Google to stop pairing ads with climate change misinformation

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Google on Thursday said it will no longer post ads next to misinformation about climate change on its search engine or on global video-sharing platform YouTube.

The new policy for Google advertisers, publishers and YouTube creators will prohibit the platforms from helping people make money from content that "contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change."

That includes online content referring to climate change as a hoax or a scam, or denying the world's temperature is rising and that human activity is contributing to the problem, Google said in a post.

"Advertisers simply don’t want their ads to appear next to this content," Google said.

"And publishers and creators don’t want ads promoting these claims to appear on their pages or videos."

The internet giant added that the policy change aligns with efforts by the company to promote sustainable practices and confront climate change.

"Google's important decision to demonetize climate misinformation could turn the tide on the climate denial economy," said NGO Avaaz campaign director Fadi Quran.

"For years, climate misinformers have confused public opinion and obstructed urgent political action on climate change, and YouTube has been one of their weapons of choice."

Quran urged other online platforms to follow Google's lead and stop funneling money to those peddling debunked denials of climate change.

Social networking colossus Facebook, which is Google's biggest competitor in the digital advertising market, touts efforts to curb climate misinformation at its platform but has no such ad ban in place.

Social media platforms are regularly accused of promoting content that provokes strong emotional responses in order to keep users engaged so the platforms can make more money made from ads, even if the content can cause harm.

Agence France-Presse

Slowing digital-ad growth could force change on Google

SAN FRANCISCO — While Google has dominated the online ad market for almost the entirety of its existence, its first quarter earnings report suggests that competitors may be nipping at its heels.

Investors pushed down the stock of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, more than 7% in after-hours trading Monday after it reported revenue that fell short of analyst expectations. That dip could shave more than $65 billion from Alphabet’s market value if it holds when the markets open Tuesday.

Google’s advertising revenue, its key moneymaker, grew by 15 percent to $30.7 billion — slower than investors had hoped. Its digital-ad rivals Facebook and Amazon, meanwhile, both reported strong earnings last week, adding to the investor surprise when Alphabet stumbled despite a strong economy.

Alphabet executives deflected concerns of growing competition on a conference call with analysts Monday, instead suggesting that fluctuating currency rates and changes to Google ad products during the quarter led to the slowdown. The online-ad industry is also still in a yearslong shift to phone and tablet ads and away from ones aimed at desktop users. Ads for mobile devices bring in less money.

Still, the results sparked concerns that Google’s enormously profitable advertising machine might be starting to sputter. Some analysts suggested it’s a signal that Google might need to diversify its business more quickly.

“Does this put more pressure on Google to make more aggressive bets on cloud?” asked Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives.

Google executives highlighted the company’s cloud-computing business as one of its fastest growing segments during the Monday call. But the cloud currently accounts for only a small slice of Alphabet’s overall revenue. The company reported $5.4 billion in “other” revenue, which includes cloud, hardware and Play Store purchases.

Hardware sales also slowed during the quarter for the Pixel phone, Google chief financial officer Ruth Porat said on Monday’s call, reflecting a broader industry slowdown in smartphone sales.

Alphabet reported a first-quarter profit of $8.3 billion, down 6% from $8.9 billion in the year-earlier period. Profit amounted to $11.90 per share, well above Wall Street estimates of $10.60.

That figure doesn’t include an expected charge of $1.7 billion to account for a European Union antitrust fine. The fine was imposed in March for anti-competitive practices in Google’s advertising business, referring to a specific exclusivity practice Google now says it has ended.

Google and Facebook, along with other internet companies, are feeling rising heat from regulatory bodies around the world as people and governments question their privacy practices. Some regulators express concern that the largest companies are so big that they’re stifling competition.

Including the fine, Alphabet’s profit of $6.7 billion fell short of analyst estimates. Excluding advertising commissions that Google pays to customers, Alphabet’s overall revenue was $29.5 billion — also falling short of the $30 billion analysts were expecting.

Alphabet also reported widening losses in its “Other Bets” category – a broad segment that includes experimental ventures such as self-driving car business Waymo and internet-balloon subsidiary Loon. Losses grew to $868 million from $571 million a year ago. /kga

source: technology.inquirer.net

YouTube to stop playing unskippable 30-second ads

You can soon kiss those pesky, unavoidable advertisments on YouTube goodbye.

The video-streaming service will be doing away with 30-second advertisements starting next year, reported the BBC.

“We’ve decided to stop supporting 30-second unskippable ads as of 2018 and focus instead on formats that work well for both users and advertisers,” said a Google spokesman.

