... for bloggers not to download and try the new Q-Ads tool and service, other than a blogger exercising a complete ban on advertising.
There are many many bloggers who put up Google advertising on their blogs and then basically forget about it ... or if they are really serious about advertising on their blog will expend a lot of effort creating interesting content but just leave the delivery to Google without any means of controlling what they receive as advertising, since Google's algorithm's deliver what they are designed to deliver.
Using categorized keywords tailored to your audience(s) is an effective way to begin developing an advertising strategy and tactics for your blogging that allows you to control what advertising you choose to expose to your readers, and this ability to choose and control advertising has always been at the heart of Qumana's tools' ability to insert advertising with the selection of a keyword and a click.
2. Signing up for a Q-Ads account is free, and only takes 5 minutes
3. The Q-Ads revenue-sharing program is generous and fair.
4. There is a powerful and easy-to-use ad design function available in both the Q-Ads tool and the Qumana editor. We intend to add templates and other ad formats just as soon as humanly possible.
WE WILL BE ABLE TO CREATE AND DELIVER MORE INNOVATIONS SOONER IF WE GET MORE AND MORE USERS ... IN OTHER WORDS, HELP A FRIEND OR THREE TO DOWNLOAD AND TRY QUMANA AND THE Q-ADS TOOLS.
5. Once signed up, you don't HAVE to use advertising all the time, or in every blog post .. it's completely up to you as to how often you insert an advertisement.
6. If you download the Qumana editor, you can choose to advertise or not .. if you don't want to, just don't use the Insert Ad function. You still get to use a powerful, feature rich and versatile blog editor, whether you blog using a Mac or a PC.
Here's where I try something i have been wondering about for a while .. in principle it should be relatively easy to give users a default ad presentation setting that would result in an ad displaying in their blog post as follows ... probably an issue depending upon template chosen by user, but sometimes those things can be made adaptable.
But for now to make an ad look more clickable on a site using Qumana and Q-Ads, I would ...
1. Use shift__underscore to create a line across the window of the editor
2. Pull and place a Q-Ad
3. Center align the ad
4. Copy-and-paste the line from Step 1 below the ad
UPDATE: Trying out the addition of a second advertisment
San Francisco and Vancouver (Nov. 29, 2006) -- Qumana Software Inc today announced availability of the Q-Ads tools (http://tools.typepad.com/get/qads) and the popular Qumana offline blog editor (http://tools.typepad.com/get/qumana) for users of the TypePad blogging platform. Users of Six Apart's popular hosted blogging service can now quickly and easily insert keyword-based ads directly into their blog posts, whether they use the Qumana editor or not.
"Qumana is thrilled to be offering the industry's easiest ad insertion tool to this important blogging community," said Fred Fabro, CEO of Qumana. "Q-Ads puts TypePad bloggers at the center of the explosive growth taking place in online advertising," said Fabro.
"TypePad bloggers deserve creative and powerful ways to earn money from their blogs. Qumana offers bloggers a unique approach, and we're happy to introduce their tools to our customers." said Michael Sippey, VP & GM of TypePad at Six Apart.
"With Q-Ads TypePad bloggers can choose which keywords best represent the editorial message of the blog post and then with one click pull an ad from our network that best relates to that content," added Fabro. "The result is a matching of TypePad bloggers' content to an ad message, which can give the ad message greater relevance to blog readers. Greater relevance means higher click-throughs and happier advertisers," said Fabro.
Qumana's Q-Ads tool is a browser extension that works as an Internet Explorer plugin or Firefox extension that enables users to "pull and place" text-based advertising based on the keywords they enter. The Q-Ads Tool works with all major blogging platforms, including TypePad. There is also a Q-Ads plug-in for Windows LiveWriter.
Qumana also offers Typepad users the leading off-line blog editor in the blogosphere. Qumana allows bloggers to create media-rich blog posts in a familiar WYSIWYG interface and with simple button clicks insert the keyword-based ads, Technorati tags, and multimedia (e.g. YouTube videos) through the innovative Insert HTML button.
The insert ad interface is designed to allow users to enter the keyword of their choice and then customize the size and colour of the ad before inserting it into their post.
