I had no idea that Real Estate Advertising accounts for 17.7% of all online ad spending and will double by 2010 to 32.1% according to Borrel Associates.

"The “2006 Update: Online Real Estate Advertising” reports that online real estate ad spending has risen less than 4% since 2001. And while the number of homes on the market has increased by almost 41% over the past year, real estate ad spending across all forms of media has remained almost constant at $11.6 billion.

The combination of a saturated home sales market with the decline in print classified ads will cause online real estate ad spending to grow to about $1.7 billion this year, and it will reach about $3 billion in 2010. While spending on online real estate ads increases, the report predicts that the total real estate ad spending will actually drop to about $9.5 billion."

I’m wondering what the online advertising market will look like in 2010 if a third of the advertising is about real estate.   I think that’s excessive.   

I looked at the current offerings for PayPerPost.com - I was curious to see what the fuss was about.

According to Andy Beal:

"As Business Week reports, the new service from MindComet’s Ted Murphy, pays bloggers to write about and endorse products in return for payment by advertisers.

Advertisers pay to post details about their "opportunity," specifying, among other things, how they want bloggers to write about, say, a new shoe, if they want photos to be included, and whether they’ll pay only for positive mentions. Bloggers who abide by the rules get paid; heavily trafficked blogs may command premium rates.

PayPerPost bloggers will not be required to disclose they are getting paid for the post."

I would NOT touch most of the opportunities listed (wife swapping, bubble wrap, fast loan action, match.com, etc), a couple I might have done (ie: Spider Man 3, Blogs in Space) but I’m really not into having someone tell me how I have to write (I’m a real blogger). 

Also, the money stinks (5 - 10 bucks per post) - they have to be kidding!    Try 50 dollars a post - then you might get some traction.   At 5-10 bucks per post who is going to be that interested? 

Not me.  First, not for most ads no matter the price - but if there was something I would have commented on anyway and it would be the same message - maybe, maybe 50 bucks.   I don’t know ….I hate to admit I’d even consider it.   Certainly, If I did accept that money I’d disclose it in the blog post.  I just don’t think anyone is going to pay 50 bucks a post ……but I would not consider it - nor do I think anyone else should - for less.

Five bucks is not worth it…..it’s just not.   Let PayPerPost keept their 5 bucks.

We’ve heard for a while that Google was going to allow some rich media into AdWords - because people respond to pictures vs. a text link by a factor of 4:1 (I have seen this on sites where I have analytics with ClickStream Overlays) - it’s always consistant - 4:1 is the ratio and it’s almost always 4:1, four times more people like to click on a picture link than a textual link.

"Sightings are starting to grow with this new Google phenomenon. Google AdWords with Pictures placed above text."

I would have expected more variety than just one face - like little pieces of artwork next to each ad.   But lets think about that for a second.  

If AdWords had pictures next to the Ads would that not tend to pull attension away from Organic results to the Paid Results?  And if that was the case - could it be that Organic Results will eventually have pictures next to them too?  (lets’ be fair…right?)

I really need to read the book first - so I learn about the first 3 types of blogs.  Seth Godin has come up with 4th type of blog that is used to keep and solidify a Fan Base - could be movie, or a performer - or an idea.   It’s what the blog is used for that makes it the 4th type of blog.

"In my free ebook about blogs (Who’s There?) I write about three kinds of blogs: cat blogs, boss blogs and blogs designed to spread ideas. Shame on me, I left out a fourth kind, a kind that is growing in popularity and influence."

"…..These are blogs with a posse, a cadre of loyal readers who participate by chat, comments or in a tightly-knit circle of blogs. The goal of the blogger is to put fuel on the fire and to keep the existing audience engaged. The ideas don’t have to be new, and they don’t have to spread, but the blog is a great way to create and maintain this community of fellow travelers".