However, there has not been any news about the site removing the shorter, but also unskippable 15- and 20-second advertisements, as well as the six-second bumper advertisements introduced last April.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Super Bowl ads go political in a big way

NEW YORK — Messages about America, inclusiveness — and, yes, even “four years of awful hair” — kept bubbling up in Super Bowl 51 ads from Airbnb, the NFL and a line of personal care products. But there was still plenty of escapism and light humor for those who weren’t into the politics.

As the New England Patriots edged out the Atlanta Falcons on the field in Houston, Airbnb touted inclusiveness with an ad showing faces of different ethnicities and the copy: “We all belong. The world is more beautiful the more you accept.” Coca-Cola aired a previously run ad during the pregame show in which people sing “America the Beautiful” in different languages. Even a hair care brand dipped into politics: The “It’s a 10″ hair brand indirectly referenced President Donald Trump’s famously unruly do in its Super Bowl spot.

It’s tough to be a Super Bowl advertiser, period. But this year, a divisive political climate has roiled the nation since Trump took office in January, making it even tougher for advertisers.

Advertisers who paid $5 million for 30 seconds had to walk the line with ads that appealed to everyone and didn’t offend. Some were more successful than others.

“Anxiety and politics just loom over this game, so anybody who gives us the blessed relief of entertaining with a real Super Bowl commercial wins,” said Mark DiMassimo, CEO of the ad agency DiMassimo Goldstein.

Several ads aimed for just that. Tide, for instance, offered a humorous ad showing announcer Terry Bradshaw trying frantically to remedy a stain while his antics go “viral” online, with the help of New England Patriot Rob Gronkowski and actor Jeffrey Tambor.

WALKING THE POLITICAL LINE

“Brands used to worry about whether their ad could be interpreted as right or wrong,” said Kelly O’Keefe, a marketing professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. “Now they have to worry about whether it will be interpreted as right or left.”

Plenty of ads walked that line.

An NFL spot conveyed what all advertisers hope the Super Bowl becomes: a place where Americans can come together. “Inside these lines, we may have our differences, but recognize there’s more that unites us,” Forest Whitaker intoned in a voiceover as workers prepped a football field and gridiron scenes played.

“The Super Bowl is shaping up as a counterpoint to the divisiveness in the United States,” said Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University.

Airbnb’s ad was one of the more overtly political, showing a variety of different faces with the tagline “We accept.”

Some thought the ad was a hit. “Kudos to them for making a strong statement,” said O’Keefe. But others, such as Villanova University marketing professor Charles Taylor, thought it didn’t have a clear enough link to the brand and risked coming off as a “purely political statement.”

Some advertisers took the safest route possible by re-airing ads they’ve used before — an unusual, though not unprecedented, move. Coca-Cola, Google and Fiji water all aired rerun ads.

During the pre-game show, Coca-Cola ran “It’s Beautiful,” an ad featuring people around the country drinking the fizzy beverage and singing “America the Beautiful” in different languages.

SURPRISES

A debut Super Bowl spot by the “It’s a 10″ hair care brand introduced its line of men’s products by joking about Donald Trump’s hair.

“America, we’re in for four years of awful hair, so it’s up to you to do your part by making up for it with great hair,” went a voiceover state as black-and-white photos of people with a wide array of hairstyles flashed by. “Do your part. … Let’s make sure these next four years are ‘It’s a 10.'”

Snickers got press by airing a live ad In the third quarter. On a Wild West set, actor Adam Driver seemed not to know the ad was live — and then the set fell apart (on purpose). “You ruin live Super Bowl commercials when you’re hungry,” the ad’s tagline read.

“It went by so fast, I almost missed it,” DiMassimo said. “Not sure it was worth the trouble of doing it live.”

LIGHT HUMOR PLUS CELEBS

Ads with light humor and stuffed with celebrities were popular. Honda’s ad made a splash by animating the yearbook photos of nine celebrities ranging from Tina Fey to Viola Davis. They make fun of their photos — Jimmy Kimmel is dressed in a blue tux and holding a clarinet, for example — and talk about “The Power of Dreams,” Honda’s ad slogan.

“It was a really good message and it was entertaining,” said Mirta Desir, a New Orleans native who works in education and was watching the game on Long Island.

The Tide ad with Terry Bradshaw was a hit with some viewers because of the way it tricked viewers into thinking it was part of the broadcast. “It made you think twice,” said Pablo Rochat, watching in Atlanta. “There was funny dialogue and good storytelling.”

