Tag Archives: ads

Netflix Ad-Supported Tier Has 40 Million Monthly Users



Netflix’s cheaper, ad-supported tier has amassed 40 million global monthly users, the company said Wednesday. That’s nearly double the 23 million figure the streaming giant shared in January, CNBC reported.

The company also said it would launch its own advertising platform and no longer partner with Microsoft for that technology. The tech giant will remain a programmatic advertising partner, but will also be joined by other ad tech companies including The Trade Desk, Google Display & Video 360 and Magnite.

Netflix will begin testing its ad tech platform in Canada later this year and plans to launch it in the U.S. by the end the second quarter of next year. The company aims to set the platform live everywhere by the end of 2025.

The announcements came on Wednesday alongside Netflix’s Upfront presentation, designed to woo advertisers. The streaming giant joined its media peers for the second time in making an annual pitch to lock in advertising of its platform.

TechCrunch reported Netflix announced during its Upfronts presentation on Wednesday that it’s launching its own advertising technology platform only a year and a half after entering the ads business. This move pits it against other industry heavyweights with ad servers, like Google, Amazon and Comcast.

The announcement signifies a significant shake-up in the streaming giant’s advertising approach. The company originally partnered with Microsoft to develop its ad tech, letting Netflix enter the ad space quickly and catch up with rivals like Hulu, which has had it’s own ad server for over a decade.

“Bringing our ad tech in-house will allow us to power the ads plan with the same level of excellence that’s made Netflix the leader in streaming technology today,” said Amy Reinhard, Netflix’s president of advertising. “We’re being incredibly strategic about how we present ads because we want our members to have a phenomenal experience. We conduct deep consumer research to make sure we stay ahead of the competition, bringing opportunities that are better for members and better for brands.”

The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Netflix has outsourced a lot of the advertising backbone to Microsoft so that it could get the tier up and running as quickly as possible, but with more scale, it is seeking to do more itself and bring in more partners.

The company also unveiled a number of measurement and verification partners who will help measure the reach and efficacy of its ads, including Affinity Solutions, DoubleVerify, EDO Inc., Internal Ad Science, iSpotTV, Kantar, Lucid, NCSolutions, Nielsen and TVision.

Netflix, like other streaming platforms, has been gently nudging its users to its ad tier in recent months, often by hiking prices on ad-free tiers. Ad tiers tend to have better economics than purely ad-free tiers, with the opportunity to monetize users through targeting.

In my opinion, it sounds like Netflix is very interested in trying to convince users to accept more ads. That’s probably good for the company. I’m hoping Netflix can balance the content they provide in a way that doesn’t overwhelm users with tons of ads to sit through.


X Appears To Be Rolling Out Ads That Can’t Be Reported Or Blocked



X, the Elon Musk-owned platform formerly known as Twitter, has begun serving its users with a weird new ad format and it’s one of the company’s least transparent products yet, Mashable reported. The rollout of these ads also provides the public with a hint regarding just how much the company is struggling to attract advertisers.

Multiple X users have reached out to Mashable over the past few days to report seeing a new type of ad in their For You feed that they had not previously come across on the platform. These new X ads don’t allow users to like or retweet the ad posts. In fact, the new ad format also doesn’t disclose who is behind the ad or that it is even an advertisement at all.

Mashable has confirmed this ad format with numerous users from across X and have seen a variety of different ads running this bizarre new format that just consists of written copy text, a photo, and a fake avatar that’s sole purpose is to make the ad look like an organically posted tweet.

According to Mashable, the type of content being promoted in the ads that Mashable has viewed appear to be consistent with ads found in spammy, low quality, “chumbox” advertising – typically defined as those clickbait ads found at the bottom of posts on content farm sites – made popular by native ad networks like Taboola.

Daring Fireball (by John Gruber) reported that Linda Yaccarino keeps claiming that X is on the upswing, but looking at the actual content – especially the ads – says otherwise. These new “chumbox” ads are bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, the sort of ads I’d expect to see on a third-rate Twitter knock off site like Truth Social. X itself now feels like a third-rate Twitter knock off.

