Ads on e-commerce sites

According to Wired Magazine, iTunes will soon feature visual advertisements in the lower right corner of the program. The ads are said to feature video functionality. It is a nice example of an e-commerce site that is getting ready to better monetize the traffic on its site, which is something that many stock analysts have been demanding for years now for the most visited sites on the web.

Just as interesting is what Apple would do with the revenues. According to AdAge, the advertising revenue generated on iTunes would be shared with the labels. In return, those labels would keep the price of a song at 0.99 dollar or euro, instead of opting for a variable price that is set according to the popularity of the song.

The idea of passing on advertisement revenue to the consumer is a trend that has been getting traction recently. Ryanair for example sponsors currently part of the low price of its flight tickets by selling on-board and on-plane advertising space. As a result, it expects to be able to offer free tickets in the future. Interesting to see if that model offers opportunities in other industries.

The Ultimate Browser (Weekend Dreams, part I)

I was just dreaming up The Ultimate Browser. The Ultimate Browser (UB) is actually much more than a browser, and at the same time much, much less. The only reason that you can call it a browser is because the software opens up a frame that shows internet content.

For the rest, you will find not ONE button on the UB. The UB indeed drops ALL the functionality that you find otherwise in browser software: a back button, a toolbar for your favorites, a Home button, a Refresh button, a search box and... an address box to type in your URL's. No address box?! That is right, my friend, because who needs to type in a URL in browser when the browser can initially open up only ONE internet address?

Mmm, I see that those who were ready to hand over the Big Prize for the Simplicity of Software to me are getting second thoughts by now. Relax, you will be able to visit the entire web with the UB. In fact, no matter what platform you are on, or whichever device or form factor you are using, the UB will always be there to provide you with the best possible browser experience.

This is the deal. We are all moving to web-based software. In many companies this is already a reality (think CRM system like Salesforce.com, or web-tracking and -analytics software like Mediaplex or DoubleClick).

For consumers, web-based software also becomes more and more a reality, with applications like email. Especially since Gmail introduced virtual 'unlimited' storage space, the need to have a local back-up of your email data disappeared overnight. With the introduction of Google Calendar, the web-based software suddenly gets better (in some aspects) than the program version you can install on your computer.

So let's assume that we are going to use the browser to access our most-used applications. In that case, which program needs to become more web-based first? That is right, it is the browser.

First of all, the browser has become a very personal business. Most users have defined their own start page, which can be their favorite search engine, portal or just a website that they really like to see first when they open up their browser. Then many users have long lists of Bookmarks or Favorites. Next to that all kinds of personalization like toolbars, background themes and password lists are linked up to one particular browser.

This personalization is great, but you lose it as soon as you move to another device. On top of that many browsers have become cluttered by the many toolbars and Bookmark bars that take up valuable screen space. Many of the options shown on these toolbars are not relevant all the time.

That is why I propose to develop the meta-program of web-based software: an empty browser that has no functionality except Browsing Preference (where you can choose between google.com/webbrowser.html, yahoo/webbrowser.html, wl/webbrowser.html etc.). Away with the File, Edit, History, Bookmarks, etc. Away with all the preset buttons, search boxes and address bars. All the browsing functionality will be web-based, which will make for a much stronger browsing experience.

The idea is of course that only the functionality that you need within a certain context is shown. For example, when you start the browser there will be your favorites, an address bar and a search box and all the widgets that you have installed previously. If you are watching a streaming video, there will be navigational buttons (just like you have when you watch a Quicktime movie in your browser today). If you are following an auction, Bid and Pay buttons will appear as well.

This brings us to a major difference: standardization. While today only the Back and Forward button is a functionality that is truly shared among all sites, the same is not true for the Homepage of a site. You know of course that by clicking the logo of a site, chances are that you will go back to the Homepage of that site, but that is not true if you are in Yahoo! Finance for example (it will bring you back to the Yahoo! Finance homepage).

So while the idea is certainly not to make the web a more boring place through standardization, the goal is indeed to give webmasters the opportunity to include standardized functionality to their site, which will be recognized by the UB and be displayed in the toolbars according to a set of rules. For example, if a site decides to offer PayPal as a payment option, the web-based toolbar of the Ultimate Browser will automatically display the Pay button. The same for instant messaging and VOIP: it is not necessary to open any program, because all these applications will be either web-based or be downloadable as a component, just like your Flash player.

And the nice thing is that just like with MSN Messenger tabs or Gmail contextual Ads, this will make the advertising opportunities much more powerful. All the personalization data of the UB could be used as input for more targeted ads (based on gender, bookmarks, web-based toolbars or widgets downloaded). All the web 2.0 applications could also provide extra targeting opportunities, like to which calendars do you subscribe or to which Linked-In informal networks do you belong.

Note that ALL of the required technologies already exist. Like with many game-shifting innovations (this is weekend dreaming after all, thinking big is allowed), the real innovation is in the combination of different technologies, not in the invention of new ones. (Somebody needed to come up with these technologies of course, with all due respect).

In short, not even half of the advantages of a web-based browser are described here. Like the fact that this browser would automatically recognize on what kind of machine you are working on. Or on what kind of operating system.

Or maybe, maybe, the UB would BE the machine and OS at the same time. Think of a $50 "UBBEOS", to be the first true $50 computing device, available at any place at any time with access to all tools and information. Yes, I just love weekend dreaming.

Brand advertising: Google gets it

Google updated the internet advertising market with Adwords ("revolutionized" sounds so big). Some players were quick to follow, others follow at their own pace and bring valuable innovations along the way. Now Google shows that it can also learn a lesson from the market, when it wants.

