Marketers Studio - David Berkowitz's Marketing Blog

Blog Search Stuck in Beta

Here's today's column, originally published in MediaPost where there are a number of comments, including a few disagreements and some new sites mentioned which I'm trying out. Feel free to share your own thoughts here or there.

Whenever I’m talking to marketers about how to listen to their brands, blog search engines always come up as a good starting point. I’ve been having the same conversations for years, and with minor exceptions, I’d do fine using the same slides I’ve used since I started.

Here are some examples of the blog search engine landscape:

Blogpulse, Icerocket, and Trendpedia: It’s really hard to tell the difference between these blog search engines. I like Trendpedia’s charts and interface the best, but I can’t swear  which engine is really the best.

Technorati: You can find useful information about blogs such as how influential they are, and the “rising posts and stories” section is helpful, but it still has been slow to evolve, and the one chart option available hasn’t improved at all.

Regator: I met the team behind this startup at Blog World Expo over the weekend. It does a decent job at categorizing posts and pulling in multimedia, but its layout is dizzying. Perhaps with some design fixes it’ll come around.

Alltop: This pseudo-search engine co-founded by Guy Kawasaki is more of a blog directory. Pick a topic and it lists relevant blogs and five recent posts. In a recent post about the latest site’s latest news, Kawasaki includes a stick figure drawing that explains Alltop. This gets to two problems I have with Alltop. First, if you need elaborate drawings and other documentation to explain a search engine (including a tutorial video), then there’s something wrong with it. Simplicity wins with search; Google never required a tutorial. Secondly, the drawing excitedly notes at the end that Alltop “kinda looks like a magazine rack.” I wouldn’t say that’s a compliment, as magazine racks are horribly inefficient to find anything besides titles you already recognize. More to the point, the Marketing category has 188 blogs listed in 63 rows. How is that an effective way to find good marketing information?

Google Blog Search: The interface is familiar, and I like how you can easily find posts on a specific date. The index also feels more reliable than others because of the halo effect of the brand. Yet there’s nothing there beyond the search engine and a few recommended blogs. With all of the resources Google has, including Trends, Analytics, and News, Google has the potential to offer the only blog search engine you’ll ever need.

What’s missing from these engines, broadly, is a sense of understanding a user’s purpose. Technorati seems to do the best job here, since it’s really a resource focused on bloggers (”tech” is in its name after all), and features for consumers, marketers, or others presumably aren’t as highly prioritized.

The problem for these engines generally is that people don’t wake up thinking, “Man, I wish I could find a blog.” That happens once in a while when people switch jobs (especially when switching industries), but that’s not an overarching need. There are several types of audiences, but I’ll focus on one broad category: marketers, and anyone who’s looking for the buzz on their business, industry, and competitive landscape. What would make blog search engines better for this audience?

1)      Better charts. Okay, so we can compare up to three terms on a line graph (Blogpulse, Icerocket), throw in a pie chart (Trendpedia), or use a bar chart for one term (Technorati). That’s it?

2)      Topic analysis. Why not parse the content to show what’s causing spikes or dips? What if there was a Farecast for blogs, which tried to predict whether buzz would rise or fall in coming days?

3)      Broad matching for searches. Do we really need to search for “Barack Obama” and “Barak Obama” just to be sure we’re getting everything? (Fun fact: Google Trends shows New Mexico residents are most likely to search for the misspelling.) Google handles misspellings better than others, but it falls short in other tests, such as showing very different results for “NYC” and “New York City.”

There’s much more that can be done, such as including blogs as just one social media channel indexed. FriendFeed might in time emerge as the most valuable search engine because of its advantages there. My bet’s still on Google to nail this, especially in terms of the features that marketers need, as it has the best track record of giving away information to bolster market share, and it’s in the financial position to do so. Just as Google Analytics competes with Omniture, and Google Trends for Websites competes with comScore, Google Trends for Blogs could emerge to rival BuzzLogic, Radian6, and other subscription-based buzz monitoring services.

