Week 6

"Secrets of Googlenomics: Data-Fueled Recipe Fuels Profitability"

• Google's Adsense integrates the tracking of Google's seach engine to optimize targeting of ads towards specific consumers


• Google is an economy on its own with supply and demand of ad space in various markets that are constantly evolving by the minute


• Auctions used as most effective mechanism for search since Google can capture the incremental value for each ad placement based on the maximum opportunity cost for the placement. This is compared to a standard block sale you would see in some TV and print markets.


• Personal Reflection: I was surprised to learn that Google integrates so much economic theory into their Adsense engine. I understand game theory plays an important note but I did not know that such thought went to the extent that it has with their platform.

'Presentation: Advertising In Video Games"

• Advertising is everywhere, even video games


• Advertising ads such as product placement in games


• Children and teens spend significant amount of time playing video games. Adults too are now more involved in extended hours of play


• Video games are addicting and lure people to play for extended hours


• Several Models of Ads In Games:


• Advergames - game developed around brand, game is secondary


• 3.5 minutes played per game, take advantage of sharing game with friends


• Burger King XBOX game top game of the year


• Critical factors impacting the almost $1B buisiness is the effectiveness of the marketing and who benefits


• Personal Assessment: I expect to see more of such advertising appear in the future. I think as games transition away from console cycles (i.e. Playstation and Xbox) you see more online gaming appear. Product placement seems more prevalent in console gaming since online gaming generally has popup or sidebar ads. I am unclear which one is better in terms of ad effectiveness, but it seems like banner and popup ads within a game offer more variety of ads for the game producer to capitalize on.

Week 5

"Introduction," in The Numerati pp. 1-16

• Internet cookies open the door to interesting connections between person and needs. All of which can be traced and stored online.


• Writer talks about Numerati as the mathematicians and computer scientists who are in charge of this data that traces the history of our lives.


• P300, a brain wave that heats up upon recognition, is researched to see what types of people react to certain types of ads


• My personal reflection this article is that this is definitely something that explains why deals such as Groupons are so effective. If a company knows what you like and can tailor an incentive to your desires, it is a very powerful marketing tool. I also get concerned that as DNA mapping becomes more prolific, we may start to see biological traits that people would get hold of to start building sales off of genetic traits. For instance, if you are more prone to smoking based on your chemistry, I do not think its fair for a company to market products based on such information. We are not there yet but I definitely think it will be there later in my lifetime.

"Brief History of the Internet"

• Internet is one of the most disruptive innovations of communication


• Oct 1957 Russia put 183lb sputnik into orbit that caught US off guard


• From Sputnik, many computer like competing systems built across the world. Then led to trying to network the systems together to communicate.


• Mobile pack radio network linked us to Europe. Built protocols to smoothly communicate with each other (late '72-73) known as Internet. TCPIP


• Electronic post card equivalent


• Not owned or controlled by government or any organization


• My personal reflection is its interesting to see how government is now getting heavily involved in the Internet as a matter of national security and protection of information. Many countries have had critical servers hacked by other countries. We have also seen more interaction with government on social media during political movements/uprisings. I think over time government will have an increasing presence in local Internet markets. Aside from companies like Facebook selling data to government security agencies, I think the government will utilize Internet tracking for tax collections, national security and drug enforcement. It can make the country safer but at the expense of individuals losing their anonymity.

Week 4: Business Models and the New Era of Competition

This week we looked at business models on the web.

"Business Models on the Web"

• Ambiguity around business models although they are a critical aspect of a business.


• IP becoming a form of protection around a business model in tech... difficult to tell what is old versus new in tech form


• Multiple models available: brokerage, advertising, infomediary, merchant, manufacturer, affiliate, community, subscription, utility

"Gil and Frank Discuss Business Models"

• Subscription based services such as WSJ offering online and print in combination. This is successful because it provides multiple mediums and tieiring of pricing for consumers. It also has a very targeted customer base which aids in its success.


