Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Short Takes: 5.15.08

Here are some interesting XM and online marketing news items and links for your perusal:
  • "C Suite" is Wired: It's 2008, so it really should come as no surprise that highly-compensated, powerful folks are using the Internet. A mail- and online-based questionnaire that was completed by 2,390 of "America's elite business executives" indicates they're hip to technology. 54% now depend on email newsletters as their primary source of media industry news, about half have streamed or watched broadband videos from websites on their computers, and 30% read blogs.

    I can't imagine any B2B marketers focusing on C-level execs were holding back on exploiting the Internet to reach this audience, but if you thought all those MBAs in the corner offices were computer illiterate, here's the evidence that says otherwise.

  • Facebook Failing at Advertising: Just the other day, we saw MySpace admitting that it was advertising challenged. Today it's Facebook's turn. Fortune says that Facebook is "is showing cracks in its foundation". User growth remains impressive, but users, developers, and advertisers are all questioning the current reigning champ of social media. Despite its huge traffic, Facebook earned a minuscule $145 million in revenue last year, much of it from an ad deal with Microsoft, which owns a chunk of the social site. Facebook ads can sell for as little as 15 cents CPM compared with the estimated $13 on Yahoo, and "even at those bargain prices, marketers are reluctant to spend money on a venue where users aren't paying attention."

    Interestingly, the buzz in recent weeks is about data portability, which will permit consumers to take their data from one site and use it on others. It's hard to imagine how sites that can't make money off of traffic today will find a way to profitability when they become little more that online databases to host consumer data aggregated across the Internet. All of this is a reminder that while social media is hot, it's still in its infancy.

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