Google to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1B – Yahoo News

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Although I need to work on a brief for, I can’t help comment on Google buying Doubleclick which it appears was just announced today.

Google to acquire DoubleClick for $3.1B – Yahoo News
Seeking to expand its already well-honed ability to sell targeted Internet advertisements, online search leader Google Inc. said it has agreed to pay $3.1 billion in cash to acquire ad-management technology company DoubleClick Inc.
The two companies announced the deal after the markets closed Friday. The boards of both companies have approved the takeover, which is expected to close by the end of the year.

New York-based DoubleClick helps its customers place and track online advertising, including search ads, which Google â?? more than its nearest search competitors Yahoo Inc. Nasdaq:YHOO – news and Microsoft Corp. â?? has turned into an extremely lucrative business.

This is a strange pairing for three reasons although there are obvious attractions. First, Google built itself on a promise not to use banner advertising, a business Doubleclick helped pave the way for. Sure, Google has been testing graphical ads for a few years now, but those were limited. With Doubleclick in the family, Google will be fully reliant on the banner ads they spurned for so long. When the going gets tough, and it will in the cyclical advertising market, will Wall Street force Google to utilize the Doubleclick relationship to place branded, graphical advertising all over its site? Is it already too late for them? This will be the most interesting aspect of this engagement to watch from the sidelines.

Second,does this mean Google didn’t have the engineering experience or expertise to build out a branded advertising unit. I find this interesting and somewhat strange because they already have most of the things needed for a branded advertising network. They have ad targeting technology used for adwords, they have relationships with most major advertisers, and they have an extensive network of publishers, many of whom will consider putting branded advertisements on their site for the right price.

Third, Google holds itself above the rest with regards to privacy. On the flip-side, Doubleclick has been a privacy pariah since 1999 when it purchased Abacus Direct, an offline direct marketing company, and promptly announced it would combine anonymous profile information collected though its adservers with personally identifiable information collected by Abacus. The result is history. After lifting the lid on their plans, Doubleclick was quickly scalded by public and government reaction that saw it investigated by the FTC and several states, forced them to withdraw those data merging plans, and eventually the parting of ways with the Abacus Direct unit.

It’ll be interesting to see how users react to the change in ownership. My guess is that most people are now used to being profiled and tracked and that will shrug their shoulders. This isn’t 1999 when tracking and profiling online was new and most people said “Huh? Who!?” when they first read or heard about Doubleclick and Abacus. Now, Google is a trusted company with obvious brand recognition. Others may sound concerned but will quickly trade privacy online for the free products they’ve become accustomed to. The rest use AdBlock Plus and regularly clear cookies.

BTW: There are Google cookies on this page. I use the Google Analytics product for audience measurement.

I dislike the English language some days

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Although our language is rich in culture, I dislike it some days for the arbitrariness I sometimes perceive. Here is one such example:

  • An unusual service
  • A usual service

The general rule is that ‘an’ is used preceding a word beginning with a vowel and ‘a’ precedes a word beginning with a consonant. I know, I know, this exception is caused by the ungodly sound of “an usual service.” I just find it mildly irritating. I can only imagine an English learner trying to figure this out.

The rest of the story …

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When I was a kid, Paul Harvey would come on every day telling a short, general story then cut for commercial. When he came back on, he’d start with “And now for the rest of the story” and proceed to tell a more detailed story. I now have a chance to share the rest of a story that a reporter chose not to share, or their editors chose to cut.

A fight is in progress between the City of Troy, Michigan and Hooters over the family (not!) restaurant opening a second location in the city.

Hooters fight gives city 2 restaurants – AP, via Yahoo! News

“You come directly off the interstate and that’s the first thing you come to,” said Wade Fleming, a councilman who voted in June to reject the transfer of a liquor license to the new Hooters restaurant from a rundown tavern that once operated at the same location. “That starts to define Troy, I think, and that’s not how we’d like to define Troy.”

Hooters executives want just one restaurant in Troy, but the company won’t close the old one until it’s allowed to serve alcohol at the new restaurant, which opened Monday on a larger, more visible site.

Critics are concerned that the restaurants’ scantily clad servers don’t fit the image the city seeks to project in its Big Beaver commercial district. Fleming said officials are trying to make the area a “world-class corridor.”

And now for the rest of the story …

As the writer hinted to, the likely reason Hooters picked that spot is the location. More specifically, so it could be a mecca for the sophmoric. Here is a photo of the freeway exit sign where the new Hooters is located:

exit69b

Yes, Hooters has picked a location that seems to have called out to them like a beacon. Hooters now has a restaurant located on the corner of Big Beaver Rd. and Rochester Rd., next to the I-75 exit (# 69) for Big Beaver Road.

