Kikabink News

If Google hasn’t focused much on monetizing its video site YouTube to date… it’s now doing so with a vengeance. On Wednesday, the company announced it will start selling ad space on YouTube search-results pages.

The new advertising feature will allow anyone with a video on YouTube to promote it on a search-results page. Advertisers can bid on keywords and their videos will be displayed on the right-hand side of the YouTube search-results page with a small image and some text.

Advertisers will pay whenever a viewer clicks on the ad and can set their maximum price per click. As in Google Adwords, Google will choose the order in which ads are displayed based on how much advertisers are willing to pay, along with the relevance of the video to the keyword.

Here’s some food for thought (and something worth testing!): if you can give your YouTube video ANY title… does that mean that as long as the keyword matches the title… you’ll score highly on relevance?

So, in other words, can you change the title of your video to suit the keyword you wish to target? Or will Google index the text of the video (if applicable)?

Source: Stephanie Clifford, “YouTube to Sell Advertising on Pages of Search Results”, The New York Times, November 12, 2008

YouTube will show some full-length television shows and films from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, one of Hollywood’s venerable movie studios.

MGM will post episodes of its decade-old “American Gladiators” program, along with full-length action films such as “Bulletproof Monk” and “The Magnificent Seven” and clips from popular movies like “Legally Blonde.” These will be free to watch, with ads running alongside the video.

While the initial line-up is hardly Earth-shattering, the move reflects a testing of the waters for both companies. YouTube will test the appeal of showing full-length video, while MGM will see whether posting movies on YouTube can be a revenue earner.

Source: Brad Stone and Brooks Barnes, “MGM to Post Full Films on YouTube”, The New York Times, November 9, 2008

Internet marketing strategist Rich Schefren made a rather bold claim earlier this week. He said that Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama won the 2008 United States Presidential Election due to the Democrats’ masterful use of social media marketing.

While Rich put forth some persuasive statistics - and we have also published similar indicators that Obama dominated on the Internet - I’m not sure I agree. Sure, Obama campaigners may have harnessed social marketing better than McCain… but was that really the clincher?

And even if it was, doesn’t that beg the question of WHY? Why was Obama able to stir up such activity on the Internet? Weren’t their deeper reasons driving people to be so vocal?

In any case, if it IS true that the Democrats beat the Republicans online… the GOP is already taking steps to fight back and, in particular, make better use of social media marketing.

First big step: the launch of RepublicanForAReason.com.

Developed by the Republican National Committee (RNC), RepublicanForAReason.com has similar aspirations to the Democrats’ website Change.gov. The Republican site will be a platform for grass-roots supporters to share and discuss their views about the future direction of the GOP.

In the words of RNC Chairman Robert M. Duncan:

“we need to hear what our volunteers, activists, elected leaders, and party members think about the Republican Party as we rebuild, re-focus, and renew our bond with the American people.”

Sounds like a good use of social media to me. And just what the Republicans need to do in light of their election defeat.

But I’ll tell you one thing: poor choice of domain name. Too long and hard to type. And by the way who was the incompetent who forgot to register RepublicansForAReason.com?

Hmmm… I wonder how many people will type that in… and what will they see when they go to THAT site? Someone is set to make some good money from parked domain name revenues. Until the lawyers get involved of course…

Sources: Rich Schefren, “The Biggest Reason Why Barack Obama Won The Election”, Strategic Profits Blog, November 11, 2008, Richard MacManus, “Republicans Use Social Media Too”, ReadWriteWeb, November 12, 2008

MySpace is working on a system to allow MySpace users to exchange virtual gift products and make payments within the social network. In particular, the billing and payment system is aimed at enabling MySpace developers to charge for their MySpace apps.

Facebook, which also has its own virtual gifts (not yet open to developers) is also rumored to be working on a payments system.

No-one seems to be talking about it… but what if a payment system created by MySpace - or even Facebook - takes off? Is it possible that by socializing their hundreds of millions of users into using such a payment system… the next step is to enable its use beyond their social networks and in the Internet as a whole. Watch out PayPal.

Source: Erick Schonfeld, “Making Money On MySpace: Payments and Virtual Gifts Coming Soon”, TechCrunch, November 7, 2008

Professional social network, LinkedIn plans to cut 36 of its 370 employees, which amounts to just under 10 percent of its workforce. Apparently, LinkedIn will reassign some of the employees, rather than let them go altogether.

LinkedIn isn’t running out of money - it recently closed a $22.7 million funding round, which in turn followed a $53 million venture capital injection in June. However, it’s presumably being cautious in light of the current economic environment and slow-down in online advertising growth.

Source: Jason Kincaid, “LinkedIn Cuts 10% Of Staff,” TechCrunch, November 5, 2008