Online advertising technology provider Rubicon has released their latest 2008 Online Advertising Market Report for the fourth quarter. Similar to the PubMatic AdPrice Index, Rubicon’s report takes a look at the online advertising industry through analyzing the stats and impressions served on the Rubicon system. Rubicon notes that the report came from analyzing 45 billion impressions across their publisher network. The report focuses heavily on news (around the election) and entertainment. There’s also a discussion of the 2009 ad market as well.

Remember that the report comes from only ads Rubicon has served and while not noted in the report, I assume a large percentage of the 45 billion are served via their large publishing properties.

The key takeaways from the report are:

• $134 million was invested in ad network]related deals in Q4
• Traffic to all sites in the Rubicon ProjectNews & Reference channel jumped 50-75% percent on and after Election day
• CPMs tumbled by more than 40 percent in the Dating channel, and by almost 18 percent in the Sports channel. In contrast, they were up 50 percent in the Young Adult channel, up 42 percent in the TV & Film channel, and up 31 percent in Technology.
• Overall publisher revenue across the Rubicon Project is on pace to outperform Q4 ‘08 by 30% in Q1 ‘09.

Check out my interview with Rubicon CEO Frank Addante and all of our Rubicon coverage.

Find more stories about: 2008, advertising, online advertising, Quick News, Rubicon

Can’t make it to Times Square this year for the New Year’s Eve bash? Don’t want to go out in what looks to be a freezing cold, blustery night? Would you rather ring in the new year on Friendfeed or Twitter? I’ve got two words for you: Mogulus and Hulu.

NY-based online video streaming provider Mogulus has setup a New Year’s Eve Times Square channel which will be live from 4pm ET tonight. They have partnered with some of the Gannett properties which will run the feed on their newspaper websites as well.

Hulu will run a live channel from Times Square beginning at 10pm ET. Hulu notes that their coverage, “will include views of Times Square and the crystal ball, plus the ambient sounds of the party as NYC winds up to count down to 2009.”

UPDATE: Check out 2010 New Year’s eve video options

Happy New Year to all of the awesome CN readers. Please be safe! 2009 looks to be a very exciting year!

Find more stories about: 2008, 2009, Hulu, Mogulus, NYC, online video, Quick News

The Guardian in the UK is out with their top picks for 2009. Actually they state, "here are our 100 revised best sites to see you through the next couple of years". So I assume that means we have to put up with some of these services for more than the next 12 months? (lol?) So let’s check out their list – click to view the full list.

• Blogging – they like WordPress and Bloglines
• Browsers – they like EVERY browser except IE
• Cartoons – Dilbert is one of their picks
• Create/Collaborate – Zoho and Remember the Milk are two of their selections
• Games – they go with a variety of blogs from the UK – thought this was about web apps?
• Geek Squad – nice to see NY-based Joel on Software get a nod even though he’s a blogger
• Public Services – good roundup – sites I haven’t heard of but will try to review on CN
• Location – dopplr gets a nod – does anyone besides Scoble use this anymore?
• Mapping – there’s a noise pollution map listed – pretty interesting – I can only imagine what my area would get for a score!
• Money sites – all UK based which makes sense – Zopa gets the nod in the social lending space
• Music – last and blip .fm listed but no Pandora
• News – well lookie there, Digg on top – how’d we see that coming? Techmeme listed along with Slashdot
• Offbeat – the lolcats won’t die in the next couple of years apparently – damn.
• Photography – flickr is the best apparently
• Physical from virtual – they love their UK-based Moo – I dislike the moo cards – especially now processing them on CloudContacts
• Social Networking – same ole same ole

They have even dedicated a special section to Twitter tools! It’s an interesting list worth checking out as there are a few new sites on the list.

Find more stories about: 2008, Europe, London, Quick News

Search engines Yahoo and AOL have released their "2008 top searches" lists today. Check out the Yahoo and AOL year in review websites to view the full lists of all types of searches. Oops she did it again — Britney Spears leads on both search engines. Somehow Yahoo has Britney as the top overall search but not the top search in the celebrity category?

Here’s the lists from the News category:

Some other fun bits….

• How to tie a tie = most popular how-to search on AOL
• AOL says Las Vegas was the most searched U.S. city for travel – NYC placed 5th
• Yahoo shows Jamie Lynn Spears moving up in the celebrity category – hey a teenage pregnancy and a baby daddy will do it every time!
• In Yahoo’s "influential women" category – mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano beat out Michelle Obama
• Heath Ledger and Bernie Mac lead Yahoo’s dead people category

Find more stories about: 2008, AOL, Quick News, search, yahoo

My second visit to SXSW is now over and it was great. Met a ton of great people and thanks to everyone for saying hi and appreciate all of the great feedback over the past week. Tomorrow we return to normal coverage and bid Austin and the birds adieu.

