YouTube’s video ad creation service aimed at helping small business reach YouTube viewers is now available more broadly across the U.S. The company announced this morning that YouTube Director onsite, as the service is called, is now live in over 170 U.S. cities, up from only 9 previously – Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C., New York, Tampa and Seattle.
This is significant expansion, in terms of reaching potential YouTube advertisers who would have otherwise not had the resources to write, film and edit a professional ad for YouTube.
The service is kind of a bargain for the small businesses, too. Hiring a pro to create a professionally produced video could cost $1,000 or more. But YouTube is basically doing it for free – well, free with a catch.
It’s available at no charge for any business that commits to spending at least $350 to advertise the video on YouTube. However, that’s in line with the low-end of buying airtime for a 30-second local TV ad, which ranges from $200 to $1,500+, depending on time slot.
YouTube Director onsite works by connecting area businesses with YouTube-approved filmmakers, who will schedule call with the advertiser to learn about the business and help them to write a script. The filmmaker then comes to the business to film the video, and returns an edited version the next week. YouTube’s ad experts help get the video upload to the site, and aid the business in crafting their YouTube ad campaign.
The company hasn’t shared any comprehensive metrics on how well these ads perform, but did note in a blog post a single case study where a custom guitar shop saw a 13x return on ad spend, and a 130 percent increase in revenue from the ad. The YouTube Director onsite website also features a number of other ads created via the service, to showcase the professional quality of what can be produced.
The company has claimed for years that YouTube ads are more effective than TV because they allow targeting – but that’s an argument that can be made for may sorts of online ads. In addition, YouTube reaches a younger demographic, so small businesses should keep in mind that they may need other ways to reach to those over the age of 35, for example.
The timing of this U.S. expansion is relevant because YouTube just last week announced new AdWords experiences that tie together Google searches with YouTube advertising and calls-to-action.
“Soon you’ll be able to reach people on YouTube who recently searched for your products or services on Google. For example, an airline could reach people on YouTube who recently searched Google.com for ‘flights to Hawaii.’ We call this custom intent audiences,” explained the recent Google’s announcement.
The company had previously allowed Google account user data to influence YouTube ads, starting in 2017. With custom intent audiences, advertisers can now create a keyword list for their video in AdWords. They can then combine this targeting feature with YouTube’s new direct response video ad format, TrueView, which offers a customizable call-to-action in a video ad.
The ads created by YouTube Director onsite will support this feature as well, allowing the businesses to capture leads or referrals, or something else that’s important to their specific businesses.
In other words, if you thought having the shoes you abandoned in a retailer’s shopping cart following you around the web was weird, wait until YouTube starts showing you ads for local businesses that match up with what you’ve just been googling. (By the way, Google does let you opt out of personalized ads if that’s how you roll.)
Source: TechCrunch
Andrew Nix, the CEO of the London-based voter profiling company Cambridge Analytica — which harvested private information from more than 50 million Facebook users without their permission to analyze their voter behavior — has been suspended from his job. In an announcement posted to the company’s cite, the board said the suspension was effective immediately.
Nix’s suspension ties directly to footage that was filmed over the last year by Britain’s Channel 4 News and which surfaced yesterday. The video comes on the heels of investigative reporting by the Guardian, The Observer and the New York Times that has shown how the company used data to target groups and design messages that appealed to their interests.
In one minute-long clip, Nix boasts of entrapping politicians to meet its clients’ needs. Nix can be overheard saying in one recording, “It sounds a dreadful thing to say, but these are things that don’t necessarily need to be true as long as they’re believed.”
It gets worse, as anyone who read about Nix in the Guardian yesterday can attest.
From its report:
When the reporter asked if Cambridge Analytica could offer investigations into the damaging secrets of rivals, Nix said it worked with former spies from Britain and Israel to look for political dirt. He also volunteered that his team were ready to go further than an investigation.
“Oh, we do a lot more than that,” he said over dinner at an exclusive hotel in London. “Deep digging is interesting, but you know equally effective can be just to go and speak to the incumbents and to offer them a deal that’s too good to be true and make sure that that’s video recorded.
