Make Money Online

In October I wrote a post about the fact that the majority of newspaper and magazine publishers were entertaining the idea of charging for online content. The biggest problem for all publishers of online content is finding a magic bullet, not yet identified, to get consumers to pay for access to that content. The latest reports by the New York Times, in what ironically are subscription required articles, indicate that 2010 may be the year of big change.

But what kind of change will it be? It seems less likely that it will be a year of paid content, and more likely to be a year of moving in a different technological direction.

Newspaper and magazine closings in 2009 continued to shrink the traditional print category. The double whammy for such publications has been the simultaneous loss of print subscribers and advertising revenue. Book publishers are starting to panic, too, as they saw the beginnings of a stronger movement to e-books, fueled by Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-book readers.

That’s why it is likely that some kind of significant change for print publications will occur in 2010. They simply cannot survive current business conditions much longer.

Interestingly, magazines, newspapers and books are only representative of a larger media revolution that all of us have been living for quite some time. Look what digital media has done to the music business. First records and now CDs are becoming obsolete as digital downloads spread. We have become the iTunes generation.

Movies and television are not far behind. The entertainment industry is currently looking at ways to prevent itself from a similar digital death. Ben Weinberger’s recent Video Insider blog gives us a taste of things to come in 2010:

• Disney’s “Keychest” will enable consumers to “unlock” digital content across media formats
• Best Buy in partnership with CinemaNow will provide customers with the ability to download premium content and watch it on multiple screens
• Time Warner, Comcast, and other cable providers will offer “TV Everywhere” multi-platform access to their cable programming.

Will 2010 be the year of paid content – or will it be the year we see magazines and newspapers producing interactive digital editions? Magazines like Esquire and GQ already offer iPhone versions of their magazines. Esquire’s iPhone version, available next month for a $2.99 monthly subscription, offers scrollable articles and video.

Will 2010 be the year of the Apple tablet, rumored to be named “iSlate”? Essentially a touchscreen that’s standard page size, a tablet computer may offer print publications a new lease on life. Publication executives have supposedly met with Apple, and the result is that several magazines are creating tablet versions that allow readers to interact with articles, rearrange content, and access content unavailable in print versions. The tablet could provide a hybrid platform that brings together the best of computer and online technology. And publishers swoon to think that tablets can also provide data capture that makes ads measurable.

Whatever 2010 will bring for print publishers, it will be a year in which they will undoubtedly begin to reinvent themselves.

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What will 2010 Bring for Print Publishers?

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Second Circuit Court Hands Google a Search Litigation Defeat

In a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Rescuecom was handed a victory over Google in its lawsuit over alleged abuse of sponsored search. The complaint focuses on the way Google allows trademarks to be used as a trigger for AdWords ads, citing such action infringes on the rights of the trademark owner citing the potential for the ads displayed to confuse consumers as to who the trademark owner is.

IAB Reports Internet Advertising Grew 10.6% in 2008

According to a report released by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, advertising on the internet reached 23.4 billion in 2008. This represents a growth of 10.6% year-over-year. Online video grew faster than any other category reaching 123% year-over-year growth. The data was compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers on behalf of the IAB.

Google Terminating Video Option in AdSense

Despite the growth reported in the video segment by the IAB, Google announced it was ending the video unit feature option in Adsense. YouTube which hosted the ad units for AdSense, will still allow the purchase of video ad units directly through the YouTube platform. Google stated that video ad units did not have the impact “we had hoped for”.

MySpace and CitySearch Joining Forces

MySpace and CitySearch have partnered to create MySpace Local. The partnership will allow CitySearch to display business listings to targeted city communities on MySpace’s network. This will also help to bolster MySpace’s ad inventory offering while providing CitySearch a wider audience.

Virgance Buys Green Blog Network

Hoping to capitalize on the growing focus on the environment, Virgance (which calls itself an Activism 2.0 company) announced the acquisition of the Green Options Media Network. Green Options’ network consists of 15 blogs that write on varying environmental topics. The goal seems to be to create a Federated Media sort of blog ad network.

Comcast OnDemand Beats Big Macs and iTunes

Comcast is exercising certain bragging rights as OnDemand reached an 11-Billion viewer milestone which, as Comcast is quick to point out, is nearly twice the number of iTunes downloads. Not stopping at iTunes Comcast also wants folks to know that number is 4x the number of Big Macs sold in the US. Who knew OnDemand could be so popular?

Gary Vaynerchuck Crushes Seven-Figure Book Deal

Book publisher HarperStudio announced it had struck a 10-book deal with Gary Vaynerchuck worth an estimated seven-figures. First book is scheduled to come out in September and is titled: Crush It! Turn Your Passion into Profits in a Digital World.

Google Steps into the Venture Capital Game

Google announced its new venture fund Google Ventures. According to the Official Google Blog: “We think the current downturn is an ideal time to invest in nascent companies that have the chance to be the “next big thing,” and we’ll be working hard to find them.” Want to let Google Ventures know about your startup, go here.

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Cashing Out: Week of March 29th – April 4th, 2009 in Online Marketing News

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Here at Revenews we strive to provide content not previously published elsewhere. The following article by longtime Revenews author Brad Waller focuses on Net Neutrality. A timely and important subject worth revisiting.

This column is an outgrowth of a post made on our internal email list. A debate was started by a discussion of the Wall Street Journal article on Google looking to embed their servers with the various cable and network providers, and the intimation that this was a violation of “Network Neutrality.” As the discussion evolved, one participant wrote “This issue is so convoluted, it will require Stephen Hawking to sort it out.”