Media Matters For America posted a research/study titled “Linda Yaccarino again claims advertisers are returning to X. Here are the facts.” From Media Matters:

CEO Linda Yaccarino and others at X (formerly Twitter) have repeatedly tried to boast that advertisers are returning to the platform, but Media Matters analysis tells a different story: Since Elon Musk took over the company, it has earned 42% less ad revenue and had 28% fewer individual monthly advertisers than before his leadership began. Additionally, in the 12 weeks of Yaccarino’s tenure as CEO, the majority of the company’s top 100 advertisers pre-Musk spent a fraction of what they did in the 12 weeks prior to Musk’s acquisition.

For example, Visa – which Yaccarino cited as an example of a “returning” advertiser – has spent just $10 in the past 12 weeks, compared to roughly $77,500 in the 12 weeks before Musk bought Twitter.

Media Matters has been tracking advertising data on X from Sensor Tower since Musk acquired what was then called Twitter on October 27, 2022. Less than a month later, Media Matters found that 50 of the top 100 advertisers from prior to Musk’s takeover had either announced they would stop, or seemingly stopped, advertising on the platform.

In our latest analysis, Media Matters found that the company’s ad revenue is still decimated. The company has earned an average monthly ad revenue of $69.5 million from roughly 1,900 average monthly advertisers in the last 11 months – 42% less revenue and 28% fewer advertisers than in the 11 months before Musk acquired the company.

It seems to me that the lack of advertisers on X could be part of the reason why Elon Musk is trying to emphasize new premium subscription tiers. To my knowledge, the price of those premium subscriptions plans hasn’t been officially announced yet. In the meantime, the bizarre ads that are appearing on X might be what influences people to leave the platform.


Instagram Has Started Putting Ads In Search Results



Instagram posted information titled: “Promote Upcoming Launches And Reach More People With New Instagram Ads”. In my opinion, nobody wants to have their Instagram feed filled with ads – especially if those ads are irrelevant to the user. I guess this is how Instagram is attempting to make more money.

The information from Instagram starts with: People comes to Instagram to discover new brands, products, or upcoming events. Today, we’re introducing two new ad products that give businesses more ways to get discovered and from meaningful connections – Reminder ads and ads in search results.

Reminder Ads

We recently partnered with brands such as Starz to test a new ad format that makes it easier for businesses to announce, remind, and notify people of future events or launches that they might be interested in.

Reminder ads, rolling out to all advertisers as an option in feed, help advertisers build awareness, anticipation, and consideration for upcoming moments. People can opt into convenient reminders and receive three notifications from Instagram one day before, 15 minutes before, and at the time of the event.

Ads in Search Results

We’re also beginning to test ads in search results to reach people actively searching for businesses, products and content. Ads will show up in the feed that people can scroll when they tap into a post from search results. We plan to launch this placement globally in the coming months.

The Verge reported while Instagram’s post vaguely states the ads will “reach people actively searching for businesses, products and content,” company spokesperson Shenny Barboza has since confirmed to The Verge that “ads will show up for search terms that fall within our community and recommendation guidelines.” That means we could potentially see ads on all the searches that meet those criteria.

According to The Verge, Instagram has only been adding more and more ads over the years, which now populate the platform’s Explore page, Explore feeds, Reels, Stories, and even user profiles. Emma Roth, writing for The Verge, stated “I can’t say I’m surprised that Instagram’s bringing them to search result feeds as well, but I will be mourning the loss of yet another part of the platform where my scrolling isn’t interrupted by ads.”

TechCrunch reported that once the ad placement rolls out widely, users around the world will start to see ads related to their searches. For example, if you search for “Skin Care”, you will see relevant ads within the search results feed. You can tell the difference between ads and regular posts through a “Sponsored” label under the account’s name.

According to TechCrunch, these new tools serve to boost the company’s ability to pull in revenue at a time when Meta has been seeing declining ad sales. As part of its Q4 2022 earning results, Meta revealed last month that its ad revenue fell to $31.2 billion from $32.6 billion in the same quarter last year.

TechCrunch also wrote that after Meta reported its first-ever quarterly revenue decline in Q2 2022 amid declining ad sales, the company increased its ad load on Instagram with the launch of two new ad slots. Meta launched a new ad format for Facebook Reels, and started allowing advertisers to run ads on the Explore home page and in profile feeds.

Personally, if it turns out that the plethora of ads Instagram posts is more than I’d like, I will definitely consider removing my art from Instagram and deleting Instagram itself. Instagram/Meta is taking huge risk that current users will leave the platform rather than having deal with so many ads.


