Meebo Plus 40 (New Ad Network Alert)

Meebo, the leading social network and IM chat platform, has announced that it will begin to sell advertising across 40 top publisher sites like AddictingGames, IGN.com, and Current TV.

It was only a matter of time before Meebo launched this new ad network. They had the popular brand recognition — and now they have the audience reach. For their large publisher partners, they offer a chat services that enables users to directly connect and chat on sites. The ad units are to be displayed right within this enterprise chat service. So while the Meebo.com site itself only boasts 4.1 million unique users, which is relatively small in online publishing, Meebo with the addition of 40 sites has a very respectable reach of over 45 million unique users.

What I like most about this announcement is Meebo’s ad unit of choice: a rich media/expandable 900×400 banner.  Though they would have liked acquired more ad sales fill rates with standard IAB ad units (like the always in fashion, 300×250 ad unit), Meebo instead is taking a smart risk — and letting advertisers share in the reward. For brand advertisers, Meebo offers a lot of interactivity within its ad units via a display ad beside a video promotion, clickable thumbs, and a send to friend feature.

Sure, the larger the ad, the higher the probability of annoying users. But Meebo is offer such a valuable service for free that I think the consumer backlash will be minimal. Also, the ad is expandable only when the user initiates it by hovering over it. Smart!

I wrote previously that at a time when brand advertisers are cutting back spending, it’s more important than ever for ad networks to differentiate. If you think about it, any ad network can offer you audience reach, standard ad units, and strong publisher sites. But only a select handful of ad networks, now Meebo included, can offer advertisers a chance to get creative and interact at a high level with their audience. Meebo ads are creative and presented in the right context: It’s an interactive ad presented to users when they are in the act of interaction (with friends and peers). Love it!

I’ll likely be reaching out to them over the next few weeks for a Q4 test ad buy.

Yahoo Unveils Partners for Web TV at CES

Yahoo announced major partnerships with television manufacturers: Sony, LG, Samsung, and Vizio. Under the deal announced today at CES, Yahoo’s web platform will be integrated within television. Yahoo branded services and applications can be accessed while you’re watching television. The applications, mainly widgets to start, would reside alongside television shows and would remain as a means to complement (not replace) television programming.

So imagine watching the Wall Street headlines on CNN and getting instant access to company profiles and charts per Yahoo Finance… or watching the Travel Network and making new connections with people that have been to Peru, your next travel spot. For big sports fans such as myself, watch Monday Night Football (NFL) while beside it, tracking your Yahoo Fantasy team points.

If Yahoo is successful and can lead and open up the way for web applications to converge with television, a whole new Industry can follow in its coat tails. New start-ups would spawn to build widgets and other useful applications for television. Similar to widgets for social networks (per a Clearspring or Slide.com), there would be new applications that make the television viewing experience more social, interactive, collaborative, share-able, and most importantly, more entertaining!

It also creates new business models for existing web application developers:  Companies that rely on advertising revenues and are currently limited to the web only can now distribute their widgets (with clients’ advertising) on CNN, the Travel Network, and Monday Night Football!

New agencies, ad networks, and services companies will also be born around the new TV-Applications Industry.

Obama buys in-game ads on Massive

Political ads are now officially everywhere I look… Wait, I mean Barack Obama is now officially everywhere I look. Barack Obama dropped $44,500 to advertise with Massive, Inc. and buy ad placements in 18 video games.

What a creative way to reach new voters! You read a lot about traditional advertising like TV and radio becoming ineffective at reaching key demos and here’s Obama buying in-game ads to get his message on virtual billboards in racing games.

He (actually, I mean his media buyers) are also being smart about the spend by targeting the geo-targeted the ads to ten battleground states — so only gamers in those states playing on their XBOX will see Mr. Obama.

Another smart idea by the Obama campaign was using LinkedIn to connect with voters.

WSJ: Shakeout Threatens to Thin Out Web-Ad Brokers

The financial crisis on Wall Street (and now the Global Economy) has many industries including banks and brokerages cutting spending. Other industries such as telecommunications and automotive have also cut spending as well.

