Ben Shepherd: A Blog About Digital Media

Follow my new blog - Talking Digital

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:51:00 +0000

Hi subscribers - just wanted to let you know I am still very active and blogging ... just on my new blog Talking Digital - http://talkingdigital.wordpress.com

Why the move? Well ... I like Wordpress more, and it also allowed me to join up with Liam Walsh ... who is someone I respect and a really sharp mind ... so hopefully what that means is a better experience for us and also, more importantly, the reader.

Posts are coming thick and fast and some of the comments have been fantastic, so I encourage you to have a look ... and if you like what you see - sign up via email!

Cheers, Ben

Introducing 'Talking Digital' - a new blog

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:06:00 +0000

Just wanted to get everyone across a new blog I have started with the Australian MD of DrivePM, Liam Walsh.

It's called 'Talking Digital' and basically the premise is to get the different perspective of an agency guy (me) and a publisher guy (Liam) across a variety of topical issues relevant to the digital media world and the wider media world.

Liam has been active within the industry for years, and has played pivotal roles in developing both Fairfax Digital and emitch into market leading companies at crucial times.

We haven't really seen anything like it in our travels across the blog world and over time it should hopefully serve to be a neat resource for those looking for information or opinion.

It also builds a small bridge over the 'Melbourne V Sydney' river.

What we're trying to do is write content and explore issues that we would find interesting and helpful.

http://talkingdigital.wordpress.com

Enjoy and give us your feedback!

IAB/PWC Q3 report out: Positive signs all round (unless you're in classifieds)

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 05:13:00 +0000

The latest IAB/PWC figures are out and the sentiment is very positive.

In Q3 of 2008, total online spend on advertising was $451m - up 30% YOY (from $348m Q3 2007) and up 9% on Q2 2008.

All categories contributed to the growth, Display, Classifieds and Search. Display was up 29% YOY, Search 33% YOY and Classifieds up 25% YOY.

When you look at quarter on quarter growth the picture is a little different.

Search was up 9% Q2 to Q3 to $212m for Q3. Display was up 10% to 126m. Classifieds was only up 2% Q2 oto Q3 to 114m.

For display advertising these quarter on quarter figures are a triumph. It outpaced the market in terms of growth, gaining ground on search for the first time in a long time.

For classifieds it signals the start of more bad news to come. Seek today forecast zero profit growth for this fiscal year and the next 6-12 months will hit the main classifieds operators hard as the job, auto and real estate markets flatline.

Display was definitely helped by the Olympics falling into Q3 2008, and was given a kick by some solid and encouraging improvements within the Automotive, Media and Real Estate sectors, alongside strong increases spend wise from the mainstays - Finance, Technology/Telco and Travel.

This report also broke out segments within categories - allowing those who use it to get a better idea of how specific areas such as Music, Home Loans, Gaming, Beverages etc went.

On that note, the music industry definitely need a swift kick up the arse with their online investment - the ENTIRE industry only spent 365k on digital in Q3.

All in all, very encouraging results for the digital advertising world. Q4 will be interesting - publishers seem to be scrambling a little but this is a probably a result of overzealous revenue targeting rather than the bottom dropping out of the market.

2009 - who knows what it will hold ... if I was a Sales Director I'd make sure I was extremely cautious on Q3 09 in terms of YOY growth ... I'd also be somewhat concerned that the big 4 categories for online display spend - finance, automotive, tech and travel are copping a bit of a battering already as a result of a sluggish economic climate. Can they maintain the same spend levels in terms of dollar amount they invested in 08 in 09, let alone increase them?

Thankyou to Patty Keegan for supplying me with this report today.

Oops Patrol - Strip Tease BTYB Bigpond

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 02:36:00 +0000

I saw Bigpond have a sponsorship on Heavy.com - which is sort of an integrated thing.

Problem is - it seems to go across ALL video content on the site. Even strip teases as the screengrab shows.

I wonder if Heavy told Bigpond this was a possibility ...

