June 7, 2007

RSS Mashups – Emerging Tools with Great Potential

Whenever I see the term “mashup,” I visualize cleverly altered, often funny video or audio clips, modern contributions to the art of bricolage. What I'd not considered until the launch of Yahoo! Pipes is the employment of mashup tools to filter information, making it possible to spend less time getting more of what I want from the Web.

Innovations by Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google show how RSS mashups can clean up digital clutter, or as Jay Neely put it, give us “More Signal, Less Noise.” Recently introduced tools, including Google Mashup Editor, Yahoo! Pipes and Microsoft Popfly are especially powerful in that they allow the user to filter feeds for duplication of content or for relative credibility. Or, they can be used to correlate the data from feeds with other sources, showing consistencies and inconsistencies in reporting. And, for major time savings, these tools can be used to combine feeds on similar topics into a single feed.

While many of the tools currently offered are in alpha or beta, and may leave something to be desired from a user interface standpoint, they hold tremendous potential. Anything that can help users separate the “useful” from the “available” in the tsunami of data arriving via feeds each day deserves our attention.

Posted by Amanda Watlington at 10:28 AM | Permalink

July 14, 2006

Lunch with Pheedo

I had lunch today with Bill Flitter, founder and VP marketing of RSS ad network Pheedo.com. Walking up to the restaurant, I knew he'd already arrived. How? I passed his vehicle.

Posted by Pamela Parker at 8:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 11, 2006

A Podcasting Paradigm

Last time I learned a new language, there wasn't an Internet. Now that I've started Japanese, I'm finding a wealth of online resources.

One of the best is JapanesePod101.com, a daily podcast. The sponsor is a Tokyo-based translation service, which makes perfect sense. Loyal subscribers -- a very targeted audience -- receive daily brand reinforcement.

I also just discovered the dialogue of each daily lesson is spelled out in the "lyrics" section of each podcast's metatag information. This will vastly supplement the already considerable time spent with the podcast.

This could well be a podcasting paradigm: loyal listeners, a relevant sponsor, high engagement, plus a value add feature that enhances an already very immersive experience.

Omedeto!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 30, 2006

USA Today Airs Talking Tech

USA Today is taking its Personal Technology section to video. Tech columnists Ed Baig and Jefferson Graham will host "Talking Tech" with weekly segments becoming available on Thursdays. Video will be available at tech.usatoday.com or on iTunes.

The initial sponsor is AT&T with its branding campaign launched earlier this year. However preroll and synchronized banner units for Frontier Airlines, VisitFlorida and Microsoft's "The Greatest Asset" spot played before the video during repeated refreshes. Prior to running the preroll unit, the screen says, "Video is always free thanks to support from our sponsor." But at this point AT&T is not clearly visible as the advertiser.

Posted by Enid Burns at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 21, 2006

ClickZ Video Ad Forum - Speaker Podcasts

Our video advertising event last week was sensational -- great content, fantastic speakers, sold out crowd.

If you couldn't make it, you might want to click over to Ernie Landante's blog. He interviewed a number of speakers at the event and is posting a new podcast every day this week.

Enjoy!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 7, 2006

Web Video Comes to TiVo: Ad Opportunities

I just spoke with TiVo's SVP of Programming, Tara Maitra, about the company's new TiVoCast broadband-to-TV offering and what sorts of ad opportunities will come with it.

There's not much to tell. The basic story is it works the same as with any program you pipe in from the airwaves. As you watch the show, you get the advertising that comes with it. Maitro told me TiVo will consider additional marketing opportunities where appropriate, but she declined to go into details.

One of the participating publishers, The New York Times, comes to TiVoCast through the company's new relationship with video distribution platform Brightcove. In a separate Q&A I did with Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire this week, Allaire told me he's thinking of syndicating content to TV as a long-range opportunity and doesn't expect its relationship with the DVR company to benefit its business for many many moons.

TiVoCast will initially include content from the NBA, WNBA, Heavy.com, iVillage, NYT and others.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 22, 2006

CNET Ups its Podcast Count

CNET has a number of regular podcasts on its new CNET Podcast Central site. The whole course of shows is sponsored by Earthlink, with units running on the contents page, and minimal plugs in the audio segments.

Today the publisher said it added four new shows. Those include Gadget Girls, a discussion on tech's influence on pop-culture and gadget reviews; Studio C, an MTV Unplugged, of sorts, with interviews and performances; MP3 Insider talks of digital music, video, hardware and software news; and The Real Deal boils tech talk into palatable bits of information.

The four new shows join existing regulars like Buzz Out Loud, Turn Up the Volume on News.com and Security Bites.

Posted by Enid Burns at 4:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Duct Tape Podcast: All Duct Tape, All the Time

And you thought you knew duct tape.

Henkel Consumer Adhesives is relaunching "Tape Talk," a podcast dedicated to all things duct tape. Six times per year, the 7-10 minutes podcast will cover such duct tape events and topics as the 3rd Annual Avon Heritage Duct Tape Festival and a Duck brand duct tape council meeting. The podcast, available on www.ducktapeclub.com, also follows Stuck at Prom Scholarship Contest, duct tape arts and crafts, music "celebrating the many colors of duct tape," and the Avon Heritage Duct Tape Festival.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 3, 2006

What's For Dinner? Not A Feed.

SpecialsByZip.com just launched an e-mail subscription service for New Yorkers. They'll send you a daily e-mail listing the daily specials at local restaurants.

Seems a no-brainer for a city with an estimated 60 percent of meals are eaten out-of-home every day -- the highest dining-out rate in the country.

But e-mail only? No RSS? C'mon guys, if it's about food -- feed us!

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 1:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

March 31, 2006

RSS Means Change Your E-Mail Opt-In Model

The double confirmed opt-in e-mail subscription model has always been the highest industry standard. ClickZ's always been mighty proud to be the only publisher in our niche using it, too.

It's important to stay double-confirmed, but I see a change on the horizon the most ethical e-mails (ourselves included) are going to have to address sooner or later. And sooner is better, right? After requesting a subscription on the Web site, a subscriber must first reply to an confirmation e-mail from the sender. This ensures the person didn't sign up by mistake, or were subscribed by someone else. In the case of ad-supported publications like ours, it proves our readers really want to receive our newsletters.

Now, thanks to the miracle of RSS, a bunch of early adopters (myself included) are migrating their e-mail subscriptions to their RSS readers. Example: One of the most popular RSS services is Web-based Bloglines. It enables users to create a unique e-mail address for each subscription (e.g. username.27531127@bloglines.com). This helps keep your inbox clear and is a pretty good way to nail mailers who start spamming you or selling their lists to third parties, too.

Yet under this system, I'm unable to subscribe to ClickZ and other publications as my Bloglines address is receive-only. I can't confirm a subscription via e-mail under the subscriber address. So we're going to look into modifying our double confirmed opt-in model -- without compromising its integrity. Perhaps we should give new subscribers the option of "reply to this e-mail" or "click this link to confirm your subscription."

Any other newsletter publishers out there grappling with this issue yet? My bet is you will be in six months to a year. What changes are your making to your own double opt-in systems?

We'd love to hear input on this issue. I'm moderating a panel on RSS at AdTech SF next month and this is a topic sure to come up.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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