Curns’ Ad Links for 24 August 2010

Curns’ ad links is a collection of links about the digital advertising industry; generally focussed on the display advertising market with an emphasis on the technology to deliver great advertising experiences.


  • This has potential for all the location space. We’re all aware that location-based advertising will become increasingly important so it will be fascinating to watch how advertisers adopt Facebook Places.


  • Conceptually, RTB makes a lot of sense: why buy inventory impressions when you can buy against a much more targeted audience? Everyone benefits. Randall Beard looks at the pros and some of the cons.


  • Facebook’s real focus with this launch isn’t individual users or even Foursquare: instead, it sees Places as a way into the local business and local advertising markets, and the company with the target painted on its back is Yelp.


  • A report by GfK Retail and Technology has shown that for the first time in nearly two years, the UK mobile handsets market has posted three consecutive months of year-on-year growth, indicating that the recession plaguing the industry might have come to an end. Good news for advertising?

Curns’ Ad Links for 19 August 2010

Today: more numbers that mobile is growing; Facebook places launch and more on digital privacy – collected for your ease and enjoyment.

One of the under-reported aspects of the Ofcom communications report shows 34 mins a day on email. 4th most popular communications use after TV, Radio & offline computer use. Do we forget email’s power? This is why whatever Google does in social should have a strong email element. Also of note, on-demand TV via computer (2mins/day); via a TV set (3 mins/day) and video clips (2 mins). In total, only just exceeding DVD use.

I think mobile & location services will be increasingly important for advertising, and not just of the local sort. It’s going to be interesting to see how Facebook make this work and how the other players respond.

So maybe, after all, this will be the year of mobile advertising. Interesting numbers are coming out of the Ofcom Communications Market Report, including the fact that social networking now accounts for nearly a quarter of all time spent on the Internet in the UK.

CNBC reports on the evolving ‘privacy’ debate in the US around the use of tracking technologies that support the online advertising business. Interestingly, it’s portrayed as a battle between tech companies and lawmakers. Not really much mention of the advertisers who use much of this tracking to target their advertisements. And sadly, I think that’s how the debate will be framed: tech vs privacy rather than including those who actually utilise the tech to get their messages across.

New Media Age reports that news content is a big driver on mobile devices. Increasing audiences on mobile means more – and better – brand advertising opportunities. Interestingly, Media owners will also be pleased to see a greater willingness to pay for news among the mobile audience – 18% agreed that if a newspaper’s website was no longer free, they would agree to pay for this content, compared with 9% of those who look at news online.

Only four of the top 20 most frequently visited retailer websites are currently optimised for mobile. Increasingly, I find myself using a mobile device to check prices or when I’m somewhere else. The retailers are missing something here. On the upside, 41% plan to have a transactional mobile site or application in place within the next year, according to the study.

I’ve noted this piece several times, but 84.9 per cent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewing online video is a huge number and, as we’ve seen before, it’s increasingly long-form content. An increasing audience is watching TV this way, and online ad tools need to respond.

An interesting insight into DSP platforms and the number of ad impressions they process every second to do their jobs. The amount of processing and data management required by all digital advertising platforms is growing and growing. I am not sure when it will stop.

Curns’ Ad Links For 18 August 2010

Today’s collection of a few links to news stories about the digital advertising business.

Lots of local sites coming in the US. I imagine a great concept,
but will it make money? Local classifieds are one aspect, but can it make any money in the display market? I’m guessing there’ll have to be
a network.
(tags: onlineadvertising local classified advertising AOL)