Search results matching tag 'AOL'

Education, education, education (part three...and final)

2175094 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:40:00 GMT

I’ve banged the drum in previous weeks about the importance of consumer education about behavioural advertising, and the IAB's recent research has highlighted the need for this.

Today the IAB has published a guide on behavioural advertising specifically for industry, our first step in helping educate the market about this practice (although you’ll be glad to know that this will be my last blog – for now - talking about education). The guide explains how behavioural advertising works, how it differs to other types of targeted advertising on the internet, its benefits to web publishers and advertisers, consumer attitudes as well as online privacy and industry good practice.

The guide – sponsored by technology company Audience Science – hasn’t been written exclusively by the IAB but by the experts themselves, with contributions from the likes of AOL, Guardian, Profero, Post Office, Yahoo!, ValueClick Media and, of course, Audience Science.

It may not make the Amazon bestsellers list (its free after all) but for anyone who wants to know a little more about behavioural advertising, this one’s for you. Enjoy!

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IPC Media to restructure and cut jobs

255762 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:07:00 GMT

NME, Loaded, Nuts to Ideal Home and Marie Claire publisher IPC Media has said this afternoon that it plans to restructure and cut jobs.

Evelyn Webster, CEO of IPC Media said the Time Warner-owned firm would reorganise around three audience groups of men, mass-market women and up-market women as of January 4.

As a result of this new structure, there will be a reduction in a number of roles and IPC said it will begin a period of consultation with staff from November 20. It follows cuts elsewhere in the Time Warner-owned UK publisher with more jobs lost at AOL.

One of the first casualties is IPC Ignite MD Eric Fuller who will leave IPC at the end of December. The divisional names IPC TX and IPC Ignite will disappear altogether.

The three new divisions are

IPC Inspire will be the men’s division, comprising leisure pursuits, men’s lifestyle and music brands, headed by managing director Paul Williams.
IPC Connect will be the mass-market women’s division, comprising women’s weeklies, the goodtoknow network and the TV entertainment brands, headed by managing director Fiona Dent.
IPC Southbank, the up-market women’s division, will continue to comprise the fashion, beauty and home interest brands, headed by managing director Jackie Newcombe.

CEO Evelyn Webster, said: “While our current structure has served us well over many years, it now no longer fully reflects our clients’ business needs. Reach, as well as the delivery of tightly targeted audiences, has never been more important. By organising IPC by consumer audience, rather than by magazine frequency or subject area, we will create a more market-facing structure, which will also bring greater coherence to our operations.”

As well as the changes to the publishing divisions, Charlie Meredith, previously MD of IPC TX, has been appointed to a newly created board role of MD, Central Operations, responsible for the majority of central operations including IPC Direct, the direct marketing division; IPC Plus, the syndication and licensing division; Production; and Property/Facilities. Charlie will also be responsible for ensuring that IPC meets its environmental obligations.

The cuts at IPC follow a restructure announced earlier this week by Brand Republic publisher Haymarket, which has resulted in the closure of Media Week and Revolution magazines.

Rival B2B publisher Centaur Media reported a 28% slide in revenues. Mike Lally, the Centaur group finance director, told MediaGuardian that Haymarket's decision to close Media Week and reduce Revolution to a quarterly insert would benefit its own titles such as New Media Age and Marketing Week.

"We are already market leaders against a number of Haymarket titles but there may be a marginal benefit to us [in Haymarket's restructure] of titles such as Revolution," he said.

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Bebo to be slashed as part of AOL cuts

255762 — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:43:00 GMT

AOL-owned social networking site Bebo is to suffer as its parents cuts jobs and most strikingly it is freezes production of its groundbreaking web TV drama's, which were once going to be the future.

MediaGuardian reports that the social networking site will cut the team behind 'KateModern' and 'Sofia's Diary' and the 20 strong Bebo team in the UK will be cut right back.