That hardly means the books are shut. Heck, BuzzLogic launched an ad network to compete with Google AdSense, so no one’s rolling over. I’d just like to see the rivalries among blog search engines heat up so marketers can reap all the benefits.

Video: Media Buying on Social Networks Panel at Social Ad Summit

The one panel I didn't cover at the Social Ad Summit last week was my own - it's hard to blog and speak at the same time. Thanks to ScribeMedia.org, you can catch the videos from the event. Below I'm posting mine, but you can watch others by checking the related and recent posts beside my panel's video.

Find out directly from the people making the decisions about where to spend money online. Find out why and where media buyers are choosing to allocate their advertising budgets. Hear case studies of prior media buys and client experiences.

Moderator
Brian Morrissey, AdWeek

Panelists
Shiv Singh, Avenue A | Razorfish
David Bear, BBDO
Jen Bertheaud, Noise
David Berkowitz, 360i

Blog World Expo Startups and Superstars from A to Z

Image by miss604 via Flickr, added with Zemanta

Here's a round-up of companies I encountered at Blog World Expo. Most were exhibitors, but a few others came up in random or not so random interactions throughout the show.

It's possible some members of these companies will see this and think I totally botched their description. That's quite possible; these are my impressions, which I don't guarantee to be fully accurate. You can go to their websites for more official info. If I'm off or you want to clarify further, comment away or email me at marketersstudio @ gmail . com.

Lastly, this is not a comprehensive list. I talked to most exhibitors, but not all. For example, I didn't get to GodblogCon '08, which their site calls "a gathering of Christians to advance the kingdom through blogging + internet technologies". (I think they should call it "Coming 2.0").

On that note, here are some companies that made an appearance at the show, were memorable in some way, and were smart enough to give me a business card or schwag (maybe in future posts I'll add pink hearts to the schwag givers to encourage more bribery).

Apture: Here's a blogging tool for editing posts once you create them, making it easy to add multimedia and links.

b5media: This blog network is launching new vertical sites, and new ad opportunities. See info on their launch of Starked, an entertainment site.

Blog Talk Radio: I had a good time joining their Blog World show on Saturday. I'll post the link soon, but they're doing great work, and it was one of the more fun interviews I've had, especially since I was able to talk about some things I actually know about.

BlogCatalog: I forgot what's new with them (sorry!), but as a long-time BC member, it was fun meeting the owner.

BuzzLogic: An old favorite blog monitoring tool, they had a great, kitchy but fun booth presentation, and they're doing a lot more with the blogger ad network.

Divacafes: Toby Bloomberg is launching this site for "women over forty flying solo." Toby's one of the most beloved people I've met anywhere, and for her karma alone, I think this site will catch on.

Get Elastic: I forgot how good this e-commerce blog was. Fortunately blogger Linda Bustos reminded me. (Okay, she just reminded me to revisit it; I made the quality judgment on my own.)

gooseGrade: Add their widget to encourage anyone to submit edits to your blog as a way to promote accuracy. You aim for a score of 100, and you don't always have to agree with the changes. I think the end result's admirable, but I'm not sure bloggers want to draw readers' attention to inaccuracies, and I'm not sure many people want to be the editors. On this blog, at least, comments and email have been fairly efficient, and for any mistakes I've made, I think the readership's been mercifully forgiving.

International Blogging and New Media Association (IBNMA): Why might you join this group? Here are two reasons I did: I'm an association whore, and it's only $25 so I didn't have to try to expense it. Maybe one day I'll get a free t-shirt out of it. Really, though, they are advocating important things, like blogging, and new media,

Lijit: It's an awesome blog search engine that I really will put back on my blog soon. They rank very high among my favorite naggers.

MarketLeverage: It's a lifetime referral program for publishers (even if publishers aren't in it) and a pay for performance ad network. Full disclosure: I won $6 in their cash grabbing booth.

Mindtouch: They make it easy to make more multimedia-friendly wikis rather than your plain old Wikipedia-style layout that you see everywhere.

