The MoPR Blog

Mobile users will watch ads for “free” content. According to 4th Screen Advertising’s Adlndex for Mobile research, conducted by Dynamic Logic, 88 percent of mobile users in the UK are willing to receive pre-roll mobile ads in return for free video content. Mobile pre-roll ads, which ran on O2 Active, are “attention grabbing” and increase brand recognition and favorable opinions of advertisers, the study found.

More surprisingly, 59 percent of participants said the mobile ads made them more interested in the advertised brand, and 62 percent said the ads gave a good impression of the brands being advertised.

Will Web 2.0 leave email in the dust? Text messaging, blogging and social networking have reached critical mass. More than half of adults in the U.S. surveyed said they now rely on at least one of these so-called Web 2.0 platforms to communicate with friends, family, or colleagues on a regular basis, says MediaPost reporting on an ongoing tracking study from Interpublic’s Universal McCann unit.

The study also found that the 18-34 crowd primarily uses social media as its dominant form of personal communication media, with 85% of this influential demographic group relying on one or more Web 2.0 platforms to stay in touch with others.

So, where does that leave email? Of the three conferences we have attended in the last six months, at least one presenter claims that “email will soon be extinct.”

On the other hand…

Search may overtake email as the ‘ubiquitous online experience.’ Though email is still the most common daily online activity, the percentage of consumers who use search daily has grown considerably over the past six years, according to a report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and reported in iMedia Connection.

Based on Pew’s survey, email is the only more popular online activity, with 60 percent of users checking their inboxes on a daily basis. Search has quickly risen to second place, with the percentage of daily searchers growing 69 percent since 2002.

Coca-Cola goes for interactive media marketing gold at the Summer Olympics. Coca-Cola is partnering with Pioco, China’s biggest Bluetooth Media company, and reaching out to Olympic attendees via thousands of hotspots around Beijing. Their campaign includes broadcasting Coca-Cola Bluetooth video commercials to Bluetooth-enabled phones and broadcasting messages to users entering hotspots asking them for permission to download content from Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola’s relationship with Pioco marks the first time in Olympic history that a brand has used Bluetooth media for its marketing campaign.

Year of the Mobile. New research from The Nielsen Company shows that a substantial number of mobile users across the globe will be following the Olympics on their cell phones this summer, making the Games a watershed event for media fragmentation tied to mobile.

According to Nielsen Mobile, a service of The Nielsen Company, nearly 45% of US and 31% of UK mobile video users will be part of the mobile audience for the 2008 Olympic Games.

The data reveals that track and field and gymnastics both rank among the most popular Olympic events mobile video users want to watch on their phones.

The research also suggests that the mobile Internet will play a critical role, as 23% of US and 17% of UK mobile internet users will be tracking the Games through their phone browsers, with event results and medal counts being the most desired pieces of information.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that our client Viigo has partnered with The Globe and Mail to bring mobile updates, scores, medal counts, and exclusive content from the Globe and Mail sports team, to smartphones worldwide.

Craigslist is a phenomenon that has swept the nation, and even the globe. In case you haven’t already sold your old couch or purchased a coffee table on Craigslist, allow me to give you a brief run down of exactly what it is. Thanks in large part to being completely free for users (minus the cost for posting a job), Craigslist is a hugely popular online destination for local classifieds and forums that is localized for more than 500 cities in more than 50 countries.

Craigslist touts the ability to search for jobs, housing, goods, services, local activities (my favorite!) and even romance. With more than 40 million people a month using its services, it’s no surprise that Craigslist has become a household name, along with its (more costly) industry peer, eBay. Speaking of eBay, a battle has been waging between the two groups ever since eBay purchased a minority stake in the company back in 2004 from a former Craigslist exec. I won’t bog you down with the details here, but if you want to check out Craigslist counter suit go here.

Lately though, the integrity of Craigslist has been put to question. What happened? Well, there have been a few strangers that have managed to creep in through the back door. Take for example the Vancouver couple recently caught allegedly attempting to sell their baby on Craigslist. Even though the parents claimed it was just a hoax, the folks at Craigslist (and the police) are not laughing. Craigslist rep Susan MacTavish Best stated that the “misuse of Craigslist for illegal purposes is absolutely unacceptable to us.”

Another recent post hit particularly close to home for me, when a user asked about a girl that lives across the street from him [and close to my own home]. He posted, “for a couple of months now I’ve been looking at you from across the street,” which I’m sure you’ll agree, would make any woman living in my area want to jump up and move. Fast.

Yes, I do occasionally get a good laugh out of the “Best of” Craigslist section where they place the rare, but quirky and crazy posts. However, this really isn’t what Craigslist is all about. The truth is, it’s an incredibly user friendly site that allows people to live out the phrase “one man’s junk is another man’s treasure”. Quite simply it’s the perfect online garage sale. And companies are starting to take notice.

Canadian mobility company Viigo has launched support for Craigslist that enables users to be notified on their smartphones when certain search criteria are met. Viigo allows you to stay on top of all the recent postings because hey, you’ve been waiting for that vintage Snow Patrol poster to pop up for months, and you don’t want another buyer to snatch it up before you do.