The news follows the announcement earlier this week of 100 more job cuts at AOL as CEO Tim Armstrong seeks to turn the business around by slashing staff in an effort to reduce costs and turn AOL into a content driven digital business.

'Kate Modern', which ended last year, helped drive the early popularity of Bebo and spawned a number of imitators (including the BBC). While another of its web dramas 'Sofia's Diary' was sold to UK broadcaster Five marking the first time an online series made the transition to a major UK broadcaster.

The blow for Bebo follows reports at the start of this year that AOL was planning to sell Bebo, less than a year after it was acquired for $850m (£417m).

The rumours were rubbished at the time, but Bebo has fallen from prominence since AOL bought it and its valuation is thought to have plummeted. Some suggested it was worth as little as $200m (£140m).

With Armstrong's focus on turning AOL into a content driven company the question becomes is there a place for Bebo in the new Armstrong regime?

There remains a possibility that Armstrong could off load Bebo ahead of AOL's spin-off from parent Time Warner.

If an announcement is about to made it could come as AOL prepares for another round of job cuts, which could see as many as another 1,000 lose their jobs.

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Mass layoffs begin at Time Inc/Murdoch hires (plans newspaper war)

255762 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:23:00 GMT

We've already seen big cuts this year at Conde Nast now it is the turn of IPC Media parent Time Inc, which is set to announce as many as 500 job cuts today.

The New York Times reports that the layoffs begun yesterday at Time Inc when 15 to 20 sales and marketing staff were first to hear the bad news largely from Sports Illustrated.

The cuts are part of a plan to save $100m and the NY Times quotes an executive saying that the total number of layoffs as being between 400 and 500 people, which are expected to come from the news division, which includes Time, Fortune and Sports Illustrated.

Details of these job cuts are due today at 10am (3pm UK). Other magazines likely to be hit include People and InStyle and Real Simple and Cooking Light. They come after this morning's announcement of a 38% drop in third-quarter profits and a 6% fall in revenues to $7.1bn at parent company Time Warner. Revenues at AOL fell 23% ahead of a planned spin-off that is still on the cards.

No word on how this might affect the UK business IPC Media and whether it will be asked to contribute to this cost saving target.

A note of light in this job loss darkness is that few job losses will come from the digital business, according to PaidContent.

While jobs are going at Time Inc, Rupert Murdoch is cooking up a fresh newspaper war. You just can't keep a good media mogul down. After battling in London and axing TheLondonPaper, Murdoch has decided that New York deserves his attention.

He is planning to hire around a dozen reporters in New York to cover local and state news for the Wall Street Journal in its battle to take on the New York Times and transform itself from a business centric title to one that has more general news.

This sucks if you are former Boston Bureau staffer for the WSJ. That bureau was closed. One the plus side if you are one of the 100 New York Times staffers due to be axed it might suck less presenting a fresh employment opportunity. One question that strikes me is that in its drive to be more like the New York Times, you know but to the right, will this hit its money making online subscription base. The WSJ has grown because it is errrm not a general newspaper. Could someone explain that one to me? Thanks

Elsewhere another barometer for the health of US newspapers has taken a dip. Former New York Times journalist and baseball writer, not to mention pioneer in sports blogging, Murray Chass has noticed a mass fall in US newspaper coverage of this year's World Series between the best team in baseball, the New York Yankees, who lead the Philadelphia Phillies 3-2.

On his blog he notes that 29 of the 60 newspapers that cover major league teams during the season on the road as well as at home are not at this year's World Series. That is a huge drop. Last year these papers were all there, but no more.

He quotes Bud Selig, the baseball commissioner, saying: "It’s a manifestation of what’s happening in America. I’m saddened by it. I think newspaper coverage over the years has enabled us to succeed much more than a lot of people understand so for me this is a very, very unhappy development."

These are big metropolitan newspapers including the likes of the Dallas Morning News, the Houston Chronicle, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Detroit Free Press, the Seattle Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, who have made cuts and are no longer covering one of the biggest sporting weeks in the US suggesting more pain to come.

