Advertising

Let me start by saying that as usual, this weekend was too short. Only this time, the lamentable lack-of-length was compounded by gorgeous weather here in the Bay Area. I think Michael and I said “what a beautiful day” about 5 times to one another just crossing the Bay Bridge on Sunday.

Now, to more marketing-related matters. Zachary Rodgers, my ClickZ colleague, put together a Q&A with the architect of A9’s yellow pages strategy, which we published today. Interesting stuff.

Was a bit quiet yesterday, blog-wise, concentrating on a column for ClickZ Experts on branded RSS newsreaders. Some interesting tidbits about the Consenda newsreader (which the L.A. Times and the Guardian are using) that didn’t fit into the piece:

It’s a downloadable application that integrates with the Internet Explorer browser, rather than a Web-based reader. (Doesn’t work with Firefox.)

Users launch it by clicking on a small “N” that appears on IE once it’s installed. It pops up as a small rectangular application, which can be expanded vertically but not horizontally. A news ticker featuring the latest headlines crawls across the top.

Embedded ads appear (on the LATimes.com version, anyway) when readers look at their lists of feeds, and when readers look at the feed items themselves (between entries — in the middle of the screen).

Consenda has a Web site that integrates with the reader, where users can subscribe to and search for feeds. It’s trying to make it easy for the average non-techie to use RSS without having to cut and paste URLS and such.

Am not sure how I feel about the user interface. I tend to be a fan of Web-based newsreaders, as one can then access them from a variety of locations without being confronted with the same items more than once. Needless to say, the usability of RSS needs to be improved for it to be accessible to a mass audience, and it was interesting to see Consenda’s approach to accomplishing this.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that of course Newsgator announced a similar strategy yesterday. (Brad Feld’s post on it here.) Unfortunately the announcement came too late for me to add much about it into my column for today. Need to check it out.

This sign is on my way home from work, but an unfortunate construction barrier actually blocks it from view (at least from the right lane, where I normally am) — on the one day where people might actually benefit from reading it. Yes, Yahoo! is giving away ice cream today only. It’s also developed an interesting retrospective on the last 10 years on the Internet. It’s been really fascinating to see, as 2005 has begun, how many companies are celebrating a 10-year anniversary this year. Wasn’t 1995 exciting? Isn’t 2005 doubly so?

Am I the only one who is annoyed that the ads we’ve been calling “floating ads” for years are suddenly being discovered by the mainstream — and dubbed “floater ads”? Note the incidence of the term “floating ad” (92 results) on ClickZ as opposed to “floater ad” (zero results). And ClickZ has a huge section authored by Internet marketing practitioners. Even the IAB has guidelines for “floating” — not “floater” — ads.

My annoyance began with the NYTimes.com piece this week and was amplified when sister site IHT recycled the same story with a different headline.

“Floater” just sounds somehow… scatological.

Interesting piece at Knowlege@Wharton about the obesity epidemic and marketers’ responsibilities. It’s really a fascinating area to watch, as of late.

“This is a very difficult issue,” says Wharton marketing professor Patti Williams. “In some ways, companies are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Consumers say they want healthier foods, but if you look at consumer behavior, many people choose unhealthy foods over healthy ones.” Indeed, a restaurant chain that recently tried to reduce the size of its portions was soundly blasted by its customers and has now decided to reinstate the original serving size. “How do marketers navigate their way through [things like this]?” Williams asks. “I think companies in general are sincere about wanting to offer healthier alternatives,” in part because with all the dire warnings about obesity, “they don’t have many other choices.”