T-Mobile’s spots — which featured Justin Bieber and Rob Gronkowski dancing , Kristen Schaal in a “50 Shades of Grey” parody and Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg mixing talk about T-Mobile’s unlimited data plan with innuendo about Snoop’s marijuana habit, won raves from some — as did an ad from antioxidant drink maker Bai featuring Justin Timberlake and Christopher Walken.

source: sports.inquirer.net

Video is paying off big time for Facebook

When Facebook decided to make video a priority on its platform, Mark Zuckerberg saw it as a big step for the company. Based on the most recent quarterly earnings call, it looks like the company is really raking it in, thanks to video.

Apart from increasing engagement from users through video comments, Facebook’s Marketplace has become a popular outlet for  video ads. The company’s average revenue per user has increased 49.1 percent in the US and Canada, reports Tech Crunch.

Zuckerberg had this to say about the effect of video regarding viewer engagement: “What is enabling video to become huge right now is that fundamentally the mobile networks are getting to a point where a large enough number of people around the world can have a good experience watching a video. If you go back a few years and you tried to load a video in News Feed it might have to buffer for 30 seconds before you watched it, which wasn’t a good enough experience for that to be the primary way that people shared. But now you can — it loads instantly. You can take a video and upload it without having to take five minutes to do that.”

Sharper cameras, bigger screen, better video-making tools also supplement increased user engagement. They allow amateur creators to share their work on the mobile platform.

Facebook is currently adding video filters and effects, selfie masks and overlaid graphics (similar to Snapchat), among others, thanks to its acquisition of AR lens startup MSQRD.

Apart from big-brand video ads, Facebook is also bringing in small businesses into the video format. COO Sheryl Sandberg explains that current smartphone technology allows these businesses to shoot their own video and effectively advertise themselves without the need for a costly production crew.

To increase effectivity, Facebook is also doing some deep research into AI to try to figure out what is in the content that people and advertisers post, then how to get said content to the target audience.

“When we think about video ads and what platform they run on, we really believe that over time the dollars will shift with eyeballs and our goal is to be the best dollar and the best minute people spend measured across channels,” Sanderberg says.

Facebook has done well to ride the changing times and has managed to stay above its competitors. With its kind of planning and foresight, it would appear that the status quo won’t be shifting any time soon.  Alfred Bayle

source: technology.inquirer.net

Google founder hopes Alphabet spells innovation

SAN FRANCISCO — Google founder Larry Page is hoping his newly created company, Alphabet, becomes synonymous with innovation.

In a Monday night appearance, Page described Alphabet as a way to give engineers and scientists the independence they need to develop breakthrough products that have little or nothing to do with Google’s Internet search and advertising business.

Along the way, Page hopes Alphabet will take the drudgery and bureaucracy out of work.

“Companies have pretty bad reputations,” Page told a dinner audience gathered in San Francisco for a forum presented by Fortune magazine. “It’s not like a lot of people wake up in the morning and say, ‘I want to go work for a company.’ They do it because they have to.”

Monday’s 20-minute appearance marked Page’s first public remarks since he announced in August that Alphabet would become Google’s holding company, as well as the parent of riskier ventures involved in self-driving cars, Internet-beaming balloons, Internet-connected appliances and medical research.

Page now oversees the hodgepodge of companies as Alphabet’s CEO. He turned over the Google CEO job to his top lieutenant, Sundar Pichai. Alphabet supplanted Google as a public traded stock in early October.

The idea for Alphabet’s name came from Google’s other founder, Sergey Brin, according to Page. Several other names were considered, Page said, but he declined to disclose them in case they are used for other subsidiaries. The new holding company will begin reporting Google’s financial results separately from its other subsidiaries, known as “other bets,” in January with the release of its fourth-quarter results.

Alphabet’s rudimentary name was chosen, Page said, because it isn’t supposed to overshadow Google or any of the other brands in its portfolio. “I didn’t want it to be too catchy,” Page said. “It’s really for employees, more than the customers.”

If there is a role model for Alphabet, Page said it would probably be Berkshire Hathaway, the holding company that billionaire Warren Buffet has built through acquisitions and investments in a wide variety of industries.

Alphabet could become like a Berkshire Hathaway, with a “technology, science and engineering bent,” Page said. Acquisitions will be part of Alphabet’s plan to expand, although Page indicated the company will probably focus on startups with interesting ideas and relatively few employees.

There are few other companies besides Berkshire Hathaway that Page wants to mimic. “I wish I could look at someone else and say, ‘I wish we were doing that,'” he said. TVJ

source: technology.inquirer.net

Why was Lee Min-ho in Rome?

Hallyu star Lee Min-ho recently drew attention with his Instagram updates from Rome, Italy.

