There are some ads that make you go “damn cool!” and then there are some others that make you do “WTF!” I came across such a “WTF were they thinking?” Ad- presumably supposed to be ‘viral’- and I’ll attempt to list what was wrong with the ad. Alongside, I’ll also attempt to highlight some criterion that I lay out when it comes to making an ad- recommendation worthy. All this and more…

I recently answered 2 questions with regards to Digital Marketing- and as usual, thought of sharing with you. Read on…

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:07 — 5.5MB)

I’ve been meaning to do this for the longest time-> Start a podcast.So here it is- My first podcast. Measuring the micro media of today is a pain. For marketers there is this ever pertinent challenge of how to measure mediums like blogs, wikis and even podcasts.
My first podcast series attempts to put together a set of metrics and parameters to analyze a podcasting channel. And I analyze three of my favorite podcasts from closer back home in Singapore, Asia: Namely Tech65, Mr Brown Show and Morning Jam. Enjoy!

A recent report on the fact that “Conversions-in-banner ads offer a conversion rate five times higher than in-site conversions”- and my take on it…

A panel discussion on effective media buying and planning strategies moderated by shalabh pandey

Comscore says, there are more than 60 billion searches conducted worldwide in any given month. (OK- they said this for Aug 2007, but the numbers can only go up right?)
An interesting and self sufficient study in itself- there are interesting takes on the growing influence of APAC users in search. I did a quick analysis on the various regions:

Region
Unique Searchers (% of total)
Searches (% of total)
Searches

Per Searcher

Asia-Pacific
34%
33%
78.7

Europe
28%
29%
85.1

North America 
27%
26%
77.4

Latin America
7%
8%
95.7

Middle East – Africa 
4%
3%
69.8

Worldwide 
754 million
61 billion
80.9

APAC therefore, accounts for more than 1/3 of both total number of searchers and total searches worldwide! What makes it …

There is an almost sudden deluge of news articles about Online media. Forget about articles, there are new magazines launched (my guess is in the last one year or so) specifically for the new media- Internet and Mobile. This is specifically in Singapore and Hong Kong  though I’m sure the trend replicates elsewhere in Asia as well.
Every other day, someone is found propagating the virtues of online media, and with me there have been instances where mainstream advertising people think Online is going to eat up all other media in the …

50 billion dollars- thats what ’Takeover pundits’ are puntering for Microsoft’s alleged bid for Yahoo.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/05042007/business/bills_hard_drive_business_peter_lauria_and_zachery_kouwe.htm
Is it worth it? Prima Facie For Yahoo yes. Earning a few times of the entire online industry size should be worth it. For Microsoft? Maybe Yes- they haven’t done anything substantial or ground breaking anyways- either in display or search advertising. They just get by (ahem!) because they are Microsoft. They lost Double click, they lost AOL, now might be their chance for consolidation.
But whatever the ’money sense’ is, the reasons why it should never happen- why Yahoo should not sell to MS …

Or shall I say Internet might loose its sheen the way we see it now.
The Net evolves – HTML, Java, DHTML, AJAX, Ruby on Rails- web authoring technologies continue to evolve. And so does the nature of the web- from standard, static web pages of the web 1.0 era to community driven, interactive and self updating Web 2.0. Mobile technologies have not been far behind- and terms like 3G, wifi, Bluetooth connectivity etc form staple primary school lingo today.
Fortunately or otherwise, all these technologies are evolving and new ones emerging because …