Oops Patrol - Career One

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 01:38:00 +0000

Last night I was watching a documentary on the gang MS13. Today I wanted to do some further reading and came across a site called Know Gangs.

Career One are all over the site - through Google content network ads.

Here's an interesting screengrab of a 'Lift Your Lifestyle' placement I came across.

Takeout ... this Google Content Network needs a lot of work on both ends.

Sensis finally caves to Google

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:41:00 +0000

I read today that Sensis has finally decided to play nice with Google as opposed to trying to compete against them and losing badly.

http://www.bandt.com.au/news/A4/0C05B6A4.asp

It's not a bad move - back in February I touched on Sensis's problems - http://mimelbourne.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-vulnerable-is-sensis-right-now.html

When I wrote this I copped a bit of heat from some Telstra/Sensis people, which was never really clarified. It was implied what I was saying made no sense, however in hindsight I think it actually did make perfect sense ...

I raised 5 key areas they needed to sort out in 08 - my comments as of today are in bold

1. Do they maintain a search engine that cannot compete against Google let alone a MSHOO joint play ... or do they walk away from SEM or look to offer Yahoo or MSN a search distro deal across their network and rev. share?

They have walked and handed it to Google in what is no doubt a revshare similar to the above scenario.

2. How can they adapt Yellow to become more appealing to users? How do they adapt the way advertisers pay to be in Yellow given Google has changed the way many SMEs want to pay for leads

The Google alliance will probably help but doesn't solve the issue that Yellow isn't relevant in 2008

3. Can Whereis hold itself against Google Maps. What can it do better than its competitors - it's not enough to simply match them.

I think this product will be put to sleep in 09 given what has happened today. Yellow will now use Google Maps.

4. What does Sensis actually mean to consumers? Do you retire the brand or simply push it to the background?

Pushed to the background would be my bet now they have backed away from search and conceded to Goog. The media assets are under the Telstra Media stable so it appears they are moving towards the more trusted parent brand.

5. Do they walk away from search and maps and focus on mobile - an they have a pretty sophisticated offering to give the market now the walled garden approach has been abandoned.

They have walked from search and they will walk from maps. They are still making good headway with mobile and have a pretty solid first mover advantage still. However, they need wider distribution that they presently have, so this is the key challenge in this space.

"Bruce Akhurst, chief executive of Sensis, said: "This agreement combines Sensis' strong capabilities in advertising sales and local business content and Google's strong capabilities in online search and mapping technology."

If this isn't conceding defeat I'm not sure what is ...

There's no shame to losing to Google in these 2 specific areas. What Sensis/Telstra has done is a smart obvious move that makes more sense given the climate right now.

Pay Per Lead TV?

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 01:34:00 +0000

Saw this on ESPN this morning

http://advertisingadvantage.com.au/html/ppl.html

How can this work unless the only media you are doing is TV?

And if you have other media in the mix (which you in most cases would if you are a DR advertiser), how can you precisely quantify where leads are coming from ... given leads are generally a by product of many touchpoints not just one.

Case in point. You run this Pay Per Lead TV with a tactical offer ... the consumer doesn't immediately act but the next day goes to Google and searches for your brand. As a result there's a conversion - who do you attribute the action to?

Interesting that the client has to use the company to produce the TVC and also buy the media. Is this just a clever way to extract more revenue?

Oops Patrol: Fairfax Digital ad placement

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 02:22:00 +0000

I am sure Honda and Mazda would be rapt with this placement.

Thanks to my source(s) for this.

With oops's like this happening, I don't think 'heritage media' has too much to worry about in the short term if their digital cousins can't avoid competing vehicles running next to each other.

Yahoo!7 streamline their processes and bring new agility and efficiency to how they work as an organisation

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 02:19:00 +0000

Read: They fired people yesterday.

How many? No one is really sure. I know of 5 definites across production and engineering ... reports are up to 20 were asked to leave, including one very senior staffer.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24572546-7582,00.html

Edit: Just 6 days earlier Y7 told The Oz they had no immediate plans to make local redundancies - http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24540225-5013040,00.html

Ad Networks on the way out ...