I’m not Stephen Hawking, but I am a Physicist…

What I get out of this is that Google wants to co-locate their servers inside the facilities of the Telcos so that the pages are served faster. They are asking to pay for this, and not to exclude anyone. This is a way to reduce latency and get better performance; this is not a fast track with preferential treatment. If Google were to ask for exclusive co-location, then there might be an issue. If the service providers were to downgrade everyone else who did not pay, that would be an issue.

Has anyone ever made claims that Akamai was violating Net Neutrality? They have servers located around the globe to optimize the delivery of their customers’ content and no non-customer has complained of unfair treatment when their content was not included for free.

The Net Neutrality issue is that the Telcos want to treat traffic differently by source. One video stream might be slowed down, while another might get the fast pipe. So I may be paying for 15/5 megabit service, but my ISP might decide to throttle some new company down to 1 megabit because they are not paying the extra fee for the best service. Maybe the ISP has their own video streaming service, and they want to charge the competition a dollar a bit to transmit the data, thus cutting everyone out. Maybe they want to charge a million dollars for the service, in which case the biggest services will be able to pay, and the up and coming services will not be able to afford it and fail because customers will see really slow file uploads.

This can be particularly stifling to new services that cannot compete with the established deep pockets and cable companies. What would Twitter do if they were asked to pay a fee for every tweet that gets passed through the network providers service, or risk being “managed” to the point where the real-time benefits are eliminated. Without a revenue stream they would just go away. How about Facebook? They are just starting to monetize their service and something like this might be enough to kill them off. I’m sure that is fine for the providers. But what about consumers?

This whole issue is one of doublespeak. Net Neutrality is really free and open access for all, yet the opposition calls it excessive regulation of the Internet. Senator Ted Stevens kicked this off back in 2006 when he said, “Until somebody tells me what net neutrality means, until they can give me a definition, I don’t want it in there. Right now, nobody knows what it means, so why put it in the bill?”

If nobody knew what it meant, then how did the FCC define it in an agreement with Verizon over their acquisition of MCI in 2005 where they agreed to “adhere to ‘network neutrality’” principles adopted by the FCC earlier this year? So Verizon had to agree to abide by Net Neutrality to get their merger approved, and now that agreement periods are over these companies are arguing that these same principles that they agreed to are confusing and impossible to define, as well as being unneeded government interference with free trade.

I think this issue is too simple for the government. Neutrality at is most basic means that ISPs pass through everything that comes in exactly the same, no matter the protocol (like Comcast) or source. Just treat all Web sites and services as equals with the same access to bandwidth. That way email, Web pages, music, streaming video, P2P traffic, and yes, Google, get the same access to bandwidth without any interference or additional charge.

An ISP or bandwidth provider must route all traffic and treat it equally. Act like a switch: data in, data out.

This article originally appeared in the newsletter for the Internet Oldtimers Foundation.

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Welcome to the first installment of Cashing Out, Revenews’ weekly compilation of news and announcements that we feel will impact your business, your pocket book, and as sometimes is the case in this industry, your sanity.

Democracy gets Squirrelly

Kevin Cogill, known as Skwerl felt that ten years was far too long to wait for a Guns N’Roses album. So he posted nine songs from Chinese Democracy, the long awaited sixth album, on the blog Antiquiet in June. Not long after the posting Cogill was questioned by the FBI and was subsequently arrested for violating federal copyright laws. Bail was set at $10k with a preliminary hearing scheduled for September 17^th.

Ebay Takes a Bite

The practice of cookie stuffing can be an easy way to cheat the system. Essentially a fraudulent publisher utilizes software programs to redirect a computer to an advertiser’s site, often without the end user knowing the action is taking place. Stuff enough cookies on end users computers and eventually cheaters end up getting paid for referrals they never really sent to the advertiser. On Tuesday, August 26, 2008 Ebay sued Shawn Hogan of Digital Point Solutions, Todd Dunning of Kessler’s Flying Circus, and Brian Dunning of Thunderwood Holdings claiming they had committed fraud. What is notable is that Ebay filed the suit under RICO which could lead up to $25,000 in fines and/or up to 20 years in prison. To read a PDF of the court documents go here.

Comcast puts up Size Limit

Comcast Corp, the largest cable operator in the US, announced it a 250 gigabyte cap per customer account for residential customers. Although it has been reported since last year that Comcast had been enforcing unspecified limitations this is the first time the limit was defined publicly. Customers who surpass the usage limit more than twice in a six-month timeframe face possible service termination. This could be in response to the Federal Communications Commission order (pdf) that Comcast not block or interfere with peer-to-peer applications like BitTorrent.

National Federation of the Blind Hits Bulls Eye

After two years of litigation Target has settled the dispute regarding the lack of access to Target.com for blind internet users. The National Federation of the Blind had filled suit that Target’s failure to make the website accessible was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The settlement reached on August 27^th established a $6 million dollar fund from which litigants from the California based lawsuit can make claims. In addition Target agreed to a three year program which would allow the Federation to perform testing of Target.com to insure accessibility for the blind.

Affiliate Summit Wants You to Speak in Vegas

Affiliate Summit is taking speaker proposals for Affiliate Summit West 2009 in Vegas. If you have a great idea for a session submit your speaker proposal here. The deadline for proposals is September 12^th.

If you have news tips or events you want us to highlight on Cashing Out, please submit them to angel (at) revenews.com.

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Cashing Out: Week of August 24-30th, 2008 in Online Marketing News

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