• Schwag Giveaway – Gary V’s Sweat, Facebook Tshirts, Seesmic Stickers and More
• Hats Off To The Twitter Team
• Hey Far Away Haters, Here’s Why I Enjoy SXSW
• Video Interview – Kyte.TV Explains The Difference With Seesmic, Qik and Flixwagon
• The (Apparently) Two Sides of Mark Zuckerberg
• Panel Recap: Good Analytics Can Get You Booty
• Startup Pricing Suggestions – Reduce And Raise
• Facebook Garage Live Blogging w/Mark Zuckerberg
• Kyte Pulls a Twitter
• Viddler Dinner Recap: Lots of Celebs and Kevin Rose / Gary V Are CN Fans!
• Stickam Demo Video
• The Ninja Accepts
• Web Awards Winners
• Exclusive: Bitstrips Demo Video – Launching Today
• Keynote: Mark Zuckerberg – Live Notes Plus Post-Keynote Crowd Reactions
• Contextual Web Session Recap
• The SXSW Bag, "We Waste Paper"

Find more stories about: 2008, Conferences, sxsw

Tomorrow the CenterNetworks team will be making our way to Austin, Texas for the 2008 South-by-Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival. If you check our coverage from the 2007 event, you can see how much fun the event is. We will continue our top ranked, award-winning* coverage of this year’s event and as always there is no charge for you to view the content.

There are several other resources worth checking out if you plan to attend or be a home gamer. Thanks to everyone for emailing in suggestions – keep ‘em coming!

• SXSWhere – this site is maintained by NY-based Bricabox and houses all of the party locations.
• SXSW Videos – Viddler has created a mini-portal where they will house videos shot on scene at SXSW. Our videos will be housed there (and here) along with Internet celebs iJustine, WineLibraryTV
• Twitter list – this is the list of people who you can follow for south tweeters.
• SXSW baby – unofficial resource
• http://sched.org/ - very nice calendar tool with basically every party and panel

If you have other resources or will be blogging, live blogging, video blogging, Twittering or Powncing, leave your link in the comments and I will add it to the post. And drop me a line if you will be in town, love to meet CN readers and give out our awesome stickers. See you in Austin!

* awarded by Mothers of CenterNetworks, 2007

Find more stories about: 2008, Conferences, sxsw

We review tons of products and services on CN, over 1,000 in the past year. Most are good to very good, but some just wow us when we check them out. I’d like to share three that have come across our radar in the last month that are game changers and should be very, very successful — and two of them are NY-based, the other calls Boston home.

Part of what will lead to the success is the distribution deals each one has already signed. As Marc Andreessen has said many times, distribution is the key. I am interested in your opinions on the companies listed below – leave your thoughts in the comments.

GoMobo

We took a look at GoMobo last month and also posted their demo video from the NY Tech Meetup. The basic idea with GoMobo is that you can order food from a fast-food joint or restaurant using your mobile for takeway. What this does is save you the time from standing in line. And we predicted 2008 would be the year of the time-saver apps.

Currently the service area is mainly NYC but they have expansion plans in 2008. Their distribution comes from the chains as a point of differentiation which includes Dunkin Donuts, Subway, Papa Johns, etc. Imagine punching into your phone that you want a large Milky Way hot chocolate, corn muffin and a bag of munchkins and having it ready when you arrive.

Think about the time saved from waiting on a line at lunchtime – especially for a person on an hour lunch break. GoMobo estimates the time saved by using their app is over 284 days, I don’t know how they calculated it but even if it’s just 5 minutes each trip, it can add up quickly.

And more importantly, outside of Manhattan, think about the possibilities using mobile in your car – no waiting on a drivethru lane, you just drive directly up to the pickup window at the moment you desire.

The service is free for consumers and GoMobo generates a percentage of the order price. The food establishment doesn’t care because a good percentage of this business will be incremental sales.

Aviary

Aviary is the newest of the apps that we believe will change 2008. The demo of their first app is just amazing. Aviary is a suite of tools targeting the artist community. It’s an actual competitor to Photoshop and Illustrator online. Of the 80-100 demos at the NY Tech Meetup I’ve seen in the last year, this was the first one to receive massive noise and excitement after the demo.

Sure, there are other products like Skitch which are great but appeal to more of the basic graphic needs. I haven’t seen any other product that takes the perspective of what an artist needs and moves it online. The distribution angle for Aviary is to their core group of potential users, the artists. They have tied into their core business, worth1000 to grow excitement and buzz.

