Darren Herman Archive

Editor’s note: The following column was provided by Darren Herman who is a digital media enthusiast and serial entrepreneur. 

I haven’t blogged about Google’s new Ad Planner so thought that I’d start my week talking about it and sharing a sexy and hot observation I made totally randomly.

What is the purpose of Ad Planner? Media Planners spend quite a bit of time trying to figure out where their brands or clients’ audiences are so that the brand can buy media to reach them. For digital media, many agencies use either Comscore or @Plan; both aren’t perfect, but they certainly help us organize thousands of potential sites for media planning.

Google is entering the world of Ad Planning. Why? I suspect it’s because they make it easy for anyone to purchase media on any site as they come into the Google Network. If you’re on the Google Network as a publisher, then ad dollars should follow as buying media for the small tire shop in Boise or a Fortune 100 brand can now reach you for display based online media.

I took a spin around the interface tonight and looked for Males, Ages 35-44, $150k+ in HHI, and have a Graduate Degree. It’s very intuitive, no frills – and gives a nice site list. If you use DoubleClick’s MediaVisor, you can export this and can finish planning in your preferred tool.

A funny thing happened however as I dug deeper. If you look closely at which sites come up first, you’ll see that the #1 site for this search is BDJGirls (Link Warning: ADULT CONTENT), an escort service. I’m all for beautiful women (and there are some on their site), but I don’t think I’m going to be spending my brand’s money on an escort service’s website. After reviewing their site, they don’t even accept advertising.

To add a bit of humor to this, BDJGirls is listed in the Weddings category. Does this mean that these males are looking for dates to weddings?

Maybe Ad Planner needs some refinement?  What’s evident however is that DoubleClick is very important to Google’s future strategy.

Darren Herman is a digital media enthusiast and serial entrepreneur. Herman writes about technology, entrepreneurship and digital media at his blog, http://www.darrenherman.com.

I spent this morning at an event hosted by The Media Kitchen. A variety of NY-based VC firms along with their portfolio companies presented general business updates. I captured a ton of video and will post my thoughts and the videos over the next few days. The Media Kitchen put together an absolutely hilarious opening video. I cut two snippets that I thought would be beneficial for anyone trying to grow their startup.

The first video has the puppet (Gary) interviewing Tumblr founder David Karp about what makes Tumblr so popular. Rather than give away the reason, just watch the very short video.

In this video, the puppet asks MobLogic host Lindsay Campbell and Wallstrip host Julie Alexandria how to keep viewers engaged. This could be the first time that Julie and Lindsay have appeared together!

Let me start prefacing this posting by stating that I’m a huge fan of U2.  The band has tons of charisma, energy, and an amazing “show” that is similar to the aesthetics of the Dave Matthews Band.  U2 is one of the top selling acts of all time including tour attendance and record sales.  They generate income.  A lot of it.  Bono’s sunglasses aren’t cheap.

I was reading my daily newspaper (Techmeme) this morning and an article caught my attention, entitled, “U2 Manager slams Internet providers.”  Naturally, I’m fascinated by this because I love the music industry and digital media is my passion.

I read the article and it’s essentially stating that their manager, Paul McGuinness, while talking at a music conference in Hong Kong, accused the ISPs of strangling the music industry.  “ISPs” were compared to shoplifters.  You get where it’s going from here and can read the rest of the article, but now, I’d like to voice my opinion.

Let me preface my opinion by stating the following:

1. I ran a music marketing and technology company in 2001-2003
2. I downloaded music from P2P networks in the mid to late 90s
3. I stopped downloading illegal (important word) music in 2000
4. Without confirming, I’ve probably purchased 500 songs off iTunes since it’s launch

Now that I’ve given you a bit of background, my opinion is as follows:  adapt.

The world is becoming increasingly digital and new ways of distribution are going to disrupt MANY industries.  It just so happens, that the music industry is being hit hard, but as bandwidth proliferates more homes and people have faster access, Hollywood is next.  In some respects, Hollywood is being heavily disrupted as well as people download movies instead of going to the theaters.

