So it has been revealed that Xiaomi’s revenue is at a whopping $158 million per month. To some of us, that was quite a surprise. So if the $158 million in revenue per month stat is true, it means that Xiaomi is making more than $1.8 billion a year. So if we use Apple’s P/E ratio of 14, Xiaomi would be valued at a monstrous $25 billion. Of course some folks might argue that that is unfair and not accurate, which is true. But even at a P/E ratio of 1, Xiaomi is already a billion-dollar company, assuming that the revenue figure revealed is true.
You might be wondering what the hell is Xiaomi all about. It’s a China-based company (started in 2010) that builds Android-based smartphones and an Android-based OS. It’s led by Lei Jun, an influential serial entrepreneur and angel investor in China. To find out more about the product, I have included a video review done by our Beijing editor, Charlie Custer.
Xiaomi now ships more than 500,000 units of its M1 handset each month, and it is popular because of its affordable price (1999 RMB or US$313) and good quality. According to a Sina Tech report, its factory at Nanjing now produces about 25,000 units each day, which barely meets the monthly demand. Before the product is dispatched, the phones will be tested several thousand times. The failure rate is about 1.5 percent, which means about two phones out of every 100 malfunction. It’s quite a good stat but still far from the Six Sigma standard, which is approximately 3.4 defects per million units. But it’s a good start, given that Xiaomi has only been selling hardware for a year. It should get better.
First, we have people selling organs for an iPad, and now the continuity of the Human race is in jeopardy as 1 in 10 men surveyed would rather have an iPad than a girlfriend.
A new poll by RoxyPalace.com, an online casino surveyed 600 people and found that 11 percent of single men would prefer a free iPad to a relationship. Out of men already in a relationship, about three percent said they would dump their partner for an iPad. This comes after another recent survey showed that one in three people would rather give up sex for a week than their phone.
While the new iPad is packed with cool features, anyone considering upgrading to the iPad from a girlfriend should take note that there are certain features that the iPad lacks vs Girlfriend. For example sharing a bottle of champagne and a romantic meal with the iPad could result in electrical shock (if iPad is plugged in) or death of the iPad. On the other hand, your iPad will not slap you silly and kick you out of the house if you sleep with another iPad.
First, we have people selling organs for an iPad, and now the continuity of the Human race is in jeopardy as 1 in 10 men surveyed would rather have an iPad than a girlfriend.
A new poll by RoxyPalace.com, an online casino surveyed 600 people and found that 11 percent of single men would prefer a free iPad to a relationship. Out of men already in a relationship, about three percent said they would dump their partner for an iPad. This comes after another recent survey showed that one in three people would rather give up sex for a week than their phone.
While the new iPad is packed with cool features, anyone considering upgrading to the iPad from a girlfriend should take note that there are certain features that the iPad lacks vs Girlfriend. For example sharing a bottle of champagne and a romantic meal with the iPad could result in electrical shock (if iPad is plugged in) or death of the iPad. On the other hand, your iPad will not slap you silly and kick you out of the house if you sleep with another iPad.
In India at least, the general public can now pick up an Android-Intel Medfield powered Lava Xolo X900. The phone is not available in the US. It is currently retailing in India for about US$420.
Specs:
1024×600 4” screen
8MP Rear camera with 1080p 30FPS recording
1.3MP Front Facing Camera
Android 2.3.7 with 4.0 coming in a few months
And the juicy bit: Atom Z2460 Single Core Processor running at 1.6GHz. This is a hyperthreaded 64-bit x86 CPU with a 400 MHz PowerVR SGX 540 GPU and 1GB of ram.
The phone itself is decidedly upper mid-range, and suffers from some app compatibility issues. While for now performance just seems average, ARM vendors should be scared as Intel could debut its new 22nm process as early as next year.
In India at least, the general public can now pick up an Android-Intel Medfield powered Lava Xolo X900. The phone is not available in the US. It is currently retailing in India for about US$420.
