beRecruited and STACK Media Reaching Targeted, Large Audiences

July's Comscore numbers for sports networks were released recently and STACK Media made it's first appearance on the chart with 3.5 million uniques in July and importantly is the #1 platform for "active young men (12-24)".

Why is this important? Because beRecruited is part of the STACK network and played a critical role in these numbers and demographic targeting (the 12-24 year old audience is clearly our sweet spot). From Circulation Management:

Key to that traffic spike is a content partnership with three properties: sports retailer Eastbay.com, Footlocker.com (Footlocker owns East Bay) and BeRecruited.com, an online recruiting tool for high school athletes. “We focused on executing against a distributed media strategy where we take our content and distribute it to partner sites. In exchange for distribution of the content we’re also selling all of the advertising inventory on those sites. The tagline ‘Content is king, but distribution brings the bling’ is definitely a motto here,” says Palazzo.

But before STACK could effectively enter into distribution partnerships, the company had to prove the worth of its content. “Our content is the glue that is making these partnerships function because it’s unique in the sports space. It’s not news coverage, it’s sports lifestyle and performance. They’re the who’s who and we’re the how-to. That differentiates us and gives us the ability to create these types of partnerships,” says Palazzo.

Despite the initial focus on the high school athlete, the company has found that sports training, especially when it’s presented by professional athletes, is appealing to a broader audience of 12-to-24 year olds. “We’re focused on a new market. Our competitors now are ESPN.com, Yahoo Sports, and AOL Sports and Fox Sports—people that are in the top five that blue chip marketers are using. We may not have 20 million uniques, but the uniques we have are definitely [the marketer’s] target.”

1. Yahoo Sports - 21,851,000 uniques 2. ESPN - 18,101,000 uniqueS 3. Fox Sports - 14,644,000 uniques 4. MLB.com - 12,778,000 uniques 5. AOL Sports - 11,631,000 unique s (doubled in a year - 6,858,000 in July 2007) 6. NFL Internet Group - 7,482,000 uniques 7. CBS Sports - 5,923,000 uniques 8. Sports Illustrated Sites - 4,656,000 uniques 9. WWE - 4,206,000 uniques 10. STACK Media - 3,580,000 uniques

From STACK:

STACK Media today announced its ranking as the #1 online property to reach the coveted active young male demographic--as measured by comScore Media Metrix. With over 3.5 million unique visitors in the U.S. during July 2008, STACK Media jumped ahead of NBA.com and Nascar.com to land as #10 on the prestigious comScore list of Top Sports Web Properties. In addition to mass reach, STACK Media now offers display and video brand advertisers the greatest efficiency against the highly desirable but elusive category of active young (12-to-24-year-old) males online.

Measuring Widgets by Defining Viral-ity, Reach and Engagement

I regularly am asked three questions:1. What makes a great widget? 2. What makes a widget viral? 3. How do you measure a widget?

Three buzz words come out these questions (or are tied to directly them): "reach", "viral", and "engagement". And in the end, I argue that engagement is the most critical of the three because the other two are functions arising from engagement:

en·gage: To occupy the attention or efforts of (a person or persons). To attract and hold fast.

If a widget is able to engage (attract and hold a viewer's attention) - it is capable of being viral (being socially spread throughout the web). And if a widget becomes viral, reach and traffic follow. The trouble with starting in the reverse order is that widgets can get tons of traffic (pageviews and uniques) without being spread or growing... but you need to understand user engagement and the widget's viral-ity to understand it's traffic. Here's how you measure those three components:

1. Reach The most basic measurement of any campaign is its reach - and widgets don’t differ significantly than a tradition online campaign:

- Widget Impressions: the number of loads a widget has received - Unique Users: how many viewers a widget amasses - Demographics: the geography of a widget’s viewers and demographics of the sites the widget sits on

2. Viral-ity Unlike traditional online ads, widgets enable rapid reach because they are customizable and sharable. Understanding the social patters on a widget is important to determining a campaign’s growth and the path with which it was viewed and shared. Subscribers are critical because they grab the widget and embed it on real estate that they deem relevant and worthy… introducing the widget to that website’s traffic and effectively kick-starting a virtuous, viral circle: - Subscriptions: number of installed widgets - Active Subscriptions: number of installs that generate viewership - Subscribers: which domains have installed your widget and the traffic each has delivered - Viral Pathing: which subscribers and installations are most effective at delivering new subscriptions

3. Engagement Widget impressions are meaningful, but an engaged viewer is far more valuable than someone who overlooks the widget as though it were merely a banner unit. A core element of understanding a widget’s efficacy is understanding its users’ interactions. The most critical aspect is determining whether widget views lead to widget sharing and/or destination traffic (such as your corporate website):

- Get Widget Interaction: How many users open the “Get Widget” menu - Widget Subscriptions: How many users open the men and actually grab the widget - In-Widget Promotions: Widgetbox, for instance, allows publishers to run ads or promotions within their widgets. You can track unit impressions, mouse hovers and click throughs - In Widget Interaction: Understand whether users arriving at your website from the widget and how it’s impacting your site’s web traffic

Comparing Yahoo Buzz and Digg After Hitting Buzz's Homepage

In March, I wrote that Yahoo Buzz could pose a threat to Digg because of their ability to drive more traffic - and I assumed that Digg's product would be markedly better.

