Tonight at the NY Tech gathering, Listens To You presented their service. Basically what they provide is a way to customize the advertising that you see by providing your preferences for likes and dislikes. From there, Listens To You works with ad networks to take the preferences in and deliver the proper set of advertising messages. The Listens To You team created a blog post about their service.

More CN Coverage:
– FriendFeed
– Amie Street
– Startup Tips

Source:CenterNetworks

GigaOm founder Om Malik has announced that he has hired a CEO tonight. Actually promoted is more like it. Paul Walborsky joined GigaOm as COO a year ago and has been promoted to CEO.

Om notes that since Paul joined they have doubled revenues and monthly visitors, held two conferences and acquired jkOnTheRun.

I am SO looking forward to meeting Om next week during my trip to San Francisco. I’ve said for a long time that I am certain I can learn so much from him about this business and hope that he can download some of that information to me. I am also going to see if he will go for a GigaOM show with the two of us - I think I can get him to bring out some of his NY’er side!

Big congrats to Om, Paul and the entire GigaOm family - you are all kicking major butt!

As I traverse the Web checking out new sites and those familiar to me, I’ve started to wonder what forms of advertising are acceptable today. I am curious about your thoughts as well. For purposes of this discussion, we will look at advertising for typical content Web sites and blogs — not porn, warez or any other potentially objectionable content. Let’s take a look at each of the most common forms of ads running today.

Traditional banner ads

These are the most standard form of online advertising and include a variety of IAB formats (e.g. leaderboard, skyscraper, 468 standard, etc.). I think everyone would say these ads are typically fine and acceptable. I turn off ads that are overly animated, have iPhone scams, participation giveaways and the idiot dancing people. I would lump most affiliate programs into this category.

Sponsorship ads

This has become popular with the increase in professional bloggers. It seems the initial size was 125 pixel square, but now more sites are starting to provide alternative formats. We currently run the 125 size, check out GigaOm and SAI for a few alternative sizes. These ads are typically considered fine and acceptable. In fact, these are probably the best paying ads and also allow several select sponsors to display a strong relationship with a blog or Web site.

Google AdSense and other text ad networks

Again, these are typically considered fine and acceptable. These ads are normally contextual in nature and should provide greater return than the traditional banner ads above.

Popups and popunders

With popup blockers on nearly every computer today, these forms of online advertising have basically dried up. Most users hated them from the beginning.

SnapShots

These ads are newer and typically come packaged with a preview of the link that is moused over. TechCrunch and Mashable currently run this form of advertising. SnapShots combine a site preview plus contextual or image advertising where the publisher gets paid a CPC when a user clicks the ads and not the link.

It’s an interesting play… on the one hand, the idea of providing a preview of the site before you head there is a good thing. On the flip side, if you are intending to go to x site, see an ad for y site and go to y instead, the publisher makes a few cents but the intended linkee gets nothing. The SnapShots team have emailed me over and over to have CN use SnapShots. I haven’t made a decision yet but am leaning towards no.

Kontera and VibrantMedia inline text ads

Many blog publishers think these ads are the devil. These ads show up as links within content and are always distinguishable by link color and/or double underline. What I like about these ads is that the ad provider determines which words become links, not the writer. This alleviates the concept of writing content just to get a good round of inline text links (I know some still try though). When these ads first hit the market, they paid very well - partially due to users possibly being confused. I’ve watched the overall income drop on these ads month over month but they can still perform well in certain circumstances. I run these ads (only 3 per story) on HTMLCenter currently but not on CenterNetworks.

Interstitial ads

These ads appear typically before or between pages on a Web site. When these ads appear, you are forced into clicking the ad or clicking a close button. I haven’t seen many blogs running this format yet but it seems many of the large content Web sites run these ads without a second thought. CNET and the NY Times are always hitting me with these interstitial ads. Why is it acceptable for CNET to run an interstitial and reap the nice CPMs, but not a blog? This is probably the most interesting format to look at the differences between how a user reacts to advertising on a Web 1.0-style property versus a Web 2.0-style blog.

What formats did I miss? What formats do you run on your blog or Web site? What formats would you like to see in the future? I am hoping we see better monetization of RSS and mobile.

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The SF New Tech Meetup is showing mercifully short 5-minute demos from startups. Just think of all the BlackBerry messages you can catch up on in five minutes! If that doesn’t sound like fun, join a discussion on viral Facebook apps in Palo Alto.