It appears from the article, and from a cousin who lives in Troy, that the city machinery is efficient enough for the city council to not know of Hooters’ intended move until too late. By then, city planners had already approved of designs and significant amounts of work had been completed. It appears the city council only became involved because of the liquor license transfer application.

And now you know the rest of the story.

I personally think the city council should have let the liquor license transfer go through and just accept that the system is able to make a mistake. Laugh it off and make modifications to filtering liquor license applications to the council earlier in the planning process. Instead, they’ve fanned a huge PR wildfire into a maelstrom that has provided major advertising for Hooters. For example, local Detroit radio now has commercials starting with a declaration that “Troy now has a pair of Hooters. “

State of the [insert joke here] speech

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I wrote the following a few years ago. It still applies, at least what I could tell from the bit I heard on the radio.

“Congress is a joke. Or, should I say a bunch of cheerleaders. I’m currently watching President Bush give his obligatory State of the Union report/speech. He barely gets through most sentences without applause. “I think [applause] you need to all [applause] kiss my feet. [applause]” And it comes from both sides of the aisle. Even when he was lying about the war for Iraq, occupation of Iraq and the Patriot act, they applauded. They should at least wait until he finishes a section of his speech or the end of the whole thing. And they shouldn’t feel obligated to applaud if they don’t like what he says. If it were me, I’d wait until the end before applauding, even if the President were my party member, friend or father (he’s not ;).”

Granted, there weren’t so many breaks during his commentary on the war this year, but there sure were a lot during the rest of his speech. A transcript of the speech, including applause breaks is posted on the White House web site. My guess is that they undercount the applause breaks by 20%.
I still don’t know why I bother tuning in at all. It isn’t like I don’t already know what to expect. Blah Blah Blah sound byte. Applause. Blah Blah Blah sound byte. Applause. Blah Blah Blah sound byte. Applause. Blah Blah Blah sound byte. Applause. Blah Blah Blah sound byte. Applause. Blah Blah Blah sound byte. Applause.

Is spanking a child the same as beating that child?

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California Assemblywoman Sally Lieber seems to think it is.

“I think it’s pretty hard to argue you need to beat a child,” Lieber said. “Is it OK to whip a 1-year-old or a 6-month-old or a newborn?” — California lawmaker seeks ban on spanking. Y! News, via AP.

I find the logic in that statement suspect when used to support a spanking ban. To beat is to “strike repeatedly.” To spank is to “strike especially on the buttocks with the open hand.” Therefore, to Sally, the words “beat” and “spank” mean the same thing because they both mean “to strike.” And as a result, we need to ban spanking because we want to ban beating and whipping a small child.

I disagree with Sally’s plan and believe the current laws are sufficient to provide parents flexibility to discipline their children and the State ability to protect children. According to the AP article, current California law permits spanking by parents unless the degree of force is excessive or not appropriate for the child’s age.

When I think of beating, I think of a child being hit multiple times with force that would hurt an adult. That’s much different than the tap on the butt I consider to be a spanking. It is probably reasonable to say that beating and/or whipping a small child is likely to violate the current law. Likewise, it is probably reasonable say that an excessively strong or long spanking episode would qualify as a beating and violate the current law.

I don’t have children yet, but I’ve seen young children who don’t respond to an alternative measure, such as time-out or the naughty box (a toy goes in the box). Should a parent not be able to give a slap on the butt in those situations? I don’t think so.

Sally is my elected representative so I’m likely to contact her once the bill is public so I can directly quibble over semantics with her.

Silicon Valley colder than New England?

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This was the forecast yesterday afternoon for yesterday evening, according to the National Weather Service (NWS) web site.

Tonight: Partly cloudy. Slight chance of mixed rain and snow showers. Probability of measurable precipitation 20 percent. Northwest wind 12 mph. Low 31.

Needless to say, the snow didn’t appear. But this morning was the first time since I left the Midwest 14 years ago that I needed to let my car defrost. There was a thick layer of frost coating my car when I went out at 8:15am. Usually, when we have a frost, I can easily wipe the frost off with the windshield wipers. Not today.

Tonight’s forecast calls for a low of 26. Brrr. In contrast, Philadelphia is forecast to see a low of 45, and Boston a low of 41. There is something seriously wrong when San Francisco Bay area weather is colder than New England.

