Many product-selling websites include a lot of Web 2.0 tricks to convince the Internet surfer that the product is worth checking out.  Heck, even Cheerios has a website which includes a flashy splash intro.  Most product sites seem to be nothing more than an excuse to have a site, like a self-fulfilling prophecy of owning a company:

"Well, if we have a product, we must have a website!"

Certain consumer products have useful and inventive websites, such as this one I recently found: Acne.org.  I found this site through a linked video in YouTube.  The site contains many of these videos, which is a brilliant idea for free advertisement (click on the thumbnails for full-size pics).

The site is massive in content.  From just the home page, a viewer can tell the large amount of information conveyed throughout all of the separate pages.  The top menu bar alone contains more than twenty different sections from which to choose, all separated under broader categories.  Many of these sections include video demonstrations of the tips and tricks that the web master (and product creator) hopes to teach.  These video clips are high quality, short, well-scripted, and have reasonable volume.

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DISCLAIMER: 4chan contains many images at which you should not look at if you are under 18…in fact, some of the stuff on this site I don't want to look at regardless of my age.  Visit the site at your own risk.

4chan is an addictive little site that is also incredibly useful.  Why haven't you heard about it before?  Well, chances are that you have, but you just did not know it.  4chan is the original source for some of the Internet's best memes, including Rick Rolling, so i herd u like mudkips, and LOLCats.  Yes, those highly time-wasting Internet phenomena all started from the same source.

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Announced yesterday on the Facebook blog, the redesign of Facebook has finally arrived. After several delays to the new aesthetic, the developers have finally released the new platform to the masses. More AJAX, tab-centric, and a more versatile API… Here's a quick listing of some personal pros and cons with the new design.

Pros

1. Tabs! I am a sucker for tabs. They are easy to organize and keep content from becoming cluttered. My biggest complaint when the Facebook team released the API was that too many people's profiles were becoming littered with third-party applications. These apps were visually detracting, and had nothing to do with what I found Facebook to be most useful for (keeping in touch with acquaintences). With the new redesign, one can stick all their scrabble-playing-super-wall-poking ugliness on its own tab and I'll never have to go near it.
2. More intuitive photo platform. I didn't post a screenshot of my photos tab, but it is a far more intuitive way to access other users' photographs. It borrows heavily from the minimalistic UI of picasa, and now I don't have to go searching through a user's profile for a link to find their albums.
3. Better use of horizontal space. Facebook finally spread its wings a bit. The redesign makes a much better use of horizontal space, and avoids feeling clausterphobic by combining this new feature with the tabs, mentioned above. The wider limit also allows third-party developers much more freedom when it comes to mapping the UI of their applications, so I expect to see better things than graffiti and super wall.
4. Improved 'friends' module. With the redesign, the friends module was improved. Now you have a choice as to how many thumbnail pictures to display, as well as designating which ones (there were some third-party applications to have "favorite friends" displayed on the previous facebook design, does anybody know what they were called?) if you would rather permanently display your best friends.
5. Smart use of AJAX. The AJAX on the new design is both aesthetically pleasing and purpose-driven. The way I like it to be.

Cons

1. Advertisements in my face. I remember when Facebook had no ads. Then it had text-based ads. Later, they adopted vertical banners. Now, they've put those vertical banners front and center. With the decreased clutter on the pages (which is a good thing!), it leaves the advertisements to stick out like a sore thumb. With the previous design, I found I could largely ignore advertisements if I just pretended they were another annoying application.
2. More clicks. My preference for tabs aside, the prosecution points out that there is something to be said about having all "crucial" profile information contained on one page. When I need to know if the young lady in my rhetoric and composition class has awful taste in music or not, I have an additional click to consider. Multiply this by lots of young ladies and you're talking about a serious time investment.

Overall, I'm pleased with the new Facebook design. I think it's a step in the right direction, which is a personal first. This new implementation puts the criticisms of previous redesigns into perspective. I'm sure the previous flaws helped shape the success of this release. Anything to add?

Catch some pictures of the redesign after the break.