I’m not sure that’s a good or bad thing - it seems like the logical extension of living more and more in cyberspace where your community of friends might be people you’ve net met and probably never will meet, but are still intimate with, in a way.   To keep that going - a blog of the 4th type is needed, and that’s what Seth noticed, I think.

When I wrote my post New Features in Digg 3.0 Preview last week I had no idea I would receive 4000+ visits from the Digg Story in 2 hours! 

Interestingly, the Digg Visitors left no comments - they came and went and read the post and must have liked it.    Anyway, after you look at the next chart (below) I’ll tell you about the next update to Digg coming in July.

My traffic has varied, depending on what I write about and when I write about - and the nearest thing to the Digg traffic came from the American Idol 5 final.  

Now, John Battelle reports Digg 3.0 will have updates to make it even better. 

"The real revolution will come with a second push in July, when Digg introduces two new infosthetic features that visually display in detail what stories are getting relatively hot/cold, how many users say so, who says so, and if those diggers share common interests. Digg Incoming will allow users to scale vetting the +2000 incoming stories that come in daily (or rather make it possible for any one digger). New diggs will drop down like stacking blocks in realtime for each story, making quickly and easily comprehensible the relative popularity of hundreds of stories, lined up alongside each other, at a time. The other upcoming data visualization Rose calls "Digg spy on crack"—referring to the current Digg Spy, a running screen of realtime user activity (showing diggs, undiggs, comments, etc.). The new spy will display the dynamic bunching of user activity around popular stories like the movement of bees aggregating around burgeoning/wilting flowers.

Theres’ so much more that’s being offered in each release - more information that can be read a number of different ways -  to give people insight on the stories and to show BUZZ. 

Also, Digg’s numbers are compared here with the original story that inspired mine here.

"In a review of Digg v3, TechCrunch declares that Digg is challenging The New York Times online in terms of page views. As evidence, Mike references an Alexaholic graph. Let’s look at the actual numbers. "

Here’s the NY Times Traffic Stats from Nielsen

I wonder if the Personality data is actually the internal traffic readings from the NYTimes own Analytics (probably not…just taking a stab at this).   IN other words, Nielson’s data is presented (estimated) next to the actual data (personality) - but I have no reason to believe the NY Times will just make their web stats public (maybe they would as it’s to their advantage to do so) but most companies don’t do this-they guard that data.

I had a great time tonight listening to some great songwriters talk about the Art of Songwriting at the Bitter End Cafe in New York City.  In fact, I made a short video with my cell phone camara, (not high quality for video or sound- which really does not do justice to the music - but is presented here more for flavor) of Tina Shafer, the host of the show (which happens every month at the Bitter End)

 There were several performers at the show tonight including Kyle Pass, Derek James, Tina Shafer (of course), Deena Goodman, Kevin Bents and Peter Zizzo.

The performace was wonderful -  it poured and poured and the streets were flooded yet the Bitter End was packed.

When I came in to The Bitter End tonight one of the artists was already performing on stage (see above) and I made my way to the back and ordered a beer and sat down.  Soon, I was reunited with my friends from the Art of Living Course - which is how I came to know Tina Shafer in the first place.   It was kinda nice that Tina brought up the Art of Living during the performance.

If I were a musician, I might have much more to say about each artist - but I can say all of them were professional and at peak form; many well known within their own circles, having fully arrived within those circles.   In a way , being here tonight mirrors my life that, of late, has crossed paths with more influencials (those who have enough relationships to effect social and political change) than I expected to have in my life in some shape or form.

What struck me, from an internet standpoint, is how each artist was represented on Search Engines - and how much work here could be done.  For example, Peter Zizzo, as accomplished as he is, is almost invisible (it’s references to his work that show up - but little actually about him).  In every case, it’s fair to say that most of the artists at the performance tonight have not utilized the power of search to promote themselves, as a brand, as much as they could have.