About Qumana Qumana Software Inc. is an advertising and web services company that provides content providers and personal publishers with market-leading methods for delivering and adding advertising to online content. Qumana's mission is to make blogging easier and more profitable for bloggers globally. Qumana is run by Internet industry veterans, hardcore bloggers, software purists, and world-class designers committed to keeping things simple. For more information, visit http://www.qumana.com/
About Six Apart, Ltd. Six Apart Ltd. provides award-winning blogging software and services that change the way millions of individuals, organizations, and corporations connect and communicate across the world every day. Founded in 2002 by husband and wife team Ben Trott and Mena G. Trott, Six Apart has grown into a global company with its headquarters in San Francisco, CA, and offices in Europe and Japan. The company continues to lead in the blogging and social media industry with the Movable Type publishing platform, the TypePad hosted blogging service LiveJournal, an online community organized around personal journals, and Vox, a free personal blogging service for friends and family. For more information, visit http://www.sixapart.com/
For more info: Fred Fabro - CEO and President, Qumana Software Inc. e: fred AT qumana.com Tel: 604.837.0400
We are happy to announce that we are releasing two new tools to make it even easier for you to pick and place Q-Ads ads into your websites and blog posts.
A new version of the Q-Ads tool for Firefox (including 2.0) and Internet Explorer will allow you to insert ads while still using your familiar web-based post editor, but now it can do more—now you can insert YouTube and other video clips too! Just like the award-winning Qumana editor we have integrated an Insert HTML function into the Q-Ads tool that lets you insert videos (and other HTML code) right into your posts. This will let YouTube users put their own videos into their own blogs and publish an advertisement along with the video clip.
Because of the security limitations within many web-based blog editors YouTube insertion may not work for all users. Each blog platform handles this kind of code differently, and so we can't guarantee this function will work for all blog platforms.
Second, we added new ad category and keyword pick lists to the Q-ads tool. We combed through over 10,000 keywords in popular categories like Computers, Real Estate, and Home/Garden to give you 10 top-performing keywords in each category. We will refresh this list periodically to make sure you still have the best keywords available to you at all times. Don't like one of the suggestions? No problem, just choose Custom Keyword and enter your own.
This is also useful for content providers who may want to partner with Qumana to offer these capabilities to their users. We can tailor and mirror categories that are important and relevant to their audiences, so as to provide them with customized advertising inventory that means something to their audiences or users. The content providers can offer their users free easy-to-use content and advertising publishing tools along with the ability to access quality advertising and make money.
Lastly, we are officially releasing a Q-Ads plugin for Microsoft's Live Writer offline blog editor. While we think Qumana is the best editor out there (and if you are looking for a powerful blog editor that has all the functions and more of the Q-Ads tool, Qumana is for you), some of you might like Live Writer. We don't take this personally, so we are giving LW users Q-Ads too! The Q-Ads plugin for Live Writer contains the same ad insert as the Q-Ads tool (with category pick lists and ad customization) and the easy Insert Video (and other HTML code) functions too!
All of these are available for download now from the Qumana website.
Another sign o' the times, via the NY Times ... this news nicely reinforces the trend we reported on last month in our post No Surprise ...
Help speed up the changes to the publishing and news and advertising industries .. sign up for a Q-Ads account, download the free ad insertion tool, and help accelerate the changes that are underway.
Help make it easier for the little guy or gal to advertise post by post, right where your readers are paying attention.
A consortium of seven newspaper chains representing 176 daily papers across the country is announcing a broad partnership with Yahoo to share content, advertising and technology, another sign that the wary newspaper business is increasingly willing to shake hands with the technology companies they once saw as a threat.
In the first phase of the deal, the newspaper companies will begin posting their employment classified ads on Yahoo’s classified jobs site, HotJobs, and start using HotJobs technology to run their own online career ads. But the long-term goal of the alliance with Yahoo, according to one senior executive at a participating newspaper company, is to be able to have the content of these newspapers tagged and optimized for searching and indexing by Yahoo.
In that way, local news — one of the pillars of the newspaper business — would become part of a large information network that would increase usefulness for readers and value to advertisers.