Another company called ImageShack has leveraged the site’s popularity by offering a photo hosting service. Craigslist offers a very simple photo uploader for posts, but they come out small and often fuzzy, which isn’t too helpful when you are trying to make your item extra appealing to a possible buyer. ImageShack solves this problem by hosting the pictures for you in numerous formats and sizes. All you need to do is snap and post.

With its popularity growing exponentially, I’m interested to see what other services and applications, particularly mobile applications, will start popping up in support of Craigslist. Stay tuned.

As for now, I’ll definitely be posting more items to Craigslist, especially when I move apartments.

It’s not breaking news that print media is suffering. With the lousy economy, skyrocketing operating costs and readers defecting and getting their information online, publishers are aggressively looking for ways to leverage the web to make a profit or to merely stay alive.

One recent study, “Vertical Search Report 2008,” from E-consultancy conducted in association with Convera suggests though, that publishers can retain existing readers and even grab new ones by offering a very specific search functionally within their market or niche. By delivering a specific search niche publishers can position themselves as the go-to expert source on the topic in their industry.

Publishers have an opportunity to gain this “search market share” by establishing themselves as the definitive search engine within their particular niche or sector.

A great example of a publisher that has done this with success is TechTarget. Though not originally started by TechTarget [they bought the site back in 2002] the publisher’s Whatis.com website has positioned TechTarget as the go-to site for IT tech term definitions. It certainly has helped strengthen TechTarget’s brand as well.

The challenge of course is that publishers will be up against hugely popular generic search engines such as Google. The way to overcome this competition is to produce a search tool which is perceived to be a better way to find information on a very specific topic – like IT tech term definitions - than generic search engines can offer.

The report backs up its claims with a statistic of 93% of media and internet B2B professionals saying, “they would be “very likely or quite likely to use a search engine that focused on serving their specific business or work needs.”

Granted, these are early adopters and people who feel comfortable using technology.

Even so, more than half of the respondents claimed that faster access to desired information was a major benefit of vertical search, with 50% saying the focus on their business interests and workflow would be a major advantage.

According to the study, the three biggest advantages of having a vertical search feature on an existing website is the ability to “improve brand by becoming an authority website,” the potential to “keep users on-site” and the “potential to monetize through advertising.”

Vertical search also helps advertisers connect to their customers and “increase the publisher’s revenue stream.”

That’s key.

It’s one thing to have a killer search engine, strengthen the brand and be positioned as the prime landing spot for your industry, but if this search engine drives customers to a site, keeps them there and lets publishers increase ad revenue, then it’s a win/win.

Feed the reader
Another interesting point from this study was the increasing use of RSS feeds and advice on how publishers should be utilizing them.

The research notes the impact that the underutilized RSS technology could have on the print world and how using RSS feeds to push and offer content to readers can increase readership.

By employing RSS, print publishers can extend the life of their content, gain readers and gain more ad dollars. For the reader, RSS feeds offer the convenience of reading their favorite columnist, breaking news, industry news or sports scores, anytime, anywhere.

According to the report, many professionals are already receiving content electronically - a whopping 80% of internet professionals surveyed as part of the research were already using industry or sector-specific RSS feeds.

Trends in digital marketing are leading towards a fragmentation of the online landscape and “atomization” of content, or the breaking down of content into bite size bits of information – very drilled-down and hyper-focused to a specific audience.

Content owners have a great opportunity to increase visibility for their content through the effective use of feeds, widgets and toolbars, according to the report:

“The level of uptake for feeds and customized homepages is very high among this early-adopter audience, but this kind of online behavior will soon become more widespread among knowledge workers across a wider range of industries,” said Linus Gregoriadis, head of research at E-consultancy.

As communication professionals working with numerous early adopters and their ahead-of-the-curve customers, we sometimes tend to forget that not everyone understands the technology behind RSS or are even using it without knowing how it works to read their daily content.

Like E-consultancy, we also believe that usage of RSS technology, both on the desktop and on smartphones, will increase with the “less-techie” audience over the next 12 months.

We understand that the average newspaper reader wants to open their front door, reach down and grab the Sunday paper. They don’t care how the paper was printed, how it was distributed to the delivery center, and then sent to the paper carrier’s home where it was folded, bagged and thrown onto their front porch. They just want to read their newspaper.

The same goes for online and mobile content – people with smartphones don’t care about RSS technology, XML, or feeds. [Next time you’re at a BBQ or party, ask your friends if they know what RSS is.]

Like the newspaper reader, smartphone users just want their content delivered to their device so they can read it.

Struggling print media need all the help they can get. Using new media and technology such as focused, niche search engines and setting up easy to subscribe to RSS feeds is a great start for publishers to help add value to their content, keep readers – even gain readers – and more importantly nab ad revenue. As someone who comes from the print world, still relies on a healthy print industry and continually follows it, I’ll definitely be watching this trend. - John “JC” Chilson