Specs:
1024×600 4” screen
8MP Rear camera with 1080p 30FPS recording
1.3MP Front Facing Camera
Android 2.3.7 with 4.0 coming in a few months
And the juicy bit: Atom Z2460 Single Core Processor running at 1.6GHz. This is a hyperthreaded 64-bit x86 CPU with a 400 MHz PowerVR SGX 540 GPU and 1GB of ram.
The phone itself is decidedly upper mid-range, and suffers from some app compatibility issues. While for now performance just seems average, ARM vendors should be scared as Intel could debut its new 22nm process as early as next year.
Adriana Gascoigne (Founder & CEO at Girls in Tech) Speaker at Echelon 2012
Adriana Gascoigne is probably one of the most gorgeous girls in tech we have ever seen. Not only good looking, Adriana is also good at what she does. The founder and CEO of Girls in Tech, shares that one of the mottos she lives by day-to-day is to “embrace risk.”
As an advisor to a variety of start-ups including Involver, Numiyo Technologies, Palindrome Advisors, Charity Blossom, DooChoo, and Change.org, one of the mottos that she lives by day-to-day is “embrace risk.”
“If there is anything that I’d like to share with the Singaporean tech community it is just that – embracing risk will enable people to become more entrepreneurial, innovative and leadership-oriented. Building a company is not easy, it’s scary, but if you believe in yourself, if you’re passionate about your product idea and are not afraid of failure – anything is possible.
That is why Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to launch Facebook, and why a variety of other entrepreneurs have been successful in developing truly useful and innovative tech products.”
Girls in Tech started out as a casual meeting of industry friends interested in pow wow’ing about all things tech, such as the start-up culture, product marketing and development and business dealings.
The meeting was meant as a sounding board for the minority in tech – women – to help answer questions, address any concerns in the workplace, bounce product feature ideas off of each other, etc.
Girls in Tech is on a mission to give female developers, designers and marketers a voice and encourage the younger generations to embrace technology and the start-up world as a viable career path.
Previously, Adriana worked as the Vice President of Marketing at SecondMarket, the global marketplace for illiquid assets. She was responsible for SecondMarket’s marketing, branding strategy, event production and digital media efforts.
Prior to joining SecondMarket, Adriana worked at a variety of technology start-ups spearheading marketing, communications and analytics. She worked at hi5, SocialGamingNetwork (SGN), Jambool’s SocialGold, GUBA as well as Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide as the Vice President of 360 Digital Influence and Edelman as the Vice President of the Digital Group.
Adriana Gascoigne (Founder & CEO at Girls in Tech) Speaker at Echelon 2012
Adriana Gascoigne (Founder & CEO at Girls in Tech) is one of the awesome speakers at Echelon 2012. This tech conference is a two-day, double-track event on 11 and 12 June 2012 with over 1,100 delegates, a demo pit of up to 50 regional startups per day and various workshops. Get your tickets now!
Adriana Gascoigne (Founder & CEO at Girls in Tech) Speaker at Echelon 2012
Adriana Gascoigne is probably one of the most gorgeous girls in tech we have ever seen. Not only good looking, Adriana is also good at what she does. The founder and CEO of Girls in Tech, shares that one of the mottos she lives by day-to-day is to “embrace risk.”
As an advisor to a variety of start-ups including Involver, Numiyo Technologies, Palindrome Advisors, Charity Blossom, DooChoo, and Change.org, one of the mottos that she lives by day-to-day is “embrace risk.”
“If there is anything that I’d like to share with the Singaporean tech community it is just that – embracing risk will enable people to become more entrepreneurial, innovative and leadership-oriented. Building a company is not easy, it’s scary, but if you believe in yourself, if you’re passionate about your product idea and are not afraid of failure – anything is possible.
That is why Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to launch Facebook, and why a variety of other entrepreneurs have been successful in developing truly useful and innovative tech products.”