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Earlier this month, Leah Messinger wrote an interesting piece on "quality swag" and its potential ROI.  For those who do not recognize the terms, "swag" is a gift or free service that a company offers to potential clients, typically at events such as trade shows.  Some award shows package all of the gifts together in ‘swag bags' for the guests.  ROI stands for "return on investment," the rate of return which is used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment.  The ROI of swag is important because once the products are created, they are a sunk cost, and I am sure many companies find themselves tossing pens and highlighters that were never given out at any shows.

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An interesting study crossed my screen recently.  According to this press release, media agency Starcom USA, behavioral targeting network Tacoda, and digital consumer insight company comScore collaborated on a research study whose results call into question how well click rates on ads measure a consumer base.

The study states that only 6% of the total Internet population represents 50% of the clicks on ads.  Online media companies may use click rates as points of negotiation with their clients, but if this study is accurate, that measurement is not a clear view of how many people are seeing these ads.  Further measurements from the study show no correlation between display ad clicks and brand metrics, and show no connection between measured attitude towards a brand and the number of times an ad for that brand was clicked.

So who are these clickers?  Reading some forums concerning the topic led to some interesting, and occasionally probably ideas:

• Young children that may click more than they should
• Overly frugal consumers fiendishly looking for a great deal
• First time Internet users
• Employees who click on their own ads to raise metrics
• Professional ‘ad clickers' who are hired to click to raise metrics

The ‘Heavy Clicker' is profiled in the study.  These users are typically between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40000.  They also spend four times more time online than the typical Internet user and are more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites.  Clearly, these are not typical Internet users, nor are they the type of people that many of the above suggestions implied.

As I mentioned in a past blog post, measuring click rates is archaic and unnecessary.  Ads on the Internet are not what they were promised to be-noninvasive and simple.

I think that it's actually sad that what could have been a great aspect of the Internet (essentially, selectable commercials) has been destroyed thanks to pop-up ads, spam, scams, and the need for online metrics.  It's time to move on to a new form of online advertising.

Combining aspects of things that people already enjoy is one of the best ways to make an impression on a market without having to be completely original or creative.  For the past couple of months, there has been a surge of such activity in the form of ‘angry' video game reviews.  These reviews combine aspects of life that many males (and some females) enjoy, including ranting, nostalgia, cheap Photo shopping, and dirty humor.  Taken together, these form a "review" of a classic video game.  The reviews have the taste level of an episode of Family Guy, but also have the marketability, as well.

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It finally happened to me; I was hit with my first spam message via my cell phone.  I was foolish enough to believe that spam stopped with email, but luckily I was prepared for this eventuality and deleted the message without opening it.  This is my first word of advice for anyone who receives one of these dastardly messages.  Merely opening the message may result in charges being sent to your cell phone.

Text message spam has grown to amounts of 1.1 billion last year, according to recent reports.  The cell phone spam problem has been something that has engulfed countries such as China and South Korea for years now (sigh…they are always ahead of us in technology!).  According to the CAN-SPAM Act passed in 2003, this should be illegal, but I have my doubts as to how many of these spammers are going to be caught.  However, after some exhaustive research, I have come up with a five-point plan for combating requests for purchases of fake stocks and penis pumps. (more…)

So while reaching the $21 billion plateau for the first time sounds great, the growth of internet ad revenues is also slowing down.

The data, collected by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, suggests revenues grew an estimated 25 percent last year, up from $16.9 billion in 2006. That’s a whole 10 percentage points lower than the previous year’s growth.  Even the dollar figure was lower, with a $4.2 billion increase compared to $4.3 billion in 2005.

The increasingly torpid growth was forecasted by many analysts though. As the internet continues to soak up more of the advertising stream, this has meant less money for traditional outlets like newspapers. Still, the internet only occupies about 10 percent of all American ad spending, which means plenty of room for growth, albeit slower.