Mohu Leaf Antenna: You Don’t Need Cable



Did you know that you can get free HD over the air with an antenna. The truth is some of the best HD comes through over the air resources. The best way to get these channels is by using an outdoor antenna, but for people who live in an apartment that’s not very realistic.  Most indoor antennas don’t work very well and you constantly have to reposition them to get different channels to come in. Mohu Inc leading producer of antenna technology has been working to solve this problem. Their latest product is the Mohu Leaf.

The Mohu Leaf is an indoor antenna that picks up all available over the air channels in an area without constant repositioning. It is manufactured in the US. It was originally designed for the military by Greenwave Scientific antenna engineers.  Dr Mark Buff the president of Mohu Inc decided to buy an ad on  Time Warner Cable for the holiday season.    Their ad spot stated that consumers “do not need expensive cable service to watch HD programs.”. Mohu assumed that there would not be a problem since Direct TV and Dish Network also competitors to Time Warner Cable have ads on cable.  Unfortunately Time Warner Cable in Columbus, Ohio and Kansas City, thought differently and refused to air the Mohu Leaf commercials. This is the commercial that they were going to run.

I haven’t tried the Mohu Leaf myself, but all the reviews I read on-line have been positive. It is sad, that Time Warner chose not to run this commercial in certain areas. It is even sadder that they are able to block Mohu ability to advertise on cable. Hopefully this on-line video will become viral and Mohu will have the last laugh.


GNC-2011-09-29 #709 Kindle Fire



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GNC #691 Dialed In



Congrats to our Roku or Google TV winner Steve Novak. Next GNC will be from the heartland of Texas. Will be out their for a week. Looking forward to testing some of my new road setups should be a lot of fun. I carry on for quite a bit tonight over the Sonos cannot say enough on how great a system they have. Thanks for all the new followers on Google+ and again congrats to Steve.

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Are 30 Second Ads Hurting uStream, Livestream, Justin.tv?



Ad Dollars

It’s the cost of doing business – advertising pays the bills. However, when you have a live show where someone clicks on – and is ready to move on when they don’t get instant gratification, 30 second ad might make them move on before they even see the show. Is 30 too long and what is the magic number?

But Hulu Does it…

Hulu, of course, has really cornered the market on stream TV. And most people will wait through the ads. Each ad is 30 seconds.

Some of them are longer and give you the option to watch the longer commercial to avoid the commercials at the breaks.  Some of them are only 10-15 second ads, too.

There are 7 commercial spots in a 1-hour TV show on Hulu. It’s network content from NBC, ABC, FOX (and soon CBS on HULU Plus). It’s not live content, so nobody misses a thing (Same thing with YouTube – pre-recorded, so an ad can easily go in without losing content time).

We might even expect and accept network TV ads simply because it is coming from a major network.

Why it doesn’t work on uStream, Justin.tv

Whereas Hulu contains studio productions that can take a pause 7 times a show, uStream and Justin.tv contains live content. Every extra second an ad takes, you lose what is being done or said.

For a person trying to start great content on this system, a 30 second commercial in the foreground could cause loss of viewership. The person, in turn, could just nix the idea and move on simply because it’s harder to get an audience.

Refresh

If the content freezes or if the system crashes, then when you head back to the site, you have to endure another 30 second ad. Would that make people feel the need to come back to the site?

How should they make money?

I’m not talking about taking away the ads – just remember that people will not only leave a show, but also leave a website because they are not entertained.

10-15 seconds ads sound palatable. Add the pop-up ad every now and then – You’ve got a winning combination. Maybe when the show is off-line, content is played with breaks – 15 seconds every 5-10 minutes of content.

Browser Blocker add-ons?

Yes – if you install an add-on blocker in your browser, you could avert those ads. Personally I wouldn’t do that. It is a free service, after all. They need to make money to keep it free.

Pay a Premium?

What if the content producer paid to do their show? Would that in turn be good or bad for companies like uStream?

If the consumer was asked to pay, you might get a few that do it for a while. Most would want to go somewhere else for their content. You can only ask and see what happens.

While sites like uStream, Livestream and Justin.tv need to make money, long ads in front of the videos might not be the answer. Re-thinking the ad sounds like a better idea. break up off-line content -Play an add every 5-10 minutes in a pre-recorded show. Pop-up video ads that are not too invasive. That is what is needed in a live “See it now” environment.