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:13:00 +0000

In the US anyway ...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122514803617173825.html?mod=fox_australian

Other ad networks "are in severe trouble and could be closing their doors in the back half of this year or the beginning of '09. People are bracing for the worst," says Ross Sandler, an Internet analyst at RBC Capital Markets.

When I was at adtech in April I was shocked at the amount of ad networks in the US - it was out of control. Funny thing was, none of them really had a point of difference. They sold eyeballs simply because they were there to be sold.

VC liked ad networks as there was a promise of low initial setup and large immediate returns. Problem is - there's really no long term asset in an ad network as you don't really own any IP - you sell banners on sites you don't own, through technology you don't own via agencies you don't own. Effectively you're an agent and not much more.

Yes, there are some great ad networks ... but not many. You could count on one hand the good networks in AU. Most have offerings that are primative at best - failing to capitalise on the gap for strong vertical buys and the need for exclusivity. Not to mention transperency ... but that's another matter.

In AU there's a lot of these operators - not as many as the US - but more than we need. How long until this space thins out?

Oops Patrol: News.com.au

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 08:38:00 +0000

Was on news.com.au today checking out the redesign (not bad - like the logo and the personalisation) but noticed they were running ads for two directly competing products right next to each other.

Hrm - wonder what the media agencies of Onedirect (emitch) and Suncorp (Starcom I believe) would think. Surely trafficking should stop this from happening?

Are third party Facebook apps the great digital scam?

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 07:42:00 +0000

The last 6 months I've heard the sentence 'hey lets build a facebook app' from clueless agency people more times than I care to remember.

When you ask why - there's generally not an answer.

Well, okay ... there IS an answer. It provides revenue to the agency that build it.

Are they a scam? In 99% of cases I think they are. Just like some iPhone apps (I wouldn't want to be the person who thought the Toyota dealer locator app for iPhone was a smasher of a concept ...)

Check this out - http://www.new.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=5588308018

I was served up an add to take their cheese toast challenge today on facebook - problem is I live in Victoria, a place where (thankfully) Sizzler doesn't have any locations.

How does this provide anything useful to the user? And what are they doing wasting their media dollars targeting people who can't visit their restaurants?

IAB launches brand effectiveness study

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 05:00:00 +0000

http://www.bandt.com.au/news/AB/0C05B3AB.asp
They call it "unheralded" ... not sure whether it deserves that sort of praise. Isn't it what most of us have been doing for the last 3 years - ad effectiveness studies and measurement of incremental movement of consideration, intent, advocacy etc as a result of online activity?

Strikes me as odd that the IAB is behind the industry in terms of this sort of measurement. Shouldn't the IAB be focusing on how digital channels can work with other media channels and true cross media measurement - not just digital in isolation? This is the largest issue facing digital.

Not to mention it's only across the 5 major publishers ... not the hundreds/thousands of other sites most of the market is using. It also doesn't include search.

“There is no doubt that online advertising is effective for performance advertising campaigns and we believe the project results will clearly show that online advertising also has a strong role to play for marketers focused on brand development.”

I don't think this has ever been questioned guys ...

It's 1996 again for Andrew Bolt

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 01:08:00 +0000

Hits??

Surely someone in the News Digital Media world could tell him no one has used that as a metric for at least 10 years

Ray Martin's comments from Andrew Olle lecture

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:11:00 +0000

Ray Martin delivers this bomb - and boy is it true.

The below is from the Andrew Olle lecture which Martin took. Definitely worth reading the whole thing (link below)

Television is no longer a window on the world – it’s now a mirror.

Incidentally, Max Uetchtritz, who now runs Nine MSN News, cites Australian surveys which reveal more than half of our viewers also regularly watch TV with a computer on their lap.

The big difference is WE don’t give them anything to do which CONNECTS them to our news programs.

By way of contrast, the American networks are NOT waiting for the audience to come to them. They’re going after the audience – feverishly.

