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| Triana Global Launches Guaranteed Payouts, Has Questionable Priorities Posted: 24 Sep 2008 02:59 PM CDT
What’s unique about Triana Global? Based on their website there isn’t really anything that unique. Just like numerous other ad networks they are promoting that they are one of the first ad networks on social platforms. The company currently provides advertisers with geo-targeting, application targeting, and demographic targeting. Oh and they also provide one other thing: consulting and development services. What?!? Apparently Triana Global hasn’t heard the term “conflict of interest”. While it’s not a clear conflict of interest, offering to develop applications which build inventory for your network detracts from the time their staff could be focused on selling the available inventory. As such we have seen partnerships like the one recently announced by Social Media and Buddy Media in which Buddy Media builds the applications and Social Media helps promote them. Hey Triana Global, you might want to focus on advertising not on development! Who is currently in Triana Global’s portfolio? We have no idea! Also, why would you go with Triana Global’s guarantee when a company like Lookery, which has been around for over a year, already offers the exact same deal? Again, we have no idea. Let us know if you can find the answer to any of these questions! |
| MySpace Launches OpenSocial 0.8 Support Posted: 24 Sep 2008 01:51 PM CDT
There are a few other notes that MySpace published in their blog post about the updates so check it out if you’d like to know more details. Given that MySpace is the largest implementation of OpenSocial, this is a pretty big deal for OpenSocial as a whole. hi5 was the first to support the new OpenSocial version but many developers have complained that the new implementation isn’t fully functional. I’m sure MySpace developers will be pleased with this update. Having activities published also adds a new viral channel to the MySpace platform. I’m guessing that developers will take advantage of this immediately. |
| What Can We Learn From New York’s Web Industry? Posted: 24 Sep 2008 09:29 AM CDT Last week I had the pleasure to sit through Fred Wilson’s keynote at Web 2.0 Expo in NYC. While the history given by Fred is not comprehensive, it does provide great insight as to how New York has grown to become one of the fastest growing (if not the fastest growing) web industries in the U.S. There were a few key components listed in Fred’s keynote which I think is important for any other bubbling center for web and entrepreneurship. First, Fred references the launch of the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU back in 1979. Today, in D.C. there is not a single program in the area that I know of that has been able to duplicate what the ITP has accomplished. While many reference the University of Maryland and their Dingman center for entrepreneurship as a hub, not a single program in the area has had the success which ITP has. Go take a look at their course guide for some clues on why this program has been so successful. One thing to note is that this did not come out of an engineering school, it came out of an art school! Second, Fred references the heavy media presence in New York City. There was the launch of the “Connect Times” in 1989 by Josh Harris. Over the years there was the launch of numerous other digital media outlets including Ziff Davis’ ZDNet and CMP’s TechWeb in 1991. One of the things that I’ve consistently highlighted as being important for any emerging technology and entrepreneurship community is media coverage. In D.C. we are still somewhat behind in our reach but our coverage has improved substantially over the last two years. Third, in 1995 Mayor Giuliani and Bill Ruden launched 55 Broad St. It was a building from a failed investment bank which was turned into a technology oriented building including high speed internet and incubator space. This is something which still does not exist in D.C. today. The closest thing is a co-working space in Adams Morgan called Affinity Lab but there is nothing supported by the local government. Finally, there was a large presence of ad networks, new media startups (Silicon Alley Reporter, @NYC, etc), agencies (which were rolled-up) and more. Things quieted down temporarily and then blogging emerged, events launched and the buzz built. We are witnessing the buzz building in D.C. and within the next 12 to 24 months I think we are going to witness D.C. turn into a nationally recognized center for web technology. D.C. isn’t the only city facing the same challenges though. Chicago, Boston, Austin, Denver, Miami, Atlanta, L.A. and others all are trying to build centers for web technology. Unfortunately for those cities, D.C. is going to beat them to the punch but hopefully they can learn from our success! Check out Fred’s video below for more insight.
