Monday, October 29, 2007

Simpler Video Ads (for advertisers) With Adap.tv

adaptvlogomini.png 2007 has been a milestone year for video advertising with a gamut of companies attacking the opportunity from every which way. Today Adap.tv, a relatively new entrant into the contextual video advertising space, is announcing a new initiative with potential to propel it to the front of the pack. Adap.tv is letting advertisers without any video advertising experience jump right in with practically no effort, and zero production cost.

Generally speaking, advertisers face a number of challenges in respect to in-video advertising: Pre/Post rolls typically cost in the $10-$30 per CPM range. On top of that, producing the ads themselves is a costly endeavor. Then there's the matter of being able to convey only a single message. Lastly, the inability to safeguard against ad placement in questionable content is a major deterrent for many advertisers.

adap.tv's new offering tackles most of these issues head-on, with the most interesting aspect being support of keyword and product datafeeds—routinely used to structure search engine marketing campaigns. This is significant because it means that advertisers can reuse existing datafeeds by importing them right into adap.tv for instant targeted video advertising campaigns. Advertisers using AdWords or Overture can easily export their campaign structures to CSV format, upload them into adap.tv, and presto: instant video ads.

On top of datafeed support, adap.tv is also introducing:

  • Content Rating: Advertisers can employ content rating levels—G, PG, PG-13 & NC-17—in three dimensions: violent, sexual and illegal content. Rating levels are automatically determined for each video through adap.tv's content analysis technology.
  • Ad Templates: Brand oriented look & feel can be leveraged through ad templates which can range from flat, to animated, to interactive (see video below).

Amir Ashkenazi, CEO, claims that publisher and viewer growth is doubling month-over-month and that the company serves ads and pays publishers on almost every video view. Advertisers now include the likes of Amazon, Kayak, EVOgear and Let'sTalk.

The race for UGC video monetization is in full throttle and while it's hard to pin-point a clear leader at this point, adap.tv is certainly positioning itself as a player to keep an eye on. VideoEgg and others are also strong contenders, and YouTube is the 800 pound gorilla.

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Jailbreak Your iPhone or iPod Touch with One Click [How To]

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Jailbreaking the iPod touch/iPhone is now an utterly simple, one-click affair—which means if you've been waiting to jailbreak your iPod touch or iPhone (since the 1.1.1 firmware upgrade), the time is now. Just point your Safari browser to http://jailbreakme.com/ and click the Install AppSnapp link. It may sound scary, but the web site takes advantage of a mobile Safari exploit to install Installer.app (the gateway application for installing more applications) to your device. If you give it a try, here's what you can expect.

After clicking the Install AppSnapp link, Safari will close (or at least it did for me) and your phone will eventually return to the "Slide to Unlock" screen (it could take up to 5 minutes, depending on your connection speed—the whole process literally took less than a minute on my phone). The AppSnapp instructions state that once you slide, you'll see the Installer.app icon, meaning you're ready to go. When I tried unlocking my phone with the slider, it froze up, so at this point, I just restarted my iPhone. When it finished booting up, there was Installer.app in all it's glory, ready to install all sorts of goodies on my iPhone. "What kind of goodies?" you ask. Applications like these, for example:


The iPhone/iPod touch applications available have actually improved and broadened a lot since just last month when I made that iPhone app gallery, so there are still a whole lot of great apps available that aren't included in the gallery. As you may remember, we showed you how to jailbreak your iPhone using a couple of different methods several weeks back, but this one-click Safari hack requires absolutely no hacking skills—or even advanced computer skills. As always, proceed at your own risk. This method does exploit your phone and could potentially give access to your info if malicious forces were at work. However, one of the particularly interesting things about this installation method is that not only does it install Installer.app, but it also fixes the exploit that allows this to happen.

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Two-faced Pantech Duo officially launches on AT&T

No surprises here, but the Pantech Duo (split-personality and all) has officially arrived in late October, just as we were led to believe. Ready to rock texters' worlds on AT&T, the Duo does indeed boast Windows Mobile 6, a QWERTY keypad and a numeric 'board for your convenience, UMTS / HSDPA compatibility and a 320 x 240 resolution display. The unit measures in at 4.02- x 1.97- x .83-inches, and if you dig what you're seeing, it can be yours today for $199.99 if you're cool with signing a two-year agreement.

[Via Reuters / Yahoo]

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SanDisk starts shipping 8GB microSDHC and M2 cards

SanDisk was trumpeting its 8GB microSDHC cards all the way back in June, but it's taken until now for the company to ship the little buggers -- but we're also getting an 8GB Memory Stick Micro (also known as M2) version as a reward for our patience. The 8GB SDHC card will set you back $139, while the M2 stick is $149, and both should be in stores worldwide now, according to SanDisk.

 

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Samsung unveils Super-WriteMaster 16x DL DVD burner


Samsung has rolled out its fastest DVD burner yet, with the Super-WriteMaster (ha!) SH-S203N running at 20x for DVD± R discs, 16x for dual layer DVD+R variants, 12x for DVD-RAM, and progressively slower for other disc standards. It's all kitted up with a SATA connection standard, and supports LightScribe burning so you know what the hell's on that disc you just burnt. Samsung says this is the fastest dual layer DVD burner out there: we don't know if that's true, but we do know it's faster than our crappy 8x DL burner. Pick it up anywhere from now for $79.99.

 

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