These events have had a disastrous effect on the world of online advertising as reported by Emily Steel of WSJ, that a couple of start-up ad networks like Adzilla and JellyCloud have already ceased operations and larger ad networks like AdBrite have cut as much as 40% of its workforce.

I agree with Emily Steel that when faced with tighter budgets, media buyers will buy ad networks that offer sophisticated targeting and the largest audience reach. Sophisticated targeting is how many of these new start-up ad networks have attempted to differentiate themselves. But where they fall short is providing the large audience reach that other ad networks like a Tribal Fusion and ValueClick can provide. To media buyers, you cannot offer one (targeting) without the other (reach).

Start-up ad network will have continued difficulties increasing audience reach as publishers now have more than 300 ad networks to select from. Publishers make decisions on ad networks based on pay-outs and “eCPM” rates. Top publishers typically work with several ad networks already and convincing them to implement a new ad network these days require a lot of data (on other publishers) and sometimes guarantees. There’s a chicken-egg scenario because often times, you can’t get data without having the publishers first.

I anticipate ecommerce companies to increase holiday online ad spending over last year. But I am not confident that the ad spending by ecommerce companies will offset the loss of key advertiser verticals like banks, brokerages, and automotive. Look for more coverage of failed ad networks by early 2009.

Free Games at a Price: NeoEdge unveils overlay ads for games

NeoEdge recently launched overlays for downloadable casual games. These games typically offer a  30/60 minute free trial with an attempt to upsell you to pony up $15-20 to buy the games after the trial expires. Companies like NeoEdge are helping make these games free altogether in exchange for advertising display. Overlay ads are advertiser logos and buttons served within the game play. In the screenshot below, check out the ad for “The Office” in the bottom left corner. Ads are clickable to advertiser sites.

I’ve always been an advocate of monetizing digital content (videos, games, music, photos, etc) best you can without passing the cost to consumers. But at the same time, I believe in providing a fun and engaging entertainment environment for the consumer. While the overlay ads satisfy the former, it falls short of fulfilling the latter. Overlay and games do not work together — at least in this version offered by NeoEdge. These overlay ads can get accidentally clicked up and distract users from the game, which in essence hurt the user experience in a big way.

A more elegant way to present overlay advertiser branding would be to serve the logos while the game load ups. Create an interstitial page with “This Game is Sponsored by:” and show the advertiser logo. This would not interfere with NeoEdge’s pre-roll ads (video ads served before game loads up) as all download games require several seconds to load anyway. This interstitial page can also be served during all game pauses or at the end of each level and game play. You still have the users attention without interrupting the actual game play.

There will be a place for overlays within download games. It will come down to an issue of how and when the overlay is displayed.

Martini Media, ad network for affluent, raises undisclosed round in Series A

Martini Media (based in San Francisco) raised their Series A today.

Over the past several months, there’s been dozens and dozens of new vertical ad networks launching including ones for travel, food and wine, college students, and of course, kids and teens at GoFish Networks.

Vertical ad networks create tremendous value for advertisers and publishers. For advertisers, you get an informed ad buy reaching your target demo and/or affinity. Most vertical ad networks offer full transparency and custom engaging ad products. For publishers, they’re almost getting their own direct sales team without having to take on the cost of having a direct sales team. So everyone benefits.

With so many vertical ad networks launching every other week, it’s hard for me to keep the same level of excitement as I had when I helped GoFish Networks launch back in early 2008. But Martini Media is one vertical ad network that does gets me excited. The affluent audience, in general, is very difficult to reach on a large scale and Martini Media is approaching the challenge in a very elegant way: by building channels (or sub-verticals) where affluent folks hang out at. Some of their channels include sailing, wine, cigars, classic cars, and golf. So in addition to offering the affluent audience to premium advertisers, they’ll be able to market their ad network to industries that are slow to advertise online — such as sailing, cigars, and classic cars — by selling a channel-only buy.