social media, online advertising

Meet The Company Behind Zynga's Fastest-Growing Business: Ads

Almost lost in Zynga’s disappointing fourth-quarter earnings report was one bright spot: advertising. Ad revenues jumped 230%, to $27 million in the fourth quarter–almost four times the social gaming company’s 59% rise in overall revenues. Chalk it up in part to a new, more interactive kind of ad from “engagement marketing” firm SocialVibe.

Facebook adding ads to its Ticker feed

Facebook's Ticker, the fast-scrolling tote board of pretty much everything your friends are doing, is ready to start selling you stuff.

Twitter changes business of celebrity endorsements

Rapper Snoop Dogg gave props on Twitter to an ad for the Toyota Sienna minivan. Actress Tori Spelling linked to a website for rental cars. And reality TV star Khloe Kardashian soliloquized about the brand of jeans that accentuates the famous Kardashian derriere.

Senh: Now that Twitter's doing celebrity endorsements in-house, what's gonna happen to third-party apps that do the same, like Izea, Ad.ly and twtMob? They'll probably take a hit now that celebs can go directly to Twitter. Depending on how big Twitter's ad sales team is, the third-party clients will probably end up getting their leftovers.

Gauging Facebook Ads

ComScore and Nielsen are introducing rating systems for Facebook, to help advertisers better compare the social-networking site to traditional advertising outlets such as TV and print.

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Twitter Promotes Promoted Trends To The Top Of Trends

Sometime in the past few hours, Twitter made a subtle, but not insignificant change: their Promoted Trends are now appearing at the top of the Trends area on Twitter.com.

Twitter's Promoted Tweets Sell for $100K and Up

Twitter is now selling its "Promoted Tweets" for $100,000, according to an article in this morning's Wall St. Journal. "Promoted Tweets," which allow companies to buy the top spot on Twitter's Search results page, is just one of the microblogging network's new advertising initiatives as of late. The idea behind these digital ads is that the service allows companies to associate themselves with a certain trend or keyword.

As Facebook grows, can it profit?

Social-networking site seeks to leverage user data to boost ad revenue, raising privacy concerns.

Senh: That's the big question, they're growing fast, but can they become profitable. With click-thru rates on social networking sites being so low compared to content sites, can they find another revenue stream? Will targeted advertising work? They've been talking about it forever. We were never really able to make targeted advertising work for Rotten Tomatoes, mainly because the size of that audience becomes so much smaller when you target them. But Facebook is one of the largest sites in the world, so that might not matter. The only problem is MySpace has been trying to figure that out since they were the biggest social networking site in the world, and look where they went.

Twitter turning to advertising

Ads will be rolled out to two to 10 percent of users via search on Twitter.com beginning today.

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Has Digg Found the Winning Formula for Ads?

Digg took a big risk when they added in-line advertisements that users could digg or bury. Four months later, however, early signs indicate that DiggAds are a win for all parties involved: users, advertisers, and especially Digg.

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