In fact, the boss of CBS said recently: ‘CBS is no longer a television company. No longer a radio company. It’s not an on-line company. It’s an AUDIENCE company.’

An ‘audience’ company.

The best newspapers are counter-punching much more effectively.

The New York Times, for example , has become ‘ ubiquitous’- on the web and the mobile. As well as its newspaper network.

You log onto NYT dot com and… let’s say… press ‘Humour.’

That gives you all the television nightly talk show jokes about the Presidential election. Or ‘Saturday Night Live’ skits. And Emmy-award winning political comedy like The John Stewart Show and the Colbert Report. Heaps more.

They’ve got nothing to do with newspapers. But , everything to do with audiences. The internet now brings the New York Times 300 million dollars a year, 10 percent of the company’s revenue. It’s growing at an astonishing rate.

We all know that Australians are confirmed ‘junkies’- when it comes to ‘new tech toys’. But our ‘internet cravings’ are simply not being satisfied.

Young Australians love – and live with – MUSIC.

It’s an integral part of their daily lives.

On their i-pods, their mobiles, their mp3’s and in the car.

So, where’s the music on prime time television? There isn’t any.

Not even music videos ‘to stream’.

Where are the innovative I.T shows for young Australians? Same answer.

How’s that for breeding a new generation of TV viewers? So far there’s been little attempt to ‘connect’ with them. That has to change.

Within a few years everything will be mobile.

The Australian TV networks’ integration still muddles along – without vision or publicity,
without equipment or serious financial backing. On the proverbial ‘smell of an oily rag. ’

Despite such deficiencies Nine MSN now streams ELEVEN million videos a month.

Finance Guru Ross Greenwood’s live coverage of the RBA’s recent ‘ONE PERCENT RATE CUT’ got almost as many hits on the website, as it had Channel 9 viewers.

We need vision. We need innovation. And we certainly need investment. What we’re getting instead is ‘benign neglect.’

Benign neglect …on-line and on-television.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24513977-7582,00.html

Is Twitter another broadcast channel?

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 09:37:00 +0000

Is it broadcast media or is it social media?

I've been on the channel for over 18 months and I'm not sure ... most people I follow are more about broadcasting their message to others rather than entering into a dialogue. Sure, sometimes people I know and I will exchange banter ... but most of the larger names I follow are moreso pushing out a message to their followers - which strikes me as the '1 to many' push communication many frown upon.

I am not so close minded I don't think Twitter can be both social and broadcast - it's just maybe it's a lot more about broadcast and lot less about social.

Yes, the channel has potential ... but right now it's being hyped well beyond its current worth. And are the Social media flock any more influential than people not using these channels but socially active in a non digital (and less measurable but potentially as effective) sense. Measurability is great but lets not misconstue the ability to measure as 'more effective than channels we can't quantify as immediately'.

And can marketers actually use Twitter? Lets look at that point in the context of Australia. I don't know. It's tempting to want to utilise every single social channel available in a desperate effort to be looked at as progressive, but surely we have to look at resource versus reward.

Side note: I use Twitter but don't really look at it as anything more than a journal for my inane thoughts.

Eric Beecher at The Domain this Thursday

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:26:00 +0000

Looking forward to this interview between Brad Howarth and Private Media head Eric Beecher this Thursday.

The interview is based around the following premise.

Survivor 2.0: In 2008 a group of media companies found themselves stranded on the world's largest island, washed ashore after the sinking of the global financial markets. With a population of only 21 million to feed on, slow-moving traditional media companies struggled to reinvent themselves in time to fight off the challenge of new media upstarts. Who will survive...?

Rest assured Beecher will pull no punches, and I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say.

Register here - http://www.the-domain.org/ - but get in quick as it's this Thursday

Some observations on what is happening in the US digital media world right now ...

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:45:00 +0000

It's impossible not to feel the overriding tone of impending doom that is all over the US tech media blogs/journals right now.

From SAI to TechCrunch, Valleywag to Paid Content, the tone has changed from unrestrained optimism to a grim reality. TC and Paid Content used to be dominated with stories on startups receiving huge valuations and big funding, Valleywag reported the new wave of dot com excess ... not anymore.

