blinkx, the world’s largest video search engine, today unveiled AdHoc, the first contextually relevant video advertising platform. Just as Google’s AdSense transformed advertising on the Text Web, blinkx’s AdHoc platform will revolutionize video advertising by matching compelling, customized, TV-style ads to your audience on the Video Web.

blinkx’s AdHoc platform offers content partners and advertisers a unique value proposition — video advertising which combines the emotive power of TV promotion, with the relevance and utility of contextual search advertising. This is an exciting prospect, not only in terms of enhancing viewer experience, but also in increasing the effectiveness of campaigns.

“As video choice continues to explode, consumers desperately need tools that help them easily find what they’re interested in,” said Tim Hanlon, Senior Vice President at Denuo, the media futures unit of ad giant Publicis Groupe, S.A. “At the same time, marketers clamor to reach interested, though ever-fragmenting audiences with judicious and relevant ad messaging. AdHoc’s contextual video approach deftly bridges those two forces, allowing information and advertising to flourish in a mutually beneficial way.”

Technorati Tags: vlog, video blog, videoblog, marketing, advertising, blinkx, online marketing

Top search providers, ranked by total searches. Searches represent the total number of queries conducted at the provider.

Table 1: Top 10 Search Providers for August 2006,
Ranked by Searches (U.S.)

Provider - Searches (000) - YOY Growth - Share of Searches
————————————————————————-
1. Google Search 3,003,205 30% 50.2%
————————————————————————-
2. Yahoo! Search 1,434,169 23% 24.0%
————————————————————————-
3. MSN/Windows Live Search 595,584 3% 10.0%
————————————————————————-
4. AOL Search 328,559 -18.2% 5.5%
————————————————————————-
5. Ask.com Search 136,919 30% 2.3%
————————————————————————-
6. My Way Search 135,706 42% 2.3%
————————————————————————-
7. iWon Search 30,827 -15% 0.5%
————————————————————————-
8. EarthLink Search 24,324 -20% 0.4%
————————————————————————-
9. Dogpile.com Search 23,033 -18% 0.4%
————————————————————————-
10. SBC Yellow Pages Search 22,929 36% 0.4%
————————————————————————-

Technorati Tags: nielsen, netratings, search, searchengine, yahoo, google, msn, aol, ask, marketing

How to Drive Traffic to Your Online Video - Clickz

Heidi Cohen describes how to integrate your offline marketing with online tools to get more traffic to your videos.

Technorati Tags: video marketing, vlogging, videoblogging

Ok, maybe I embellished a little too much but David Garfinkel has a good post on the power of video or vlog to sell a concept/idea/product.

Video Copy That Sells: Here’s a World-Class Example You Can See Two Days Before It Airs Nationwide - and, The Cost Is Real-World, Not Out of This World! - David Garfinkel

Technorati Tags: video, adcopy, ad copy, videoblogging, videoblog marketing

New Content Will Be Available Either Direct to Consumers via the Internet, Download onto Portable Video Players, or via Corporate Partners Seeking to Package Content into Broader Service Offerings

ExpertVillage.com today announced it has budgeted $2 million to produce 75,000 new Internet friendly how-to videos over the next eighteen months, using freelance filmmakers/videographers. With the dramatic increase in availability of Internet video, consumers have become accustomed to getting information on the Internet in video form. ExpertVillage.com currently has over 1300 high-quality expert-based Internet videos
available online, and plans to significantly expand its catalog of content available either direct to consumers via the Internet, download onto portable video players, or via corporate partners seeking to package content into broader service offerings.

“The how-to category is uniquely suited to be delivered through video on the Internet, allowing consumers to actually see how to do everything from repairing the garbage disposal to folding an origami swan,” said Byron Reese, CEO of PageWise, the publishers of ExpertVillage. “We have had a tremendous response to our current catalog, and feel these next 75,000 videos will give us the definitive library of how-to advice from experts.”