As we all know, a text advertisement is a very effective and efficient way to talk to someone who is looking for something. The problem is that people are generally not looking on the internet for a shampoo bottle with some new fructose derivate to combat Extremely Thin and Dry-Looking Hair. So, L'Oreal, where do your ad dollars go?

Typically, a FMCG's first steps on the internet would be on a portal like Yahoo! or MSN, where there is ample opportunity to talk visually with the consumer. This choice makes sense for these advertisers, because a visual representation is of course the way how the consumer expects to be seduced to grant their precious attention to ads about these so-called "Low-Involvement" goods. The point is of course that the FMCG companies have a large product portfolio to support and thus a big advertising budget to allocate.

Now Google seems to have cracked the code to these ad revenues. (pun intended) This weekend Google launched their first cobranded advertising campaign with Sony Pictures, to promote the May launch of the Da Vinci Code. It is a great contest with an exciting daily game that should be very effective for onsite activity. Obviously it is a great branding exercise, since it is impossible to solve all the games without having checked the entire site during the 24 days of the game. Unless you are particularly well informed, of course.


In any case, this is great first step. Of course you have to install the Da Vinci Code widget on your personalized HP before the campaign really kicks in, so it is not yet a solution for our shampoo bottle. But at the very least it shows that with widgets you can do great branding, so what about a widget for daily coupons, which may feature... a shampoo bottle. Hey, I can sell that!

Which reminds me, for a live demo version of the eBay Wheel (think Member Acquisition and Activation rising to UNSEEN levels, and, a 10% eBay.be member participation rate (take that, Da Vinci Code)), click here to turn the Wheel yourself!

(Demo version)

Traditional media copying internet, Part II

Earlier in this blog, you could read about how the tools of digital marketing will eventually be integrated in the way traditional marketing is done.

For example, you can now upload and track your radio advertising campaign in a way that gives you some of the control that you would have in your Adwords campaign.

In fact, Google acquired the biggest player that developed such an online radio campaign planning system, dMarc Broadcasting Inc.
(For Part I on this subject, click here.)

Now, Time Warner Cable is announcing yet another breakthrough: a TV advertising auction system. Not surprisingly, it is modeled after Google's Adsense system. As an advertiser you can bid to have your messages displayed to viewers with specific viewing habits. The potential is enormous. In a first fist Time Warner Cable plans to auction TV ad spots only for video-on-demand. Even so, the overall TV advertising market is still much bigger than the advertising market on internet in terms of advertising revenue, so that this is a very interesting first move.

Now it will be interesting to see how the rest of market moves. Your local cable company, the IPTV service of your local telephony provider, MSN TV, video search on Google, internet entertainment portals like Yahoo!, your mobile phone provider with high-speed data service, the TV channels that may sell sponsored TV programs on iTunes, ... : everyone will try to get more of the TV advertising dollars as the competition heats up. It looks like the media agencies will find some great new opportunities to help their advertising clients make the right media decisions in this ever-expanding medialandscape.

Microsoft and The Community

As you know, eBay is all about the Community. Thanks to the great feedback system, millions of transactions are executed online in confidence between basically total strangers. It is no surprise then that eBay was one of the first to introduce a rating system that is designed to combat one of the most malicious plagues of the internet: phishing (people trying to steal information from you by sending you fake emails) and setting up spoof sites to increase the credibility of it.

eBay introduced the eBay Toolbar with a spoof site warning system that tells you with green colors that you are safely on eBay, or, with a red warning color, that the eBay site look-a-like is in fact a transmoldavian website eager for your credit card number and nothing else. The eBay Toolbar can make this distinction because a certain number of eBay members have marked that malicious site a spoof site, and so the eBay Toolbar can warn the other eBay members.

The problem is that the internet is bigger than the big e-commerce players who can build their own toolbar (and assume that enough people will actually install it). At the same time, research performed by Microsoft shows that in the U.S., 25 % of their respondents has STOPPED buying online last year, and another 20 % has cut back their online spendings. The reason for this unfavorable trend is of course the perceived increased insecurity of buying online.


Because just managing the perception will not change the reality, somebody needs to step in to provide a solution for the wider internet. That is why Bill Gates introduced the new Internet Explorer 7 at the Mix 06 conference. The new IE7 includes vital new tools for reputation management. You can watch the keynote speech, followed by a detailed introduction to the new IE7, online ( click here), but just know that it is a long video (take some popcorn with you).

IE7 will introduce the power of the community to the wider internet with the use of phishing filters similar in concept to the ones used for the eBay Toolbar (IE7 will use a phishing list that can be updated dynamically with community feedback). IE7 will also use more precise security certificates, with information that certifies the actual site owner, not just the security of the data pipeline. As a real innovation, the introduction of infocards may also be a game-changer, if it gets adopted of course by the internet community (infocards enable the authentification of users linked to specific user profiles and their associated rights -like membership cards-, as opposed to the current password and username manager).

All this is important because the biggest pool of spoof victims will probably be among those users who just use the default browser and don't care or know about downloading other online tools or programs. These are also the people who will talk the most about their online shopping experience with friends, family or colleagues, and so have the highest impact on the trust in online trading (believe me, word-of-mouth cannot beat those forums preferred by us -net addicts-, or an ad campaign preferred by us -marketeers-). If the internet wants to continue to grow as an advertising medium, then the addition of community-based reputation tools can help to maintain or increase the vital climate of trust.