In an earlier post about Whitney Biennial I mentioned that the artist of today is a Brand and measuring an artist’s brand is only real way to measure artists now since the rest is really subjective (it does not matter if we’re talking about a visual artist or a performing artist).   I know some will disagree with me since performing artists can be acccessed on technique (as can visual artists, for that matter, or writers) - but what defines an artist is subjective - once can accept it or not.   So what is left is Branding - and that’s what people see and know.  

To see if I could detect "BUZZ" and visibility for each of the artists that performed tonight I put them into BlogPulse Trend Search.

Derek James had the most visibility in the Blogosphere with Tina and Kyle almost invisible - not that they need that kind of publicity - yet it’s tempting to wonder if artists truly understand how to exploit the reach of the internet to promote their own Brand -the same way they promote themselves on a TV, Radio or Print Medium.

Same thing with the other 3 artists -

Kevin Bents is invisible in the Blogosphere - where he did not need to be.  The PR firms should be doing more for all these artists - yet they don’t know how to do it on the internet either - the medium is so new - hardly anyone has realized the full potential of it.

The other day I mentioned the Tmobile SideKick III viral ad that I thought B.L. Ochman was behind - but it turned out she had nothing to do with it (but wish she had).   Two weeks ago, in NYC, someone was robbed of their new Tmobile Sidekick - it made all the newspapers for about a day. 

"A woman in NY accidentally left her Sidekick in a cab. Someone found it and was dumb enough to use it. The Sidekick knows all. The woman who lost it got a new one and immediately had the person’s picture, AIM handle and numbers she called.

A friend of hers posted a lot of info about the theives. Read more about the Stolen Sidekick."

This one event - which was done to create awareness for the launch of the SideKick III was done with no money (so to speak) yet got onto every major news outlet. 

While most artists could not take advantage of that situation - the concept is the same - there’s enormous power to promote your brand that is hardly been touched.

 What would the artists use the publicity for?  To sell their CD’s of course, without a record company to interfear - they can go direct to the consumer, just at ESTY.com is going direct to consumer for visual artists and I wrote about it here - Un-Raveling - Artists selling directly - cut out the dealer - it’s all unraveling.  

In my Blog, I have experiemented with posting about Cassie, Ashlee Simpson, Clay Aiken, Dark Chocolate, and other subjects where there is a significant amount of Buzz.  Yet I found something interesting. 

Artists like Cassie, on the other hand, appear to be hyped somewhat, as my posts about them generate little actual traffic to my blog, while my posts about Ashlee Simpson’s nose job appears to generate a great deal of traffic, even a month after the post was written. 

Clay Aiken’s Fan base is very strong and grassroots.  In short, Ashlee Simpson and Clay Aiken have a real Fan Base, while Cassie…I really don’t know - maybe it’s more hype by Tony Mottola than real popularity.   

But if Tony Mottola could pull of "creating an artist" - if that’s really true - it just proves that the Kingmakers of the Music Industry are great "StoryTellers", which is just what Seth Godin was saying all along - Marketers tell a story and that’s what Artists do - tell their own story as a Brand.  The better your "story" is, the more accepted you are.

To sum up, this evening at the Bitter End was great - and I could not resist using the Art of Songwriting as way to promote extending an artist’s brand through the internet (it’s not just having a site - its’ much more than that).

Time to go to bed.

Excellent post on the Microsoft AdCenter Blog on Seasonal Search Volume Forcasting.  The Search Volume Forcasting tool does not appear to have been updated since the last time I used it - it’s main limitation is there’s not that many queries you can get the seasonal search volume forcast on.

For example:

That’s not much…. but it’s interesting as far as it goes.

I think The AdLabs blog should be used to announce new features - that’s when it’s most effective in getting the word out.

I would think Google was going to release the new Google Checkout as "GBuy" but they changed the name to Google Checkout instead.  According to the New York Times "The company is introducing Google Checkout today, a service that will allow users to make purchases from online stores using payment and shipping information they keep on file with Google."

Google’s new service enabling consumers to make purchases from online stores using payment and shipping information they keep on file with Google, officially launched with the name of Google Checkout, rather than the rumored GBuy.