To reach its goal of producing 75,000 how-to videos in eighteen months, ExpertVillage.com today officially launched its Filmmaker Program located at http://www.expertvillage.com/submit, where new filmmakers or pros with downtime from their day jobs can go to find details on needs requirements, submission formats, and how they can earn $300 per video shoot. The Filmmaker Program taps the collective expertise of the community of independent freelance filmmakers around the world. After setting up an account at ExpertVillage.com, they are able to claim assignments from thousands presently posted. The filmmaker then locates a qualified expert in the assignment topic and begins production of ten to fifteen short how-to videos.

ExpertVillage plans to recruit up to 5000 independent filmmakers via postings on http://www.craigslist.org and other resources. Response from filmmakers has already been promising — the first day the site went
into beta, over 400 filmmakers signed up.

Technorati Tags: videoblogging, jobs, freelance, vlog, vloggers, video blogs, expertvillage, filmmaker

Google and eBay today announced a multi-year agreement to benefit both companies’ collective communities of users, merchants, and advertisers around the globe. The agreement consists of two primary components involving text-based advertising and “click-to-call” advertising functionality.

Specifically, Google will become the exclusive text-based advertising provider for eBay outside the United States. In addition, eBay and Google plan to integrate and launch “click-to-call” advertising functionality that leverage both Skype and Google Talk globally in each company’s respective shopping and search platforms.
The companies said the financial terms for certain components of the deal involve revenue sharing, but did not disclose specific details.

“We’re pleased to expand our long-standing relationship with Google to explore new market opportunities, like click-to-call advertising, that benefit both our communities of users,” said Meg Whitman, President and CEO, eBay Inc. “People continue to evolve how they shop, communicate and advertise online. By combining the power of eBay in ecommerce and Skype in communications with Google’s leadership in search and advertising, we can increase the usefulness of the Internet for shoppers, merchants and advertisers around the world.”

“This agreement underscores how much we value eBay as a partner,” said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. “Our technologies will allow us to connect users to relevant advertising across eBay’s international properties. By working together to promote click-to-call functionality through Google Talk and Skype, we are offering advertisers another innovative way to connect with customers.”

The companies plan to begin testing the text-based advertising and click-to-call initiatives in early 2007 that will be evaluated over a period of several months. The specific components and timing of implementation will depend upon initial test results, and will vary by market, largely driven by local dynamics and joint capabilities.

Technorati Tags: google, ebay, textads, clicktocall, click-to-call, online advertising, auctions, skype

Resources for New Media and Social Media PR - Online Marketing Blog

Nice list of links to satiate your social media needs.

Technorati Tags: pr, social media, online marketing, new media press release, new media

Break.com announced it has launched video syndication tools that enable content creators to distribute their videos to iPods and Sony PSPs.

Break.com audience members can now receive automatic updates from their favorite content creators, as well as easily migrate their personal and viral video collections to any device.

“Two years ago we were excited to be the first out of the gate to compensate users for content, and now we are equally excited to be the first to offer viral video syndication tools,” said Keith Richman, CEO of Break.com. “Given the importance of portable devices to our audience of men 15-35, it was clear to us that these tools could help further drive the democratization of content and the empowerment of the individual as both a content creator and a programmer.”

Technorati Tags: video syndication, podcasting, videoblogging, video blog, rss, break.com, ipod, psp, sony psp

Following up on yesterday’s post, here is more you can do with FeedBurner.

Check your stats

One of the best features is the ability to check your stats and know how many people are accessing your feed and what specifically they are looking; in FeedBurner parlance this is called reach or people that took a specific action with your feed items.

You can check Live Hits which shows you anyone that has opened the feed in a browser or reader or bot. Determine what items/posts are getting read the most with Item Use and see if anyone is mashing-up your content with Uncommon Uses.
(more…)

As more people begin to use RSS and Atom feeds to subscribe to online content, making it easy for them to subscribe will be an important way of gaining new readers. With so many choices in aggregators and online news readers, FeedBurner takes care of these details for you.
(more…)