Google Print & Google Radio Closures Are Unfortunate

News arrived yesterday that Google is shutting down their Print and Radio ad systems. It's unfortunate news for brand advertisers and the traditional media formats. An ironic tag-line for Google's Print & Radio Platform

With eBay / Kijiji and beRecruited, I was one of the systems' early advertisers... creating multiple campaigns that ran across dozens of markets' radio stations and newspapers. Google made it simple to craft campaigns, connect with the papers / stations and find talent to create the ad units. Google's traditional media marketplace was as simple as AdWords - but across a far more fragmented, complicated landscape.

I was always wowed by the technology side. But more importantly - it drove results.

Measuring conversion and ROI is harder (obviously), but advertising in Radio and Print (via Google) enabled reach across users that AdWords simply doesn't serve - either via audience or ad format.

On a higher level, this marks an important moment because we are at the intersection of traditional and online media. And as the newspaper and radio worlds struggle with the online shift (and business models) - this was an opportunity to have these worlds meet together. Sure there are tons of issues (fragmentation, pricing models, and so forth) - but simply put, Google Print and Radio worked. And that means I was willing to spend money (and continue doing so) and the stations / papers had access to new campaigns and budgets (without a sales force).

ESPN.com Wants to Make Sure You Know Valentines is Coming

I spend a lot of time on ESPN - particularly their mobile properties... which for big media brands - really are the best available. And while I have been critical of ESPN.com's relaunch, I respect their ability to land big advertising deals (though skeptical of the advertisers' results). Today's campaign is the most in-your-face yet...

If you have somehow forgotten that Valentines Day is on the horizon - ESPN and JC Penny are certain to make sure that you won't forget. After all, about 70% of the homepage is covered in Valentine's promotions. The ads are nicely aligned and build on one another (a major complaint of using AdSense or other contextual networks that result in disjointed units).

I hope that ESPN is getting a very solid CPM deal here, because as a reader, this is a major turn-off. I am all for advertising - particularly on great, free content. But at a point, two things happen:

1. You get irritated, and/or 2. It takes too long to get to the content

beRecruited Growth Continues; Rock Mountain News Coverage

It's been a great couple months for beRecruited. By all measures, traffic and site-usage are ramping very nicely (more than doubling in the last calendar year).

Perhaps more importantly though, our recruiting metrics are growing at similar rates and our users continue to validate the effectiveness of the service. We have had a series of great press mentions and the common theme is pretty simple: beRecruited works for athletes, parents and coaches.

Our latest mention is in the Rocky Mountain News: "Social networking sites let coaches, athletes strike a happy medium":

When national signing day arrives Wednesday, some local athletes will credit beRecruited.com for helping cultivate their college commitments.

"BeRecruited had a big role when I signed with Washington," said John Dalton, a swimmer from Arvada West High School who recently committed to the Huskies. "It helped me get to know the coach more and see what their meet schedule was like."

... "A lot of schools have been contacting me; I can't keep track of how many anymore," said Bla- dek, who probably will wait beyond Wednesday to make her decision. "Just this week, I've talked to three schools already. I try to make sure to update my profile every week or so. Since I'm in club (volleyball) right now and we play every other weekend, my mom takes footage of that and we tried to put it online as much as possible."

"Kirsten Bladek, a volleyball player from Monarch High School, received an expense-paid trip to New Mexico Highlands after contacting the school on the Web site beRecruited.com. The school offered her a scholarship, but she has yet to make a decision."

iPhone Headphones Jack Problems... Here's How to Fix

Over the last couple days, my iPhone 3G's headphones were acting strangely. I could hear audio, but the microphone wasn't transmitting my voice and the receiver button (used to answer calls / turn MP3 player on/off) wasn't working. I assumed that it was an issue with the headphones - but after trying a second pair, I had the same issue. So clearly it's a problem with the iPhone's headphone jack. After some investigating and poking around (literally), I found a solve. And I since I realized that this is a common issue and not much is written about it... here's the solution:

First, the iPhone's headphone input apparently has a small sensor inside of it that, when covered (ie by lint), prevents the phone from activating the headphone's microphone and other functions. If you have a can of compressed air - insert it into the jack's opening and blow... making sure to tilt throughout the entire area.

If you don't have compressed air, the hack-ish solution is take your heaphones and insert it into the iPhone repeatedly and quickly. It should clear up the sensor.

I tried both solutions. The hack was precsiely that: a hack which lasted a couple hours. Once I used compressed air (and about half the can!), everything ran perfectly.

