September 5th, 2007 SkyHorse So, another Behavioural Targeting company bites the hook. Yahoo! announced yesterday that it reached an agreement to buy BlueLithium for roughly $300 Million in cash (£150 Million), apparently making Gurbaksh Chahal, BlueLithium’s Chairman and CEO, a very happy man at 25. But despite his young age this is not all new to him, as his previous company ClickAgents founded when he was only 18 followed the same steps and eventually got merged with ValueClick, making it the largest ad network at the time. Good for you mate, keep us posted on what you’re up to next, as no one believes you’ll stick around BL for very long.
Yahoo! Announces Agreement to Acquire BlueLithium: Financial News – Yahoo! Finance
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August 18th, 2007 SkyHorse It was going to happen sooner or later. After BBC’s Panorama report on the people, sites and advertisers behind some of the worst ‘user-generated’ content on the UK web space it took just a few days for the fire to spread to the marketing director’s desk and for him to call off any ads placed next to questionable content. I can imagine the 7 year old kids (that’s how young on-line media buyers start working these days, according to industry veterans) frantically searching for all the ‘bad’ pages before the journalists or competitors had the chance to find them.
They missed the BNP group page on Facebook. So, advertisers pulled out of the entire site. I remember that day, the day I opened several pages on Facebook and I managed to not have a single ad being displayed. I immediately shouted “overreaction”, to which Mr. T. who I was next to me retorted that marketing directors couldn’t care less and all they probably did was pick up the phone and hail “STOP” out loud. That’s how it works in media, reaction reaction reaction.
But I don’t think online media is the same as regular media. A web page is not an outdoor, in the sense that it does not exist per se, it is only ‘created’ when someone visits it. When you say ‘RBS ads were seen on the BNP page on Facebook’ its not like someone happened to walk nearby and saw that ad next to BNP supporting material. What you really mean is ‘someone opened the BNP group page on Facebook and they got an RBS ad at the same time’. The small difference is that someone went to that page, on purpose. We could criticize the BNP itself, or defend it, but that is not the point here, as it seems to be in the general discussion about this topic. The point is RBS was advertising a service, not to benefit the BNP financially (no one gets financial gains from the advertising on Facebook but Facebook themselves, at least for now) but to reach an audience that could be -or not- supportive of that political viewpoint. Is this wrong? I don’t think so. To me it is analogous to putting up an outdoor near a community that support the BNP: would you even think twice about it? Since the ads do not benefit the political group but only Facebook I honestly don’t know what the whole fuss is about. But maybe that’s because I’m a techie…
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January 26th, 2007 SkyHorse 
Panama, Yahoo’s new advertising platform, and its super abilities, is not the only online advertising technology that is going to be making waves in 2007.
wunderLOOP, a Luxembourg-based behavioral advertising and content targeting company, is about to announce a big round of funding that would allow the company to expand and take on its bigger rivals.
http://gigaom.com/2007/01/26/skype-zennstrom-euro-angels-fall-for-wunderloop/
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October 15th, 2006 SkyHorse Earlier in May this year Google quietly lunched a new addition to their collection of online tools, which already include a word processor and a browsable maps of Mars, called “Google Trends“. “See what the world is searching for” they have it for it’s punch line so that’s exactly what I did. And awe the results!
So let’s get started with the obvious so they all get out of our enquiring minds before getting down to the real thing:
Keyword: sex
In terms of quantity, it remained the same since 2004, so we looking for “sex” on google as much as we were back then. The interesting part is the geographical regions:
And here is my first surprise. The USA is not the top region in the world quering for “sex”. Not even the second. Heck, it doesn’t even show up in the top 10! No sir, top regions are, in fact, Pakistan, Egypt, Viet Nam and Iran. It could be a statistical blip, but why would these regions be looking for “sex” more than anywhere else in the world? Could it be the fact that sex, like many other “liberal” subjects, is tabooed in these places? If so, does it mean the oh so great Internet is really opening the window and borders of the world, like the media pitches it to be?
Keyword: terrorism
Now here’s an interesting trend: The United States is number 6 and United Kingdom number 8. Canada and Sweden barely make it to the top 10. Is the western world really not that bothered about terrorism? Could it actually be affecting more the Muslim world than it is the Western world as we tend to believe? Pakistan, again, makes it to number one with more than double the searches as region number two, the Philippines. Is Pakistan so worried about terrorism? Or so misinformed about it at home that it’s citizens look for answers on the Internet?
Keyword: education
And here it is, Pakistan leading the race with more than double the queries for “education” as the second region, India. Philippines follows with South Africa a close fourth.
Could it be another statistical blip? Why would Pakistanis and Indians search for “education” more than all the other top 10 regions combined? Are we seeing a trend that we search for what we do not have at home? Or on the other hand is it for things we care about? Does this mean the Pakistani/Indian region is showing an overwhelming craving for education?
Keyword: money
It is official, the United Kingdom leads the world when it comes to searching for money. India appears fifth, the only Asian country to be in the top 10. And I thought they were all spirituality and all… New Zealand takes second place with the United States coming right on queue in third place followed by Australia and Canada. Is Western society really so much more concerned about money than the rest of the world?
Keyword: weapons
The usual suspects: United States, New Zealand and Australia are in the top 4, which is lead by South Africa. Interesting seeing Finland and Sweden in the top 10, so much for the Scandinavian peace…
Interestingly, the trend for “bombs” closely mirrors that of “weapons”…
Keyword: religion
A nice keyword with fresh new countries showing up. Heavily dominated by Latin-American countries, “religion” seems to fit their culture and life-style, possibly why it is reflected in what people search for in that region. Colombia, Chile, Philippines, Mexico and Peru lead the table with the United States and Canada making a shy appearance. They obviously care more about religion than the rest of us…
Keyword: poker
With the United States ban on Internet Gambling (poker included) most online poker sites have closed or are in process of closing their US operations. Interestingly, it is Europe who leads the queries for “poker” on google, with Sweden, Denmark and Norway making the top 3 table. Not quite surprising, if you are a regular online poker player.
To finish this off I will leave here some interesting stats on how keywords compare against each other, that is, how much more people look for “sex” than for “religion”…
christianity 
islam 
judaism 
hinduism
sex religion
money religion
education money sex religion 
terrorism
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January 20th, 2006 SkyHorse The technology behind Google’s great results.
I suspected they were a tad nuts but this came as confirmation of how google does what it does best. Great read!
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