What are the main areas we are seeing being covered and how could these relate to the local industry

- Layoffs

Remember fuckedcompany.com? Well ... I do. If you worked at a dot com around 2000/2001 and things were looking shaky you could rely on fuckedcompany to show you there was another start up somewhere else in the world that was more fucked than yours. All of the media are reporting layoffs - with ebay, Glam, Heavy, Seesmic, Gawker, Wikia, SearchMe, AdBrite, Hi 5 all laying off staff, and Yahoo being reported to be announcing laying off anywhere between 1-3,000 employees within the new few weeks.

TC covers it here - http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/17/keeping-count-the-techcrunch-layoff-tracker/

Yes, some of these companies were bloated to begin with ... and some probably had no real way to generate revenue ... but many are successful and do monetise well. Regardless, you can be sure that we've only seen the beginning of the layoffs.

No real public announcements of layoffs in AU - will they happen? Hopefully not but you'd have to assume if US companies like ebay and Yahoo! are cutting costs there would have to be some flow on effect here.

- Ad Slowdown

Blodget came out this morning with this bomb - http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/let-s-be-serious-online-display-ads-will-fall-sharply-in-2009

For a year, we've listened to analysts passionately explain how online ad spending will power through any broader economic and advertising weakness. Eyeballs are moving online, this story went (goes), ad dollars will follow. Online advertising is accountable. Online advertising is the future. Blah, blah, blah.

It's time we woke up and faced reality. Online display-ad spending will fall in 2009, probably sharply. It will probably fall again in 2010.

Is he right? Maybe ... display ad spending in AU could flatline over the next 18-24 months. Why? Q4 will be soft, as will Q1 and Q2 of 2009 ... Q3 2008 was very strong with the Olympics and a pretty robust economic outlook, as a result Q3 2009 will struggle to show much growth.

The US was already seeing a general slowdown in YOY growth (surely a by-product of the market maturing) and now the general consensus is this will get worse.

The three biggest display categories in AU are finance, motor vehicles and technology products - three categories that will feel some pressure from tougher times. These 3 categories combined accounted for 51% of display spend in Australia for Q2 2008 ($59m)

The bigger issue is online - across the board - needs to do a better job at showing its value than reverting to the tired accountability argument. The reality is most marketers struggle with online metrics and need measurement that is tied closer to actual marketing objectives and not impressions and clicks. Agencies and publishers need to work closer together to resolve this. This is a global problem however it is probably worse in AU than in Europe and the US - and has been a problem even during prosperous economic times.

However, the current situation presents huge opportunities to both publishers and agencies if they can go beyond what they see as their core purpose (publishers = selling display ads, agencies = buying display ads) and expand their offering to the market and offer more value and insight. And this is the exciting thing.

It's not all doom and gloom, it's more about avoiding complacency.

- Consolidation

Google CFO Patrick Pichette made an interesting quote in this article - http://valleywag.com/5064903/google-cfo-hints-at-future-starve-the-losers

"One of his priorities, Pichette said, "is pushing to make sure all the resources are used efficiently, that you feed the winners, starve the losers."

Gawker also published this - http://gawker.com/5065922/the-scary-future-of-internet-ads

Here's what you can expect in the coming year, internet lovers: lots of young internet companies going broke. The ones you love! Including, but not limited to, user-generated video sites, ad networks, fringe social media sites, and companies that make all those sweet apps. Why? Because in our brave new economy, companies are slower to buy bullshit ads of questionable efficacy on every random "Web 2.0" site.

Not sure I really agree with their defintion of "bullshit ads" but the general point is valid. The "me too" online industry will struggle. From publishers to networks to agencies. Web businesses that set up because it seemed like a good idea and there was plenty of capital to go round might find things will get tough.

Lets look at locally? Do we need 10+ ad networks selling the same remnant inventory? Probably not ... Do we need as many third party repping houses? Doubtful. Do we need as many media/creative/strategy agencies who effectively are doing the same thing. No.