There are some variables that may contribute to the slowdown in growth not accounted for IAB's figures. We’re arguably in a recession, and one of the first things companies do when the pockets get thin is cut ad spending. Some of the big boys like MSN, Yahoo!, and AOL are even having a rough go of it lately.

A full breakdown of the numbers is expected to be released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau in May.

Richard Pérez-Peña of the New York Times reports in today's article "A Venerable Magazine Energizes Its Web Site" that the respected foreign affairs, politics, economics, and culture magazine The Atlantic is revamping its site tomorrow in hopes that it will help the publication turn a profit.

Just over a year ago the magazine's site was, as editor in chief James Bennet explained to Pérez-Peña, "just a marketing arm for the print magazine, rather than publication in its own right."  In 2007, however, it added blogs, video, and increased content from both the magazine and unique to the site, and traffic to the site has grown to several times the amount it had in December 2006.

Tomorrow The Atlantic will continue its campaign to attract more visitors by dropping its firewall that restricts access to most of the articles from the magazine to subscribers.  It hopes that this will boost traffic and will increase advertising revenue to earn the publication something that it hasn't had for a while — a profit.

As print ad revenue drops industry wide, perhaps Internet revenue will make up the difference.  Either way, similar magazines — like The Economist, Harper's, and The New Republic — will likely pay attention to this change.  If The Atlantic fares well, then they may also consider dropping their subscription firewalls.  Further, The New Yorker, which doesn't have a firewall on its site but doesn't publish all of its articles online, may also consider making more of its content available through its site.

On Monday Duncan Riley reported on TechCrunch that 17 more newspapers have joined in on Yahoo!'s partnership with local news sites; these papers include 16 regional papers owned by The New Times Company but not the NYT itself. 

A main part of this partnership is that local newspapers can buy job listings from Yahoo!'s HotJobs site.  In return the local sites upload job listings to Yahoo!'s HotJobs, and they can charge a higher price for these listings.

The idea behind this partnership seems logical.  Yahoo! gets access to more job listings that are provided by its partners while the local newspapers can offer those who purchase job listings a greater forum in which their positions are advertised on.

So far, this logic has worked out for Cox Newspapers, which owns the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  According to the Associated Press on Monday Cox has enjoyed increased revenues.  For instance, Cox owned Austin American-Statesman enjoys a "market share for online recruitment ads is now 40 percent, up 19 percentage points from a year ago."  

The fact that more papers have signed in on this partnership is an indication that it is working.  However, Yahoo! is not alone in offering such services.  For instance, Gannett and Tribune — the top two newspaper publishers (as measured by circulation) — haven't joined Yahoo! yet.  Perhaps they are too interested in their own jobs site, CareerBuilder, that they run with McClatchy — a fellow newspaper publisher.  Further, there are other jobs sites out there like Monster.  That leaves plenty of options for papers like The Washington Post, which hasn't joined in the Yahoo! partnership, to consider; that's what the paper told the AP that it's doing. 

Thus, as newspapers and advertisers alike realize that on-line ad space is growing in importance, more publishers are considering banding together to deal with advertisers.  Looking forward, if partnerships like Yahoo!'s are profitable, a key question is: Who else wants to get in the game of selling and culling on-line ad space on local news sites?

With Thanksgiving tomorrow, tis the season for sweets and treats.  A newspaper article about cookies sounds like a great idea.

Stuart Elliott of the New York Times has just an article today, but not one about recipes.  It is about Pepperidge Farm, the cookie company, which is employing social networking in a new advertising campaign.  While other companies establish a presence on an existing social network site by setting up a group, profile, or buying ads, Pepperidge Farm has launched artofthecookie.com.

The Art of the Cookie site is aimed at woman and helping them make connections through cookies. Sally Horchow, co-author of The Art of Friendship: 70 Simple Rules for Making Meaningful Connections, is a key spokesperson for the campaign.  On the site she posted a diary of a cross country trip she made this summer during which she spoke with women about friendships.  The site offers other tips about friendships.

Companies have taken a more serious look at social networking as many are either creating niche social network sites or participate on existing networks.  Clearly the notion of connecting customers with each other is gaining traction with the common practice of a company speaking to its customers.  