The unique angle and game changer for Aviary is in how it deals with copyright and royalties. Since the application is built for artists who make a living at selling their works, it makes sense that the copyright and royalty piece be part of the application. Each piece of the final work is tagged from the source files. Maybe this will help issues like the one that blew up last year with Richter Scales usage of photos. I wouldn’t be surprised if Aviary starts receiving acquisition offers soon.

Flixwagon

Yesterday I met with Flixwagon VP Marketing Sarig Reichert and VP R&D Roy Ginat. Flixwagon is based in Israel and their goal is to make video sharing less cumbersome. If we look at the videos from the NY Tech Meetup, I shoot them, download them, compress them in Windows Movie Maker, upload them and then finally embed them into a post. Flixwagon changes that by shooting live video on your mobile device and having it appear on your blog immediately in real-time. Sarig says that they are empowering a revolution.

You get the full impact of the possibilities when Roy walked outside the coffee shop into Rockfeller Center and began shooting live video while Sarig and I watched it on the laptop. Imagine the parent who was away on business while the child was playing in a soccer championship. The parent could watch the game live from another location. The possibilities are endless.

Their distribution will come from partnerships with major brands. They hosted MTV’s Choose Or Lose special for the Super Tuesday primaries this week in which 51 live streamers were in every state in the nation sending back live video to the MTV Web site and on the TRL tv show.

Soon you will be able to ping Twitter when you are broadcasting and they are working on scheduling and an upload function to YouTube once the live version has completed.

Another company in this space is Qik. Qik has been getting major buzz recently thanks to webulebrity Robert Scoble and his use of the application. I can’t speak to the differences as my phone currently does not handle mobile video, but Sarig says both companies are creating a market and he likes what they are doing. Saris is proud of their video capture quality and the system is built to handle massive traffic.

Once video on mobile devices becomes a standard, Flixwagon is set for success. Photos are so 2005. This is where Yahoo Live should be.

Find more stories about: 2008, Aviary, Flixwagon, GoMobo, Insights, NYC

Tonight I participated in a panel discussion about what’s coming in 2008. It was hosted by Ember Media and overall I’d say it was one of the most enjoyable evenings I’ve had in a while. The conversation before, during and after the panel was great. It’s always great to meet people in person who read CN.

The Ember Media team did an excellent job in coordination and organization as everything went off without a hitch. Clayton Banks, Ember Media CEO led off with a presentation about his picks for 2008. The truth is that 2008 might be the most exciting year on the Web yet. We may move further along overall this year than we have in the last 3-4 years combined.

The panel discussion followed with panelists: Jonah Bossewitch, Kay Madati and myself. Jonah works at Columbia University and Kay runs marketing for Community Connect which includes sites such as Black Planet which did half a billion pageviews in December 2007.

Some of the topics we discussed include: online advertising, supply/demand with regards to content, privacy, data portability, mobile, barcode technology with regards to advertising and the sematic Web.

Thanks to Clayton for including me and thanks to everyone for coming out.

Here are some of my photos from the evening:

Find more stories about: 2008, Conferences, NYC

Gigya is announcing the public launch of its "widget distribution network" today. This is great news considering that widget ads was one of my 2008 predictions. There’s no reason that advertising widgets can’t take over the ad market this year as long as they get the needed distribution. Gigya is trying to help that by allowing advertisers and brands to use their network to push out their widgets.

One of the reasons why I believe widgets are left behind is because they don’t drive as many visitors to the brand web site. This is always a big push for brands – now they are slowly starting to realize that its about brand interaction – who cares where that interaction happens.

The key for growth and acceptance lies in two areas: payout/money and analytics. The more money that’s paid out to the publishers obviously the higher acceptance there will be. But for advertisers and brands, the ability to report back to management about the effectiveness about the widgets will be key.

Kristen has some additional information taking a look at other widget ad players.

Find more stories about: 2008, advertising, Gigya, Quick News, widgets

InfoSpace, (NASDAQ:INSP) makers of the Dogpile and WebFetch search engines, has announced its priorities for 2008. The full memo is below but it boils down to three things: reduce costs, increase traffic and expand the network. I always wonder why the items listed below weren’t done last year, and the year before that, etc. Now they have determined that they need to increase traffic?

Naturally the first thought for "reducing costs" is a workforce reduction. There is no mention of this in the notes below. The company is also looking to increase the traffic to it’s own search properties including Dogpile. I used Dogpile a bit back in say 1999, didn’t even realize they were still around. The last bit is that they want to work on increasing the white label solutions the company provides. This could be their best option instead of attempting to compete with the likes of Google and smaller player Yahoo. 