Consolidation in this regard isn't a bad thing, as it won't do anything to harm the market. This huge array of choice/supply doesn't do anyone any real favours. A cull should improve the overall level of the industry and rid the market of the more questionable operators.

Another thing to watch is increased attention paid to digital media businesses. Last month AdNews ran a story on 3rd party networks placing premium brands on porn sites without their knowledge. Classy look for the industry hey ... And then yesterday The Oz's Lara Sinclair ran a great article on dubious 20% rebates paid by publishers to certain agencies who believe that is a fair 'pay to play' policy.

Times up for the 20% rebate?

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 21:59:00 +0000

Lara Sinclair has written an article in todays Australian that finally documents what has been going on for years - some agencies are demanding 20% commission rebates from publishers.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24520533-7582,00.html

"The warning comes as media agency Initiative has introduced a so-called "preferred partnership" scheme under which some internet publishers and online advertising networks are being asked to pay them a 20 per cent commission to become a favoured supplier.

But even as some media agencies -- including Emitch, the digital arm of the Mitchell Communications Group and Toyota's dedicated media agency the Media Store -- charge more than the standard 10 per cent commission, internet publishers are pushing back. "

The big question remains - are these higher that 10% rebate savings being pushed back to the client and/or being disclosed?

It's also interesting to see the publishers being so vocal about the issue - which was in the past an unspoken inconvenience - especially in regards to emitch and The Media Store. Wonder if they'll cop any blowback from these two.

Google UK to allow gambling advertising from today

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 05:19:00 +0000

Brand Republic is reporting that Google in the UK is allowing gambling related search advertising effective today.

"Google is changing its advertising policy to allow gambling-related advertising to appear against search queries in the UK from 17 October.

Previously, businesses could not advertise any form of online gambling or related websites on Google. The ads will still not be allowed on Google sites outside the UK.

UK companies registered with the Gambling Commission will be able to target text-based ads to users in England, Scotland and Wales. Non-UK advertisers based within the European Economic Area wishing to target Great Britain can do so if they are licensed to advertise gambling in their respective countries."

http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/854689/Google-reverses-UK-policy-allow-online-gambling-ads/

In AU it does not allow gambling based SEM - but how will long will it uphold this position?

You can be sure if it did it would open up a nice revenue stream ...

Malcolm Turnbull on Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 06:18:00 +0000

Nice work Julian

News Digital Media: The Unemployed spend 40hrs a week on Internet

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 04:27:00 +0000

That's the word according to News Digital Media and their Aspiring Australian's market research.

It tells us that unemployed users of NDM sites spend 6 hours per weekday on the Internet, and 5 hours per weekend day. Total = 40 hours.

Effectively, these people do have a full time job. It's called surfing the net.

So maybe an economic slowdown and higher unemployed rates might be good for digital media consumption ;)

The full report is here - http://media.news.com.au/sales/marketing/pdf/NDMreport03SEP08LO2.pdf

The research is pretty generic, which is disappointing because it's good to see News Digital take the step and try and work out their audience a little better.

There's no new insight into why people use online (real motivations), their usage across different areas (ie maps, video, search, content, contribution), emerging trends or cross media consumption. This is the only first release of the report, and you can be sure it will evolve moving forward as it's released every 3 months.

It does have one statistic that is interesting - that the average NDM user is spending 27 hours, 49 minutes on the Internet per week.

As a figure this feels high to me and surely must be skewed by the respondants being online at work - which needs to be clarified more. Are they 'online' - ie connected - or are they actively using the Internet?

Personally, I work in digital media and I wouldn't be actively online more than 20 hours a week across home and work.

According to Nielsen, the average Internet user in AU spends 14 hours, 34 minutes online per month - which works out to around 3.3 hours per week online.

Who is right? The difference is pretty significant.