“Now the industry has religion about the Internet, based on what has happened to the business in recent years,” said the executive, who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak for his company. “So there is a lot more genuine enthusiasm today.”
A little more than a week ago Dave Sifry posted Technorati's most recent snapshot of the (continuing) growth and maturation of the blogosphere, including a number of analyses about how blogs continue to penetrate the media scene, the frequency of posting, where posts come from, and how Technorati is mitigating the scourge of splogs (or more accurately, taking steps to not count them).
Here's the concluding summary:
In Summary:
1. Technorati is now tracking more than 57 Million blogs. 2. Spam-, splog- and sping-fighting efforts at Technorati are paying dividends in terms of the reduction of garbage in our indexes, even if it does seem to impact overall growth rates. 3. Today, the blogosphere is doubling in size approximately every 230 days. 4. About 100,000 new weblogs were created each day, again down slightly quarter-over-quarter but probably due in part to spam fighting efforts. 5. About 4% of new splogs get past Technorati's filters, even if it is only for a few hours or days. 6. There is a strong correlation between the aging and post frequency of blogs and their authority and Technorati ranking. 7. The globalization of the blogosphere continues. Our data appears to show both English and Spanish languages are a more universal blog language than the other two most dominant language, Japanese and Chinese, which seem to be more regionally localized. 8. Coincident with a rise in blog posts about escalating Middle East tensions throughout the summer and fall, Farsi has moved into the top 10 languages of the blogosphere, indicating that blogging continues to play a critical role in debates about the important issues of our times.
The last two points are of significant interest, and here's a pie chart that gives us a sense of the spreading globalization of blogging:
We recently switched advertising suppliers and upgraded the technical capabilities for delivering and placing ads.
This is good news for current Q-Ads users, who should see a noticeable difference in the service, and for potential Q-Ads users who are seeking an effective and viable alternative that will help them connect with readers through advertising that can be placed within blog post content.
At the same time, we have been creating a suite of easy-to-use, one-or-two-click applications that will help personal publishers everywhere expand their advertising options. Look for these services to improve as we plug in additional inventory categories and integrate functionality even further.
Q-Ads tool suite
With the end goal being to make the process of inserting ads as easy as possible, Qumana has created two core tools to allow users to insert Q-Ads ads into their Internet properties.
1. Qumana editor
The flagship tool is the Qumana editor, the leading off-line blog editor in the Blogosphere. Qumana allows bloggers to create media-rich blog posts in a familiar WYSIWYG interface and with simple button clicks insert the keyword-based ads, Technorati tags, and multimedia (e.g. YouTube videos) through the innovative Insert HTML button.
The insert ad interface is designed to allow users to enter the keyword of their choice and then customize the size and colour of the ad before inserting it into their post.
2. Q-Ads Tool for Firefox and IE6
Understanding that some bloggers prefer working within the familiar web-based environment of their blogging platform, Qumana developed the Q-Ads Tool. The Q-Ads Tool takes two of the best features of the Qumana editor, Inserting Ads and Inserting Video, at put them into a browser plugin.
When creating a blog post, users need only to click the Q button on their browser’s toolbar and choose either the Insert Ad or Insert Video tabs. The Insert Ad tab goes beyond the capabilities of Qumana by suggesting common and high-paying keywords grouped by category in addition to a user’s own custom keywords. Ads can still be customized with the Q-Ads Tool and frequently used settings saved for fast and easy reuse.
The Insert Video tab makes putting a YouTube video (and others like Kaneva or Google Video) into a blog post as easy and copy, paste, click. Users can copy the code provided by YouTube, paste it into the entry box on the Insert Video tab and click okay to have the video embedded into the post. Frequent YouTube contributors can use the combination of Q-Ads and this Insert Video capability to monetize their video work.
The Q-Ads tool works with Firefox 1.5.x and IE6.x and is supported on the Typepad, MoveableType, Angelfire, Tripod, self-installed Wordpress, Blogger, and Blogware blogging platforms.
Leveraging the ability of Live Writer users, like Qumana users, who prefer to edit and post through a client application, the Q-Ads for Live Writer plugin uses the same interface and codeset as the Q-Ads Tools for browsers. Same interface, same flexibilty, same ease of use.