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Education, education, education (part two)

2175094 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:45:00 GMT

A few weeks ago I wrote about the importance of informing and educating consumers about the internet. This followed a revamp of the IAB’s website – www.youronlinechoices.co.uk – aimed at helping internet users understand online behavioural advertising, how it works and how to switch it off if they want to. Today the IAB, in partnership with business law firm Olswang, has published new research confirming that consumers need (and want) more information and education about online privacy and the practice of behavioural advertising.

The research confirms that consumers today are far more trusting of the internet as a medium, compared with more than five years ago. People – particularly young people – are more comfortable with sharing their personal information with shopping websites, banks and social networking sites. But there’s no room for complacency: consumers may be more acclimatised to the internet and the role it now plays in our everyday lives but they also want to have it on their owns terms and wish to know more about new digital marketing techniques, such as behavioural advertising.

72% of internet users are – unsurprisingly – unaware about behavioural advertising, how it works and what information is collected and used. However, the research results are particularly enlightening when consumers are provided with the relevant information. For example:

• 81% of internet users do not know the level of control they actually have over behavioural advertising, such as their right to switch it off.
• 74% of internet users are actually more comfortable with behavioural advertising when they are provided with information about what data is collected and used and how it can be controlled.

Behavioural advertising remains a relatively new online practice. As the Government’s Digital Britain report acknowledged it is an important business model to help web publishers convert “creativity into value”. Industry needs to find a balance between making advertising more measurable and effective whilst protecting consumer privacy. It’s a balance that the IAB, its members and the rest of the advertising industry is working to get right and education – as this research very clearly shows – needs to be at the heart of it.

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Education, education, education (part one)

2175094 — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:01:00 GMT

It's official: us Brits love shopping online. According to research by price comparison service, Uswitch, 93% of the UK population now shop on the internet (I think that’s 93% of the 2,500 adults they surveyed!). And, as consumers continue to ‘connect’ so advertisers increasingly look to the internet as a platform to get their messages across and sell their wares. The two are mutually beneficial. Some of us just can’t get enough of all this (it’s empowering and addictive). For others the tide of change is uncomfortable and some need help getting connected in the first place (and there’s no one better than digital entrepreneur and Government Digital Inclusion Champion, Martha Lane Fox, to make this happen).

So, it’s important to inform and educate people about the internet. This is not a new message: government, Ofcom and others, including industry, have spearheaded campaigns to help people – particularly parents and children - better understand online and its significant benefits but also the challenges it throws up in our everyday lives. Understanding how to keep safe and secure is lesson number one and many schools build this into their curricula activities as they integrate the use of the internet into children’s learning.

This week the IAB has revamped its consumer website dedicated to explaining behavioural advertising: www.youronlinechoices.co.uk. We launched this site when we published our Good Practice Principles earlier this year to govern the practice. One of the three key commitments is education and many of the businesses involved continually go to great lengths to provide consumers with helpful information. Our website builds on these: providing easy-to-understand information on behavioural advertising, how it works and the role it plays in helping make online content, services and applications available at little or no cost. This is backed up by the other commitments: transparency about what information is collected and used to deliver more relevant advertising as well as the opportunity to opt out or switch it off. So the new website includes a centralised page for consumers to visit to opt out of behavioural advertising by the businesses that are complying with the IAB’s Good Practice Principles. Our future aim is to make this even more user friendly.

The launch of the website marks the point that those businesses that have signed up to the Good Practice Principles and have live commercial UK operations are complying with the commitments. To complement this, each of these businesses’ compliance will be independently verified by auditor ABCe to provide greater assurance in this practice. This is key but its only by explaining clearly what this is all about and how it all works that we can really expect consumers – heavy or light internet users – to accept and understand why we’re taking this approach.

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Hyperlocal gets another boost in Seattle

255762 — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:12:00 GMT

Seattle is turning into the busiest hyperlocal market out there with yet another addition as The Seattle Times partners up with a number of local blogs and community sites.