The reason for his European excursion was made public by Italian chocolate brand, Ferrero Rocher, who on Friday announced Lee as their newest model for the upcoming Christmas and Valentine’s seasons.

Starting from October, Lee will appear in TV commercials for the chocolate line, complete with the behind-the-scenes images of the commercial shoot and a close-up interview.

Ferrero Rocher Korea’s category director Luigi Mirri said, “Global star Lee Min-ho fits in well with the premium image of Ferrero Rocher. During the commercial shoot, he conveyed our selected theme of ‘Italian Flair” with composed and professional attitude unique to him.”

“Selecting Lee Min-ho as our model shows The Ferrero Group’s continued interest in the Korean market,” Mirri said.

The confectionary company made headlines in February with the passing away of its head Michele Ferrero, then Italy’s richest person and the world’s 30th richest, with his fortune estimated at 23.4 billion according to Forbes.

The Ferrero Group is responsible for Nutella, Kinder chocolates, Ferrero Rocher and Tic Tacs.

source: entertainment.inquirer.net

Focus on social listening

If you have a thriving Facebook or Twitter site, congratulations! Your efforts in digital marketing to promote your social media assets are working. However, the crucial question is: are you using these assets properly?

One of the most productive activities you can do in your social media assets is social listening—which can go handy with your electronics customer relationship management (eCRM) or digital marketing programs.

“Social listening is listening to online conversations to monitor possible or actual trends in order to measure the potential impact of these chatter,” says Jason Cruz, Social Products Director at MRM/McCann, during recent lecture at the Certified Digital Marketer (CDM) Program.

It has three major applications which any business enterprise can use. First and foremost is to discover new content ideas for marketing campaigns. Second is to build relationships with brand fans and advocates. Third is to spot online conversations early on and manage crisis.

“It’s good to spot what are people are talking about, their problems, the potential trends, and what we can publish to satisfy consumers,” says Cruz. “Social listening can also be used to build credible and authentic relationship with brand ambassadors.”

Socialmedia Today identifies eight social listening tools that you can use in your business to align with your social media strategy. Few are free, all equally effective according to your goals. These are SocialMention, SocialRest, Tweetreach, ViralHeat, DataSift, SimplyMeasured, Sysomos, and Zoomph.

“Social listening is applicable at all stages of marketing campaign,” says Cruz. “From the start of a campaign to post-event evaluation, social listening has an important role in serving both positive and negative effects of online conversation.”

Learn how to develop your social listening skills to improve brand engagement and customer relationships with The Social Media Marketing Specialist Track of the CDM Program.

Enrollment ongoing, enlist now!

Visit imadigitalmarketer.com or call 927-0096, 0928-506-5382 for more details.

source: technology.inquirer.net

YouTube is the TV of the Future in Asia

MANILA, Philippines — “Online video is the biggest up and coming segment Google is promoting in emerging market,” proclaims an internet marketer professional.

“In terms of brand equity building in online advertising, video ads beat other formats,” says Jonathan Joson, regional platform strategy director of Red Fuse Communications during a recent lecture on social media in International Institute of Digital Marketing.

Apparently these days, Asian markets watch a lot of YouTube more than anything. In fact, Joson says some markets watch YouTube but don’t want TV at all.

Video has stickiness than search ads or any other form of online ads. Joson narrates the example of a popular coffee brand viral video starring a famous rock band and a viral video star in a parody of Japanese robot anime.

In just 15 days, the video reached 2 million views in YouTube, with as high as 400,000 views in a day.

Also during this period, the brand’s Facebook page earned 65,000 likes, 12,000 shares, and 5,000 comments. All-in-all, the coffee brand merited PHP39 million in media earned value and had a significant seven percent increase in sales.

The brand was able to tap the strength of its 4.5million Facebook fans but more than that, Joson acknowledged the strength of the video’s content.

“By tapping into popular culture and its talents’ popularity, the viral video was able to get hold of its viewers’ attention more than a 30-second or 60-second TV ad could do.”

Joson stressed that the success was not a fluke: it was the result of planned efforts that include ad support and promotion from other channels – because strategy is the key.

Learn how to execute an engaging social media marketing campaign in the Social Media Marketing Specialist Track of the CDM-IIDM Program.

Log on to imadigitalmarketer.com or call 0928 506 5382 for more details. advt

source: technology.inquirer.net

SEO vs. SEM or both?

So, you’ve decided to take the big plunge and put in more efforts in promoting your website or e-commerce, and then you encountered these big words search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM).

