Healthy Blog Reviews

Twitter took a big step toward claiming their territory (which, after all, they created) regarding what advertising will or will not appear in the Twitter stream. The short answer is that no third party ads will appear there so the Promoted Tweets program introduced by Twitter will be the sole provider of advertising. This is potentially bad news for several companies including Ad.ly and Twad.ly whose models were built , at least in part, around the ability to advertise in the Twitter stream. TweetUp has responded that they never intended to advertise in stream anyway. Here is information via the Twitter blog and TechCrunch regarding Twitter’s decision. First, third party ad networks are not necessarily looking to preserve the unique user experience Twitter has created. They may optimize for either market share or short-term revenue at the expense of the long-term health of the Twitter platform. For example, a third party ad network may seek to maximize ad impressions and click through rates even if it leads to a net decrease in Twitter use due to user dissatisfaction. Secondly, the basis for building a lasting advertising network that benefits users should be innovation, not near-term monetization. Twitter is uniquely dependent on and responsible for the long-term health and value of the platform. Accordingly, a necessary focus of Promoted Tweets is to explore ways to create value for our users. Third party ad networks may be optimized for near-term monetization at the expense of innovating or creating the best user experience. We believe it is our responsibility to encourage creative product development and to curb practices that compromise innovation. It is important to keep in mind that Twitter bears all the costs of maintaining the network, protecting the Tweet stream against spam, supporting user requests, and scaling the service. Indeed, Twitter will bear many of the support costs associated with any third-party paid Tweets, as Twitter receives support emails related to anything a user sees in a tweet stream. The third-party bears few of these costs by comparison. Essentially, Twitter doesn’t want to trust their network integrity to third parties. One has to think that this makes good sense. Also, when you get down to it Twitter isn’t interested in becoming a place for freeloaders. The costs of maintaining the Twitter stream are not shared so Twitter feels that they don’t need to be mopping up for others who will just create more work for Twitter but not add to the real stream of interest; the revenue stream. Twitter has updated their Terms and Conditions and that can be seen here . So the big news is that Twitter wants to make money for itself. Not exactly earth shattering. If there are companies that models get blown out of the water by Twitter’s insistence that they control their product then so be it. That is the risk that anyone runs when their business is dependent on another platform for its success or even more importantly, its entire existence. If there is any surprise when the rug gets pulled out from under them then it’s really their own fault. Your thoughts?

Tags: Business, expense, network, platform, promoted, promoted-tweets, responsibility, Social, success-or-even, thoughts, Twitter, unique, water
Posted May 24, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media

I think that based on the legal angle of much of the news around Google lately, we could see a service called Google Legal. I have no idea what that might look like but since the Internet behemoth spends so much time in court battles they should be able to find a way to monetize that right? They make money on everything else they do so why not? The latest case was brought against Google by Daniel Jurin. MediaPost gives some of the details Jurin, who sells StyroTrim building material, brought suit last year for trademark infringement, false advertising, interference with contractual relations, and other counts. The allegations all stemmed from Google’s AdWords program, which allows trademarked terms to trigger pay-per-click ads. If you want to get a lesson in whether this kind of thing is a good idea to do, take into consideration these two results from the case. Jurin has to pay $6,000 for Google’s legal fees and most of the case was dismissed. Not exactly a winner other than getting some press that won’t likely help his business any. In a ruling issued this week, U.S. District Court Judge Morrison England in the eastern district of California dismissed a host of Jurin’s claims, including allegations that Google confused consumers about who produced StyroTrim by returning links to a variety of companies in response to a search on the term. “Even if one accepts as true the allegation that a ‘Sponsored link’ might confuse a consumer, it is hardly likely that with several different sponsored links appearing on a page that a consumer might believe each one is the true ‘producer’ or ‘origin’ of the Styrotrim product,” he wrote. What is probably the most interesting outcome of this whole thing is the assertion by the court that essentially says that Google sells ad space and not keywords. If you are Google that’s a nice thing to hear a court say because it could potentially take away a lot of the responsibility that many place on Google to police trademarks and more. As of now, the trademark infringement piece of the suit has not been dismissed but it is believed that the likelihood of anything coming of it is slim. So Google continues to fight the AdWords fight in court and why wouldn’t they? It accounts for the overwhelming majority of the company’s revenues so it is worth fighting for. Of course their legal woes aren’t even close to being over. Google is currently facing 10 trademark infringement cases stemming from AdWords. No court has yet definitively ruled on whether using a brand name to trigger a search ads infringes trademark. The one case to go to trial, a lawsuit by insurance company Geico against Google, resulted in a victory for Google in 2004. In that case, a judge in Alexandria, Va. ruled that Geico had not proven that consumers were confused when they typed “Geico” into a search box and were served with ads for other insurance companies. There will always be legal battles for Google and any other successful company to fight especially in this day and age where unscrupulous folks look at the legal system as the the lottery system. As long as the impression is that Google is playing on the right side of the law in most instances then this whole process can just be chalked up to the cost of doing business. Hey, it is America after all. Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

Tags: America, Business, case, legal, responsibility, Search, styrotrim, trademark
Posted March 5, 2010 by cgseo under Social Media