Network Solutions: They have a Solutions are Power blog for small businesses. Well thought out and a good resource.

Pajamas TV: Because Tuxedo TV felt too stodgy. Really though, I forgot what they cover. But the whole free t-shirt thing...

Regator: They call themselves a mix of Alltop and digg.

Soldiers Angels: From the military blogger pavilion (okay, a group of tables), Angels is a non-profit to help care for soldiers, especially the wounded.

SodaHead: A destination site in its own right, they now offer free polling widgets, including customizable branded options. At first I thought that was where I'd find the Jones Soda at the show. No free drinks, but the widgets look fun.

Technorati: I didn't get to find out too much that's new with them, but I want to dig in to their channels more to check out some other blogs by topic.

TechSmith: I've used their products off an on for years. One of their latest is Jing, a screencasting tool, which I had a little trouble with when I first tried it, but it looks much better now. They also make SnagIt.

Triggit: It's in-text ads (think Vibrant or Kontera) with a big focus on targeting, and very competitive pricing.

ViewBug: Share your photos and make a few bucks if you're judged as one of the week's top 50. There you go, start getting paid for all the time you spend throwing stuff on Flickr and Facebook.

Widgetbox: They're about to roll out some new options for advertisers (and thus monetization options for developers). With 4.5 billion widgets served so far, scale should not be the problem.

Widgetbucks: They've got a massive ad network of their own. I met the CEO on my panel on widget monetization. Note that Widgetbox and Widgetbucks can sound exactly alike depending on the speaker's accent, or if your hearing's shot from the Vegas party scene.

YardBarker: It's a massive sports blog network, with about 60 pro athlete blogs, if you can call Donovan Mcnabb a pro.

Yovia: Join communities or sponsor them and request posts. I need to take a little more time to see how they differ from the PayPerPost/SocialSpark model.

Zannel: I've been a big fan of this mobile publishing tool/site/platform - whatever it is, it works well for sharing and viewing content. (I'm there as dberkowitz.)

Zemanta: I'm using this plug-in to recommend links, images, tags, and other good content as I blog away. Perhaps this and Apture will make the blog more engaging; we'll see...

Stories from Saturday at Blog World Expo

I've now survived another day of Blog World Expo, so I'll share a few more observations to follow my first impressions.

From the show:

There's a mix of energy and torpor. People are very excited to be there, and many are finding enough energy to have fun at night. But people here also seemed drained from their travels, from the slew of events going on, and from not being able to unwind over the weekend. Having the conference on the weekend may have made it possible for some to get here who couldn't during the week, but for most it shows an extra commitment.

There's little to eat. The pizza place (which wasn't as bad as it could have been) and coffee shop on the BWE floor closed early, leaving people starving. Only toward the end of the day did I discover the break room for full conference attendees and speakers, stocked with a fridge full of Jones soda and juice, and some cookies that had been sitting out awhile.

From the events at night:

Identity switching's the new meme. At the @zappos party Saturday night, @gregarious approached me and introduced himself as Tessa / @driveafastercar. He was wearing Tessa's nametag. Nametag switching, and thus identity confusion, became a meme that night. I wound up wearing the sticker of someone named Nadia. Yet in a community, as this clearly was, there's some built-in transparency.

Sometimes you don't need the live version. Also at the Zappos event, Judson Laipply appeared, got up on a counter, and performed the full Evolution of Dance video, said to be the most watched online video ever, with 100 million views on YouTube alone (his video actually trails Avril Lavigne's music video Girlfriend, though he has received far more votes). He was a big hit. And yet, there was something about the grainy YouTube video, and perhaps the idea of this guy being a total stranger rather than inches away from me (I mean it - he almost kicked me in the face), that made the recorded version even more watchable. Judson is incredibly talented, and I gave him a heartfelt congrats on his performance there, but I'd like to think of him as the Evolution of Dance on YouTube Guy, not Judson.