The confusion arises because a lot of tech guys interchange the usage of the two which makes it worse.

Hubspot’s Nicole Rende writes these quick definitions.

“Search engine marketing is a form of Internet marketing that involved the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPS) through optimization and advertising.” SEM includes SEO tactics, as well as several other search marketing tactics.

SEO is essentially a component of the larger category, SEM. According to Google Knowledge Graph, search engine optimization is “the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a particular website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine.”

The main difference between these two terms is that search engine optimization is simply a component of search engine marketing. As mentioned above, SEM includes components of paid search, such as PPC (pay per click) and also SMM (social media marketing).

It is important to note that you should never use the terms SEO and SEM interchangeably, because although they work hand in hand, they are not the same term.

According to buuteeq.com, SEO requires larger upfront investment and authoritative knowledge of content—but generates “free traffic” over time. SEO efforts consists of improving quality of content (unique and long are a plus), popularity (webpage visits, number of back links, social votes), and other techno stuff (on-page keyword optimization, domain age, appropriate Meta titles and descriptions).

On the other hand, SEM requires sustained amounts of money—and traffic stops when the money does. For Google to display your ad, the ad needs to meet certain criteria for instance, the keywords you bid on Google AdWords not matching the content on the destination page.

Google once estimated that removing paid ads from Google search would reduce search engine clicks worldwide by 89%–only because paid us completely fill out the screen, blotting out organic results, for 81% of all searches.

So, which is it? SEO or SEM, or both? Learn how to utilize search advertising in the Digital Media Planning Specialist Track of the Certified Digital Marketer Program.

Log on to imadigitalmarketer.com or call 0928 506 5382 / 927 0096 for more details!

source: technology.inquirer.net

Native advertising basics

MANILA, Philippines – In the worldwide web landscape, another digital marketing byword has taken shape. It’s called native advertising and it actually sounds more sophisticated than it should.

Wiki defines it simply as an online advertising method in which the advertiser attempts to gain attention by providing content in the context of the user’s experience—an ad that blends well on the page’s content that it doesn’t look like one so viewers are more open to its messages.

The word “native” is used to refer to the formatting of the advertising materials to make them appear more consistent with other media in the recipient’s universe.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau or IAB, the governing body for online advertisements, identifies six ad core categories appearing under six new display formats.

These are in-feed units, paid-search units, recommendations widget, promoted listings, in-ad with native element units, and customs or those that cannot be contained. They appear on your page as billboard, filmstrip, portrait, pushdown, sidekick, and slider.

“Native advertising is a concept encompassing both an aspiration as well as a suite of ad products,” IAB writes. “It is clear that most advertisers and publishers aspire to deliver paid ads that are so cohesive with the page content, assimilated into the design, and consistent with the platform behavior that the viewer simply feels that they belong.”

Peter Minnium of Marketingland.com says that native advertising represents a fundamental turning point in the evolution of digital advertising, mirroring similar historical shifts in the maturation of print and television advertising.

“Smart marketers, publishers, and agencies are moving aggressively to adjust their core strategies to reflect this, experimenting with and learning from new tactics.”

Minnium believes that it is simply the digital advertising industry’s adolescent growth phase as it becomes more comfortable in its own skin.

“Like in many youngsters, this growth spurt has come on quickly — with native rocketing onto the scene in 2013 like it was shot out of cannon.”

Learn how to leverage on different types of ads to grow your business in the Digital Media Planning Specialist Track of the Certified Digital Marketer Program. Log on to imadigitalmarketer.com or call 9270096 for more details.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Twitter flies on surprisingly strong numbers

SAN FRANCISCO–Twitter shares shot higher by some 30 percent Tuesday after its quarterly report showed surprisingly strong revenue and user growth, despite a widening loss.

The popular one-to-many messaging service said its quarterly loss widened to $145 million from a $42 million loss a year ago.

But revenue more than doubled from a year ago $312 million in the three months that ended June 30, with the number of monthly active users hitting 271 million, up 24 percent year over year.

The “adjusted” results, which exclude certain expenses and stock compensation, showed a modest profit of $15 million, better than expected. That along with the rise in use evidently bolstered confidence of investors who pushed the stock up more than 30 percent to $50.30 in after-market trading.

“They seem to be doing the right thing,” said Gartner vice president of mobile computing Ken Dulaney.

“It is well-advertised on TV. Companies put Twitter IDs on pitches. It is kind of ingrained in what we do.”

And, the analyst noted, there is plenty of room for Twitter to evolve, perhaps into a more extensive real-time news service tightly linked to television programming.

Twitter’s loss included $158 million in stock-based compensation.

