RAMP-The Content Optimization Company

This week marked the 11th annual Webby Awards, presented by The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS). With 550 members consisting of Web experts, business figures, visionaries and creative celebrities, the IADAS presents awards in myriad categories to honor excellence on the Internet. As The Wall Street Journal describes, the Webbys “Celebrate sites that pave important paths to the internet’s next phase.”

This year saw the addition of Online Film & Video Awards, evidence of the recent explosion of video on the Web. The Webby Awards have certainly evolved since their inception in 1996, and the changes reflect “the tremendous growth of the Internet as a tool for business and everyday lives,” as the Webby Awards site states.

The Hollywood Reporter’s article, “Webby Awards celebrate original content” points out the distinct situation for ambitious content creators as they work to balance monetizing and maintaining control of their product online. For the Web is a unique realm in which content producers can “retain a greater control over their product than almost any artist-distribution combination in the industry.”

Yet Web popularity does not automatically translate into profit. While Webby Awards and praise are well and good, content creators are still looking for simple solutions to the question of online monetization. Webby’s executive director David-Michel Davies believes that the relative novelty of online video coupled with producers’ desire to turn a profit will create “a massive transformation in how content is created and consumed.”

Check out the Webby Winner’s Gallery for a glimpse into the Webby Awards 2007.

The Kelsey Group has recently put out a new report, “Online Video: A New Local Advertising Paradigm.” This report is the latest in the Kelsey Group’s User View study—a study that tracks user behavior, with a focus on the shifting consumer usage of traditional and online information sources to find local businesses. One of the more significant findings in the study is that nearly 60% of adult consumers say they watch online video and more than half of these users engage in a repose activity–they visit a Web site, go to a physical location or make a related purchase. This high level of consumer activity in response to online video makes it a good medium for small businesses, particularly when compared with other forms of online performance-based marketing such as pay-per-click.

“Online Video: A New Local Advertising Paradigm” suggests that video advertising combines the “traditional strengths of pull-based directional marketing, the Internet’s targeting capabilities, and the emotional and dramatic power of television.” PR Newswire adds that, given what we know about the demographics of broadband users, the online audience these ads reach have a high likelihood of being well-educated, affluent and as such, “more likely to engage in pull-based content retrieval.” Yet companies and advertisers are still experimenting when it come to online video. Michael Boland of the Kelsey Group contends:

Content generation, licensing, search and monetization all represent big question marks in the embryonic market sector, and we are in a “wild west” phase of experimentation on all fronts.

The Kelsey Group report concludes that while challenges remain and, presumably, some benefits are not yet evident, “online video shows the potential to be a considerably powerful medium and the next must-have format in local directional advertising.”

Bambi Francisco wrote a really interesting article on how search and the social network should be combined to create a new online advertising model. According to her, even though search is the one basic action in Web activity, most of our Web time is now spent on social network sites.

“By 2008, we might just be saying that one of the fastest growing online ad opportunities is what I’ll call “search-filtered display ads.” In other words, marketers will increasingly take someone’s search history or search behavior, and use that information to target ads on social network pages they browse.”

According to a JupiterResearch report, search advertising dollars will outpace display advertising over the next decade. We already know that search advertising is huge and linking search behavior and browsing activity may lead to more targeted audiences. Social networks are not only a marketers’ goldmine for its vast number of members, but marketers can really make use of the networks with similar interests.

Forums and communities are the gathering space on the Internet for like-minded people to share ideas, ask questions, and possibly connect and make friends.

We decided to take a peek and observe some podcasting forums (which are abundant with chatter) to check out some of the popular topics being discussed on podcasts.

Here are just a few:

• Ways for podcasters to make money
• Promoting your podcasts
• Podcasting business models
• Podcast creation technology
• Recording phone calls on podcasts

If you are planning to do your own podcast, do check out some of these forums for some really good information. We found out a great get-together for podcasters in the Chicago area coming up in June. Check it out if you are in the area.

By the way, it seems like monetizing podcasts seems to be a hot topic in these forums. Many of these podcasters spend a lot of time and effort in producing their shows and they need to be rewarded in some way.