Pepperidge Farm didn't haphazardly decide to pursue a social networking centric campaign.  After conducting research in the homes of its customers, vice president and general manager Michael Simon explained to the NYT that "this notion of connection came up again and again…hectic lifestyles, life in general, has gotten in the way" of fostering friendships.  He expects positive results from portraying the sharing of cookies with others as a great way to make and strengthen relationships. 

It'll be interesting to see how this new campaign works out.  I wonder if a poultry company will launch a campaign about forging business deals over steak… 

MySpace (do I really need to link there?) is going to be offering a pay-for-friend model to record distributors. The catch for the record distributor? Give them the user the music for free. We're talking about commercial music that is also distributed in record stores here, not music from some obscure band.

So how does this work exactly? A user "friends" a record label and in exchange they can download an album. The user has the music they want, the record label has an audience for their brands that they can capitalize on, and MySpace gets a little change in it's pocket. Win, win, win? Maybe. I have my doubts as to whether people are really going buy in to an unfamiliar brand because they were able to download some music for free. But it's an interesting idea and definitely worth a shot. Frankly anything that takes current music business models in a different direction is worth a shot. Hats off to MySpace for the imaginativeness.

Speaking of obscure bands, the first band to try this out on MySpace is a band called Pennywise, via their record label Textango's MySpace profile. This will happen sometime next March.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Via AdWeek.

I was doing some work on Google and did a quick search for Barack Obama. I wanted to go to his main campaign site, so I clicked on the ad that shows up as the first result. I often find just typing search phrases in Google quicker than trying to type in a URL or sort through where I have the site bookmarked.

Not surprisingly, I got taken to a page designed specifically for Google Adwords that encourages me to join the Obama mail list. Below is a screenshot of the landing page.

This is pretty typical. The only thing interesting here is that the page doesn’t include any obvious way to opt out of the sign up process. Most of the time when you do these sorts of pages you get the little “Skip to go to Website” option. Want to to go to the website? Can’t get there from here. It seems to be designed in a way that conveys that the only option is to sign up. (more…)

One thing I’m noticing more and more is media websites running advertisements as background images on their websites. Above is an example from Gamespot. If you click on the image above you’ll see the page in all its widescreen glory. It is a pretty spectacular ad. I’ve seen similar ads on entertainment sites like TV Guide and the Superficial and think we’ll see more like this the future. They work for a number of reasons:

• Most people have widescreen LCD monitors nowadays but most websites don’t use the space. These ads fill that void.
• The ads are visually engaging and catch the eye much more than banners or Flash piece. People have gotten pretty good at figuring out where ads are normally located on a page and ignoring them.
• Ultimately, the ad is still in the background of the page taking up space that otherwise wouldn’t be used, so I think this makes these kinds of ads less disruptive than formats you have to mute or that cover over text you are trying to read.

I think these background ads should be deployed judiciously by sites. You want to break it out only on special occasions and make sure the advertiser is a perfect match for your brand. Overuse will lead to the loss of the wow effect the Gamespot ad achieves.

What do you think? Cool or just another way to steal your attention?

Mike Shields of MediaWeek reports that CondéNet, the Internet arm of magazine publisher CondéNast, has aggressively used Facebook applications.

The article mentions that in June the company acquired the "What Are You Wearing?" application, which CondéNet executives claim that about 1,000 users are joining each day the over 90,000 others who are revealing their wardrobe on Facebook. 

Further, a few weeks ago, the more festive "What Are You Wearing for Halloween?" application was also launched and currently has about 4,000 users.

While CondéNet hasn't branded either application, it started to display ads from Guess in its application.  That's the great thing about widgets and other applications, companies who develop them can also use them for ad space as well.

One of the most interesting tidbits from this article to me was when CondéNet president Sarah Chubb mentioned that the "What Are You Wearing?" application has been the most viral and fastest growing widget or application that the company has developed over the years. 

I guess deploying an application on a site where people already divulge information helps give these two applications gusto.