Google to Deliver Instant Messages, Voice Over IM

Google may use
Jabber technology

Google may launch its own instant messaging system, Google Talk, as early as tomorrow, reports the Los Angeles Times. According to a person who has seen the service, Google Talk will allow users to chat either via their keyboards or via voice conversations on headsets.
A combined computer text and voice-calling service would put Google Talk in competition with a similar service pioneered by Skype, which has attracted tens of millions of users, especially in Europe, Reuters reports.

Google Rankles Advertisers, but Publishers Happy

Google last Tuesday implemented previously announced changes in AdWords, creating a minimum bid for each keyword based on a quality score assigned to it - and though the change also allows advertisers to reactivate keywords disabled because of low click-through performance, some advertisers are complaining that their costs have increased, writes CNET (via MarketingVox). On the other side of the equation, website publishers are generally praising changes Google has made because their revenue is increasing (as is Google’s).

Some advertisers have complained that instead of paying 5 cents, they have to bid anywhere from 10 cents to $1 or more for new keywords - and they say Google is not being transparent about how it determines the quality score.

‘Video’ Ads Start, Stop as People Walk By

Mirage Motion Media in Toronto has a new billboard technology that will, perhaps, reinvent outdoor advertising, writes BusinessWeek. The company’s product - interactive motion panels - play what they call video clips on seemingly standard advertising light boxes. The clips work without the use of any electronics or moving parts. Walk by one of the ads, and the picture moves. Stop, and the picture stops. Walk again, and the ad begins, too.

Prototypes in Toronto have passersby stopping in their tracks. One young woman burst into giggles as a strawberry leapt along beside her like a dolphin (an ad for a nearby food court). Mirage’s chief technology officer, Preet Khalsa, engages in unscientific studies, listening to people’s footsteps as they pass. More than half broke their stride, producing an audible shuffle, he said.

Viacom, Yahoo Partner for Search Marketing

Viacom and Yahoo have entered into a multi-year agreement for search marketing and web search distribution. Under the agreement, Yahoo will provide multiple search marketing and web search services to Viacom’s online properties, including BET.com, CBSNews.com, CMT.com, MTV.com, NickJr.com, SHO.com, and VH1.com, according to Viacom.

PPMs Track Podcasts, Too, Says Arbitron

Arbitron said that it has successfully demonstrated the portable people meter’s (PPM) ability to track listening to podcasts, according to Billboard Radio Monitor. In a test during the week of July 18, Arbitron encoded several podcasts from Clear Channel’s WHTZ-FM (Z100) in New York that were uploaded to Apple’s iTunes Music Store. The podcasts were then downloaded to an MP3 player and played using headsets with the PPM headset adapter.

SAM Reaches College Students with Gender, Regional Customization

Members of the Student Advantage Discount Program - which offers college and university students discounts of up to 50 percent at partners like Dell, Champ Sports, eMusic, Target.com, Greyhound, and Amtrak - recently received the first issue of Student Advantage Magazine, or SAM, writes DM News.

With celebrity covers and interviews, including a first edition featuring the Grammy Award-winning The Black Eyed Peas, each issue of the quarterly magazine will contain college-specific content, covering lifestyle and career issues, news, budgeting ideas, entertainment and new discounts for cardholders.

Content Partnerships: Strategic Marketing, Not Just Value Adds

Independent Film Channel has doubled its advertising take to $10 million in the last two years by blurring the line between ads and content for advertisers like Target, Heineken, and Acura, in an example of one of the hottest advertising trends: turning the advertiser into a content producer, AdAge writes.

Rather than accepting 30-second commercials, IFC integrates brands into short-form, film-like movie promos, for much less than it might cost a marketer to create a film on its own or through an agency. Film promos are the ads consumers will most likely to want to watch, so IFC is hoping to create “an environment between shows and movies that’s so useful it’s TiVo-proof,” said Evan Shapiro, IFC’s executive VP and general manager.

Publicis Forms Media Ventures Unit

Word has leaked that Publicis Groupe has created a new corporate-level unit that may begin taking financial roles in media companies in order to have economic influence over new media and technologies for advertising clients, Mediapost reports. This comes during a time when media shops have been seeking to move their positioning away from media buying agencies toward media investment managers.

How Publicis Groupe’s new unit, Publicis Groupe Media Ventures, will work is not yet fully determined, and insiders aren’t exactly sure how the new approach will be handled, with the agency taking equity positions directly, on behalf of its clients, or both.

Direct Marketing Via Email on the Rise

Three out of five companies plan to spend more on email in 2005 compared with last year, according to the 2005 Executive Report: Target Marketing Priorities Analysis, according to B to B. The web survey, compiled by CSO Insights on behalf of direct marketing company Harte-Hanks, also showed that more than half of respondents plan to increase spending on search marketing.

Sidebar Takes Center Stage in New Google Desktop Search

Click to enlarge

In the game of one-upsmanship with rivals Microsoft and Yahoo, Google has updated its desktop search offering, adding tools that deliver personalized information based on a user’s online surfing habits, reports the Associated Press (via MarketingVox). Google Desktop 2 is available starting today as a public beta. In addition to providing search results, the update of the free program monitors user behavior and presents relevant information in a window called the Sidebar.

Sidebar’s mini applications provides personalized news, RSS and Atom feeds, photo sites, and other information sources, based on the user’s previous web activities, writes Information Week.