This is very cool. Using home-grown technology, a Chinese firm has upstaged the likes of Google and Microsoft with a mapping service featuring 360-degree street-level imaging of extraordinarily high resolution.
The service, which is similar to features found on Google's and Microsoft's online mapping sites, presently covers eight Chinese cities - including the capital Beijing and Shanghai. I can only imagine the advertising oportunities eg overlaying messages onto billboards etc
The company behind the technology, Shanghai-based Easypano Holdings, is working on expanding the coverage of its City8 website to another 12 cities by the end of the year.
It's part of a trend in online mapping towards providing users with ground-level shots to complement the satellite and aerial imaging that is already widely available.
Heineken Netherlands just launched a new TV commercial, backed by an online campaign. Overall theme is cloning. The online part takes this cloning very serious and makes it possible to actually clone beer products. Hold a can or a bottle in front of your webcam and it will be recognised and cloned. Pretty cool geek stuff. For those who wanna try, don't get lost on the site - search for experiment 3 on the right side and follow the instructions (in Dutch).
We were just part of something refreshingly new. Heineken Netherlands hosted a live concert through Skype, using the new feature Skypecast. This feature makes it possible to talk online with 100 people at the same time. Dutch band Johan played some songs of their new album and listeners were able to ask questions and applaud from behind their own computer. And so did we! Even though the quality was not that great, the first concert through Skype idea made up for that.
CNET Networks, Univision, Weather.com and Yahoo! have announced yesterday they have started implementing the Global Ad Campaign Measurement and Audit Guidelines issued by the IAB last November. The guidelines offer a detailed definition for counting an online ad impression and were issued to satisfy the need for a standardized method of measuring Interactive advertising by offering a detailed definition for counting online ad impressions. The global guidelines can be downloaded here.
By: martina // Permalink // Comment(s):(0) Category(s):Adv technology
Ogilvy has signed a deal Eyetools to test email campaigns by looking at what people looks or ignores. Ok, I'll say it better: using a camera embedded in the monitor, OgilvyOne will follow eyes movement patterns of people reading commercial email. The idea is to investigate what recipients actually read and what they ignore.
It's called eye-tracking and it's usually a practice used in psychology and medical research. Since advertising people are going crazy to get people attention, Ogilvy's study perfectly makes sense.
By: martina // Permalink // Comment(s): Category(s):Adv technology
Rich media ads will be now available to reach a wider number of Internet users (about 97 percent). Both Eyeblaster and Pointroll have announced they have upgraded their rich media platforms expanding the ads' compatibility to Firefox and Mozilla.
The compatibility issue was becoming an hot topic in the industry and it's good to see technology providers have shown they're flexible enough to acknowledge there's plenty of life beyond Internet Explorer.
By: martina // Permalink // Comment(s): Category(s):Adv technology
Jupiter's analyst Gary Stein blogs today about ABC and WorldNow which presented the "Local Media Network" (LMN) an ad network that will serve ads on 147 local television websites affiliated to the ABC, generating a traffic of over 20 million people. Basically the idea is to enhance (behavioural) targeting by sharing information about users. The larger the network, the better the ads served. As Gary points out, we are probably entering the new era of ad networks.
By: martina // Permalink // Comment(s): Category(s):Adv technology
Nielsen will provide third-party measurement for a videogame advertising network. As MediaPost the service will be available from the second quarter of 2005 providing reports to the Massive Video Game Advertising Network.
By: martina // Permalink // Comment(s): Category(s):Adv technology
Rich media ads producer Pointroll has announced the development of a new feature that will allow Internet users to explore interesting products or services at a later date, "just like circling an advertisement in the newspaper".
The press release explains the new features which are E-Mail Reminder, Instant Bookmark and Calendar Download.
Mitch Rose, VP of Marketing at Pointroll explains:
"This new feature taps into the consumers' purchase decision cycle. As a shopper considers various purchase alternatives, it is important for an advertiser to strengthen their chances of being top of mind and part of that consideration set. These tools enhance the advertisers' ability to be recalled when it counts the most."
By: martina // Permalink // Comment(s): Category(s):Adv technology
Rich media ads are getting new functionalities. Point Roll has announced its new polling feature, Pollster�, further enhancing the ability of advertisers to deliver interactivity with online advertising. Survey users have the ability to share opinions and attitudes, while advertisers can capture valuable information about brands, products and positioning.
VP of Marketing, Mitch Rose commented:
"With PointRoll's Pollster, advertisers can tap this fundamental interest that humans have in the views of those around them to offer new and innovative ways to involve their target users with products and services."
By: martina // Permalink // Comment(s): Category(s):Adv technology
Disney is launching the DVD of Finding Nemo with an innovative online campaign. Thanks to the technological support of Reporo and ValueClick, users who watch the ad can directly purchase the product with a click. To see how the ad looks like and most of all how it works I suggest you going to Reporo's web site (than click on showcase).
By: martina // Permalink // Comment(s): Category(s):Adv technology
There's a new and promising technology for digital ads tracking out there but... it will take a lot of time before it will be accepted and adopted by the industry. CNET News reports today, also explaining how the technology works. Basically, each ad has a 12-digit unique identifier that's used to track it from creation to distribution. The identifier also allows to link this data to demographic information on people to whom the ads have been delivered.
By: martina // Permalink // Comment(s): Category(s):Adv technology
AdSonar is a technology presented by Quigo that will allow online publishers to deliver contextually targeted advertising that achieves greater relevancy, reach and revenue for publishers, licensees and advertisers alike.
Online contextual advertising is part of the fast growing search engine marketing industry, which experienced growth of 275% in 2001 and 325% in 2002 to $927.4 million in the US, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
Read on the press release on Yahoo! Biz.