• iTunes was used as an example of a micropayment model since it enables people to buy single songs instead of having to buy a full album


• YouTube was mentioned to discuss some failures to monetize due to its inability to successfully target ads to the videos being watched. This should improve over time.


• Myspace mentioned as a social media platform leveraged to turn social media and music into sales revenue for record companies.

I want to mention that the MySapce example needs to be updated given the recent divestiture announcement from News Corp followed by the recent bid for it by independent investment group that includes Justin Timberlake (musician). I am curious to see how the new business model will change with the new owners.

Week 3

I had issues accessing the media files for this week. All of them were broken links. Here is what I got from the PDF which did not have any issues.

Chapter 1: "the Origins of Social Media," in the New Influencers, pp.1-14

• Article focuses on the power of blogging using the nation-wide issue of cancelling people's AOL accounts. It was unique for its time and quickly accessed a very wide audience from some individual's experience. A new medium became mainstream (i.e. like the tipping point).


• There are 5X as many readers of blogs as there are writers. I think that is interesting based on the time it was written. I assume this has changed dramatically since that timeframe (more blogs and potentially more readers).


• Blogging provides easy access to a wide audience immediately after posting. It enables people to become powerful contributors to the web in a short period of time. Almost challenges books (curious if there are any novels now written in blog form).


• There are four different formats - online diaries, topical blogs, advocacy blogs and link blogs


• Audiences must have a strong tie to the content in order for advertisers to see a brand value from the audience to market there

I think it is interesting that Blogger was acquired by Google. Google optimizes its advertising revenue based on search. By owning a blog company, it can package its search history of an individual user and combine it with a viewer's interests in order to paint a full advertising picture of the particular viewer. This is very valuable in online marketing and is no surprise to me that Blogger has become the most dominant blogging platform since the Google acquisition.

Week 2

Similar thoughts come to mind as the previous week when reading all the recommended articles. It appears like the Web is diverging into two different pieces: content and distribution. I would initially expect to see content owners lead - since they control the content they would be able to direct consumer mediums for obtaining such information. Content would be directed in a way that is best suited for the content provider. However, it appears that the web is transforming this norm. New mediums for sharing and collaboration have enabled websites, web video, and mobile tools. These tools have the ability to shape distribution channels based on customer wants or desires. As new channels are shaped, content owners begin to understand the opportunity and partner with the distribution channels. Some content owners have began to be late addopters and look to develop their own distribution channel that mimics existing channels made by distribution experts.

One medium that I am most anxious to see play out is the battle with video. New distribution channels such as internet television have undermined classic distribution which share the same backbone. ISP providers typically get revenue from cable services for customers as well as internet fees. Now that media is becoming more customized and available through the web, more and more people are opting out of cable contracts and moving exclusively to internet television. Some devices such as Google TV have struggled because of the crossfire between the two distribution channels. I think you will see further consolidation of ISP providers with content owners (think Comcast + NBC Universal) in order to fight the rise in web content distribution.

Week 1

I successfully completed each article, podcast and video posted for the first week. Proud of myself for having time to do so. My goal this week was to get used to Twitter and Blogger since its been so long since I used them (I still cannot figure out how to update my Twitter picture from over 3 years ago!).

Gil & Frank - The most interesting podcast on the transformation of the newspaper industry. I completely agree with their opinions. As a 20-something male I do not have any newspaper subscriptions. Instead, I use Google Reader to aggregate all the news banks that are relevant to myself. Why wait up to a week to see something in print when I can see it almost realtime through online media? While I never really got into HuffPo, there are many new distribution channels available. Not only is this beneficial for people on the go, it also helps marketers customize their advertisements to get the best ROI.

I am working on starting my own business so looking at online news distribution channels is critical to understand where my target market looks for similar type products and places to market.

Across the board, whether its newspapers (Google Reader), books (Kindle), music (Pandora) or social networking (LinkedIn), it is clear that people are demanding customization of their products with rich content.