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Twitter is the mob. After that party ended, dozens of people were standing around aimlessly. A good chunk of them were going on Twitter, just searching for what others were saying about where they were going. For a good number of people there, Twitter was their source of word of mouth, rather than all the other people standing right next to them.

Forgive us -- we're still learning out this really works.

My cab driver back to the hotel tonight was Ethiopian. While he didn't profess his love of America, he unabashedly asked me about my politics, wondering how New York City would vote in the presidential election and then how I would vote. While the ride wasn't as inspiring as last night's, I still found the conversation stimulating. It's easier to discuss politics with a total stranger than a friend; it's easier to risk disagreement when the encounter's fleeting, so one can be far more open. If you both agree, then it's also fun to meet a stranger who's come to similar conclusions. Such openness has its limits; a cab driver in Los Angeles once told me how the Jews caused the 9/11 terrorist attacks because he heard it on the radio. Generally, though, it makes for good conversation.

Both the Ethiopian and Saudi Arabian drivers, who both may well choose to simply be called American, strike me as bloggers without a platform. They're welcome reminders that while I'm here with the vanguard of digital media, there's more to self-expression and storytelling than the technology that enables it.

First Impressions of Blog World Expo

As I sit down to write this in room 7-11 of the Hilton (you'd think people request this room months in advance), my laptop says it's 3:53am, though it's three hours earlier here in Las Vegas for Blog World Expo.

For those who can't be here, or for those who can, here's a somewhat random and hopefully coherent collection of impressions from my first BWE:

I don't miss the lines of Vegas. My trips here have generally either been with family - and a car, or for Consumer Electronics Show (and Digital Hollywood), which a cab driver told me is the second largest conference held here (I think a construction event tops it). With all the time spent waiting around here, this has to be one of the least productive cities on the planet. Lines for transportation, checking in, drinks, dining, you name it. The only thing there's no line for: slots.

Should it be called Twitter World? Yes, most people here are bloggers or somehow connected to the blogosphere and blog economy, but so many people here really know each other through Twitter. The most notable such experience for me was when I met Shashi Bellamkonda, @shashib, who's earned a lot of Twitter cred largely thanks to how well he listens and then engages with the community in turn.

It's fun seeing Vegas from the eyes of someone here for the first time. I shared a cab from the hotel to Friday night's marquee Techset party with Mashable founder Pete Cashmore, and it was his first time in Vegas. He's not here long enough and he surely won't get to eat well enough in this quick conference-focused jaunt, but he was enamored with the artifice of it all. I told him to really enjoy the artifice, he should walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to the Eiffel Tower.

There are some great burgers. Before I left the party I made it to BLT Burger in the Mirage. If you're hungry for some red meat that isn't priced in the double digits per ounce here but isn't your standard fast food either, the $13 BLT burger is one of the best values I've found in this city.

There is a real community here. It's a lot of different communities. Some I'm a part of include the New York tech scene, social media strategists, agency guys, and others not as well defined, but it's like an incredibly complex Venn diagram. It does feel like no one is more than two degrees from each other, and everyone I met was either someone I knew virtually, someone I was familiar with for some reason or another, or knew someone I knew well.

My favorite moment so far: The cab driver from the party back to the hotel (the Hilton) spent most of the call speaking a language that didn't register with me. Toward the end, he apologized. I'm not sure who exactly he said he was on the phone with or what the person had to do with his story, but he told me that he's from Saudi Arabia where he heard (on the call, I think) about a Christian who was tortured with 2,000 lashes and thrown in jail for seven years just for their religion. He said six to eight others faced the same fate, all for their religion.

Then he told me that in America, that doesn't happen. Not only that, but his son who's 15 was able to come here and become a citizen because the driver was a citizen. The driver noted there's nowhere in the world where that can happen. The driver had told his son that outside of the job of President, every other position - 99.999% of all jobs here - are attainable to someone born abroad, and again, the United States is the only place where that can happen.