Twitter took in $277 million from advertising, a 129 percent increase from the same period a year earlier.

Ads served up on Internet-linked mobile devices accounted for 81 percent of that revenue in a sign that the San Francisco-based firm was tending to the business side of following users onto smartphones and tablet computers.

About a third of Twitter’s revenue came from outside the United States, with International revenue climbing 168 percent to $102 million, earnings figures showed.

“Our strong financial and operating results for the second quarter show the continued momentum of our business,” Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo said in the earnings release.

“We remain focused on driving increased user growth and engagement, and by developing new product experiences, like the one we built around the World Cup, we believe we can extend Twitter’s appeal to an even broader audience.”

Helped by World Cup 

Forrester analyst Nate Elliott saw the earnings numbers and user growth figures as encouraging, but only a little bit.

Twitter use in the second quarter of this year was up just six percent from the first three months, and that was with the help of storms of tweets fired off during the World Cup football tournament in Brazil.

“The wind was in their sails,” Elliott said of Twitter. “You would have liked to see them do a lot better than that on users.”

Twitter does appear to be making progress on user numbers and is showing they can bring in money from the people already on the service, according to the analyst.

“And in making progress, they are reminding us that they aren’t there yet,” Elliott said.

“Things are moving in the right direction, but you have to wish they would move a little faster.”–Glenn Chapman

source: technology.inquirer.net

Facebook plans campaign to ‘friend’ small business

NEW YORK— Facebook wants to increase its advertising and get more clicks on all kinds of ads. It believes tapping into the lucrative small business market will help it achieve those goals.

Sheryl Sandberg, the social media company’s operating chief and “Lean In” author, says the key is showing business owners how to find new customers by creating Facebook pages and by buying ads that appear on individual Facebook users’ pages. The company plans a campaign called Facebook Fit with workshops in five cities to show small business owners the nuts and bolts of using Facebook as a marketing tool.

“They don’t have enough customers. This is their No. 1 problem and we can help them solve it,” Sandberg said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The small business market has been difficult to crack for digital companies like Facebook and Google, said Greg Sterling, an analyst with the mobile technology research service Internet2Go. Many owners with Facebook pages are reluctant to advertise, limiting the revenue the company can make from small businesses.

“Many of them are struggling just to provide regular content updates or to understand how to use social media, let alone become masters of social media advertising,” Sterling said.

Meanwhile, Facebook needs to get more small business advertising to stay competitive with Google, said Debra Aho Williamson, an analyst with eMarketer, a digital research company.

“They need to be sure they’re seen as a strong partner to small business owners,” she said.

Facebook has updated its technology to make it easier for business owners to use, Sandberg said. The company is targeting those who don’t have the time to sit down at a desktop PC and update pages or ads.

“Now they’re able to manage their pages from a mobile phone. Two years ago, they couldn’t,” Sandberg said.

Facebook says it is used by 25 million small business users worldwide. The company does not report the number of businesses in the US or any other country.

Many very small companies that don’t have websites use social media services like Facebook to reach customers. When a Facebook user “likes” a company’s page, that customer’s Facebook friends see posts on their own pages about the company. Businesses can also buy ads that appear on individual Facebook pages.

Facebook is also creating small business advertising products Sandberg said will be affordable. For example, companies will be able to spend $10 to promote a post on other Facebook pages, something they were unable to do in the past. Facebook pages will remain free.

“We’re hoping they’ll want to become advertisers if we can help them just spend a few dollars to help them promote a product,” Sandberg said.

Facebook is in a good position to get more revenue from small businesses simply because so many of them already use it. But the company must still convince them ads are a good investment.

“They have to make it really simple, affordable, measurable — a small business owner has to be convinced of the success and efficacy of the ad campaign,” Sterling said.

Facebook has held workshops for small businesses in cities and towns across the country the past two years, often in partnership with local chambers of commerce and business groups, said Dan Levy, Facebook’s director of small business. Workshops are planned as part of Facebook Fit in New York on June 3; Miami on June 19; Chicago on July 10; Austin, Texas, on July 24; and Menlo Park, California, on Aug. 5.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Spam drops in 2013, says security software firm

MANILA, Philippines—Could the days of spam or unwanted and unsolicited messages received through email be over?

According to a study by international computer security software company Kaspersky, there was fewer number of spam messages in emails in 2013 compared to previous years.

“The percentage of spam in total email traffic decreased by 2.5 percentage points in comparison with the previous year and came to 69.6 percent,” Kaspersky said in its security bulletin posted on its computer security website securelist.com in January 2014.