According to the blog Techflash, The Seattle Times (the city's sole surviving newspaper) is teaming up with West Seattle Blog, Next Door Media (publisher of MyBallard.com, PhinneyWood and other sites); The Rainier Valley Post and Capitol Hill Seattle.

In a post on its site MyBallard said: "My Ballard is powered by the neighbourhood, not us. The vast majority of stories originate from our readers, and now some of the best stories will be linked from Seattle’s largest news site. We’re very pleased that the Times has chosen to work together with organic, neighbourhood-grown news sites instead of creating competing efforts designed to draw advertising dollars away from the neighbourhood."

The launch by The Seattle Times follows Fisher Communications announcing last week it was launching 43 community sites in Seattle based around its TV and radio stations.

Again its interesting to note that this is another traditional media player going for the hyperlocal market and the different models that are emerging. The Seattle Times has chosen to partner with homegrown community players while others have chosen different routes.

Media firms like The New York Times Company, Fisher and The Washington Post, which pulled the plug on its hyperlocal experiment LoudounExtra.com, went with their own ventures. Others like AOL and MSNBC have bought start-ups (Patch and Everyblock.com respectively).

Seattle has it all going on with a newspaper, a former newspaper (Seattlepi.com), a broadcaster and all the local community players fighting it out. It must make for such a vibrant market in that fantastic American city.

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Floodgates open on Hyperlocal as Seattle firm launches 43 sites

255762 — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 11:03:00 GMT

This must be hyperlocal week. Suddenly there is an avalanche of activity with the latest being that US media firm Fisher Communications is launching 43 sites in Seattle.

The regional media player is making a land grab that is likely to be repeated across the states if this week is anything to go by.

We started the week with MSNBC buying Everyblock.com and since then there has been a steady flow of news, mostly positive, save the Washington Post, which pulled the plug on its hyperlocal experiment LoudounExtra.com.

No one is yet sure if anyone is going to make any/much money, but increasingly it looks like media firms of any description must be in this market.

Other little news snippets on the hyperlocal market this week are the American University’s J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism choosing five news organisations to develop hyperlocal projects. It is to work with The Seattle Times, The Miami Herald, The Charlotte Observer, Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times and TucsonCitizen.com (newspaper that has become a web-only).

Also AOL-owned Patch is launching new sites in Summit, New Jersey and Darien, Connecticut, bringing the total number of hyperlocal sites in its network to eight.

Not to be left out of it back the UK, UK local reviews website TrustedPlaces has joined DMGT's 50 strong hyperlocal project that beta-launches this week.

The growing amount of activity is really encouraging for those who have been in the market for a while and it does look like competition will get fierce.

The Seattle market alone already has one newspaper (The Seattle Times), one former newspaper (Seattlepi.com), and 43 new sites.

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Hyperlocal; a goldmine or fool's gold?

255762 — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 10:27:00 GMT

Fast Company takes a look at the hyperlocal market that everyone is watching, which some say is a multi-billion dollar future of online, but might not amount to anything much more than a sizeable pile of nickels.

The projections say, according to Borrell Associates, that the hyperlocal market could (one day) be worth $15bn by 2013. Whether they happen or not, the big numbers are enough to attract the likes of The New York Times Company (the Local) and AOL (Patch) in the US and the likes of Newsquest, Trinity Mirror and Associated Newspapers in the UK.

But whether that cash will materialise is another question, considering how the growth rate for online advertising is not the steam train it once was.

The thing with Hyperlocal as Fast Company points out is that it is lauded by many, but success always "remains perpetually around the corner". The reason for this according to Mark Josephson, CEO of the hyperlocal aggregator Outside.in is that local advertisers are not online in force, but he insists they will be.

The piece also quotes Debbie Galant who runs Baristanet, one of the models for hyperlocal (championed by Jeff Jarvis), as saying only that they are making "real money" and that "ad revenue is six figures", but she won't go into more detail than that – probably because after costs there is not a lot left.