Google AdSense is Good.... And Yes, iStockphoto is Everywhere

Almost as soon as I published my "I guess iStockphoto is Going Mainstream" article, Google AdSense started running iStockphoto ads. Amazing.

It shows just how good Google AdSense is (literally seconds after publishing the article) and it shows that iStockphoto really is advertising across the web. From TechCrunch and Gawker to my lowly site:

My New Spam: Twitter, Disqus & Vimeo

I get plenty of email spam... but Gmail does an admirable job making sure most of it doesn't hit my inbox. My new annoyance is, for lack of better terminology, "web 2.0 spam". My inbox is filled with junk from Twitter, Disqus, Vimeo and all of the other services that I use frequently... all getting increasingly worse (particularly over the last two weeks).. It's brutally annoying because, unlike email, this spam is usually visible to more than just my eyes. Whereas email spam clogs *my* inbox - these new forms of spam affect my public arenas... sometimes for personal content (like my blog) and other times for company content (like InGameNow, Widgetbox, etc).

And as services like Twitter and Disqus continue to grow - the spammers get more sophisticated because the value of spamming increases. It's no longer Viagra and Acai Berry ads - it's silly link-bait being used clearly for SEO purposes. Unfortunately that too is problematic in ways that traditional spam isn't... enough SEO spam can have negative affect on my sites as well.

Star Trek Takes Over ESPN.com... Four Months too Early

On Super Bowl weekend, ESPN was able to sell its homepage with two massive rich-media Star Trek advertisements... you know, the new iMax move that comes out May 8th, 2009. On a weekend when ESPN likely expects greater-than-normal traffic... and when television ad-spots are notoriously expensive... and in an economy where those Super Bowl ads *still* are not sold out... this campaign is both impressive for the publisher and questionable for the advertiser.

Even for Hollywood - advertising four months out on the web seems strange. Usually Hollywood advertises online to reinforce campaigns already airing on television, in theaters, and so forth. And usually the campaigns are more targeted and within a couple weeks from the movie's release. For instance, the week leading up to Bride War's release, PerezHilton.com was covered in full-page units.

That makes total sense. This, however, is completely bizarre.

I Guess iStockphoto is Going Mainstream?

iStockphoto is doesn't get much attention. It is rarely discussed on the big Web 2.0 blogs. It somehow is never included with other 'hot' companies like Digg, Twitter, Pandora, Wordpress, etc... despite having a large (and growing) userbase and a clear business model. And like the other companies I just mentioned - iStockphoto shares another common element: the content is amazing. I believe that digital media is predicated on the quality of its content. With great content not available elsewhere, you can build a business. It works for Wordpress. Twitter will figure it out. iStockphoto has figured it out.

Anyhow, this was sparked because iStockphoto has begun advertising... everywhere. And this isn't remnant inventory (or you'd see their banners on my blog!). My guess is that iStock is starting to test the waters with conversion-based advertising. Run across the internet for a couple weeks and garner enough impressions to determine whether it leads to conversions.

All We Need is Connectivity: Why the iPod Touch & Netbooks Matter

We have three computers in our household: one desktop and two laptops. Right now, I'm on my desktop with two wide-screen monitors. Every inch of real estate is covered in applications.... all web-based: - Gtalk and Skype - Gmail - Google Docs - Pandora - Dropbox - Twhirl - About 15 tabs within my browser (Chrome)

My computer usage is entirely online - from content to applications. In fact, the only three programs that I use on a routine basis that aren't web-based are Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Powerpoint and Microsoft Excel. There simply aren't powerful enough equivalents at this point. And for every PSD, PPT and XLS file, I move it between computers via Dropbox.

Here's why this is important:

First, while I am not the typical internet user... this is occurring more and more frequently. For me it started with smaller transitions such as from Microsoft Word to Notepad and Notetab... and from those two to Google Docs.

And it's not just the consumer: corporations are also making the shift. Supposedly one-million companies now use Google Apps. At Widgetbox, we are one of those companies. We also use web-applications to track our product process, backlog, QA, business development flow, and so on. It's a remarkable movement.

I think the shift (for consumers and corporations) reveals as much about portability as it does about lightweight, comparable functionality... which when combined, allow me to access content and applications on lighter-weight hardware - such as my iPhone. And this is precisely why the iPhone, the iPod Touch and Netbooks are the future of computing: I don't need a huge processor to do my day-to-day work. Rather, I prefer portability and form factor.

The only thing I need is visual real-estate. If I could my monitors into a netbook.... I'd be more than happy.