OverRoll.com

I just recently came across some interesting information that I thought I’d share with everyone.

According to the Internet research and trend analysis website, eMarketer.com, ad spending on social networking sites is anticipated to grow 75% next year and ad revenue for niche communities is expected to grow to 10% from 8.2% in 2007.

This is good news for social networking as a whole since it continues to build on the fact that social networking communities are here to stay and aren’t simply Internet fads or “bubbles” that is building to burst.

And since several advertisers are still to see social networks as a platform for advertising, it’s good to see growth in this area and hopefully this will prompt others to see the valuable in having a presence in such communities and also test the waters.

It seems as if Google Talk will finally be integrated with AOL’s AIM client.

This upgrade to Google Talk and AIM couldn’t have happened any later!

It has been two years since Google bought 5% of AOL and announced, amongst other things, that the integration of the two clients would occur as long as certain conditions were met.

As to how the integration will work or what all the conditions may be, that is still largely unknown, but it is safe to bet it has something to do with Google serving ads through AIM.

Given that Google has been strategically partnering with and acquiring many companies that it now uses to serve ads through. It seems like the most logical step for Google is to now desire to serve ads through AIM, the most popular instant messaging on the web.

If my predictions become a reality, Google will take on step forward to becoming the one stop shop for anyone looking to buy ads in RSS feeds, search engines, in many popular web destinations, and a many other, now unforeseen, locations- basically almost the whole internet.

Was introduced to FeedM8 through Mobile Marketing Magazine - I’m intrigued. Through FeedM8, you can “mobilize and monetize” your feed or blog. FeedM8 will make the conversion for you so that your content comes out looking pretty good on a mobile browser and screen. In addition, they will share revenue with you from the ads that they place on your mobile site. Here’s an example of what this site looks like after being distributed through FeedM8 (colors and presentation are also customizable - this is the default version):

Once you’ve set up your feed and created your login/account, you can add more feeds and check analytics. Naturally, before you begin “earning money” you’ll have to verify that it is actually your feed that you’re laying claim to. You do that by inserting a code into your next blog post. Once it’s verified by FeedM8 you can remove it….then just select how you want to get paid and voila! (On our mobile version of Overroll the ad at the top of the page is for a mobile version of Wikipedia on your phone….not a bad partner, I’d say. At least it’s not for local dating or concert tickets.)

From Mobile Marketing Magazine we see that many people have signed up including Mashable, ESPN, Engadget, GigaOM and on… I’d have to say that it’s a pretty nifty little way to quickly get up and mobile without worrying about too much, and quick comparison on your mobile browser of www.overroll.com versus www.FeedM8.com/overroll reveals that the latter is much easier on the eye (at least on my LG CU5000 - no iPhone here just yet).

We’ll keep you posted on revenue earnings. After all, it will take at least a few business days for them to mail me my check…

Facebook’s ability for users and companies to make and distribute applications within its social network has been a rather unstoppable force within the Web 2.0 world. And it has been exciting seeing all the applications that have been developed and all the companies that have jumped on board to build their presence on Facebook. But until now, the only people that could actually make applications for Facebook were people with the ability to code- leaving all us non-coders out of the fun.

Therefore, WidgetBox.com has published a web-based tool that allows anyone to create an application for Facebook.

The application creation tool is one we’ve all been waiting for, and one many people and businesses can benefit from a great deal. For instance, small businesses can now setup a basic application to help promote their business and users can make tools to share with friends- all at no cost at all or having to learn any programming language.

Truthfully, I see this as just another indication that Facebook will one day be the biggest and best social network on the web.

Google has formally announced that it will begin trying ads on select YouTube videos. The way this will work, according to the announcement, is by having a short ad rise up from the bottom 20% of the video. The ad will have an X for you to close it out if you wish, and if not it will go away after it has played.

If you click on the ad, it will pause the video playing and play another short video in the middle of your video player. Once it has finished (or before if you don’t like what you see) you go back to your video. Clicking onto the ad video will also launch a new destination page for the advertiser, if you so choose. See some screen shots from the Linkin Park video below for an example:

On Click:

You can also see another example HERE - this one sheds a little more light on the relevancy factor, illustrating when these ads will actually show up. Of course with audio-to-text still not very good, relevancy will continue to be a question.

There are, of course, many people not too excited and a quick look at the comments on the blog post indicate that Youtube users are not really looking forward to this at all. But it will probably be a little longer before we see truly how everyone feels. The ads will only show up on YouTube content partners’ content for now (approximately 1,000 partners or so) and I’m sure won’t be rolled out entirely at once. But once users start to see them more, we’ll certainly see things showing up in the blogosphere about it.

I think it’s a step in the right direction. Others have been trying it - VideoEgg, for example, has tried something similar, as some have noted. However in YouTube this will certainly be the big stage for this all to play out on. In the Linkin Park example above, for instance, as the video is letterboxed the ad doesn’t actually interfere with any of the video’s content at all. Even in the Hairspray example, I’m really not bothered. And as someone who generally despises the approach of traditional advertising, I think that’s pretty impressive.

It’s understandable that your average YouTube user will not be too appreciative of the overall situation. While it is the truth, many folks probably won’t be thinking about the fact that Google put $1.6 billion dollars of investment into something that wasn’t making money and needs to find a way to change that. In fact, even though it is the almighty Google and they have a decent amount of cash to spare, if they cannot find acceptable ways to monetize YouTube it might not be long for this world. So while people may complain for now, I think “YouTube with ads” will be better for most than “no YouTube at all.” And this isn’t just for YouTube, it’s for all video sharing sites. There’s an awful lot of bandwidth being used up and someone has to pay for it.

Something has to be done in this space, so here we go. For me, the biggest questions will revolve around revenue sharing, copyright issues around ads and relevancy. I’m excited, should be interesting…