Things aren’t all bad. I’m getting to use my winter coat and I’m not in Fairbanks, Alaska.

limiting postal marketing mail

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A family member recently commented on the amount of junk snail mail they receive. I prepared an email with information to help reduce the amount received and decided to post that information in case anyone else finds it useful.

The best way to stop receiving marketing mail is to contact the companies you do business with and tell them to limit the amount of marketing mail they send you and to not sell your personal information. However, that is often not enough because of direct marketing is big industry in the US. There are existing lists with your personal information that is sold wholesale, credit bureaus, public records such as telephone book listings or property deeds.

Offers of credit:
From the the Experian Privacy Policy:

“You can remove your name from prescreened credit or insurance offer mailing lists from Experian, Innovis, TransUnion and Equifax by calling 888 5OPT OUT (888 567 8688).

You will be given a choice to opt out for five years or permanently. If you elect to opt out permanently, you will be mailed a Notice of Election to Opt Out Permanently, which you must sign and return to activate your permanent opt-out. Even though your request becomes effective with Experian within five days of your notifying us, it may take several months before you see a reduction in the amount of solicitations. “

I opted-out in August and have only gotten two more offers since October. Much better than the two per week I had been receiving.

Other generic marketing mail addressed to you. Think, Publisher’s Clearinghouse:

  1. Delist your name and address from the telephone book. For me, it costs about 40 cents per month (although, in reality should be free).
  2. The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) is the largest of the trade organizations representing companies and organizations that send direct mail. They allow an opt-out but will force you to pay a dollar before honoring your request, citing a bogus excuse of fighting fraud. I will submit a legislative proposal to my state legislator and congresswoman at some point in the next year proposing that such charges be banned and suggesting the creation of a do not mail list, like the do not call list. Marketers only bring it upon themselves.
  3. Major data warehouses and resellers

And if you’re getting telemarketing, make sure you get on the National Do-Not Call list maintained by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). According to an FTC press release on June 21, 2006, more than 125 million phone numbers were registered on the do not call list . BTW: According to that same press release, cell phones don’t need to be included because of specific Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations that already forbid telemarketing to cell phones.

Has Yahoo! Mail Jumped the Shark?

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Yahoo! Mail ran a test by attaching third party advertisements to the bottom of each email message I sent using my Yahoo! Mail account during the past week. Here are three such ads:

(1)

Sponsored Link

Mortgage rates near 39yr lows. $420,000 Mortgage for $1,399/mo – Calculate new house payment

(2)
____________________________________________________________________________________
Sponsored Link

Online degrees – find the right program to advance your career.
www.nextag.com


(3)

Sponsored Link

Degrees online in as fast as 1 Yr – MBA, Bachelor’s, Master’s, Associate – Click now to apply

Previously, that ad spot was held only by internal Yahoo! products such as Yahoo! Mail, Messenger, and Music. Those are expected. This is, after all, mail from a Yahoo! Mail account. However, third party advertisements, particularly bottom-of-the-barrel advertisers like LowerMyBills and Nextag, are another story.

To be blunt, I think it stinks. I understand that Yahoo! is a business but it needs users as much as it needs advertisers. Attaching third party advertisements to the bottom of user emails will likely turn users off to Yahoo! Mail and the company in general and is a particularly risky move because there are viable competing products that don’t attach third party ads, like GMail and Hotmail.

If Yahoo! Mail likes the result of the test and decides to continue down this path, I have some demands (after all, I am now just a user):

1) More clear and conspicuous disclosure.

a) Name the advertiser and/or domain. Only one of the three advertisers I listed above are named.
b) Disclosure that this ad is inserted by Yahoo!.
c) A “more info” link that points to a help page that contains more information about what this is about.
d) The font used for the disclosures needs updating. It should be the same or similar font size, weight, and color as the ad itself. “Sponsored Link” is currently in grey (versus black) and in a smaller font than the ad. If the ad is in black, the text should be too. The current set-up makes it look like Yahoo! is hiding something.


2) Control over advertisers and advertising categories. Major advertisers (i.e. Chevy, Dell, Disney, etc) that sell regular products and services are fine. However, I don’t want bottom of the barrel advertisements hawking controversial products or services that will make my emails look spammy or get caught in spam filtering software. Examples include LowerMyBills, X10, CIC (credit reports), sites selling diplomas or telling us how to earn a degree, selling prescription drugs such as ci@lis and viagra, or sites pushing multi-level marketing (MLM).

3) No web beacons or graphical ads ever. Enough said.

4) More information about how this works. Questions that need to be answered include:

  • “How are advertisers chosen?”
  • “How are the ads and advertisers screened?”
  • “What type of ads will never appear?”
  • “How are the ads targeted?”
  • “Are my email messages scanned to determine the topic?”
  • etc.

I think these demands are reasonable. I’m not asking for a cut; having a free, dependable email service is enough for me. I just don’t want my messages to look like spam, be flagged as spam, or for the ads to offend the recipients. Even then, I won’t decide whether to accept the ads until I have more info.

I don’t think I need to remind anyone, but Yahoo! is in the trust business. Without user trust, Yahoo! is nothing. Users build a lot of equity in their online identities, including their email addresses, but that doesn’t mean they won’t abandon the company and its products if they feel they can no longer trust it. That same equity is what makes a user fight like hell if that identity is threatened.

I could say a million things more but I don’t have time. I should be studying.

Note: I edited this some and made my blog public again after finding out this program was a test that has since ended. I’m glad I don’t need to consider giving up my email account just yet.

Has Yahoo! Mail jumped the shark? – Entry for November 21, 2006

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Yahoo! Mail ran a test by attaching third party advertisements to the bottom of each email message I sent using my Yahoo! Mail account during the past week. Here are three such ads:

(1)

Sponsored Link

Mortgage rates near 39yr lows. $420,000 Mortgage for $1,399/mo – Calculate new house payment

(2)
____________________________________________________________________________________
Sponsored Link

Online degrees – find the right program to advance your career.
www.nextag.com

(3)

Sponsored Link

Degrees online in as fast as 1 Yr – MBA, Bachelor’s, Master’s, Associate – Click now to apply

Previously, that ad spot was held only by internal Yahoo! products such as Yahoo! Mail, Messenger, and Music. Those are expected. This is, after all, mail from a Yahoo! Mail account. However, third party advertisements, particularly bottom-of-the-barrel advertisers like LowerMyBills and Nextag, are another story.

To be blunt, I think it stinks. I understand that Yahoo! is a business but it needs users as much as it needs advertisers. Attaching third party advertisements to the bottom of user emails will likely turn users off to Yahoo! Mail and the company in general and is a particularly risky move because there are viable competing products that don’t attach third party ads, like GMail and Hotmail.

If Yahoo! Mail likes the result of the test and decides to continue down this path, I have some demands (after all, I am now just a user):

1) More clear and conspicuous disclosure.

a) Name the advertiser and/or domain. Only one of the three advertisers I listed above are named.
b) Disclosure that this ad is inserted by Yahoo!.
c) A “more info” link that points to a help page that contains more information about what this is about.
d) The font used for the disclosures needs updating. It should be the same or similar font size, weight, and color as the ad itself. “Sponsored Link” is currently in grey (versus black) and in a smaller font than the ad. If the ad is in black, the text should be too. The current set-up makes it look like Yahoo! is hiding something.


2) Control over advertisers and advertising categories. Major advertisers (i.e. Chevy, Dell, Disney, etc) that sell regular products and services are fine. However, I don’t want bottom of the barrel advertisements hawking controversial products or services that will make my emails look spammy or get caught in spam filtering software. Examples include LowerMyBills, X10, CIC (credit reports), sites selling diplomas or telling us how to earn a degree, selling prescription drugs such as ci@lis and viagra, or sites pushing multi-level marketing (MLM).

3) No web beacons or graphical ads ever. Enough said.

4) More information about how this works. Questions that need to be answered include:

  • “How are advertisers chosen?”
  • “How are the ads and advertisers screened?”
  • “What type of ads will never appear?”
  • “How are the ads targeted?”
  • “Are my email messages scanned to determine the topic?”
  • etc.


I think these demands are reasonable. I’m not asking for a cut; having a free, dependable email service is enough for me. I just don’t want my messages to look like spam, be flagged as spam, or for the ads to offend the recipients. Even then, I won’t decide whether to accept the ads until I have more info.

I don’t think I need to remind anyone, but Yahoo! is in the trust business. Without user trust, Yahoo! is nothing. Users build a lot of equity in their online identities, including their email addresses, but that doesn’t mean they won’t abandon the company and its products if they feel they can no longer trust it. That same equity is what makes a user fight like hell if that identity is threatened.

I could say a million things more but I don’t have time. I should be studying.

Note: I edited this some and made my blog public again after finding out this program was a test that has since ended. I’m glad I don’t need to consider giving up my email account just yet.