Yahoo Buzz will be an extension of Yahoo.com – it will identify the most interesting and timely stories by measuring user votes and search patterns and some of the designated hot stories will be featured on Yahoo’s front page, which receives more than 90 million U.S. visitors a month. But editors, not a computer program, will ultimately decide if a story lands on the start page.

The move is clearly a bid to attract more users, drive traffic and bring publishers and online advertisers a-calling. In time, Buzz will be open to every site online but in its beta phase, it will include content from about 100 publishers, including The New York Times, People and The Economist.

Yahoo says that as Buzz evolves, it will form the basis for an open ecosystem of publishers, advertisers and consumers. Yahoo plans to build new syndication and monetization tools that will enable publishers to share content, connect to advertisers and reach a bigger audience.

“With Yahoo Buzz, we are building on the recent success of the homepage of Yahoo and improving consumers’ favorite online starting point, by combining popular stories with the wisdom of real people to determine what is most engaging and relevant,” said Tapan Bhat, vice president, Front Doors and Network Services, Yahoo. “Consumer engagement with the Yahoo homepage has increased nearly 20% year-over-year, evidence that continuing to open up and provide consumers with direct links out to third party publishers keeps people coming back to Yahoo again and again.”

Services assisting the Attendi launch are being provided by i33 such as strategy development, creative design, technical planning, build and architecture and online marketing. President and CEO of i33 communications David Levin stated, “Attendi approached i33 with a novel concept – leveraging custom search functionality combined with Web 2.0 technologies to connect people who share similar ideas, passions and expertise. Given our search and social networking know-how, i33 turned Attendi’s ‘big idea’ into a functioning reality.”
 
Currently a “live ad unit” is being built. This means advertising is served only when a live brand representative is ready to field inquiries about a product or service through Attendi’s real-time chat functionality. “Our live ad unit will leverage chat technology enabling traditional ad banners to spark real-time interactions between a brand and prospective customers,” said Drew Rayman, founder of Attendi.
 
The company plans on reaching out to identified “luminaries in key online communities” so they and their peers may leverage Attendi, giving them a unique approach to marketing. When Levin spoke with Adotas he said “We thought the site should be altruistic. People helping people.  What makes us different than other social networks is it’s about what you know, not who you know.”

This data from iProspect confirms what people in the direct response advertising industry have been noticing for several years, that offline media channels such as direct response TV, radio and print are clearly influencing a staggering percentage of online searches and sales. The study clearly demonstrates that marketers who are relying on online advertising only are not harnessing the synergies that exist between search and offline advertising channels. I don’t feel this is a short-term trend. I expect the influence of offline advertising on online search will continue to grow. We’ve worked with several Internet retailers that were able to take their business to the next level by adding direct response television to their media mix.

The iProspect study noted that all ranges of age, income and online tenure reported that conducting search engine queries has become more important to their use of the Internet over the last year. Since users report that the activity of searching is growing more important to them, then businesses need to make sure that their website is found by searchers. Exposing your target audience to your ads and URL in multiple mediums will enhance their ability to find your website.

Not surprisingly, television drove the highest percentage (37%) of online users to perform searches, according to the iProspect study. Even in today’s more fragmented media environment, the power of TV remains strong and the influence of TV on online purchase behavior is growing. We have found that anywhere from between 30% to over 90%+ of customers make their purchase via the web, when they’re offered both an 800 number and a website in a direct response television ad. Why is this happening? Many consumers feel more comfortable making a purchase via the web than through an in-bound telemarketing service. Also, over 50% of people are simultaneously surfing the web while watching TV, so it’s easy for them to log onto your site when they see your TV ad.

The bottom line is that if you’re not using a combination of TV, print and radio and online ads to reach customers, you’re missing a huge share of potential revenue. Companies that rely solely on one advertising medium are missing the mark. It takes a combination offline and online advertising to make a true impact on today’s consumers. So leverage your marketing dollars by using the synergy of DRTV and online ads to maximize the impact of your campaign. When you do, you will see your company’s bottom line results improve.

Koeppel Direct