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New Media News Every Morning

YP Corp., LiveDeal.com unveil integrated yellow pages and classifieds solution

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LiveDealYP Corp., a leading provider of local Internet Yellow Pages and classifieds, will begin offering a Yellow Pages Premium Store Program for yellow page advertisers on its LiveDeal.com. The new solution virtually eliminates the traditional separation of classifieds and yellow page advertising, and delivers a highly competitive value to small and medium business by bundling two offline media solutions into a single lower cost advertising package.

Priced at $39.95 a month for most categories, the Yellow Pages Premium Program enables businesses to post merchandise and services in LiveDeal’s online classifieds marketplace. LiveDeal’s Yellow Pages Premium Store owners receive the benefit of having their products and services categorized as “premium listings” in LiveDeal’s classifieds marketplace, which means they are posted above LiveDeal’s free classifieds listings.

Yellow Pages Premium Store owners can have their listings personalized with a company or store logo and include contact information such as phone number, business hours, maps, and link to the businesses’ Web site. The Classifieds-Yellow Pages accounts will also include bulk upload capabilities to upload multiple listings for a single merchant.

Originally posted on June 27, 2007 @ 11:33 am

AdPerk rewards consumers for watching relevant online videos

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adperk1.jpgAdPerk, a new kind of advertising network that rewards consumers who view online video advertising and other forms of sponsored content, announced its launch.

Dwell Magazine is the first publisher to partner with AdPerk and is using the new network to grow its paid circulation. Consumers are invited to watch online video ads from a range of marketers in exchange for three free issues or a discounted annual subscription. The next magazine that will use AdPerk is Popular Science, scheduled to roll out next month.

Unlike pre-roll ads that are limited by the host site, AdPerk enables consumers to choose which companies’ ads and video content they wish to view and then watch them on their own time. By rewarding consumers for participating in the ad process and capturing their attention in a related environment, marketers gain a unique opportunity: the ability to reach a motivated and demographically relevant consumer who has chosen its ad over others and willingly taken the time to watch the ad. At the same time, the publisher is paid a real rate for issues of the magazine fulfilled by AdPerk. Advertisers currently in the AdPerk network include Duxiana, LG Electronics, Delta Faucet Company, Disney Mobile, Kleenex and others.

This new approach to advertising is premised on the idea that consumers should receive something for their time and attention. “It comes down to respect, user choice, benefit and relevance,” says Barry Soicher, CEO and co-founder. “We engage users at the right time and place and give them the control they’re looking for,” adds Soicher.

Originally posted on June 27, 2007 @ 5:19 am

Digitalsmiths gets funding for broadband video advertising solution

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digitalsmiths.jpgDigitalsmiths Corporation announced that it has raised a $6 million Series A round of funding from The Aurora Funds, Chrysalis Ventures and individual investors. Digitalsmiths is the creator of VideoSense, the first platform-agnostic broadband video contextual advertising solution. The funding will enable Digitalsmiths to expand its sales and marketing ranks and accelerate the deployment of VideoSense.

Founded in 1998, Digitalsmiths’ first venture into digital video asset management resulted in a suite of innovative video indexing processes and technologies used by motion picture and television companies to maximize the value of their library material by digitizing video and making it easily searchable. In 2007, the company, led by founder Ben Weinberger and Chief Technology Officer Matt Berry, completed the transformation of their technological innovations into VideoSense, a patent-pending Internet video indexing and contextual ad-matching solution.

This funding represents a tremendous vote of confidence in VideoSense and recognizes the incredible revenue opportunities created by the explosion of broadband video and online advertising,” said Ben Weinberger, chief executive officer, Digitalsmiths Corporation.

Originally posted on June 27, 2007 @ 6:01 am

Yahoo! restructures US sales team

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yahoo_ad.jpg After appointing a new CEO and acquiring Rivals.com, global Internet company Yahoo! Will now combine its Search and Display advertising sales teams in the US, and has appointed David Karnstedt, currently senior vice president of Yahoo!’s Search sales business, to lead the unified organization as Head of North American Sales.

As a result of these changes, Yahoo!’s integrated sales organization will be the first of its kind to offer the widest selection of advertising products coupled with the broadest scale of search and display inventory to customers.

“By taking a more holistic approach to advertising sales, Yahoo! Will become a more consultative seller, which should make buying complete solutions easier for our customers across Yahoo! and our partner network,” said Karnstedt. “These moves will also enable our world class sales team to more effectively meet the needs of our advertisers – not just today but well into the future.”

Yahoo! is moving aggressively to build-on its long-term leadership position in display advertising, while further strengthening its strong position in search.

Originally posted on June 25, 2007 @ 1:10 pm

Blogging and social networking not important to senior marketers

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msl.jpg A new survey by PRWeek/Manning Selvage & Lee among 279 US chief marketing officers, VPs of marketing and marketing directors and managers showed that only 12 percent of senior marketers say that consumer generated media (CGM) – a genre that includes activities like online social networking, YouTube, text messaging and consumer generated advertising – is very important to their marketing platforms.

When asked which marketing disciplines they are currently using, or would consider using in the next year, the most popular response was traditional online activities (82%), such as building web sites. Targeting influentials and media relations, both considered traditional public relations activities, came in second and third (70% and 65%). But CGM ranked almost last (43%), a surprising statistic given the rapid increase in consumer participation, particularly with the very populations marketers try to reach, on sites such as FaceBook and YouTube.

What is keeping marketers from letting consumers take more control? When asked why their companies were not engaging in CGM, 32 percent said there is no clear ROI, and 6 percent said they don’t want consumers that close to their businesses. But when coupled with their other responses about CGM, a possible interpretation of these results is that there is an underlying lack of understanding of what CGM and new media techniques are available, and how they can be used to build brands.

Originally posted on June 21, 2007 @ 12:20 pm