This growth in hyperlocal revenues is dependent upon a number of things. One is local advertisers ditching the Yellow Pages and local newspapers on mass, those mom and pop advertisers, which are not exactly overflowing with local classified advertising (anyone remember craigslist?).

Add to that their is an increasing amount of competition. The New York Times Co's Local project is going up against established local sites as well as the likes of Baristanet and Brownstoner in New York and Examiner.com, which has domains for sites in 70 US cities. The San Diego News Network is another established hyperlocal player, but look what is happening in that city. The San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper is to cut 112 jobs and says it too will focus on more local community news and advertising. It doesn't look like there are enough ad dollars to go around, which is part of the problem already.

For bigger advertisers to come in the hyperlocal market is also dependent upon sites having the right content to attract them. Local crime and townhall stories are not typically the kind of thing that many brands what to hook up with, but it is a catch 22, to develop other content takes time and more importantly staff -- something of a problem today for America's struggling local media as papers close and jobs are cut.

The conundrum about hyperlocal appears to be that it can be profitable if you employ next to no one and your content is user generated and free, but if it is user generated and free then the quality and appeal of that content becomes an issue.

Fast Company quotes Jim Schachter, editor of digital initiatives at the New York Times, as saying: "We're talking about several hundred thousand dollars a year in personnel costs. I don't think the local digital-advertising market anywhere would cover those costs."

With those costs in mind, The NY Times plans – if its experiment proves successful – to license the Local's platform to bloggers in other towns across the US who would like to be associated with the Times.

"We could help those people mobilize their communities and gather local-advertising dollars in extremely low-cost ways. That could work, economically, for these local journalism entrepreneurs, and, at scale, it might work for us."

That, of course, brings back the question of the quality threshold, which you can't do without an investment and in so doing cut any profit and the reason for doing it in the first place.

But the pioneers insist that eventually someone will make it work. Somehow.

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AOL: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses of unemployed journalists

2371004 — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 10:04:00 GMT

AOL, the former dial-up internet juggernaut, now online content and display advertising somethingortheother, seems to be building a vast Ark - a rescue vessel for the unemployed journalists who were nearly washed away in the floods of the foretold mediapocalypse.

The internet company - if can we still call it that - is hiring, en masse.

Unbeknownst to most, AOL actually has a few cracking websites and blogs under its year-old MediaGlow (now called AOL Media) destination.

Engadget, Wallet Pop, Slashfood, Pixcetera, Joystiq, TMZ, PoliticsDaily - not a bad line-up.

No? How about the traffic, comScore said AOL Media sites tally in 75m monthly visitors in June, up 5% from last year. In fact, a quarter of Technorati's 'Top 100 blogs' belong to AOL.

According to a report on TechCrunch, AOL currently employs a walloping 1,500 writers, two-thirds of which are full-time staff.

That's twice as many as AOL had last year, and about half as many has the company expects to have next year.

The company is keen on highlighting itself as a destination for entertainment and content as we blogged last week, and truth be told, it's clawed its way into a little niche - and now its got the talent to boot.

Journalists who lost their jobs at titles like, BusinessWeek, The New York Times, USA Today, ESPN, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Consumer Reports and Condé Nast have found work at AOL.

With many more hires to come, it appears AOL, and its new(ish) CEO Jon Miller are focused on the future - hedging its bets on online content.

One might go as far to say the company is showing vague signs of life - splitting from parent company Time Warner, toning down its reliance on its AOL Advertising (nee Platform-A) display business, even looks remotely content with Bebo's position as a number three (or four, or five?) social network.

Hats off to Miller (and keep hiring those journos!) for effectively giving AOL some sort of vision, which is a lot to be said for a company that has changed its name six times in the last 20-odd years - Quantum Computer Services, AOL, America Online Inc., AOL Time Warner Inc., back to AOL (but AOL LLC) and finally, (as of today) AOL Inc.

Identity crisis? Perhaps. But to me, AOL means content, and that means something.