To provide leadership in and organization of advertising and audience measurement standards, research, education and advocacy to all those involved in downloadable media (such as podcast/ATOM/RSS media enclosures) across the Internet, mobile devices, handsets, set-top boxes, P2P and other emerging platforms.

Yes, I have known for a long time that podcast publishers are trying to discover viable and sustainable ways to monetize their offerings, but I didn’t know that standards were in the works. Upon reflection, like all platforms on the internet, this medium requires workable and accepted guidelines that allow publishers to intelligently quantify their value proposition to advertisers. In other words, without the ability to rely on duplicateable (if that’s a word) ad formats, it would be difficult for advertisers to syndicate their advertising messages and therefore leverage creative across multiple channels.

But before we can look at this announcement in the context of podcasts only, from their missions statement, we see that ADM is concerned with other downloadable media formats also, like RSS feeds, Atom feeds, and certainly others. To add to possible confusion, how is downloadable defined anyway? To wit, everything on the internet is downloadable. So, do they plan on suggestion ad standards for everything on the internet? Probably not.

It seems that any standards creation body has a two-fold task: getting stakeholders to accept the standards, and also getting stakeholders to accept them as the actual organization to suggest the standards in the first place. Has ADM achieved the latter? I don’t know. As this emerging discussion continues, it is clear that those who wish to regulate must solidify their position in the minds of the regulated. In all fairness, the organization was only formed in November 2007. And already they have participating advisers from Microsoft and Nokia.

Wether or not ADM is the organization that gets the job done or not, their mission will continue to be something that is vitally important. Seek out and accept standards, or languish with minimal advertising penetration.

[Via Mashable]

In 2003, Disney released Toontown, its first MMORPG, to garner children’s and tweens’ eyeballs, attention, and parental wallets. This is the type of game that invites you to create a character that interacts with hundreds (and thousands) of other computer and human characters in an online environment that is filled with puzzles, challenges, and quests. The more experience you gain, the more you can customize your character, and the more prestige you gain in this online world.

It is completely immersive, and completely addictive. Corporate brands have had a difficult time trying to figure out exactly how to monetize this user experience, but it seems Disney has figured it out.

With this strategy, Disney is not attempting to convert each web user into an immediate web buyer. Rather, this is a play at creating and extending its brands, marketshare, and mindshare. These types of games are constantly being updated and modified to deliver compelling content to game players. I’m sure you can imagine the Disney creatives dropping in hints and suggestions that introduce users to emerging Disney products-of-the-moment.

And think about immersion. Television spots are usually 30 seconds. A YouTube video might be 5 minutes tops. But typical MMORPG gaming sessions are 30 minutes to three hours. Now that’s what I call an impression!

A few highlights from his piece:

“In search, Google maintained 56.6% share, handily beating Yahoo (17.7%) and Windows Live Search (13.8).”

“Other Google properties showed very impressive growth – Picasa up 197%, YouTube 81%, and Blogger 52%. “

So it’s clear that Google is still the 800 pound gorilla. Not a surprise. But I had no idea that Google had that much of a lead over Yahoo and Windows Live. And from the second stat we see that people are loving the web medium to share Pictures and Video. The fact that Blogger is lagging the other two services raises an interesting question for me. Does this show room for growth and innovation in the individual blog space? Is this where Google can go head-to-head with MySpace and Facebook?

Currently, there is very little interaction among the blogs within Blogger. I can’t easily let the world know that I have 200 friends with blogs on Blogger, for example. How could Blogger be more social? Think “poke,” “minifeeds,” “fun walls,” and embedded mp3 players. Maybe they are working in their Google Labs right now trying to find a way to “Gooogle-fy” what’s already been done; to make it more compelling for the Google audience.

Maybe it won’t be Blogger at all. Maybe it will be a super-tool that will sit on top of Picasa, YouTube, and Blogger- and integrate all three into something new. Something social. Something web2.0. Something special….

To compete with the thought of a Microsoft/Yahoo offering, I think Google will have to come up with something big that breaks new ground.

Anyway, this microsite promotes the upcoming spoof comedy, “Meet the Spartans.” The site allows users to customize a video featuring Carmen Electra by adding their name as a tattoo, their picture, and their phone number. You then email the resulting URL to your friend.

When you open the link, it takes you to a spoof site called “Celebrity Dumpster,” which is designed to look like a celebrity gossip site. (A clever way to reinforce the movie’s spoof concept.) Then you click on the video to play it in an embedded flash player. And in true YouTube style, the site gives you a link so you can embed the video into your own site. This creates the long tail of brand awareness, which will persist beyond the initial viral spike, helping the message stay relevant until at least the DVD release.

It’s viral. It’s interactive. It’s fun.

http://www.carmenhasacrushonyou.com/

For a special surprise, make sure to put in your real phone number. The phone number makes this thing viral!