I know in theory, adaptation seems easy.  Practicality – it’s not.  However, if we don’t start adapting and finding new business models… we’re doomed.  The folks holding the purse strings for the music world and the ancillary businesses touching it need to step outside their comfort zone and try new models.  Business will change.  I can guarantee that.

U2 makes a lot of money and they are trying to protect their livelihood.  For a band that is SO progressive, why are they being so conservative?  This is an opportunity for U2 to create revenue streams outside of the traditional record store.

McGuinness, you’re a manager.  You’re responsible for the future of the band and their business.  Instead of complaining and trying to shutdown ISPs, why not embrace the fact that people WANT U2 music and find ways to get compensated for them.  Just walk around the SXSW Music Festival hangouts and you’re bound to run into really innovative people trying to change the business.  U2 is a business/band that can make a difference.  Put yourself out there.

Darren Herman is a digital media enthusiast and serial entrepreneur. Herman writes about technology, entrepreneurship and digital media at his blog, http://www.darrenherman.com.

This post is in response to Inside Facebook’s post entitled, What CPM is your app making? As someone who is in charge of quite a bit of digital advertising budget from 12 brands ranging from consumer electronics to financial services and many things in between, I find advertising in/around Facebook applications very challenging and questionable.  As marketers get smarter about their media selection and care about joining the conversation with their audience, extremely integrated opportunities have emerged within the digital space.

For quite a few marketers, their audiences are on social networks such as Facebook.  As many Facebook users are installing applications and such, the marketers are trying to buy their way into the consumers attention span.

Just as we have advertising networks such as Advertising.com, we’re starting to see the same type of networks emerge within the widget/application space.  If history repeats itself (which it very likely will), we will see these widget/application networks create standardized ad units (IAB standard if not already) and go on a scaling spree… how much inventory can they sign up to maximize their reach across the web.  The top 2-3 will be acquired to bundle into a Platform-A type approach by most media companies, and the world will not be any better off than it was prior…. why?  Because these type of ads are non-integrated.  Most of these ads run alongside these applications and don’t have high interaction rates.

Do these ads running in these Facebook applications add any value?  Can they be amplifyed offline?  What is the real value of them?  I think we’re seeing the value from the Inside Facebook posting… <$1.00 eCPMs.

Darren Herman is a digital media enthusiast and serial entrepreneur. Herman writes about technology, entrepreneurship and digital media at his blog, http://www.darrenherman.com.

In the past, I’ve written about talent agents in many different capacities including music and video games.  Some music industry pundits would say that the most promising position to have in the upcoming years is on the “agent” side, and for the competitive video game space, major talent houses such as CAA & UTA are creating divisions to rep extremely talented gamers.

Steve Rubel blogs about three Internet Careers that Won’t Soon Exist and one of his three are digital talent agents.  Excerpted below:

Digital Talent Agents

During the AdAge Digital Conference last week, a Digital Agent with a major talent agency talked about how they have a group of people who crawl the web in search of undiscovered musicians, artists, etc. These agents then pair promising amateurs with Hollywood or branded entertainment projects. I last wrote about this three years ago. Then it was emerging business. Now, however, it is becoming the norm.

Rubel further makes the point that the digital talent agent will not exist in the future because there really is no difference between a digital agent and traditional (offline) agent.   Digital/traditional lines are blurring and there should be no seperation.  He raises an extremely good point here.

For the foreseeable future, digital talent agents aren’t going anywhere, IMHO.  There are too many people at the top of the pyramid that still do not understand the digital space and will want dedicated teams to oversee it.  Not everyone loves integration…. just look at the advertising world.

I sat through presentation recently by John Battelle as he spoke on behalf of Federated Media (his company).  After listening to him speak about the position of his company, I can see them as the next UTA or CAA… he’s got many of the top celebs of the digital world under representation agreements.  I’m not sure what his contracts state, but he’s able to help generate revenue on their behalf through integrated marketing opportunities.  I’d like to see him go beyond (or maybe it’s already done) the traditional marketing arrangements and do a “management” division and really step on the toes of the big guys.

The talent agency world is fascinating…

Darren Herman is a digital media enthusiast and serial entrepreneur. Herman writes about technology, entrepreneurship and digital media at his blog, http://www.darrenherman.com.