model.

Keep on pulling those streams down folks!

It looks like Google is going to be selling $2 billion worth of shares to bring their cash on hand balance to $10 billion.

Definitely be interesting to see if we ever find out what prompted this. I could think of a few things to do with $2B but am curious to see what $2B buys that $8B wouldnt have been able to. Of course it likely isnt that simple but still!

UPDATE: Well according to John over at SearchBlog this is to satisfy demand for the stock from index funds as they join the S&P 500. Interesting indeed.

Wow! I just got back from PC Forum and I have to say it was amazing. Such a diverse and interesting group that Esther and the team at Release 1.0 bring together.

From discussing high level national security threats to the ins and outs of me media the discussions delivered on every level.

Definitely amazing to experience and I highly recommend it for anyone interested in connecting with some of the thought leaders in the America.

PaidContent has a blurb up on a recent deal between MTV and YouTube. It looks like the folks at the video sharing service are starting to try and legitimize their offerings with this limited distribution deal. It will be interesting to see if this flies. It seems quite counter to everything that YouTube is about (the name isnt networktube or mainstreammediatube after all). Interesting to see where it all goes.

One of the things keeping me extremely busy lately has been helping Tremor with our fundraising efforts. I have been involved in a number of startups and one of the biggest challenges has always been VC interaction. These guys are pitched ideas from a steady stream of entrepreneurs. To even get them relaxed and onto a more personal level generally takes a couple of meetings.

This time has been much different! Of course I like to think it is because of our focus on two extremely hot areas, advertising and online video, but I have to say a huge difference this time around has been the use of a broker dealer. I have always been a bit skeptical of the payouts and value added but I have to say that Nick MacShane up at Progress Partners has allayed my concerns around this. With his assistance we have found ourselves several steps further along in every meeting and his counsel has been excellent. I know some VC’s have expressed their views on agents (here and here) but Progress definitely has exceeded our expectations and must be one of those exceptions to the rule. If you are raising cash or contemplating it I highly recommend them.