The explosion of Flash content like widgets has created several complex problems, like how to index it in search engines, how to make it work on mobile, and how to track it. The latter is being addressed today at Adobe Max, where Google is announcing Analytics Tracking for Flash, which will let publishers track metrics for their flash applications from within Google’s popular stats package.

Aside from the unique file format, one of the major differences between tracking Flash and tracking webpages is that Flash can be embedded anywhere – meaning that analytics software needs to be able to measure interactions from not just a single location, but from within an application, regardless of where it’s placed.

To demonstrate how Google Analytics now does this, the company has teamed up with web-based Flash creation tool Sprout. Now, users who publish widgets and other Flash apps using Sprout can track metrics such as time spent, what links and objects users click within an app, and goal tracking – all from within the same Google Analytics account as their website.

Google and Sprout demonstrate how this works in the video below:

While Analytics for Flash is an interesting breakthrough in its own right, it also could be the dawn of a new era in marketing and how companies pay for advertising. As opposed to paying simply for clicks and for views, advertisers can now (in theory) pay for actual engagement, because it can be accurately measured.

Sprout is currently charging clients based on a “pay per publish model,” meaning the client pays each time someone actually does something with an app – like customize it (with Sprout’s “remix” feature) or republish it to a social networking profile. Sprout is marketing this new approach through a product they are calling SproutMixer.

Although most of the widget platforms like Clearspring and Gigya offer their own tracking solutions, Google Analytics adding its own support for Flash tracking is a big deal – it’s a solution that any Flash developer can implement into their applications – without the need for a middleman. As such, it could have significant implications on how online advertising is paid for, and how the widget companies evolve their business models.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:New Google Analytics Plagued with ProblemsGoogle Analytics Announces New Features, Urchin UpgradeGoogle Voluntarily Taking Your Analytics DataGoogle Analytics Now Compares Different Data PointsThis Post is Being Tracked by Google Analytics!Google Analytics Gets a Beautiful New InterfaceIt’s Official…Google Buys MeasureMap

Online advertising network optimizer Rubicon Project has announced the opening of their NYC office today. Josh Wexler, Director of Strategic Publisher Acquisition will run the NYC office. Rubicon has offices in NYC, San Francisco and their headquarters in Los Angeles.

Rubicon has raised $22 million to-date. So far the feedback I’ve heard has been mostly mixed with a bit of weighting to the negative side. They have been able to sell into the profitable large sites which will probably drive more revenue than the smaller "long-tail" would anyway.

The office is located at 106 Seventh Avenue in Chelsea. That was my old stomping ground during my days at CKS. Rubicon is hiring for several positions in the NYC office.

Check out my interview with Rubicon CEO Frank Addante from Internet Week.

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SplashCast and Entercom Communications have announced a new partnership today which will bring the SplashCast player to the 70 radio station websites owned by Entercom. Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed but I assume there’s some sort of revshare deal going on.

The partnership will bring "SplashCast micro-channels" to the radio station websites which will serve a variety of news, music, videos and interviews. And like with other SplashCast installations, viewers of the micro-channel can contribute to the channel. The micro-channels can be lifted and shared on Facebook, MySpace and blogs.

Back in September, SplashCast partnered with Clearspring on a social ad network.

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If you are a publisher trying to maximize the unsold ad inventory on your Web site or blog, the Ad Revenue 2008 conference might be worth checking out. The conference is run by PubMatic who we’ve written about several times on CN. The event speakers are from companies including Adify, VideoEgg, Flixster, Meebo, Quantcast and NBC Universal.

We were provided with two tickets for CN readers. I am happy to announce that the following CN readers won the free tickets:

• Jimmy K
• Billy S

If you weren’t one of the lucky winners, you can register now and grab a 20% discount by registering with the code ‘CNTRNTWRKS’. The event will be held on November 14th in San Francisco. We are listed as a media sponsor of the event.