“You know these sort of tactics are very effective, instantly having video evidence of corruption.”
Nix suggested one possible scenario, in which the managing director of Cambridge Analytica’s political division, Mark Turnbull, would pose as a wealthy developer looking to exchange campaign finance for land. “I’m a master of disguise,” Turnbull said.
Another option, Nix suggested, would be to create a sex scandal. “Send some girls around to the candidate’s house, we have lots of history of things,” he told the reporter. “We could bring some Ukrainians in on holiday with us, you know what I’m saying.”
Today, the company’s board cited those comments, saying that they “do not represent the values or operations of the firm and his suspension reflects the seriousness with which we view the violation.”
Cambridge Analytica did not respond directly to our requests for more information.
The data firm was reportedly embedded with the Trump campaign beginning in 2016.
Talking to the trade magazine Ad Age at the time, a consultant who had worked with Cambridge Analytica noted that no one in Washington took the firm terribly seriously, either. “Everyone universally agrees that [Cambridge’s] sales operation is better than their fulfillment product . . . The product comes late or it’s not quite what you envisioned.”
“What’s the old saying?” asked another source in the same article. “All hat, no cattle?”
According to the Guardian, Nix, 42, studied the history of art at Manchester University and worked as a financial analyst in Mexico and the U.K. before joining SCL, a strategic communications firm that is parent to Cambridge Analytica.
Nix later set up Cambridge Analytica with the help of Robert Mercer, a billionaire patron of right-wing outlets like Breitbart News. Steve Bannon, the former executive director of Brietbart who served as Trump’s chief strategist until last August, was formerly a vice president with the outfit. Mercer’s daughter, Rebekah, sits on its board.
Source: TechCrunch
British broadcaster Channel 4 shows Alexander Nix telling an undercover reporter about tactics Cambridge Analytica used in last year’s US presidential election.
Source: CNET
The 2019 Fusion will go on sale this summer, following its New York Auto Show debut.
Source: CNET
The company, at the heart of the scandal involving the misuse of data of millions of Facebook users, says the suspension is effective immediately.
Source: CNET
No, really.
Source: CNET
A report estimates that Android phones won’t get comparable 3D face id tech until 2019.
Source: CNET
Amazon is currently the second biggest company in the world when it comes to market capitalization. The company is currently worth $763.27 billion (NASDAQ:AMZN) while Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) is “only” worth $762.98 billion.
Amazon has had an incredible quarter. Stock is up nearly 29 percent since early January. As for Alphabet, its shares have gone up and down.
And if you look at today alone, Amazon is up 2 percent, while Alphabet is flat. Alphabet can still pass Amazon again before the stock market closes. But it sounds like the writing is on the wall.
The only company that is currently more valuable than Amazon is Apple. There’s still quite a long way to reach Apple as Apple’s market capitalization is… $892 billion.
Source: TechCrunch
When humanity’s back is against the wall and the robots have us cornered I’d say I’m all for whanging a few with a baseball bat. However, until then, we must be kind to our mechanical brethren and this robotic tortoise will help our kids learn that robot abuse is a bad idea.
Researchers at Naver Labs, KAIST, and Seoul National University created this robot to show kids the consequences of their actions when it comes to robots. Called Shelly, the robot reacts to touches and smacks. When it gets scared it changes color and retracts into its shell. Children learn that if they hit Shelly she will be upset and the only thing missing is a set of bitey jaws.
“When Shelly stops its interaction due to a child’s abusive behavior, the others in the group who wanted to keep playing with Shelly often complained about it, eventually restraining each other’s abusive behavior,” Naver Labs’ Jason J. Choi told IEEE. The study found that Shelly’s reactions reduced the amount of abuse the robot took from angry toddlers.
The researchers showed off Shelly at the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human Robot Interaction last week.
Source: TechCrunch
Founders are no longer declaring their companies the “Uber of X.” Instead, they’re charming investors by having fun.
Source: Wired