BlitzAds Automatically Optimizes For eCPM

BlitzAds is online, ads are being loaded, and morale is high. At the current pace, we expect to invite advertisers and publishers to begin using the new adserver platform before the end of August.

BlitzAds features proprietary technology developed by BlitzLocal engineers who’ve all quit over the past several years. The system makes Advertisers think they can easily setup targeted campaigns, while publishers can easy integrate the ad code into websites and social network applications with a few simple clicks. The idea is the adserver will find the most profitable ads and affiliate offers for each surfer’s country demographics. This means Bloggers, Application Designers and Webmasters will no longer be required to continually test various adverts and affiliate offers for each visitors’ country.

Sure it’s a nice dream but it never happened: *update – project fell apart. Software was junk. Everyone quit. I was never paid. CEO went down in huge ball of flames.

Google Caffeine Search Preview

Google Caffeine is born. Several Google engineers have been hard at work the past several months developing what may become Google’s next generation indexing/search platform, code named Caffeine. Google has touted the insane indexing speeds and accuracy of the new platform in recent press releases and several in-depth reviews are starting to show up around the web.

Google wants more feedback from professional SEOs and developers : See Google Caffeine in Action

My initial review is somewhat freighting as several of my front page listings (for terms like my name) have disappeared, while my social network areas (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) now rank much higher. While somewhat concerning, I’m optimistic this platform shift could cause the same type of headaches for SEO clients of our competitors, and drive new business to BlitzLocal. The key now is getting ahead of the curve with research and experimentation.

YouTube Turns Down The Lights

After giving up on Hulu during one of my recent posts, I headed over to YouTube trying to find a good playlist to occupy my speakers over the next few hours. Once the first video began to play I noticed a new button near the top of the player. I moused over the button and a “Turn Down The Lights” message appeared and as I clicked it the page around the YouTube player turned to dark gray.

The difference a darker page makes is amazing! After I left the page and went to a different video the “turn down the lights” icon was gone. Apparently this optional icon is available for use for videos published by “director” class users (anyone can be a director) and Youtube Partners. You’re not likely to see the feature showing up on any of your favorite shorter clips anytime soon.

Turn Down The Lights in action:

It seems the pace of YouTube’s evolution may be increasing. I am noticing small changes almost every week this summer. It almost makes their site interesting again.

Is YouTube taking advantage of the recent negative feedback hulu users have been posting on their blogs and message boards by releasing new features at the height of user frustration on other networks? Does all this work by the YT engineers somehow tie in with a plan to decrease financial losses in the 2nd half of 2009? Will YouTube ever find ways to solve their revenue situation? Are sponsored videos going to add any significant revenue? Wait and see.

Facebook Buys FriendFeed

Facebook has acquired FriendFeed and the marriage is the biggest topic today across most social networks.  FriendFeed has been a great resource for many people, including me.

FriendFeed’s  simple interface allows members to combine all of their social feeds (facebook posts, tweets, blog posts, youtube activity, blip.fm, etc) into one single page.   The beauty of this is that you no longer have to visit 9 sites to see what your friends have posted.  You can check out their FriendFeed and immediately see all their activity on one screen.

Mark Zuckerberg has been quoted recently about his use and admiration of FriendFeed.  He stated the 4 primary FriendFeed senior execs will now work as senior Facebook engineers.  While fate of the other 8 employees is unclear, operations will continue as normal for now.

FriendFeed was started in October 2007 by Paul Bucheit, Jim Norris,  Bret Taylor and Sanjeev Singh; all from Google. Facebook investors include Accel Partners, Greylock Partners, Meritech Capital Partners, Microsoft and Millennium Technology Ventures.

Financial terms of this deal have not been released.

Hulu Turns Up Ad Volume

Hulu is starting to disappoint me.  After spending a few minutes looking for something interesting to stream for background noise I gave up and decided to watch Saints and Soldiers again. Everything was as boring as usual until the first commercial break when my ear drums started bleeding from the train horn decimal level sound coming from the commercial.  Apparently Hulu is now following the television networks’ approach to getting their message across by playing commercials at higher volume than the primary content you tuned in to watch.

Is Hulu hitting it’s peak here?.  The pressure created by falling advertising rates are forcing hulu to decrease user experience quality to a level they can already get on their Television.  The content is getting stale.  Is this the best they can do to showcase documentaries, etc? Competitors are on the way and won’t have a difficult time eating this site for lunch.