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Update: I was able to catchup with Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library TV and asked him about the move today. He said, "I love REV3 and the people there and sometimes you need to adjust to the market and see what works and doesn’t and I love those guys and wish all of them super well and hope they Kill it and do nothing but awesome things! As for Wine Library Tv I will continue to Crush it on winelibrarytv.com everyday!"

Update 2: On the TWIT podcast last night, Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis said regarding the staff size at Revision3, "30 (staff) is kind of high for that kind of company."

Revision3 has announced some major show changes today. Epic-Fu will no longer be carried by Revision3 at the end of December and the Wine Library TV show will be removed as of today. Several other shows have also been cut. CEO Jim Louderback also noted that they are working on a variety of new shows that may hit the lineup soon. Wine Library TV joined the lineup back in June with a slimmed down version of their daily show. Louderback notes the huge popularity of Diggnation as one of their "winners".

Mashable is also reporting that some staff members at Revision3 were fired today including their head of business development Damon Berger. It’s important to note that we will never know the real reason for these people being let go.

In other online video news, Robert Scoble has announced that he is "restructuring" his WorkFastTV show which is broadcast live from the Revision3 offices. No further details have been provided about this restructuring. I think the show has made some good overall progress since I provided my initial commentary and suggestions for improvement this summer. I’d like to see them make the site a bit more friendly. Remember that with video you could be sitting on the site for quite a while, make the appearance relaxing and engaging.

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While walking around Times Square this morning, I noticed several signs for Facebook. Finally I grabbed one and the ad is embedded below. Can someone help me understand what this ad means? It appears not to be an ad for Facebook, but an ad for Fuser. Fuser apparently is a emailbox aggregator, reviews here, here and here.

I assume that in the ad, I am Andy and I am reading a message from William. Clearly I got the message since I am reading it so I don’t get the tagline of "never miss a message". Or is there something going on with the sheep that I am clearly missing?

As a side note, I love the idea of hitting the streets to market. What’s great about working Times Square is that not only can you push your message to the NY crowd but with all of the tourists, who knows what state or country your message may be spread to. As an aside, today marked the opening of the new TKTS photo and seating area near 46th street. This looks like a perfect place to push your startup.

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Akamai has announced plans to acquire NY-based acerno today. The transaction is considered a merger and while financial terms were not disclosed, Akamai notes that the deal "is not expected to have a material impact on Akamai’s normalized earnings in 2008."

Acerno aggregates anonymous consumer shopping data to help create the best possible advertising messages for retailers and manufacturers.

Akamai is also announcing the launch of the "Advertising Decision Solutions" service. Acerno’s technology is at the core of this new service which will help integrate real-time data from consumers. The ADS service is targeted towards buyers and sellers of online advertising create audience segments.

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Ad management application server OpenX has announced that, based on the results of a survey, they have launched a variety of paid services. The services are targeted at Web publishers and include: requirements review, installation services, testing, training and support.

OpenX offers self-hosted and a hosted (SaaS) models. Pricing information for the services is provided on a company-by-company basis. I’d like to see a basic suite of services with pricing listed - similar to what vBulletin offers for forum hosting.

I’ve used OpenX and Google Ad Manager and while both tools are on the complicated side, I find Google Ad Manager a bit easier to use overall. And with Google Ad Manager, there are no server or installation costs as it’s free. The downside is that you are providing more data to Google for their use.

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If you are a publisher trying to maximize the unsold ad inventory on your Web site or blog, the Ad Revenue 2008 conference might be worth checking out. The conference is run by PubMatic who we’ve written about several times on CN. The event speakers are from companies including Adify, VideoEgg, Flixster, Meebo, Quantcast and NBC Universal.

We were provided with two tickets for CN readers. If you’d like one, send in a request and we will pick the winners next Friday. Alternatively, you can register now and grab a 20% discount by registering with the code ‘CNTRNTWRKS’.

The event will be held on November 14th in San Francisco. We are listed as a media sponsor of the event.

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