I told him I understood, and that I had a personal connection to his story. I told him my father was born in Poland (simplifying a long story a bit) and came to this country at age 11 speaking half a dozen languages, none of them English. His family set up a chicken farm. And this immigrant chicken farmer who spoke no English became a doctor, and his younger sister (my aunt) became successful in the music business. He thanked me because now he knew my story, and now he met another person who, although so unlike him in more ways than I can count, benefited in similar ways from this country.

So I'm left with two thoughts from all of this. On one hand, the more mundane, is that the experience is a dramatized reason of why thousands of people are here in Las Vegas for Blog World. We're all storytellers, or we're all helping others tell their stories, or we're helping people support themselves by sharing their stories, and we want to meet each other. Yes, we can all learn from each other's blogs and websites and tweets and Facebook pages and FriendFeed comments and YouTube videos and emails and all the rest, but almost all of us gain the most value from the real-world bonds that are forged.

And on the larger scale, leaving that cab that I didn't want to leave, that I wanted to just stay there to spend more time not even hearing more but soaking in that wonderfully inspired atmosphere, there was that moment where I felt so incredibly proud to be an American. That this man can come here and earn his keep and support his family and bring others here all to tell anyone he can, including strangers like me who could be voting for Obama or McCain or Ralph Nader or David Duke or David Duchovny, how much he loves this country.

To think, in the back of the cab to the party was a British web entrepreneur who has recently settled in San Francisco and came to Vegas for the first time, and on the way back I met a Saudi Arabian American who lives in this city of artifice but sees the greater beauty of where he lives. Both of them shared their stories with the son of an immigrant chicken farmer turned doctor who lives less than ten miles from the Statue of Liberty.

And now, from hotel room 7-11, I can blog these stories to share them globally.

But just as importantly, tomorrow I can share them in person with whoever I meet along the way.

Search Angst at the Social Ad Summit

Here's this week's column originally published in MediaPost, slightly delayed thanks to all the great events this week.Last minute as it is, drop a note if you'll be at OMMA Global and we can try to find each other there.

At the Social Ad Summit this week in New York City, Facebook may have been the most buzzed-about company on stage, with everyone from agency execs to application developers discussing their thoughts on the belle of the network ball. JP Morgan's Deborah Korb Maizner was the most direct, saying that when her company used social networks for recruiting, Facebook had the right caliber of candidates, while MySpace users weren't in the same league. While the comment reeks of elitism, Quantcast backs her up, noting  Facebook users  have significantly higher education and income levels than MySpace users. 

Beyond Facebook, the next hottest topic seemed to be Google and the search marketing industry. MySpace was mentioned sporadically outside of the panel where it was represented, even though eMarketer says it accounts for 53% of the social network advertising market. Application ad networks and developers were pervasive among speakers and sponsors, but none could compete for share of voice with Google. You can find full coverage of every panel but mine  on my blog.

There are three ways the search marketing industry came up: as the foil, the ideal, and the old model.

The Foil
Mike Trigg from social network hi5 repeatedly mentioned the search industry in the first panel on social network advertising. He described how the core value proposition is different for search and social networks. With search, you look for something and you get an ad. On social networks, you're spending time with friends. The key, he said, is for brands to become part of people's social interactions on these networks.

Seth Goldstein of social media advertising company SocialMedia was the most wary of Google. First, he acknowledged that search is great for conversions, but there are big consumer brands at the top of the purchase funnel that must rely on other channels. He said people don't search for Tic-Tacs. (This is only somewhat true. According to Google Trends, in late September 2007, about as many people globally  searched for Tic-Tacs as searched for Sarah Palin ). Goldstein warned that if social advertising gets mired in direct response metrics, Google will swallow up everyone and dominate the industry.

The Ideal
Trigg from hi5 first mentioned search when asked about new ad formats, saying how search advertising is still essential, evoking the first of several aspirational comments about social advertising.

Federated Media's James Gross (whose boss is John "The Search" Battelle) said that when brands engage in social media marketing, they should remember to review how the campaign or program impacts natural search results. Do the search results indicate the marketer is swaying the conversation around its brand? Here, search engine optimization becomes the yardstick for benchmarking the effectiveness of another form of marketing.