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| The Social Web Economy: Product Companies Posted: 24 Sep 2008 08:21 AM CDT This is a continuation in the series on “The Social Web Economy“. This is one type of company that entrepreneur leaders run. On the social web product companies are those that help give meaning to our media, they provide context. They are also the services that we frequently refer to as "applications" or "apps" for short. Product companies rely on the large distribution companies (as described in the next post) to grow. There is a constant tension between product and distribution companies. Given the product companies’ reliance on the large platforms they are constantly monitoring the environment to make sure their reach isn’t wiped out overnight by subtle changes by large platforms. Product companies have substantial influence in a number of ways. First and foremost, these organizations have become the lifeblood of many distribution companies. As such, the platforms have to balance the demands of users and the demands of product companies (which are sometimes referred to as "developers"). We have been watching this play out on the Facebook platform where it has taken more than six months to roll out their new design as they receive feedback from developers and users. The second form of influence that product companies have is with agencies and advertisers. Successful product companies are ultimately building mini-platforms that compete directly with the platforms that they relied on to build their company. The competition is for advertising dollars and ultimately the team with the best negotiators and best portfolio of advertisers wins. Next Post: “The Social Web Economy: Distribution Companies” |
| Breaking: MySpace Launches Self-Serve Ad Targeting Service Posted: 23 Sep 2008 08:52 PM CDT Like this post? Subscribe to our feed! On the heels of the MySpace Music launch, MySpace has launched a self-service advertising site which appears to be targeted specifically toward musicians. You can access the service by visiting advertise.myspace.com. The site functions similarly to Facebook’s advertising solution except that advertisers can create custom banners that are either 728×90 or 300×250. The service also provides targeting by gender, age, location, and specific interest categories. The current categories are Auto, Books, Fashion, Health & Fitness, Miscellaneous, Movies, Music, Sports, Television, and Video Games. Rather than typing specific keywords, advertisers are forced to select from a pre-defined set of “Genres” within each category. As the demographics are refined, the total number of users targeted is updated with an accurate estimate of the number of people that the advertisement will be visible to. Campaigns are run on a cost per click basis rather than a cost per impression basis. Users can also specify the dates that the campaigns are run during. Advertisers then proceed to set up an account or user their existing advertiser account. These accounts are separate from other MySpace accounts. While all the ad templates were targeted at bands, it appears that anybody could use this new service. We will update this page with any statements from MySpace. Note MySpace Ads Homepage Ad Template Selection Page Ad Creation Page Ad Targeting Page |
| Intel is Taking the Branded Approach to Wireless Cities Posted: 23 Sep 2008 06:49 PM CDT
From the sound of it WiMAX will be offered via a company called XOHM. Getting confused? Not surprising, I definitely am. Thankfully Intel has provided the following demo which shows How WiMax Works. Be warned though, the demo is pretty technical. The main takeaway from this is that wireless cities are becoming a reality thanks to this new technology. One of the next cities to have the service rolled out is D.C. which is pretty exciting news. What’s the timeframe for this new service roll-out? I’m not completely sure but I’m confident I’ll have more information following the WiMAX Baltimore event. |
| Posted: 23 Sep 2008 06:11 PM CDT When Bebo launched their IM service one month ago, we were there to break the news. Unfortunately not many other people found that news to be very interesting. Within a month the service was apparently shut down. Over the weekend Mashable was the first to notice that the service had disappeared. I was going to write an article as it happened but I forgot. Why did I forget? I forgot because I don’t use Bebo IM! Facebook chat has proven to become a central IM service. Within months, it has become one of the primary chat platforms for me (then again I write about Facebook everyday). There is no word as to why Bebo decided to shut down the chat application but our guess is that not enough people were using the service. There could have also been an issue with abuse. Bebo was recently acquired by AOL who has been trying to cobble together their diverse social products. Unlike Facebook and MySpace, the majority of Bebo traffic comes from abroad. Have you used the Bebo chat service? Are you concerned about it disappearing? |
| New York Times Goes Live With TimesPeople Posted: 23 Sep 2008 03:44 PM CDT Back in June I wrote about the New York Times launching their TimesPeople service in beta. The purpose is to add a social layer across their website and let users track what their friends are reading on the New York Times website. As I wrote the first time around, the one lacking feature is that the only news you are aware of using the feature, is articles that are already on the New York Times website. One interesting thing that came with today’s news is that Venturebeat, GigaOm and Read/Write/Web will all have syndication deals with the New York Times. This emphasizes how blogs are playing an increasing role in traditional media. It sounds like the New York Times will continue rolling out new features to the TimesPeople feature depending on the popularity of it. The company continues to be at the forefront of emerging online media strategy. I’m slightly critical of this new feature since it only works within the New York Times but at least this is one step forward. It will be interesting to see what type of response they get from their users. |
Earlier this week 
Earlier this week MySpace announced that they have released support for OpenSocial 0.8. The service will also be backwards compatible which means existing applications will still run on the platform as-is. With the release of OpenSocial 0.8 MySpace is also announcing a few new features including:
Screw waiting for the government, build it yourself! That’s the approach that Intel is taking with their new WiMAX service. This morning I received an invite to the launch of Intel WiMAX in Baltimore. The company is not just backed by Intel though, Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks are also investors in the joint company between Sprint and Clearwire. 
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