Girls in Tech started out as a casual meeting of industry friends interested in pow wow’ing about all things tech, such as the start-up culture, product marketing and development and business dealings.
The meeting was meant as a sounding board for the minority in tech – women – to help answer questions, address any concerns in the workplace, bounce product feature ideas off of each other, etc.
Girls in Tech is on a mission to give female developers, designers and marketers a voice and encourage the younger generations to embrace technology and the start-up world as a viable career path.
Previously, Adriana worked as the Vice President of Marketing at SecondMarket, the global marketplace for illiquid assets. She was responsible for SecondMarket’s marketing, branding strategy, event production and digital media efforts.
Prior to joining SecondMarket, Adriana worked at a variety of technology start-ups spearheading marketing, communications and analytics. She worked at hi5, SocialGamingNetwork (SGN), Jambool’s SocialGold, GUBA as well as Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide as the Vice President of 360 Digital Influence and Edelman as the Vice President of the Digital Group.
Adriana Gascoigne (Founder & CEO at Girls in Tech) Speaker at Echelon 2012
Adriana Gascoigne (Founder & CEO at Girls in Tech) is one of the awesome speakers at Echelon 2012. This tech conference is a two-day, double-track event on 11 and 12 June 2012 with over 1,100 delegates, a demo pit of up to 50 regional startups per day and various workshops. Get your tickets now!
Apple, HTC, Samsung, Nokia, Microsoft etc are playing the war of phones in the global market; In Chinese market, we have a local version of the war: Baidu phone, Shanda phone, Alibaba phone, Tencent-branded phone and Xiaomi phone. Well, since China has overtaken America to become the largest smartphone market, having that many brands in the market is not a big deal. Chinese Internet giants just love the hardware business. Qihoo 360 is going to release its branded phones soon.
ZHOU Hongyi, the CEO of Qihoo 360, tweeted on his weibo,
I have been thinking of this for over 6 months. We developed the free anti-virus software, but how can we bring more value back to our hundreds millions of users? Everyone wants a high-end phone, but not many people can afford for the iPhone. 360 is an open platform and we promise not to manufacture a phone ourselves. But we are willing to work with both international and local phone brands to build some 360 branded phones.
So tell me, what’s your favorite brand? what specs are you expecting and at what price?
No official announcement is given by Qihoo 360 so far. But obviously, Qihoo 360 has again started challenging on everyone, this time is on the hardware.
Alibaba Group issued a statement this evening confirming reports that have been swirling for some time now, that a number of Taobao workers had in the past accepted bribes from e-commerce vendors.
According to a report this evening by Bloomberg, Taobao has closed nine online stores from those vendors, and police have made some arrests. While this news has been making fresh headlines of late, our own inquiries with the company this evening indicate that the incidents go a little ways back. An Alibaba Group spokesperson elaborates:
This issues raised are actually old news. The document posted on Taobao forum references [1] some isolated instances involving a handful of employee misbehavior that have largely been announced in Chinese media in the recent past.
When we further inquired about when the arrests were made, we were pointed towards an article about an arrest made back in April of 2011 (with sentencing in November 2011).
Of course, it goes without saying that the misguided actions of a few employees are not the norm, and Taobao has emphatically stated its opposition to it.
Speaking of the recent past, the website has came under fire back in January when it was again listed on the USTR’s “notorious markets” list, despite its own protestations, as well as those of China’s Ministry of Commerce. Taobao has cleaned up its act in many ways as far piracy and counterfeit goods [2] — and like other big internet players like Baidu, Youku, etc, should be commended for their efforts regarding intellectual property issues — although here at TechInAsia we still sometimes find some questionableproducts on the website. Some of us might have even bought some.
