Google – from science to creative

A recent WSJ article by Jessica Vascellaro highlights a major shift for Google from the science of search into creative for online ads and new tools for advertisers.

Big advertisers such as Hewlett Packard and Ford Motor Co along with JC Penney and PepsiCo are all actively working with Google on new online ad initiatives.  David Roman, a marketing vice president for H-P’s personal systems group, says Google recently helped it with a new Internet ad campaign.  As part of the campaign, Google engineers built a tool that allowed people to upload and edit their own video clips.  Mr. Roman declined to comment on the cost of H-P’s ad campaign, but says it was the most the personal systems group has spent with Google on a campaign. H-P shelled out nearly $58 million on Internet display ads in the U.S. in 2008, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

With the acquisitions of YouTube and DoubleClick, Google has huge space for non-search ads and it looks like Google is installing a team that can develop and run campaigns working directly with the client or via their agencies.

Battle of giants Microsoft and Adobe for complete interactive experience on the web

I joined the Streaming Media Professionals group at LinkedIn and was sent a posting that appeared in Contentinople by R Scott Raynovich about the real battle that is brewing for Internet supremacy between Adobe and Microsoft.   Great read.   The comments from some of the industry leaders such as the Platform and Brightcove on format wars (which Microsoft is known for winning) and the push for quality, reach and security (by having two giants going for the same goal the technology is improving at fantastic rates)were on the money. One of the commentators, Mark Kapczynski was so impressed that he is setting up a company to convert Flash based video into Silverlight.

I have been working with a neat company in Montreal Canada that embraced Silverlight over a year ago and has developed several really neat applications – the company, Pecunia Communications is certainly ahead of the curve, particularly in live streaming events. see www.pecunia.tv

Web 2.0 in San Francisco – what was happening?

Where were all the people? I won’t comment on the size – or lack of size for this show, or who did or did not show up. It is a trade show happening during the worst economy in decades, about a relatively new market. The show organizer says 8,000 attendees.

So what was good?

Video. We have been is this arena for, well, decades and video is still the holy grail of information distribution, quantification and qualification and Web 2.0 had a few good providers. The usual suspects were showing mature products/services. Adobe managed to fill seats with Flash, Flex and Air presentations. Microsoft had a good sized booth, well located and showing Silverlight (almost) 3.0. Both of these apps are good vehicles for carrying video content and they showed well.

But it wasn’t all just the big players. Coremedia was showing an impressive digital content management system for video distribution called CoreMedia WebTV an excellent tool/service for re-purposing existing video content. ooVoo demoed their API designed to deliver a tool to developers and web app builders to integrate video chat into their applications. And The FeedRoom, a company focused on delivering a content rich experience for clients. They offer an excellent service for client engagement and content distribution.

Off the beaten path stuff. No wireless services for the time I was there. Or as my younger friends like to say “Web 2.0 wireless access FAIL” I had wireless on the ferry in from Marin, I had wireless with my morning coffee but nary a bit at the show. This was a major topic of discussion both in the Web 2.0 Tweats and around the various meeting areas. Here we sit in the middle of one of the most technologically advanced places on earth, talking about the future of human connections and communication and I had to go down the street to Peets to go online.

Final words. I know I wasn’t going to make a comment about the apparent lack of attendance this year but I do have one observation. When the world became comfortable with technology and the wow factor went off and we began to actually use the great stuff coming out of the labs and factories – we lost COMDEX and Supercomm and AEC and many more of the industry specific technology trade events. Even Apple moved away from MacWorld this year. We are all about solutions now. It is now up to the people with the tools to go out and actually start putting them to work. It may be that Web 2.0 is a victim of its own success. Internet applications are totally relevant – maybe everyone was back home building new applications or putting them to use – It all just happened at Web 2.0 speed!