Yesterday’s New York Times had a good piece on Joost’s (From the guys who brought you Skype) move into Internet TV, and how it’s going to look very much like regular TV with the signing of some heavy advertisers.
The online TV startup has signed United Airlines, Microsoft, Sony and Unilever among others as "launch partners" for the service's planned debut this coming Tuesday. Each advertiser has committed to a three-month trial period which will see various different formats tested out to see which works best. Ad prices were reported to be between $50,000 for U.S. only spots and $100,000 for international broadcast.
Aiming at the sweet spot of the viewer who actually wants to see specific advertising, they will be trying a format with a so-called "hand-raiser" option, where a small box appears within the video. Clicking that box gives the viewer a list of advertiser-specific content. Joost is counting on mining the demographic data provided by users to better target ads. Early days yet… But interesting.
George Parker
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