Scott Rafer of application ad network Lookery offered a slightly different angle, noting marketers should look at whether social media marketing influences how consumers search on a number of relevant keywords. He said marketers should then review whether consumers made it through to the marketer's site, or if consumers went elsewhere due to poor search engine optimization (he could have also suggested marketers better integrate social marketing with paid search).

The Old   
During the final panel on alternative social advertising, while Federated's Gross was bullish on Google, some others saw room for new Googles to rise up and meet social advertising's challenges.

Alex Blum of hosted social media platform KickApps said that ad networks will emerge to combine behavioral targeting with social graph data to allow for better monetization of social media, and one or two may provide an elegant alternative to Google.

The most anti-Google bravado came from Ari Gottesmann with Sightix, which offers some new twists on social search in its platform for social networks. One issue, Gottesmann claimed, is that Google earns $60 per user while Facebook earns $11 per user; panel moderator and Buddy Media CEO Mike Lazerow thought Facebook was doing pretty well in such a comparison. We'll see if Sightix is the next Facebook or the next Cuil (and one day, I swear, I'll stop making Cuil a punchline).

All these reactions to Google and search marketing from the panelists show some pent-up teenage angst from the social media camp. There's a mix of esteem, envy, and enmity, as everyone's wondering whether to build on the search model or tear it down. This petri dish should prove to be a fascinating breeding ground for innovation — though along the way, expect Google to slam a bunch of these pipsqueaks in their lockers.

Saving the World at Work by Tim Sanders - Book Review

Tim Sanders first wrote about love in Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends. The moral: get ahead at work by being a lovecat. It was one of the first business books I ever reread, and I still keep it on my desk.

Then he switched to being well liked in The Likeability Factor: How to Boost Your L-Factor and Achieve Your Life's Dreams. The moral: being likable is a great way to get along better in life. It's a good read, though perhaps a little more conventional and very Gladwell-esque once Gladwell became a household (or at least office) name to the point where you didn't even need to mention his first name (Malcolm).

Now he's on to saving the world in Saving the World at Work. The moral: any individual can be an agent of change at the workplace, and any workplace can be an agent of change in the world.

Sanders continues to be accessible, writing with memorable anecdotes and providing concrete steps for taking action. It's not just some do-gooders' guide; as a business book, he makes a case why environmental sustainability is a do-or-die cause businesses must take part in to retain and attract both employees and consumers.

Part One of Saving the World describes the five phases of business revolutions:

1. Circumstances change
2. A new values system arises
3. Innovators arrive
4. Disruption ensues
5. A new order arises

He applies these to other phenomena, such as the quality revolution that took hold mostly in the 1970s and 80s. As for sustainability, we've basically experienced the first two phases and the the next two are hitting (it gets a little messy so it's not all perfeclty linear).

Part Two lists the Six Laws of the Saver Soldier - you know, the people who are actually doing the whole world-saving thing. Yes, it's a little hokey. I was reluctant to read the Love book because of the whole lovecat thing. This time around, the term's a little too militaristic for my tastes. Still, it's all good advice here, and it's the part of the book centered on helping people get ahead, and not just relating to sustainability. For instance, the first law, The Law of the Ledger, states that everything one does at work must have a positive impact on the company's bottom line.

Finally, in Part Three, he lists actionable steps people and companies can take to improve one's workplace for everyone in it (mentor coworkers and partners, provide natural light, share your network), build greater bonds between your company and the community where it operates (sponsor community organizations, offer your office as a meeting place, buy local), and then save the planet (print less, recycle, and green up partners, products, and buildings).

The anecdotes may be the best part of the book. For instance, he describes the partnership between Timberland and the City Year service corps. While I knew nothing about City Year, I wound up meeting several people connected with them while covering the ServiceNation Summit last week (in the Flickr slideshow, you'll see several photos of Usher against a City Year backdrop). The book then became a fun topic of discussion (so it's clear, I was reading a pre-release galley of the book; it's also possible some things changed between my review of this galley and the book's publication this week).