“For the first time in many years the average annual spam percentage is less than 70 percent,” it said. Also the amount of spam messages has decreased by 10.7 percent over the last three years.

China and the United States were both seen as the top sources of worldwide spam email with 23 percent from China and 18 percent from the US.

“The amount of spam advertising legitimate goods and services is gradually decreasing. Advertisers increasingly prefer legitimate advertising to spam: more varied types of online advertising are becoming available, and these generate higher response rates at lower costs than spam can offer,” Kasperskysaid.

More malicious emails

Kaspersky however said that it detected more fake messages containing viruses or malicious software (malware) that can steal confidential information from the user.

“Fake confirmations of hotel or airplane ticket reservations have become a common part of spam; we saw such messages in spam traffic throughout the year. Instead of booking confirmations, files attached to such messages include malware,” it said.

Certain spam messages were also found to be impersonating anti-virus companies urging the recipient to download a file that supposedly updates their anti-virus program but actually contains a virus.

The fake file, known as a Trojan, “is designed to steal sensitive user data, particularly financial info,”Kasperksy said.

“The malware is capable of modifying the contents of bank websites loaded on the browser by embedding malicious scripts in order to obtain authentication data such as logins, passwords and security codes,” it said.

Shift to social media
Kaspersky noted the increase in attacks on Social Media through phishing, or stealing personal information by pretending to be a legitimate entity asking for certain information.

“In 2013, we saw phishers targeting more organizations that have no direct link to any financial data or service. There was a 7.6 percentage points increase in attacks using social networks,” it said.

“This can be partly explained by the fact that today’s email accounts often give access to a lot of content, including email, social networking, instant messaging, cloud storages and sometimes even a credit card,” Kaspersky said.

It noted that cybercriminals are constantly looking for different ways to steal information from people because they have become more aware of spam messages as security threats.

“Spam is changing and as traditional advertising declines we see far more fraud, malware and phishing. As a result, even experienced Internet users have to be more alert than ever to avoid stumbling into a cybercriminal’s trap,” Kaspersky said.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Instagram starts showing ads

SAN FRANCISCO—Instagram began displaying ads Friday, as Facebook moved to start making money from the smartphone photo sharing service it bought in a billion-dollar deal last year.

The first ad to pop up was a sponsored photo of a Michael Kors ladies’ watch, artfully displayed on a table set elegantly for coffee and biscuits.

The caption read “Pampered in Paris.”

“Michael Kors ran the first ad on Instagram this morning, targeting women in the US in a certain age range,” Instagram said in reply to an AFP inquiry.

The image had garnered more than 181,000 “likes” by late Friday, along with some bitter remarks from Instagram users.

US Instagram users will see the ad even if they aren’t followers of the Michael Kors brand at the service.

Instagram has about 150 million active users, Facebook executives said in a conference call on Wednesday to discuss earnings in the recently-ended quarter.

Facebook is carefully adding magazine-quality photo ads to Instagram as it hopes to bring in revenue from the service without alienating users.

Instagram said its opening roster of advertisers included Adidas, Lexus, PayPal, Burberry and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.

Facebook on Wednesday reported stellar quarterly earnings results, but told analysts that internal metrics indicated that teenagers may be falling out of love with the social network.

The world’s leading online social network reported profit of $425 million in the quarter that ended on September 30, compared with a loss a year earlier.

The earnings figures showed soaring advertising revenue, nearly half of it from smartphones or tablet computers.

The third quarter results for the California-based firm were well ahead of most forecasts, with revenues rising sharply to $2.016 billion.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Big ad atop Google results points to broken promise

SAN FRANCISCO – A large ad spied atop Google search results on Wednesday was seen as evidence that the Internet titan was breaking a promise that it would never resort to the tactic.

A picture fired off at the Twitter account of digital marketing company Synrgy prompted reports that Google is experimenting in the United States with “banner ads” atop results for searches targeting brands.

The move appeared to break a vow made about eight years ago by then Google executive Marissa Mayer, who is now chief of Yahoo.

“There will be no banner ads on the Google homepage of Web search results pages,” Mayer said in a blog post that remained available online Wednesday.

“There will not be crazy, flashy, graphical doodads flying and popping up all over the Google site. Ever.”

Synrgy reported that a Google search targeting Southwest Airlines delivered results topped with a large ad showing a promotional photo accompanied by links for reservations or other services at the company.

Technology news website Search Engine Land quoted a Google spokesman as confirming the banner ads were part of a “small test” taking place in the US market.