September Nielsen data: Yahoo!7 takes a massive hit, other players hold

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:32:00 +0000

Nielsen has just released September Netview data and the numbers would be causing a few sighs over at Yahoo!7

Just over 6 weeks ago Yahoo!7 PR was out in force trumpeting the success of their Olympics initiative - and with good reason - it was pretty successful.

However most insiders were more concerned with what they could do with the audience once the Olympics were over. Could they hold enough of them and bring them into the Yahoo!7 fold (be it through Mail, Messenger, Answers, News, Homepage) to become regular users.

The first warning sign would have been last month when the Nielsen data showed Yahoo!7 didn't actually add any new users in August of 08 (when compared to July) - most would have expected an incremental gain in user numbers as a result of an official Olympics alliance at the very least. It wouldn't be too bold to predict internally Yahoo!7 would have forecasted a 10-20% traffic increase.

However this would have seemed like a minor blow compared to the traffic king hit the site experienced in September, down 9% from 5.35m uniques to 4.87m uniques.

This drop mirrors the drop Yahoo!7 experience just after the 2006 World Cup. Remember, the World Cup site in 06 was a Yahoo! co-brand and the traffic fell into Yahoo's topline. However once the action stopped in Germany, the traffic left and didn't return.

On these current September numbers, Yahoo!7 has less momentum with its audience than it did pre Olympics, which is undoubtedly the worst possible outcome for the site.

You can bet the financial investment required to secure the online rights to the Olympics was a mid term initiative financially - based on using the Olympic brand as a carrot to bring new eyeballs to the site and Yahoo!7 working out a way to transition these people into long term users.

Tough questions will no doubt be asked. How has this happened? Did the company have a real plan to try and keep the Olympics traffic it generated? Why, with the number 1 TV network is this JV not generating much traction with users over 2 years in? What has happened to Rohan Lund's vision of being a leader in news, homepage, mail and search?

These are prickly questions - but it seems now globally the Yahoo! brand is being forced to address them across the board as the share price flounders. How will it address these issues it is facing in AU?

The only question I have is, what is Yahoo7's strategy? It's hard to see a real direction from an outsiders point of view.

At the same time, Yahoo!'s main competitors either held their audience in September or grew marginally.

Ninemsn and Fairfax Digital held topline audience numbers, whilst News Digital Media grew 4% (up 150k users)

YHOO dips below $12 a share

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:05:00 +0000

Has anyone else been watching the rapid descent of the Yahoo share price?

Well ... right now it's at $11.75 and its market cap is just north of $16b USD.

Blodget covers it here - http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/10/yahoo-cracks-12-valuation-now-officially-ridiculous

Lets not forget in February MSFT offered Yahoo! $31 per share ... and they declined. Since then the situation has gone from bad to worse.

What's causing the decline? The flogging the company is copping in search combined with large questions around Jerry Yang and Sue Decker and a very public stoush between those 2 and Carl Icahn earlier in the year. The Google AdSense distro deal being stalled wouldn't be helping either, nor would over 100 senior exec defections in the past 18 months.

Key thing to remember is in the US and most areas of Asia - Yahoo is still very strong. Very strong - a leader in many key categories across these large, critical markets. Even with this, many are expecting large layoffs and scaling back of operations. Some have predicted 20% of staff could go.

Have to wonder what might be about to happen in AU - where the company isn't a market leader and of late has seemed to lack longer term direction when compared to its competitors.

Looksmart's Thought Leadership series

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Shepherd) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:48:00 +0000

Great initiative - http://blogs.looksmart.com/thought_leadership/

They have tapped into the likes of John Battelle and Danny Sullivan to make this happen - both highly respected names, particularly in the search world.

Would be great to see this done locally - tapping into respected players in the AU market to try and give the wider market access to quality opinion in the world of digital marketing and media.

This sort of thing adds value to clients and agencies - which is what they are all screaming out for.

Looksmart wants to offer "articles from industry thought leaders on topics aimed at equipping you to make smart choices in online advertising."

Simple.

So who will be the first player locally to do this? It could be a creative agency, media agency, ad server, publisher, ad network ... the opportunity exists for all of them.