Google Checkout, as reported by The New York Times, is priced at rates which undercut current credit card processing fees:

Google is charging merchants 20 cents plus 2 percent of the purchase price to process card transactions, less than most businesses pay for credit card processing. Banking industry executives say that credit card processors typically pay MasterCard and Visa a fee of 30 cents and 1.95 percent for every purchase, so Google will be subsidizing many transactions

Sounds like a good deal if you do a lot of transactions.

"Yahoo, the other main seller of advertising on search results, recently announced an alliance with eBay that among other things will encourage Yahoo advertisers to use PayPal for payment processing. PayPal will also be promoted as the online wallet for use on Yahoo services. Both companies declined to give financial details of the deal."

You can see the lines being drawn - the Yahoo Ebay partnership was a response, I think, to Google Checkout.

"For merchants, one concern is whether Google’s system, which is unfamiliar to users, will reduce the number of people who complete purchases on their sites, a measure known as the conversion rate."

I don’t think it’s going to be that much of a problem because it’s got the big "G" behind it.  The Google brand is so well known that people will feel more comfortable using Google Checkout than some of the other payment processors out there now.

BTW, one added benifit is the tie in to conversion metrics - Google now controls the search listing, the search behavior, via the Google Toolbar, and the Search Purchase - that’s most of the key points you’d want to track to figure out ROI.

Boy, would I love to go to TED (and just to get invited to go to TED-besides having the 4400 bucks to pay for attending). You know you’ve "arrived" when you get asked to go to TED and speak.  I first heard about TED by reading Seth Godin’s blog and finding out he went to TED - but I did not even know what TED stood for.   Later, I got an offer to work on developing some promotional work for Juan Enriquez’s new book, The Untied States of America. 

Upon researching Juan Enriquez I came upon his attendance at a  number of conferences including TED, and this came to be a seed of an idea of how generate BUZZ on the internet - an idea I’m still developing.

In fact, while I was in Boston for Webmasterworld Pubcon  a couple of months ago I had breakfast with Juan Enriquez at a Cambridge breakfast spot; Juan attended TED last year. 

Now there’s TED Talks and the TED Blog, which should be facinating - I’d subscribe to both and download the talks when they are released (a couple each week).

Honestly, I’d opt to download the Podcasts rather than stream them …streaming Podcasts tend to stall a lot and a downloaded Podcast can be listened to on your IPod or a similar MP3 portable device.

By the way, take a look at this Mural - I found it on the TED Blog

Just heard from Chris Pirillo (via the blogosphere - no I don’t know him well personally but I have met Chris at SESNY06) that Net Neutrality died this afternoon in Washington.

Actually, the US Senate killed Net Neutrality in a narrow vote over strict Net Neutrality rules.  The bloody details of Net Neutrality’s death are covered by ZdNet.

"By an 11-11 tie, the Senate Commerce Committee failed to approve a Democrat-backed amendment that would have ensured all Internet traffic is treated the same no matter what its "source" or "destination" might be. A majority was needed for the amendment to succeed.

This vote complicates Internet companies’ efforts to convince Congress of the desirability of extensive new regulations, especially after the House of Representatives definitively rejected the concept in a 269-152 vote on June 8.

Republican committee members attacked the idea of inserting Net neutrality regulations in a massive telecommunications bill, echoing comments from broadband providers like AT&T and Verizon, which warned the rules were premature and unnecessary. Alaska’s Ted Stevens, the committee chairman, accused his colleagues of "imposing a heavy-handed regulation before there’s a demonstrated need."

Hmm….if the Devil belonged to a political party I wonder which one it would be?

By the way, on a lighter note, what Buzz is there on Net Netutrality? There was a peak of interest in the Blogosphere on June 9th.  It seems like this issue is very complicated but whenever you get big telecommunications companys telling you …don’t worry - we don’t need rules ….you have to wonder what’s the motivation behind avoiding regulation.