The document mentioned here is Alibaba Group’s statement in Chinese on Taobao forums, available here. ↩
For example, it banned the posting of optical discs with audio-visual content last summer, much to the delight of the MPAA. ↩
It was just 100 days ago when JDFI unveiled its first batch of startups at JFDI-Innov8 2012 Bootcamp. Today the inaugural batch of eleven startups officially graduates at JFDI demo day, down one from the original twelve. It also marks the end of the intensive 100-day acceleration programme where the startups have received seed funding, guidance, and mentorship from industry experts.
Here’s the list of the JFDI startup graduates from the bootcamp today:
Tradegecko: This is a B2B web application for brands to transact with retailers in a social and engaging way. The entire supply chain management process – inventory, orders, invoices, and payments – are all integrated into one system, which allows greater transparency between brands and retailers, and better promotes efficiency. They’re giving small and medium businesses the power to manage their chains like Wal-Mart.
Remember: I really like the Remember app. It is a B2C iPhone app that allows you to create, curate, and celebrate memories. It makes it simple to document precious moments with your family in a time capsule, and you can also easily share them with your loved ones.
FamilyKo: In the Phillipines, when they say “family ko”, it means “my family”. As the name suggests, it is a B2C application that aims to stimulate an environment on multiple platforms for families located in different parts of the world to communicate and explore cool things together.
Flocations: You may remember the Flocation boys from their pitch at Startup Asia Singapore. It is a B2C web travel service that allows users to search for places you can visit on an interactive map. It automatically geolocates the user, and using the price slider, users can see what you can do within your specified budget. The startup also appeared on Angel’s Gate, where they chose to turn down funding in the end.
Fetch Plus: This is a B2B social media page builder that aims to create and maintain brand pages on Facebook. It give brand franchises with local businesses control and analytics, as they engage social media, which maximizes impact for all their franchisees.
Trafflers: This B2C web service recognises that there’s a huge untapped opportunity when it comes to discovery and planning vacations with friends. It aims to make planning group vacations easy, and increase the frequency and size of group travel bookings online.
Stubb: The B2B document sharing service aims to make it easy for people to publish and share documents online. Instead of going through the hassle of asking for a softcopy when you receive a hardcopy, there will be a virtual printer driver that automatically uploads hardcopies to the cloud. Each hardcopy has a QR code stamp, and when you scan it you’ll be taken to the online PDF softcopy version.
Wildby: This is an iPhone encyclopedia app that allows lets children aged 5 to 12 years old to verbally search for things that they are curious about, share their findings with family and friends, and get feedback from their loved ones as well. It allows children to surf for more information in a safe and fun manner.
TribeHired: TribeHired is a social recruitment platform for fast-growing startups. It depends on the element of trust, and aims to refer your friends to suitable employers, matching jobseekers to jobs. After all, we all look to friends as the one of the better sources of referrals when it comes to recruitment.
Congratulations to all startups who have graduated. We hope to feature more of them moving forward, so be sure to check back with us soon!
I’ve seen a lot of things censored on Sina Weibo, and it’s not often I am taken by surprise. I am, after all, deeply cynical when it comes to the topic of censorship in China. And censorship on weibo has gotten pretty crazy of late, with terms getting blocked left and right, sometimes even terms that come from official state media reports. But even so, I had to do a double take when I saw this on Twitter this afternoon:
For those not familiar with Chinese history, this will take a little explaining. “五四运动” means the May Fourth Movement, a famous protest in Tiananmen Square during which students banded together to oppose the Chinese government’s corrupt and ineffectual practices as well as foreign interference. And if that sounds pretty politically sensitive, it was — when it happened in 1919.
In fact, the May Fourth Movement has long been celebrated in the People’s Republic because it coincides roughly with the a broader movement for Chinese self-sufficiency and learning from the West that led to, among other things, the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. The anniversary — which is today, by the way — has become a holiday in China celebrating youth because the original May Fourth protests were organized and executed primarily by university students. As you’d expect, the Chinese news today is full of plenty of stories about the holiday and the anniversary in general (this is the 93rd); for example: this, this, and this.
