The Inbound Marketing Blog

The Pegasus News picked up my story about CoHabitat.

I don’t typically like to cover Adsense, but this is different. Seth McFarlane has done it a again. What an innovator! To escape the “Taste Police” he is creating an Internet only cartoon series called “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy.”

Google plans to syndicate the program using AdSense on the already thousands of websites specifically targeted for Mr. MacFarlane’s target audience, typically young men. Instead of placing a static text ad on a webpage, Google will place a “Cavalcade” a drop down video clip.

Advertising will be incorporated into the clips in varying ways. In some cases, there will be “preroll” ads, which ask viewers to sit through a TV-style commercial before getting to the video. Some advertisers may opt for a banner to be placed at the bottom of the video clip or a simple “brought to you by” note at the beginning.

MacFarlane is receiving a percentage of the ad revenue and the series will be served up in 50 two-minute episodes a whole slew of new characters.

In an interview, he described the installments as

“animated versions of the one-frame cartoons you might see in The New Yorker, only edgier.”

Read the whole article on The New York Times Website

Back in March the South By Southwest (SXSX) Interactive conference (not to be confused with the music showcase) was a stir with everyone and their mom “Tweeting” on Twitter, the micro-blogging site that allows you to interact with friends and conversations under 140 characters. Although Twitter had been around for six months by that time, this is when it gained momentum on a wide scale. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is giving Twitter his vote of confidence by becoming an angel investor in order to get Twitter the engineers it needs to keep up with the traffic they are experiencing. Read the whole story in Businessweek.com’s technology section.

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When asked about any major blunders over the years, Stan Richards told an interesting tale. A Dallas Morning News Reporter recounted the story. “After 19 hours of travel, he got home, took a shower, put on his ‘blue new-business- presentation suit,’ jumped in his car and drove to Liquid Paper’s headquarters, ‘wired for work and excited as hell.’This introduction was supposed to be a formality. The board wouldn’t vote on his election until the following day, and Mrs. Graham had explained that it was a done deal.

The second he took his seat and looked down the long table at Mrs. Graham, Mr. Temerlin knew he was in deep trouble. ‘I could not keep my eyes open. I’m biting my knuckles, pinching my skin, bending my toes back – I literally had bruises the next day to prove it.’

‘I thought I might be able to fake it by covering my eyes and holding a pen like I was taking notes. But the next thing I knew, my head was on the table. God knows what sound it made when it hit.’ Read the rest of the story at the Dallas Morning New’s site.

To combat dwindling advertising revenue and readership due to companies spending their advertising and marketing dollars on the Internet, The Dallas Morning News is now experimenting with giving away a smaller version packed with more graphics, brief stories, and more coupons. I thought they already had the Quick news which was already free, but I guess it’s geared more toward entertainment/tabloid style. Sometimes major news networks are the worst about reporting Hollywood news, which isn’t really news. That’s just my $.02

Read the whole story here at the Houston Chronicle ironically.

This release caught my eye because I have recently been working on SEM strategies for non-profits that use this exact software. I can only predict what they have to say. I assume the Internet has helped charitable organizations immensely with the ease at which one can donate, set up ongoing giving programs, and Businesswire.com

University marketing departments and alumni associations should be all over MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube. Major universities should also be hiring SEOs and paid search specialists. If they cannot increase their exposure and credibility by being on top 100 lists, why not be on the top ten on Google for certain programs. There seems to be a huge market abrew. Anyhow, I applaud Ohio State University for getting its own YouTube Channel. Read the story here.

At the National Venture Capital Association’s annual meeting Wednesday, Efrusy sat on a panel with executives from advertising firm Omnicom Group Inc. (OMC), entertainment content company Viacom Inc. (VIA), and Internet giant Yahoo Inc. ( YHOO), to discuss the power of online advertising.

Among the topics was the hot-button issue of whether Facebook and other advertising-based social networking sites deserve lofty valuations at this point. “Would we love to own MySpace for $700 million? Absolutely,” said Wade Davis, senior vice president at Viacom, which was interested in Facebook in the past. Would Viacom buy Facebook for $15 billion? “Absolutely not. Nor did we want to pay $1 billion. There is a lot of hype, a lot of activity, but a lot of dollars aren’t being made.” Read the whole story at CNNMoney.