Google did not respond to AFP requests for comment.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Yahoo acquires ad-service, URL-shortner Bread

WASHINGTON – Yahoo said Saturday that it acquired tech company Bread, a URL shortener that allows users to design then target advertisements to readers who click on their links.

“Through this acquisition, we’re gaining a team of six engineers and product managers who will join our advertising technology organization in Sunnyvale,” a Yahoo spokesperson said.



Bread, which has already been shuttered, allowed users to make and insert ads that people clicking through to a shortened link’s webpage would have to view, according to media.

“When we launched Bread in 2011, our goal was to help social media influencers and publishers better monetize their online content,” the company said in a statement.

All Bread links will be viable until November 11, at which point the company says users should switch to another URL shortener, bit.ly.

Yahoo has been undergoing major changes since former Google executive Marissa Mayer became boss just over a year ago, notably acquiring what is now more than 20 startups including the billion-dollar buy of blog platform Tumblr.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Twitter buys mobile advertising startup

SAN FRANCISCO – Twitter is moving deeper into mobile advertising with the purchase of MoPub, a startup focusing on mobile ad exchanges.

The acquisition announced late Monday was estimated to be worth some $350 million, according to the technology news site TechCrunch.

“MoPub’s technology lets mobile application publishers manage their inventory and optimize multiple sources of advertising — direct ads, house ads, ad network, and real-time bidding through the MoPub Marketplace,” Twitter’s Kevin Weil said in a blog post.

“The two major trends in the ad world right now are the rapid consumer shift toward mobile usage, and the industry shift to programmatic buying. Twitter sits at the intersection of these, and we think by bringing MoPub’s technology and team to Twitter, we can further drive these trends for the benefit of consumers, advertisers, and agencies.”

Weil said Twitter also plans to use MoPub’s technology “to build real-time bidding into the Twitter ads platform so our advertisers can more easily automate and scale their buys.”

Twitter earlier this year began to allow ads to be targeted at users based on the words written in tweets.

The fast-growing social network is expected to earn $582.8 million globally in ad revenue this year and nearly $1 billion next year, according to industry tracker eMarketer. It remains privately held, but a number of reports indicate the company may launch an initial public offering.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Facebook in fresh privacy row with new policy

WASHINGTON – Facebook is drawing fire from privacy activists again, after unveiling a new policy which could turn users’ data and pictures into advertising.

The new plan would “dramatically expand the use of personal information for advertising purposes,” said a letter this week to the US Federal Trade Commission by six privacy organizations.

The letter said the changes violate a 2011 consent order with the US watchdog agency and urged the FTC to “act to enforce its order.”

If the changes take effect, the letter said, “Facebook users who reasonably believed that their images and content would not be used for commercial purposes without their consent will now find their pictures showing up on the pages of their friends endorsing the products of Facebook’s advertisers.”

“Remarkably, their images could even be used by Facebook to endorse products that the user does not like or even use,” added the letter from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Watchdog and three other groups.

Facebook unveiled the changes as part of a settlement of a class action suit over the use of user names and images in so-called “sponsored stories.”

According to the letter, Facebook’s existing policy allowed its users to limit how their name and profile picture may be associated with advertising.

Under the newly proposed policy, Facebook says, “You give us permission to use your name, profile picture, content, and information in connection with commercial, sponsored, or related content.”

Activists said this allowed Facebook to turn virtually all user data into advertising.

“Facebook has long played fast and loose with users’ data and relied on complex privacy settings to confuse its users, but these proposed changes go well beyond that,” said John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog’s privacy director.

“Facebook’s overreach violates the FTC consent order that was put in place after the last major privacy violation; if the commission is to retain any of its credibility, it must act immediately to enforce that order.”

Also endorsing the letter were the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, US PIRG and Patient Privacy Rights.

Facebook officials pointed out that its policies were not changed, but clarified under the new language.

“As part of this proposed update, we revised our explanation of how things like your name, profile picture and content may be used in connection with ads or commercial content to make it clear that you are granting Facebook permission for this use when you use our services,” a company spokesperson said.

“We have not changed our ads practices or policies – we only made things clearer for people who use our service.”

source: technology.inquirer.net

Publicis, Omnicom merge to form world’s No.1 advertising group

PARIS — French advertising group Publicis and its US rival Omnicom will merge, bringing together the third and second largest firms in the sector to form the world’s advertising leader, the two companies announced Sunday.

The new company, dubbed the Publicis Omnicom Group, whose capital will be split 50-50 between the shareholders of the two firms, will be co-directed by the current bosses, Maurice Levy of Publicis and John Wren of Omnicom, a joint statement said.

source: business.inquirer.net