YouTube adds online shopping

Partnering up with Amazon.com and Apple's iTunes Music Store, Google has announced their YouTube video sharing property will soon provide online shopping opportunities tied into the video content they display.  Located just below the video clips, the purchasing options will link to a variety of products related to the video displayed from movies and music to concert tickets or clothing and accessories.  Outside of adwords this will be one of Google's first attempts to monetize the site they paid $1.65 billiion for in 2006, a site that boasts 330,000,000 monthly visitors and almost 13 hours of uploaded video every minute.

The move comes amidst calls from investors to begin raising revenues earned from the popular site after Piper Jaffrey Research predicted only $200 million of Google's estimated $27 billion 2009 revenue would come from the site.  YouTube further indicated that more options were forthcoming.  "There'll be lots of different solutions for lots of different problems," Shishir Mehrotra, YouTube director of product management, said in an interview. "We've tested a lot of things already, and we're going to be testing more in the future. Some will work, some won't.  Some of the options mentioned in the Reuters article included ads along the bottom of the streaming videos, advertiser contests, sponsored homepage videos, and short ads before and/or after uploaded videos.

Was 'SeinfeldGates' a viral success or failure?

Marketing virally is a slippery slope, and invariably it's those that have no inclination towards creating something viral that experience the success that the "professionals" so strive for.  When Microsoft announced they were spending $300,000,000 to create a campaign with a centrepoint series of ads with Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld it was obvious there was hope the bloggers would blog, the Twitters would tweet, and perhaps, YouTube would help Microsoft become the next 'Dramatic Chipmunk'.  But, somewhere along the way to untold riches, something happened.

The Gates/Seinfeld ads were almost universally panned by experts and amateurs alike.  Did you miss them?  There were only two, and they didn't last long: The first ad was titled Shoe Circus, the second New Family.  Faced with this seemingly universal dislike Microsoft quickly yanked the ads - claiming they were only teasers all along - and launched into a new set of ads titled "I'm a PC", obviously a direct salvo towards the famous Mac ads.  However, this AdAge article points out a very interesting statistic regarding the campaign's viral views:

Visible Measures points out that while the Seinfeld/Gates clips came out two weeks earlier than the "I'm a PC" ads, Seinfeld/Gates drew twice as many viewers their first week in market than the PC ads did. After two weeks in market, Visible Measures says, "Seinfeld/Gates was still collecting more than 700,000 views per day, while the 'I'm a PC' clips had tapered off to less than 50,000 views per day."

What are your thoughts on the link between online buzz and viral success?  Is it enough for your brand to be talked about, regardless of the good/bad nature of that conversation?  Is 'Gates/Seinfeld' a success, against everything we've read and been led to believe?  Tell us your thoughts in comments.

Can Google make social networking profitable?

Heather Green at BusinessWeek has posted an article detailing what might be Google's next attempt at effectively monetizing social media traffic as they have web search traffic. Making Social Networks Profitable analyzes Google's pending patent on technology that will rank the most the influential factor of social media participants in much the same way their PageRank technology is able to effectively rank page content.  Once the level by which a person is influential to their peers was established the new tech would allow targeted ads to reach people who may be able to push that message out further, going beyond simple adwords and into predictive behaviour paired with possibility of that ad delivery being relayed.  Click through for more details and interviews pertaining to the patent filing.

Surf Google circa-2001

It was September 1998 when Larry Page and Sergey Brin officially incorporated Google, Inc. and began to revolutionize the online experience for millions of surfers. In those 10 years the Internet experience has changed significantly, as has the quantity and quality of search engine use. Ever wished you could go back? Find yourself missing the blink tag? Egosurfing when you could still find yourself online easily? This year marks Google's official 10th birthday and they've gone about celebrating in an assortment of ways. One of the most fun may be offering the opportunity to surf Google in 2001, complete with proper 2001 results. Finding no results for YouTube is only one of the oddities that may help remind you of how it once was. Enjoy!

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