Got something to add to the calendar? Send it to calendar@valleywag.com.

Source:Valleywag

Is Europe a country? The question puzzled gameshow contestant Kellie Pickler. And now even the European Commission seems confused. Apple has appeased the pangovernmental body by offering Britons the same price for iTunes downloads as the Continentals. But the original complaint remains unaddressed: Why can’t Europeans shop at any national iTunes store, since the region is ostensibly one open market?

Jonathan Todd, the commission’s antitrust spokesman, states:

Contrary to what we had been led to believe, the fact that the same content is not available in all EU countries is not the result of restricted business practices between Apple and the record companies, but of the restricting copyright legislation.

So it’s the government’s fault after all. Glad we cleared that up! The European Commission is eager to make companies do its bidding, but getting fractious nation-states to update their laws appears to be beyond its ken.

Some will view Apple’s statement that it “will reconsider its continuing relationship in the UK with any record label that does not lower its wholesale prices in the U.K. to the pan-European level within six months,” as bullying. But this is the reality: If anyone has the clout to force changes in the music industry and its regulatory regime, it’s not the European Commission. It’s Steve Jobs, savior of iPod users everywhere.

Source:Valleywag

From his hospital bed, stricken GigaOm blogger Om Malik posts an update on his health after he suffered a heart attack last month. And he manages to work in a review of a new voicemail-transcription service into the blog entry. Any questions on how he landed in the hospital in the first place? The man never stops working.

Loren Feldman, the transgressive online-video maker and would-be comic, slams Scoble’s “woe-is-me” posturing over his Facebook ban. Play the video, or read on for the choicest bit.

He’s fighting for himself … It’s dishonest and it’s wrong. Facebook has a right to earn money. You agree to give them your data. Everybody knew about it going in, and that’s not good enough for Robert, because he thinks … he’s above another company’s terms of service … For Robert to wrap it up under the guise of “I’m a freedom fighter for your data” is just completely dishonest.

Source:Valleywag

Blogger Om Malik could never have predicted he’d have a heart attack at the age of 41. But he did foresee one thing clearly: He would never build a business on a single blog so closely identified with one author. His spinoff blogs — Web Worker Daily, NewTeeVee, Earth2Tech, and FoundRead — have not matched GigaOm’s success; of the four, only NewTeeVee, in my opinion, shows promise of being a breakout hit like the original. But unlike Michael Arrington, who built TechCrunch solely on his startup cult of personality, Malik has sought to diversify his media startup in a way that it can survive him. Until December 28, this was merely wise in theory.

A San Francisco woman reported her Honda Civic stolen to the San Francisco police. A few weeks later, she got a parking citation in the mail for her stolen car. Then she got another. And another. In total, her car got ticketed 29 times while being listed as stolen. She called the police and the city’s Department of Parking and Traffic, but didn’t get any solid answers about the whereabouts of her car, nor why it was being ticketed after being reported stolen. Eventually, she and a friend decided to drive around locations where the car had been ticketed to try to find it.

After driving for three hours, they located the car and waited for an hour before the police showed up. San Francisco’s finest were not interested in catching the thieves and didn’t search the car before releasing it. The thieves had put 1,000 miles on the car, but otherwise kept it clean. The city claims “parking control officers,” who don’t work for the police department, aren’t expected to figure out which cars are stolen. “Their handheld ticket devices store auto theft information only from San Francisco’s database — not the entire state.” Ah, well that’s good to know. (Photo by salimfadhley)

Source:Valleywag

An actual headline from Om Malik at GigaOm today: “Like Gaboogie, Foonz Losing Its Voice Too.” The extra “too” really clears things up, doesn’t it? TechCrunch picked up the story with a sardonic cliche: “News flash. There’s just no money in giving people free calls.” The actual news flash: There’s just no money in drawing conclusions about technology from the failures of startups no one has even heard of.

Visits and page views to Valleywag were about 50 percent of a normal weekday both yesterday and today, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. As the guy at Tully’s Coffee said, “Any day that half your clientele shows up at the door is a business day.” With half the Net still going at it (see chart: Most of our traffic comes from people clicking links), it’s kind of weird to see the go-go business blogs — TechCrunch, GigaOm, VentureBeat — shuttered for the day. Couldn’t you guys have queued something up? The old-media dinosaurs at the NYT managed to print an issue, even if it’s padded with heartwarming holiday filler. I’m starting to think the Objectivists are right: The problem with Christmas is it’s not commercialized enough. Whoops, update: Duncan at TechCrunch just posted some actual news, but it’s already late Wednesday morning for him in Australia.

