The iPad & Flash

It has already been covered a number of times on TechCrunch that the iPad, like the iPhone and iPod Touch, will not feature flash. A rather contentious point with many people when you consider the amount of content on the web that is Flash based. In fact, many critics have gone as far as to say this could be the downfall of the latest weapon in Apple's arsenal of world domination. All this may be mute, however, if you look towards HTML5 and the possibilities that it promises. The brilliant folk at Brightcove, for instance, have already set out a roadmap (see below) outlining how they will use HTML5 for streaming video when the viewing device is detected as an iPad. Furthermore, even on an iPhone browser video thumbnails will launch a Quicktime player.

Brightcove CEO, Jeremy Allaire, says, "HTML5 is great, it is an open standard, and firmly entrenched in the Apple device platform. Flash can’t reach those platforms for political and business reasons.”

While it's true that HTML5 can't do everything that Flash can (specifically in relation to supporting advertising, audience measurement and social sharing), Brightcove have promised that they will bring HTML5 video up to par with Flash for Brightcove users. Allaire says that this will take until the end of the year, going through a number of iterative stages to get there. First Brightcove videos will play back in a very basic HTML5 player when they detect an iPad. The next step will be to add audience measurement and advertising features. Then finally Brightcove will work on upgrading the actual interface so that iPad and iPhone users don’t notice the difference between it and the Flash version of their player.

The actual raodmap will go as follows...

Changes In The Media Landscape

I have a huge list of things that I want to write about but the simple truth is that there are not enough hours in the day to do all of them. So in going through this extremely long list I realised that at least three of the items fitted together into a nice three-in-one post. So here is a little snap shot of three of the most important changes that I feel have gone on in the media landscape in the last couple of weeks.

Google's Display Ad Exchange

After much speculation and talk following Google's purchase of DoubleClick (two years ago!), it has finally happened - the Google Display Ad Exchange has launched. Coupled with the usual over-exagerated boasts, Google tell us that the system "will change the way advertisers buy ad space". The move represents one of the most open challenges that Google have made against Yahoo! and Microsoft's display ad marketshares. Up until now Google had relied on its Display network to counter both YAhoo! and Microsoft's display offering, both of which were real 'display' networks.

Having said that, the new DoubleClick Ad Exchange is modelled directly on the AdSense and AdWords systems. Neal Mohan, vice president of product management at Google, said "the exchange is a real-time marketplace that will help publishers, ad networks and agencies buy and sell display space. We want to democratise access to display advertising and make it accessible and open, like search advertising. By bringing publishers and advertisers together in an open marketplace in which prices are set in a real-time auction, the Ad Exchange enables display ads and ad space to be allocated much more efficiently. This improves returns for advertisers and enables publishers to get the most value out of their online content."




Facebook's Beacon Is Gone

Folling the $9.5m settlement of a class-action lawsuit launched against Beacon, Facebook has finally confirmed it will completely shut down the advertising service. Although Facebook has been gradually phasing out the system, it has continued to be used by a number of websites up until very recently. The service, which was originally launched in late 2007, suffered from immediate controversy by utilising the browsing habits of its members while they were on other websites.

In December 2007, very shortly after launch, Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, issued a personal apology for what he called "lots of mistakes in the way the system was handled". In reality, the whole system was a complete PR disaster. The web virtually exploded with concerns over Facebook invading the privacy of its users without their prior consent or knowledge. The result was that Facebook introduced more controls and ultimately made the system opt-in for members.

The settlement itself, which is still pending approval, will also pay $9.5m to create a foundation to fund products that promote online privacy, safety and security. Facebook has said that "we look forward to the creation of the foundation and its work to educate Internet users on how best to control their privacy [and] engage in safe social networking practices."


Web Metrics Reinvented

When it comes to digital audience measurement there are only two options: comScore or Omniture. So the news that these two rivals are planning to launch a single, combined digital audience measurement system is absolutely huge. The companies have revealed that they hope to design a platform that will bring more clarity and confidence to the online advertising market. Essentailly, the system will give both websites and advertisers a unified source for measuring how many visitors hit their sites, how often they visit and exactly who the visitors are.

Specific details of system are as of yet unavailable, however industry experts predict that it will most likely combine Omniture analysis tools and comScore's internet user panels. The question remains however of how exactly they will gather their raw data set. In the past, the two companies have almost always shown different sets of data due to the fact that they have always set out to achieve relatively different goals. This is the main area that it is hoped will be addressed, and that the current disparity between the companies will be resolved.