Tim's books have a way of being conversation starters. When I was reading Love in advance of interviewing him, it led to a discussion about the book with a Starbucks barista. Maybe this one'll lead to a few conversations that wound up saving the world.

Social Ad Summit: Full Coverage Recap

Now that the Social Ad Summit's done, here are links to my coverage of each session posted previously here.

Congrats to Nick O'Neill of The Social Times (a great read) for pulling off the inaugural event. Having planned a few conferences, I can't believe this was the first one. The selection of speakers and attendees was only rivaled by the selection at all the buffets.

The only sessions I'm missing are mine, and then the lunchtime keynote when I spent more time lunching than noting. If you find good coverage of either, or anything else from the day, post the links in the comments.

1. Social Network Advertisers
2. Buddy Media Sponsored Keynote
3. Social Cash Keynote
4. Branded Experiences on Social Networks
5. Social Network Ad Solutions
6. Social Advertising Metrics
7. Widget Monetization
8. Alternative Social Advertising

Alternative Social Advertising Panel at Social Graph

Here are notes from the final panel at the Social Ad Summit.
Mike Lazerow, Buddy Media (moderator)
Alex Blum, KickApps
Clara Shih, Salesforce.com
Ari Gottesmann, Sightix
James Gross, Federated Media
Matt Sanchez, VideoEgg

KickApps: Trademarked 'widgad' - programmable experience that's virable that drives traffic to branded site or delivers any message.

Salesforce: Developed Faceforce that integrates Facebook with Salesforce CRM. [Clarification: Clara wrote me after to note she developed Faceforce on her own, independent of Salesforce.com.]

Federated Media: 2 huge things brands want from us: 1) community, and then 2) where's the international reach.

Moderator: Where do you see video advertising going?

VideoEgg: We're looking at video as communication tool for social media, not just ad vehicle.

Moderator: (question for KickApps)

Kickapps: Agencies are using tools to create these types of ad units, and average publisher can create these experiences. Important to have experiences - you want your ad unit to be a living organism, do more than just present a brand. Can be programmable and viral. Charging on a CPM for impressions by widget vendor. All tied back to social graph.

Moderator: What are the most successful things Federated's seen that have long-term viability? What worked and how do you scale it?

Federated: With Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect, campaigns will be able to continue to last on. Campaign for Dell - what does Dell mean to you? Used Graffiti app, can replay artwork one creates. Had 12-15K graffitis drawn. Winning graffiti - had over 1 million votes. Created graffiti replays as video ad campaign, which continues on and also lives on their regeneration.org blog, and all is social media optimized.

Moderator: Why make search social?

Sightix: Problem is Google has data no one realizes they have. Google makes $60/user, Facebook makes $11/user.

Moderator: Facebook sounds pretty good.

Sightix: Try to give social networks business model that mimics Google. (Audience laughter rampant during this part.) Ads targeted to social graph based on search terms (yes, i'm confused too). Target user not the page. Ads delivered ads on my search term, and also target people in the social graph. (okay, I'm getting there).

Moderator: A lot of that seems scary to me. (More laughter.) One idea is a personal CPM - is there any validity?

Sightix: We're trying to maintain privacy and info they put out and enable people who have a lot of traffic to create value not just for themselves but their friends.

Moderator: How can we make advertising not suck?

KickApps: One secret to KickApps approach is we're only using info people openly declared themselves. Must be respectful to publishers and users.

Moderator: VideoEgg, explain your targeting.

VideoEgg: Fundamental premise is spending time with your brand. Different than response-based advertising.

Moderator: Genius move of Federated is how they looked at individual vertical markets. Are you seeing demand for social?

Federated: Brands want to figure out social. Long tail fills out amplification if you create something of value. Something sorely missed: we're forgetting about brands when we refer to social. Also important to tie into search - are you coming up in search, and how are you winning the conversation around your brand?