Blogs of all political stripes spent most of yesterday detailing reports of voting machine malfunctions and ballot shortages, effectively becoming an online national clearinghouse of the polling problems that still face the election system.
And in a new twist this year, many bloggers buttressed their accounts of electoral shenanigans with links to videos posted on the video Web site YouTube
That's an environment custom-made for inserting relevant ads wherever you want to IN the content.
Try out Q-Ads and get accustomed to it. We think that the ease of use and pacing ads close to content is going to become one of the ways many publishers will address "small targets, loosely joined".
Blogs are where the content provided by mainstream media circulates; more and more that is the case. Become a Q-Ads user and help us get more profile, more ad impressions and a wider range and depth of ad inventory, for your use.
According the the Harris Interactive 2005 Survey, 85% of respondents said word-of-mouth communication is credible, compared with 70% for PR & advertising
65% of consumers trust their friends the most for product recommendations, while 27% trust experts, and 8% trust celebrities Source: eMarketer
26% of the top search results for the world's 20 largest brands are consumer-generated media sites Source: Jupiter Research
Online influencers will forward positive messages to an average of 11 people and negative messages to an average of 17 Source: Burson-Marsteller
Here's a brief and interesting white paper titled "Making the Case for a Social Media Strategy". It clearly lays out and reinforces that it's the end user - the personal publisher sharing their voice, ideas, or opinions - who is exerting more and more choice and control over the ways the media - including advertising - is being created and distributed.
This is an important element of Q-Ads' value to end-users ... the ability to exercise more choice and control over what advertising they use and where they place it alongside or within the content of a blog post.
Social media – online sites like blogs and discussion boards where consumers create and share information and opinions directly with each other -- are beginning to affect brands. Examples like the Kryptonite lock crisis and Intuit’s continued success have convinced marketers to incorporate social media into their plans. In many companies, marketers must convince their senior management executives who don’t understand the influence the social aspects of the Web experience is exerting on their brands.
Here’s the elevator pitch to give to a busy executive:
The influence traditional media and marketing have over consumer perception is waning as people use the plethora of digital technologies to circumvent traditional sources to obtain information and entertainment from each other. But these social media outlets are more than another channel through which to deliver messages to the marketplace. Companies like GM, Microsoft, Intuit and New Line Cinema are successfully using social marketing strategies to understand and engage their audiences more deeply – with demonstrable business results.
GoogleTube, Yougle ... whatever you call it, it's been big news on the blogosphere. Heck it's been big news everywhere. Now the question is, you create a great video and post it on YouTube, what do you get out of it? Google now gets tons of eyeballs to look at (and click) ads. Hmm.
Here's a good case in point. This is my favourite YouTube video (okay I don't cruise YouTube much ... but I still love this one):
Now I know Chris (probably why I like it ... naw it's just funny). From the YouTube stats this vid has been viewed 403,789 times, received 1855 comments and has been favourited 2007 times. Wow, that's impressive. What does Chris get? A link to his blog. Now Chris is a smart cookie. He knows how to get the most out of Adsense, but still ...
Now here's an idea. Have a popular video and make sure you blog about it and then you put an ad in the post that you get money for. Kinda like this:
Hmm ... sounds like a good idea to me. How? Qumana lets you easily embed your video into your post (handy Insert HTML button let's you paste that embedding code), our Insert Ad button lets you put your ad in. Don't want to use an editor, that's cool ... we've got the Q-Ads Tool ... does the same thing as the Insert Ad button. Inserting the vid? Well ... I'll be a bit coy ... watch this space.
NEW YORK (AP) -- The online hangout MySpace.com will organize 20 concerts featuring bands promoted on its site as part of a campaign to raise awareness and money for humanitarian relief in Sudan.
The site, which grew in popularity thanks to its early adoption by emerging bands and their fans, has in recent months taken a more active role in promoting social causes, such as environmental awareness and voter registration.
"The crisis in Darfur is a global concern and as a global community we have a responsibility to take action," Chris DeWolfe, MySpace's chief executive, said in a statement. "MySpace's reach gives us an extraordinary opportunity to spread the word and empower individuals to help address the horrors in Darfur."