Interestingly, last week also saw Omniture in the news as it was taken over by Adobe for $1.8 billion (£1bn). Adobe has said that the deal will ultimately help digital marketers increase their ROI through a more accurate measurement system. As any Digital Marketer will tell you, flash is fantastic for (pardon the pun) flashy "nova-style" microsites (short lived, hyped up and ultimately forgettable), but an absolute nightmare for longterm projects due to the inability of search engines to truely index the flash contents. A recent takeover may spell the end for this, however.

Cursor Takeover Display Ad

This might not be as flash (pardon the pun) as the Cadbury's Breakdancing cursor but it's a great example of a nice simple cursor takeover.

11 Essential Skills for Digital Marketing

I was sent a link to Ian Lurie's post, 11 Internet Marketing Skills That Must Be Second Nature, yesterday by a friend. Not only do I agree with everything Ian says, but he made me laugh. So I thought that I should share his insights with you.

1. XHTML and CSS. You don't have to be a god(dess) of web programming. But so help me God the next 'internet marketer' who gives me a blank stare when I mention CSS gets an atomic wedgie. And by the way, web standards have nothing to do with the metric system.
2. Search engine optimization. Search engine results are the starting point for at least 70% of all online behavior. How on earth will you help someone market themselves online if you don't even know what moves a site up and down in the rankings? Quick hint: Saying "SEO? Oh, we optimize your meta tags" is the same as saying "I am a severely impaired nubwit".
3. Pay per click marketing. Nothing sucks money out of a marketing budget faster than undisciplined PPC marketing. Assuming you care about your clients, you need to know a lot about PPC. Knowing where PPC ads show up doesn't count, by the way. You need to know and understand concepts like negative keywords, quality scoring, dynamic keywords and content networks. Another hint: "Negative keyword" doesn't mean "Keywords that make you feel bad".
4. Analysis. Let me make this clear: A bar chart is not analytics. If I ask for analysis and you e-mail me a bar chart I will so kick your behind. Analysis/analytics is the practice of turning data (the bar chart) into action steps and conclusions like "Wow, our ROI on this keyword is great. We need to build a landing page."
5. Usability. Please, please read Don't Make Me Think. Just for starters. Then start keeping an eye on Jakob Nielsen's site and other resources. Usability is a non-stop learning process. So get going.
6. Complete sentences. Write every day. Every day. I don't care what you write about. But you need to be able to write a post like this in 30-40 minutes, and it needs to be readable.
   
7. RSS and feeds. I shouldn't even have to say this. But you do know how to use Google Reader, right? Right?!
8. Blogging and social media. Write at least one blog. See 'Complete Sentences', above. And know what people mean when they say 'social media'. They really mean media. Understand what makes it all tick, and how you can help someone interact with their audience in a meaningful way.
9. E-mail marketing. Learn to build a house e-mail list. Learn why most rental e-mail lists suck eggs. Know what makes an e-mail work or fail.
10. Statistics 101. If you don't know what a rolling average is, don't even talk to me.
11. Marketing. Oh, did I mention? You need to be good at, you know, making people understand why something is The Product For Them.

VW Jetta: Too Fast?

I posted recently about a great ad featuring an in-banner slider. You just don't see people using this functionality to great effect. So when I saw this VW ad I thought it was worth sharing as another example of how a simple interaction can make an ad.

Internet User Statistics

This is a breakdown of user statsistics over the last year, from visitors to my blog. The two most intersting things, from my point of view as a digital marketer, is that 60% of visitors are using Firefox and at least 95% of visitors are using Flash 9.0 or above.

Crawling Spider

This is a very slick bit of flash animation...

Hancock whale toss game

I'm not sure if it's one of those things you keep to yourself, but I'll admit I'm a bit of a Will Smith fan. Fresh Prince - excellent. iRobot - really enjoyed it. Legend of Bagger Vance - well that I should probably be embaressed to admit I liked. Seriously though, he's had some great movies, and I think Hancock looks like it could be fairly watchable.

I digress, what I wanted to say was, check out this is a pretty cool example of an in-banner game:

Simon Says

"Simon's a computer, Simon has a brain, you either do what Simon says or else go down the drain." That was Simon, the addictive stupidly simple toy thay every child had to have. I remember having one and I loved it. Check out the cool digital version I've added to the right nav, with many thanks to Paul Neave.