Here’s the full list of InfoSpace’s strategic priorities:

• Realigning the Company’s operating structure: As part of the Company’s effort to balance its operating structure with the new needs of its business, InfoSpace expects to reduce costs by approximately $7 million to $9 million and as a result will have cash severance charges of approximately $7 million to $8 million reflected in the fourth quarter of 2007.
• Increasing traffic on InfoSpace’s owned and operated search engines: InfoSpace’s online search assets are differentiated by the Company’s metasearch technology and include its award-winning branded websites such as Dogpile.com, which recently ranked highest in customer satisfaction among search engines for the second consecutive year. Additionally, the Company has long-term agreements with both Google and Yahoo! to deliver their search results and text-based advertising listings to its network of metasearch properties and affiliates through 2011. Through significant product enhancements and new direct-to-consumer marketing efforts, the Company expects to increase traffic on its owned search sites.
• Expanding InfoSpace’s distribution network: InfoSpace currently benefits from a solid distribution network with over 100 private label partners, including 6 new deals signed in the fourth quarter. In 2008, the Company expects to further expand its distribution network by attracting new distribution partners and broadening its product set to include a new portal product and other value added offerings.

Find more stories about: 2008, InfoSpace, Insights, search

Last year I listed 23 people I would like to meet in 2007. I met a good bunch of them which was awesome, some for just a handshake, some for more lengthy conversations. I’ve decided to continue this list with another 23 people I’d like to meet in 2008. Some names are the same as I still am interested in a face-to-face discussion. I hope to meet a lot more CN readers this year, I enjoy the conversations with each and every one of you.

Here are the lists from 2007 and for 2008:

Ya’all know I love ya – I tried to pick a cross-section of people who could help create a better CN by meeting with them. I look forward to meeting everyone at the conferences and meetups in 2008.

Find more stories about: 2008, Insights

It’s that time of the year — prediction time. Most of the blogger heavyweights have listed their predictions and I thought I’d share mine after being pinged by James Thomas. I have decided to offer some predictions that might be considered a bit non-traditional. With that said, here are some of my thoughts for 2008:

Time Wasters Will Be Replaced With Time Savers

What the F is up with time wasters lately? It seems every meetup or party I attend, someone pitches some sort of time waster. I think what we will see in 2008 is a resurgence of time savers, similar to the Web 1.0 boom in that apps will actually be useful for us and increase productivity. The net result will be more time offline actually socializing with our friends in real life.

More Startups Close Doors But More Open Overall

Starting a Web business will remain very inexpensive in 2008 and that will mean more will dive head first. We will see lots of failures but overall we will see growth in total. Entrepreneurs will utilize the Yahoo theory of throw 10 things at the wall and see which one of the ten sticks.

Widget Advertising Will Take Off

Advertisers have continued to push the traditional banner ad for nearly a decade. Widgets offer way more interactivity and presence on a blog or Web site and advertisers will realize that widgets are the future of advertising. The other added benefit of widgets is to the site/blog visitor they don’t appear as advertisements and visitors might actually interact with the widget more than with any traditional advertising. It will be considered a way that companies can "join the conversation".

RSS Advertising Will Take Off

There are a couple of ad firms that currently support ads inside feeds (FeedBurner and Pheedo come to mind). As feeds continue their push to replace the traditional content, ad firms will realize the power of the feed and will begin to offer RSS solutions to capitalize on the potential revenue from the ads.

Bloggers Will Be Held Accountable For Their Actions

IndustryGirl touched on this in her prediction post. This past year we’ve started to see blogger reputations in various categories (no matter how large or small) taking hits for the practices employed by that blog. In 2008 we will see bloggers who treat their userbase poorly and act as bullies lose traffic and presence. I can only hope that those blogs who bully users and content providers are kicked to the curb. If anything can ruin blogging as a job for all of us and push people to "old media", it’s the actions of a few bad apples.

RSS/Feed Metrics/Analytics Will Actually Mean Something

It’s important to remember why we haven’t seen any improvement in metrics and analytics in years, and it’s simple – because it’s all about the benjamins. I am very hopeful that we will see some real metrics for RSS feeds, as you know I believe the traditional subscriber metric is dead — just as dead as the hit was in 1997. I’d be all over getting some panel discussions together about feed metrics and analytics so we can actually make some strides towards industry adoption of actual feed metrics. (and yes, we need an overhaul on Web metrics in general but I have beat that dead horse enough this year)

Apple Lives Large Early, Dives Late

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is living the highlife now with stock prices hovering at $200/share. Products are beautiful, talent is strong, tech bloggers and early adopters loving Apple. We have started to see a small ripple in the Apple armor with posts such as Dave Winer’s about his hard dive fiasco. Negative reports will continue to increase in number throughout 2008 and another tech manufacturer will step up their game and begin to erode Apple’s market share. Who will it be? I am not sure but I could see Sony playing a role. Apple will counter with lower prices.

Agree? Disagree? Leave your thoughts in the comments – I am very interested in feedback!

Find more stories about: 2008, CenterNetworks