In the beginning, meebo was "just" a chat aggregator. Over time they have grown to add Rooms, a Platform and they are announcing a partnership tonight with Joost. Meebo will provide their Rooms technology for the 250 channels on the Joost network. Nielsen/NetRatings reports that Meebo is the fastest growing IM destination (they don’t include eBuddy in the report).

Joost presented at the NY Video Meetup last week. I noticed a much improved user experience over the initial version I tested earlier this year. If you haven’t tried Joost recently, I would try it again. Does the combo of Joost and Meebo leapfrog Hulu? If the integration is seamless, it could be pretty sweet. The part I am unclear about is whether the Meebo Rooms for the channels will be embedded into the Joost interface or a link to the Meebo room will be provided.

"Participation in community activities has emerged as one of the most significant trends in consumer behavior," said Mike Volpi, CEO of Joost. "By offering our viewers a robust channel chat option, they can chat with people interested in the same shows and subjects - and ultimately customize and enrich their entertainment experiences."

"Even in an on-demand environment like Joost, people can experience live community around popular channels and shows," said Seth Sternberg, CEO and co-founder, meebo. "According to a recent internal survey at meebo, 25% of meebo users IM while watching TV - there’s a lot more we can be doing to connect people who share a common passion around a specific show or genre."

Check out our interview with Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg.

Source:CenterNetworks -

Just noticed this on the Techcrunch toolbar, "Crunchies". It appears to be a partnership between Techcrunch, ReadWriteWeb and GigaOm. Webware/CNET had their similar Webware 100 earlier this year.

From the site, "The 2007 Crunchies is our first annual competition and award ceremony for the most compelling startups of the year."

Looks interesting and awards for the hard work and effort startups put in should be rewarded. If you think about it, all those startups is what keeps a good bit of the press moving! The Crunchies are sponsored by Sun.

I am curious as to the name choice - wouldn’t something general enough for all 3 sites make more sense? Will we see Mint win this too? LAWL

Update from a CN reader: Mashable launched "Mashable Awards" this past weekend though it seems to focus more on social networking and new social sites.

This week marked the launch of the newest egoboard, the Techmeme Leaderboard. I thought it might be fun to look at the movers and shakers in the first four days since launch. The chart is below. From what I can put together, the big winners so far are Silicon Alley Inisider and NewTeeVee and the big loser is CenterNetworks dropping nearly 20 places!

So one must wonder, how did SAI and NTV move up? SAI is easy: create fake content that big bloggers believe is real and you get links that move you up. Then write additional content to lure the big bloggers in for even more links. NTV is part of a "blog network" which can link to itself creating juice on both sides. TechMeme founder Gabe Rivera notes that these blog networks are considered individual properties so when GigaOm links to NTV, it "could" push it even futher in the TechMeme presence rankings.

Erick over at TechCrunch had a rant post today discussing why TC doesn’t get much Digg love anymore. Unfortunately the rant has been edited so I can’t note it here, but he did say that they love the TechMeme leaderboard. And why wouldn’t he love it? They are ranked #1 and got the exclusive.

It’s important to remember that there is a "ranking factor" that goes into what your mathematical possibility is for getting a lead spot on TechMeme. TechCrunch occupies the best ranking factor currently.

I wouldn’t go as far as Dave Winer has in saying that it’s a cesspool. He notes, "I’m thinking of this idiotic post (calacanis 3.0) by an idiot (calacanis) who’s known for saying idiotic things just to get attention." Some people would say that any of these ranking systems (digg, reddit, techmeme, etc.) lose their ability to show you the best content once people begin to game them.

So many bloggers are worried about what people think that they forget their audience and write stories only to get a push on some leader list. Do the things that got you an audience and your blog will grow. Do you think that because Ars Technica is #1 on most front page diggs, that they are getting more of an audience? No.

Thought for today… when baseball begins a new season, all teams start at 0 wins, 0 losses, the previous season doesn’t carry over. Even if the Yankees have 100 wins and the Red Sox 20 in the previous season, both teams start at the same position. How come this doesn’t happen in blogging?

Here is the leaderboard: