Media is now empowering us all

Every telelvision channel is now asking for more and more interaction from us via the internet. From every news channel asking for live reports to lifestyle programs asking for advise and feedback.

The Aurora Community Channel is asking us to create our own content to display on their DIY TV segments. The following youTube video is a promotion for the Aurora DIY TV.

Internet Empowerment

This follows on from my previous posts on the convergence of television with the internet. Aurora TV is the national community television channel on Foxtel and Austar.

Google announces new mobile phones advertising platform

Google image ads are now available to mobile advertisers, in particular those targeting US, Australia, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, and the UK.
Previously, only text-based Web ads were available but now both mobile advertisers and publishers can present branded messages to mobile users and have them appear as they would on a desktop. The image ads are keyword-targeted, priced on a CPC basis and must link to a mobile web page.

Google introduces mobile image ads

Alexandra Kenin, a Google Mobile product marketing manager said "For advertisers, mobile image ads serve as a branding tool and have shown to have good click-through rates".


Slow and costly device connections and small screens have kept a restricted the development of mobile advertising, but new opportunities arose when Apple’s iPhone was release proving what could be achieved.

You can find a samples and a demo on the Google mobile blog.
Crave recently posted ...

Apple's iPhone has shown what's possible. Increasingly widespread Wi-Fi makes it possible to bypass mobile-phone network operators. And initiatives such as Intel's Mobile Internet Device and Google's Android could lead to a new generation of devices.

During last week's conference call to discuss quarterly financial results, Google co-founder Sergey Brin was bullish about the opportunity to bring advertising to the mobile Web.

Although mobile advertising is not new, Google's renewed focus on this platform for mobile display ads is generating excitement in the community. There are many more mobile phones with mobile web capability than there are PCs worldwide. The task now is to get consumers and businesses using mobile web. The iPhone is helping to generate interest in this market.

Last year I posted about Google's Android operating system. Once mobile phones launch with Android as the OS - the mobile web will be is a single click away. You can see Google is lining up all its ventures for the mobile search market with the ability to include mobile ads with each search.

Digital and Mainstream Media Convergence

I was thinking it is probably too late to write about the convergence of mainstream and digital media in any way other than from a historical perspective. That is how fast the process is unfolding. Digital media has forever changed the way we look, listen and learn. How long will it be until the term Mainstream Media means digital media?

Recently I made some comments about the convergence of media in Australia.

In the short amount of time between the invention of the World Wide Web in 1990 and today, traditional, or mainstream media, has been turned upside down. Here are just a few examples.

• You can watch television on the Internet and you can access the Internet on your television.



• Record labels watch recording artists defect to the Internet to sell their music directly to fans, and fans listen to their favorite music on their MP3 players.



• Threatened by the alarming increase in digital music delivery devices, broadcast radio stations are busy re-engineering so they can stream their shows and music to the Internet and MP3 players.



• RSS news feeds and blogs have replaced newspapers in millions of homes around the world and now you can watch your television news show in your browser any time of the day or night.

Traditional media delivery mechanisms, such as the radio, newspaper, television and theatre screen, have been thoroughly changed by the digital revolution. The change is so great, in fact, that many media experts are predicting the demise of the traditional media, or at least the demise of their current format.

For example, digital cameras and film have transformed the cinema and never before have independent film producers been such a large part of the mainstream. And it is exactly the fact that Indies are becoming mainstream that illustrates my point that the convergence is not just beginning, it is nearly complete.

It is only a matter of time, a very short time, until a wireless Internet-connected device, most likely no bigger than an iPod™, will deliver all of the new mainstream media right to the palm of your hand.

New Google Analytics Features (Trends, Internal Search & Outbound Links)

I opened Google Analytics last week and was thrilled with the latest release. We can now highlight trends in website performance easily by clicking on the Month link. The Google Analytics team posted the announcement of a few new features

Google Analytics - Trend Graphs

Comparing daily and monthly graphs helps easily reveal trends on your website.


Daily View





Monthly View

Google Analytics - emetrics

Another post by the GA team on emtrics reports that event tracking now enables the capturing of events out of the box. These event reports are available as separate reports compared to pageview reports.

Google Analytics - Custom Search

With the GA search tracking you can monitor what people search for on your site and where these searches take them. The google analytics team say that "Site Search reports show you the keywords and search refinement keywords people use, the pages from which people begin and end their searches. You can also see how search on your site affects site usage, conversion rates, and e-commerce activity."



If you have not included a Google Custom Search on your web site click here.

Google Analytics helps complete the information gap revealling what your visitors really want. For me this feature provides a tremendous bonus, as we can now see what our visitors are looking for when they come to our sites.

Google Analytics - Javascript Upgrade

In order to have these new features you will need to upgrade your Google tracking code throughout your entire site. The new tags will also enable outbound link tracking more easily. If you have problems with the upgrade, you can scan your implementation of the GA code by visiting SiteScan by EpikOne. I have used this site for one client implementation and it works very well. Google partnered with a EpikOne to help anyone diagnose any problems.