Yet somehow, searches for the May Fourth Movement are blocked on Sina Weibo. It’s possible that this is just a mistake, that this term was caught in the crossfire of attempts to censor references to a more recent and more sensitive protest. But even if it’s unintentional, it’s still a pretty ridiculous thing to end up on the blocked list 93 years after the event in question took place.
It’s also a good reminder that what’s censored on Sina Weibo is primarily controlled by Sina; there’s virtually no chance that someone in the Chinese government would order it to block searches for “May Fourth Movement.” Internet companies all self-censor; it’s just part of the business environment in China. Sometimes, it seems, they go a bit further than anyone in the government — or anyone with common sense, really — would go. That is how we got here: a national holiday and a celebrated moment in Chinese history, blocked on weibo.
Watching each startup deliver their pitch at the JFDI-Innov8 2012 Bootcamp Demo Day, I get the sense of witnessing a child taking her first tentative steps or going to school for the very first time.
At the accelerator program, the first of its kind in Singapore, promising entrepreneurs, who had nothing but ideas, had to undergo an intense regimen of mentoring, training, and product development.
Mentors in the bootcamp came from all around the world as well as from Singapore, consisting of entrepreneurs who have gone through the whole agonizing process of creating a product people actually want.
Glancing across the room, amidst the glaring stage lights and about a hundred curious investors, those very same mentors are egging the startups on stage to succeed. The incubatees took turns to demostrate their products: Refined, refreshed, and in some cases, completely rehashed after the 100-day bootcamp.
And they rocked. The consensus among the attendees was that the pitches were polished and well-delivered. There wasn’t a single bad pitch.
Business ideas were solid and addressed valid pain points, although some were concerned about how easy it is to copy some of those products.
But the fact that the presentations were nice and shiny isn’t an accident. The pitches were appalling at first, Edgar Hardless, CEO of Singtel Innov8, and vastly improved only with much coaching. Many of the startups pivoted after much critical feedback as well.
An extreme example is Gradeful, a mobile app for dads, which pivoted on Day 80 to become Remember, a mobile photo scrapbook for families. HobbyMash, too, pivoted in Day 50 to become FamilyKo, after realizing that it would be hard to monetize their original idea.
At the end of the pitches, the startups went to their corners and waited as investors flocked to find out more about the teams and their products.
While there was quite a lot of variety in the 11 teams, SoLoMo, a term which I use grudgingly, is still very much alive and well. Most of the startups have some element of each, and it looks set to be the wave of the future.
Analytical tools featured big as well in startups like TradeGecko, Stubb (formerly Qryo), and FetchFans, indicating how businesses are increasingly embracing data-driven decision-making.
What is surprising to me are the amount of family and child-oriented startups around. FamilyKo and Remember deal with the themes of using mobile devices to bridge the divide between children and their busy or geographically distant parents. Kark and Wildby revolve around educating children in interactive and age-appropriate ways.
From what I have seen and heard, many of the teams have generated great interest and buzz from investors, and some were oversubscribed.
Angel investing is a little like playing Poker -- lots of educated guesses.
The value of the Bootcamp in sharpening the various ideas was apparent. According to Amit Anand, managing partner of Jungle Ventures, incubators like JFDI.Asia fills a gap in the ideation stage, identifying great problems to solve (video interview).
Granted, there is room for improvement, such as balancing between frank feedback and more gentle guidance, but Demo Day was the best send-off possible.
At this point, there is still a lot for startups to do. The next step for them, naturally, is to secure funding, and whether they receive it could determine which country they would be based in.
Wayne Soh, business development manager at Plug and Play Singapore, believes that some companies might find it easier to raise money at home with their own contacts.
For angel investors, their challenge is to make educated guesses about which entrepreneurs to invest in, based on the very limited information they have about each startup: Current market positions, whether the product addresses a pain point, and whether the team is positioned to succeed.
