There’s a saying. There’s even a book. “All News is Local.” This past October I was invited to participate in The Future of Advertising and Publishing conference held at the Harvard Innovation Lab. The event was co-sponsored by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, the Digital Initiative at Harvard Business School, and the Shorenstein Center on Media,… Continue reading What Happened to Local Publishers?
The Threat to Google Advertising Dominance is Back – With Teeth
In 2007 Google feared for its future as the digital ad leader. There were two huge technology holes in their advertising business strategy that could be exploited by others. These were real threats. One was the browser. The browser controls the DOM (Document Object Model) which controls the delivery and experience of content on a… Continue reading The Threat to Google Advertising Dominance is Back – With Teeth
The Decade of Display That Wasn’t 2007 – 2017
Act I: Crank That The year was 2007. Ten years ago. Microsoft bought aQuantive for $6.3B. Google bought DoubleClick for $3.1B. Yahoo bought Right Media for $680M. Display was poised to take massive amounts of advertising dollars from television over the next decade and become the dominant form of advertising. Microsoft, Google and Yahoo were… Continue reading The Decade of Display That Wasn’t 2007 – 2017
Autumn for Digital Publishers…and Everything After
The digital media world was a rocked yesterday by news that Buzzfeed is going to miss revenue targets by 20% and Mashable was sold for $50M when its valuation last year was $250M. What is going on? The short answer is a lot. Buzzfeed is actually right in their statement where they put blame on… Continue reading Autumn for Digital Publishers…and Everything After
Snap Revenues in Perspective. And What it Means.
Snap announced revenues yesterday and the stock got hammered. The miss was about 15% off projected but the company still did half the revenue it did all last year in one quarter. Pretty solid. What matters is not what Snap did last quarter but the overall potential of Snap as a company that sells media.… Continue reading Snap Revenues in Perspective. And What it Means.
The New Google Era
Something has been happening on the Google SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). It is the very thing that the FTC just closed the case on. It is the delivery on the promise that Larry and Sergey made from the beginning. That Google would organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible. The keywords (pun… Continue reading The New Google Era
End of the CPM Experiment
The flag bearer of display advertising was always Yahoo. Their massive sales force stoked 15 years of equity into “the web banner.” Yahoo arguably had the greatest hand in providing the economic foundation for the entire web for many of its formative years. That is why nothing better symbolizes the collapse of that foundation better… Continue reading End of the CPM Experiment