Some 2.5 million people have been made homeless by three years of fighting between the Sudanese government and rebel groups in the vast, arid Darfur region of western Sudan. At least another 200,000 people have been killed since hostilities erupted.
Just last week, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that Darfur is creeping ever closer to catastrophe, with rape and violence on the rise and humanitarian access at its lowest level since 2004.
The concerts will take place October 21. Artists include TV on the Radio in Philadelphia, Alice in Chains in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Ziggy Marley in Medford, Oregon, Citizen Cope in Seattle, Gov't Mule in Spokane, Washington, and Insane Clown Posse in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Other concerts will take place in Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco, California; Melbourne, Florida; Atlanta; Louisville, Kentucky; St. Paul, Minnesota; Reno, Nevada; Baltimore; Asheville, North Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina; Milwaukee; and Washington, D.C.
Here's an interesting perspective (excerpt from Reuters, via CNN, below) on everybody's current darling, YouTube.
While I am not an expert, I agree with Mark Cuban (here's his original blog post on the issue, titled The Coming Dramatic Decline Of YouTube). There's a lot of activity with respect to sharing and distributing content that has yet to be brought to heel, but that will be (in some form or other) when legislation and DRM (digital rights management) starts catching up with some of that activity.
That said .. I also believe that the fundamentals of intellectual property and digital rights legislation must be changed in significant ways so as to minimize the possibility that only a few large companies own almost all intellectual property. I don't think there's any option ... the digital infrastructure is there, the tools are available and cheap, and as Cuban points out ... "User-generated content is not going away".
That may happen ... the last twenty years' evolution in the television business is not a stellar advertisement for hope ... but I tend to believe that some day effective compromises will have to be worked out that acknowledge, facilitate and support the ongoing popularity and use of much amateur content in commercial settings and ways.
HDNet co-founder says video sharing outfit will eventually be "sued into oblivion" over copyright violations, points at limited advertising reach of YouTube.
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Billionaire investor and dot.com veteran Mark Cuban had harsh words for YouTube, the online site that lets people share video clips, saying only a "moron" would purchase the wildly popular start-up.
Cuban, co-founder of HDNet and owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, also said Thursday that YouTube would eventually be "sued into oblivion" because of copyright violations.
"They are just breaking the law," Cuban told a group of advertisers in New York. "The only reason it hasn't been sued yet is because there is nobody with big money to sue."
YouTube, based in San Mateo, Calif., specializes in serving up short videos created by everyday people. Its popularity, with more than 100 million video showings daily, has spurred speculation the firm will be sold or taken public.
But YouTube has also come under scrutiny because users often post copyrighted material, including music videos produced by well-established artists.
[Snip ...]
In other remarks, meanwhile, the often-controversial Cuban also told advertisers that the reach of YouTube is limited, particularly when it comes to user-generated videos.
"User-generated content is not going away," he said. "But do you want your advertising dollars spent on a video of Aunt Jenny watching her niece tap dance?"
"Somebody puts up something really good and you get, what, 60,000 viewers?" Cuban added during the event at Advertising Week in New York.
YouTube now offers advertising through banner ads, promotions and sponsorships. It has said it plans to roll out a range of different advertising options over the coming year.
Cuban cautioned advertisers against investing heavily in so-called viral campaigns that are spread by users beyond their initial point of distribution on YouTube or other video sharing sites. But he touted opportunities to run commercials on high-definition television such as his HDNet network.
"What makes viral so special is it's so hard to do. It's so hard to plan. It's hard to stand out," he said, describing 99 percent of money advertisers spend on viral campaigns as "wasted."
We would like to announce and introduce the all new Q-Ads Tool (beta), an easy way for you to unlock the revenue potential of your website or blog.
Now you have two ways to insert Q-Ads:
1. Within the Qumana blog editor 2. With the Q-Ads Tool IE (5.5 and 6) Plug-in
Q-Ads is a unique way for you to embed ads anywhere you can place a picture – in your blog post, on your website, in your RSS feed. Because you choose the keywords for your post, you are in control of the ad your website visitors see – it is no longer bound to the content, but to your knowledge of your readers and what you are writing.