It’s a bit like playing Poker, a fact I was reminded of when JFDI.Asia co-founder Meng Weng Wong gave us, the media, millions in Poker chips to play Fantasy Investor for a day.
It certainly isn’t an easy call to make. The ball is now in the courts of the investors and startups to work out partnerships that will take them to growth stage and beyond.
[About the author: Guest post contributed by the founder of MyPriceIndia.com. a product comparison startup.]
Online advertising has long faced a fundamental issue of being over measured. The whole industry of online ads is metrics driven, which unlike the other forms of advertising media is not relative metrics or statistical figures derived from small sample sets but absolute real time data.
While this measurement brings in a lot of efficiency, there is a lot of brand visibility that publishers provide but go unaccounted. For example: If you choose to pay per click for an ad and that has been viewed by millions but clicked by only few, then the publisher is at loss even if has to do something with your ad’s creative. Or say when you choose to pay per impression but you never measured if anyone actually viewed the ad or for how long. While it did load on the page but did it really get any attention?
Intelligent platforms like Google’s Adwords have been making some justice by considering supportive metrics like CTR to decide on how much visibility an ad should be given and at what price. While this helps optimize things for the publishers, it still does not change anything fundamentally to encourage branding dollars to be spent online. I particularly mean brand marketing spends and not marketing spends at large.
New media platforms, like Twitter and Facebook, that haven’t been driving any large sized banner impressions or high CTR but have helped brands engage with users through conversation and consistent visibility in their streams have found it difficult to define a standard metrics. Stuff like ‘Like’ count or ‘Follower’ count have been a pure form of measurement in the past but given the regular adulteration of fake profiles these numbers have lost value. The marketer has nothing new to show to his boss. Likes and Follow count are nothing but deduced metrics to help account CPA (Cost Per Acquisition). Again this is a life time measurement and not for a given season. Users who ‘Like’ you once continue to be in the fan count even when they no longer like you. The marketer still needs another reason to spend online and another metrics to run after.
Facebook has adapted to reporting ‘reach’ and ‘conversation’ of every update made on brand pages which does help highlight its own cause but there is no standard web wide metrics parallel to this for other platforms. The clichéd ‘Lack of a common currency’ as one might call it. While a click on Facebook ad and on Google ad means the same, a new visitor to your site, a reach count of 10 for a given status update has little similarity to 10 impressions of 250 square pixels banner ad. Drilling even further, marketers have little analogy of this to the old media of TV and Radio etc. that was driven by GRP. We have criticized the relative nature of GRP but it is not the relativity of data representation that is wrong but the measurement technique that deals with extrapolation of a small sample set that has been at fault. And being in an offline world, it is difficult to measure absolute large data sets without incurring humongous cost. Some attempts have been made in the past to measure eyeballs for OOH media at absolute levels but for obvious reasons media owners haven’t been in favour of anything near absolute measurement. There will always be companies like Nielsen who will give you relative data to help make decisions but none will let you know your exact cost per eyeball. That’s probably a post for another day.
So where does Google’s proposed change in metrics come in picture? What do they change? Perception, that is all. By bringing in new web wide acceptable metrics Google is changing the way old school marketers, who still have a handsome kitty size to spend, perceive the web advertising to deliver. By bringing attention to a different metrics Google is giving the marketers an all new reason to embrace the web, just like Social Media did with “conversation” and “engagement”. Now it will be same for lead gen but a lot more for brand building.
Defined as the count of ad banners viewable atleast 50% on the screen for atleast 1 sec, this metrics helps bring some sanity to the crude CPM metrics that marketers are now shy of. Unlike an absolute impression based count that does not say whether the ad was on the header or footer of the page, this metrics filters out a lot of junk ad space that have low visibility or pages that are live for less than a second before they are refreshed or skipped. While CPM defines the true value of the ad space from the publishers’ point of view but only some niche blogs or premium publishers with strong foot on field sales team have been able to convince media planners to buy at CPM. All other advertisers who use DIY tools still prefer the more transparent CPC pricing. A click is counted as a click independent of how much valuable real-estate the publisher dedicated to it. As a result, publishers have to dependent on quality of ad banners for their earnings. Active View count will bring CPM, as a buyable unit, to the forefront.