Moderator: What over the next 12 months will lead to massive shifts in revenue monetization and revenue generation?

Salesforce: Trend where PR consulting firm or other party not traditional software provider builds apps and monetizes not just through advertising but actually selling the app itself. Accenture is example - has consulting practice around insurance. Selling these apps to manage aspects of their insurance.

Q&A: Talk about virtual goods in ecosystem.

Kickapps: There's a lot to learn.

Moderator: What's requested most of VideoEgg that you don't offer?

VideoEgg: The theme is just fresh ideas and new thinking. (Typical job interview type of response - What's your biggest weakness? I'm just too much of a perfectionist!)

Federated: We're launching Social Media Toolbox to translate (something something - acoustics here stink) to do more (something) and not just one-offs.

Moderator: 2 predictions for next 12 months? Moderator's: 1) Facebook will be MONSTER business. 2) Despite saying to contrary, behavioral targeting WILL work within social networks, most likely not a company we know of today.

KickApps: 1) There will emerge multiple ad networks that will not only tackle behavioral but will combine BT with social graph data set to have powerful combination. One or two may emerge as leader of monetization of social media. Will offer elegant alternative to Google. 2) There will be much broader understanding of opportunity around social media.

Salesforce: 1) We'll see social graph permeate entire customer lifecycle from acquisition to service. 2) We'll see enterprise apps become more social.

Sightix: 1) We'll see more people reaching out to what's close to them (couldn't quite get this). 2) Social graph will accommodate many, many more things. Transparency will be more important in everything we do. (Ed: why does he hate privacy so much?)

Federated: 1) Brand advertising will keep getting bigger. 2) Google will get into brand in a big way and will pioneer international branding.

VideoEgg: 1) Standardization coming. Monetization will happen around key data sets. 2) (Something about someone not winning World Series)

Widget Monetization Panel at Social Ad Summit

Hooman Radfar, Clearspring
Heidi Henson, RockYou
Sam Wick, Userplane
Ben Pashman, Gigya
Kevin Barenblat, Context Optional (moderator)

Definitions of widgets?

Moderator: I'm an advertiser and I want to do business with you. What am I buying?

Userplane: They built a platform and they want to add community elements. They use us to help make it distributable. We're B2B focused. Widget strategy can take advantage of audience that's already out there.

RockYou: We're distributed media network, 70 million users, also created extended ad network of independent ap developers. LIkeness Quiz - people can see how compatible with their friends. Can create custom quiz like for Indiana Jones - top 10 favorite scenes from Indy movie.

Clearspring: Can advertise within widget - ESPN, Fox Sports, etc. Can help brands advertise within other brands. To go more deeply, we help them build their own widget distributed within their own network.

Gigya: First, there's a widget to be built - advertiser, developer, or us. Our currency is the install. Certain # of installs to specific audience. Advertising's about audience. Upside to widget: advertisers aren't locked in to specific platform. Won't be one or the other for long.

RockYou: Widget is still contained in a certain area, a little different experience of gauging user interaction. They work with PointRoll and others. On ad network, 2x interaction level. Users don't click through as much. Some new metrics may be needed.

Clearspring: There's a space in the ecosystem for everyone. You should get different performance on ads on new platform vs. old.

RockYou: There's no singular solution for brand advertisers. Creating own app can make sense.

Worked with Context Optional for Microsoft app, Office Poke.

Userplane: There are ways for companies to create value so we can provide brands with what they want in targeted environments.

RockYou: Fits with behavioral targeting aims, where users are voluntarily saying their interests, who interests them, what's important to them.

Gigya: As distribution increases, monetization increases.

Moderator: If I'm a media buyer, how do I know who I'm targeting?

Clearspring: You absolutely know. Look at traditional media - pass along effect. You don't know who's seeing it, etc. Power with widgets is measurability - what network it's on, how many people interact with it, how it's shared.

RockYou: Can target by demographics but also by affinity, like speed racing app for people who have affinity for cars.