The lesser significant change that will be seen is the CTRs, when calculated over Active View rather than banner impressions, would be higher and also help determine the quality of ad creative better, independent of whether it is placed in a more active area of the screen or not.
The numbers “50%” viewable for “1″ second are not important now, as they can be changed later. These are just bare minimum visibility benchmark that Google has proposed probably to keep the publishers on the safer side. Coming down from 5 secs to 1 secs would be difficult to justify to the buyer but depending on how publishers deliver, raising the ante should be possible. For now, the fact that these 2 numbers will be accounted is more important.
2. Active GRP
This metrics is closer to the deep pocket media buyers and Google well realises the fact. Defined as the same Gross Rating Point, that typically TV viewership is measured at, this is a relative metrics dependent on your target audience. Active GRP is also a better representation of Active View. For example, saying that 1000 people in Mumbai Actively Viewed an ad for 2000 times may not make enough sense but saying that 50% CXOs living in Mumbai Actively Viewed the ad atleast twice makes a lot more sense to the marketer. Google and the web in general already has some bit of information about almost all ad viewers, so this should be more dependable than the numbers reported by their offline counterparts. Once the metrics finds recognition there will be more investment and incentive for finding more data about the user.
So are these metrics really important and true to the nature of the web? Honestly, it is debatable. For now, it’s important to bring them (the brand marketers) to the game first and then redefine the rules. Of course, there can be no one better doing this than Google, that still owns majority of the online ad pie.
The current form of metrics, CPM/CPC/CPA, is very short-term objective driven without taking into account long-term effects on brand. Also the fact that it will be possible to take audience quality into account, during media planning for web ads, will mean that buyers and seller will have a common inclination, independent of whether the buying is done on the sales team persuasion or with the DIY tools. The publishers will now have an incentive to run after quality users rather quantity page views.
Both these metrics are driving a major chunk of marketing spend that is allotted for branding and online ads occupied very little of it until now. Steven has attempted a tear down on why very little marketing spend is made online by deep pocket marketers from the likes of P&G and Unilever etc. The reason he cites is that the web platform are not made for brand marketing. They are good for lead generation but not good enough for brand building. Google’s new proposed metrics isn’t changing the platform at large but only the perception. It also helps filter some junk publishers. Even though ‘Clicks on Ad’ is perceived to be a transparent metrics, reports suggest a ~20% fraud rate here. One can well imagine the faith of impression based spends. Hence the clean up required.
A lesser discussed and lesser scientific reason for web ads to go through so much of grilling is the dynamic-user-dependent nature of the platform. While a marketer who is watching his ad air during a cricket telecast can be sure that everyone else is also watching the same ad, the same is not true for web ads. Knowing that X million users watched IPL on TV is enough for a marketer who has purchased airtime but same is not true for X million users reading a news report online. If you look at ads on niche blogs, that book inventory on time based and position based terms rather than impression based, advertisers would be less concerned about the impression count because the ads are all common for all users. They have a guesstimate of audience size and type, like incase of TV, which is enough for them. While this might bring inefficiency due to lack of targeting, this helps marketers make decision without getting into granular level data. Same is not true for targeting driven ads that Google has been running after all this while. Going by this theory, local TV ads, the kind served by Google TV in US and Amagi in India, might be subject to such detailed metrics also.
For now, this is a welcome move from Google. A small step with metrics change will prove to be a giant leap in online advertising.
Watch this introductory video on Brand active solution proposed by Google:
It was just 100 days ago when 