Now four days after Yahoo Buzz officially opened up to all publishers, I will take a bolder stance: I'm finding Yahoo Buzz more effective as a reader / consumer and as a publisher. And I'm surprised.

My major critique of Digg has been that it has struggled to extend it's community and product outside of technology. And that's where Yahoo Buzz excels: the content is diverse... across categories and sources. I expect this will continue as Yahoo's community (the largest on the web) will power / demand diversity.

InGameNow's Blog made it to the Yahoo Buzz homepage yesterday and it delivered big, steady traffic. Whereas Digg sends massive traffic instantly (and it tends to somewhat worthless traffic) - Yahoo's sends very consistent traffic that, from this single experience, seems to be more active and engaged. Two things are yet to be seen though:

1) how Yahoo's algorithm matures and whether it creates a community of power users (such as those that rule Digg) 2) whether Buzz's current traffic / activity will change dramatically as it gains popularity

For now though... and based on my first few days with Yahoo Buzz... I'd rather hit Buzz's homepage than Digg's.

The official email from Yahoo Buzz on August 19th:

START SUBMITTING STORIES TO YAHOO! BUZZ TODAY!

Thank you for your patience as we fine-tuned Yahoo! Buzz. You can now showcase your stories to the largest audience on the Internet.

Visit our Publisher page to pick up a button for your site and see tips on ways to get more votes.

Do not forget, your story may be featured on Yahoo.com. Good luck and welcome aboard.

GET STARTED NOW http://buzz.yahoo.com/publishers

Yahoo! Buzz Team

Attention Apple - I've Been Waiting in iPhone Dev Center for Weeks!

We are fast at work designing an InGameNow iPhone Application that will deliver real-time sports scores and banter to your phone... and we're now finalizing the product - but we've been we can't launch until we hear back from Apple. We've been stuck in Apple's Developer Center blackhole for nearly three weeks.

We are waiting to be accepted as developers - not even to have our application reviewed and approved! I am amazed that this process takes weeks... I understand the need for quality control - particularly for paid applications. And I imagine that that Apple is overwhelmed at the moment.... but:

- We are providing a free application - And haven't even had our *account* accepted

Any hints in how to accelerate this process?! I'm getting quite frustrated!

Widgetbox's Network Breaks 60,000,000 Monthly Uniques

About two weeks, Widgetbox unveiled a new look and navigation. At that time, we launched hubs for partners and advertisers with a promo-graphic touting the network's 56,000,000 monthly uniques - a number we are quite proud of.

… Now, just two weeks later, we are proud to announce a new number: 60,000,000 (or 60.6 to be exact!). Just a few days have passed and the network has grown significantly. We use Quantcast (another one of my favorite companies) to verify our metrics and data.

Would You Update Your LinkedIn Status? I Sense Status Overkill...

When I installed the LinkedIn iPhone App last night, the first thing that struck me was the focus on the "LinkedIn Status"... and how almost every status update in my network read:

"... Is testing the LinkedIn App"

Is that useful? And when are there so many status feeds and updates that the general concept of 'status' becomes meaningless? I'd argue it's already happened. I sense that Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed are having trouble figuring out how to play together vs. compete together.

How will LinkedIn now play in the status world? I imagine they'll find out pretty quickly that it will be tough to gather enough status alerts to make their network feeds useful. LinkedIn is not the community (or mindset) that has people actively updating their lives. It is, however, a community that wants to alert their networks of other things: job openings, business questions / needs, etc. I would argue that these are not statuses though... and I would argue a step further that alerts like "... is testing the LinkedIn App" actually degrades the LinkedIn experience - which compared to the other status-based networks, is typically very clean and focused.

New Linked In iPhone App could be the Killer App... But Not Yet

I've written before that there are many great iPhone Apps... but nothing that is truly game-changing (yet).

I've also written about how the iPhone's contact management system needs serious improvement.

So when yesterday's LinkedIn App hit the iPhone - I got excited because it was a chance to merge your business contacts with your phone... and it's close, but not perfect. The app gives you full access to your LinkedIn directory and even gives you the ability to call contacts directly from the application. Search is easy and smooth - whether it's within your contacts or across the larger network. And you can build and manage your network from within the application.

But where the application fails to impress me: you cannot save contacts to your phone.

The ability to download vcards from LinkedIn.com is the feature that I find most useful and the reason I most log in to LinkedIn. I am not sure whether it's because the iPhone doesn't enable it or LinkedIn has made a conscious decision (realizing it would reduce the application's stickiness)... but merging contacts between the iPhone and LinkedIn immediately improves the phone's contact system and motivates me to actively grow and manage my LinkedIn network.

Until then... it's useful for a now-and-again search query.

beRecruited Gets a Major Site Redesign

Today is an important day for beRecruited as we unveiled a major site redesign. The redesign news comes on the heels of beRecruited’s record-growth announcement last month. beRecruited now has approximately 265,000 registered users with athlete from more than 16,000 U.S. high schools and more than 70,000 different high school teams from across the country. More than 100,000 high school athletes have registered with beRecruited in 2008 and the site has generated more than 3.8 million connections between high school athletes and college coaches. beRecruited Redesign

I specifically remember 'designing' (a term I use lightly) the first versions of beRecruited and our logos while in my dorm room at Duke University. Here was the homepage graphic is early 2001 when beRecruited only served swimming and diving communities - today, we represent 18 NCAA sports and nearly 300,000 users:

The below ad is from 2001 - today, beRecruited has over 11,000 registered NCAA Coaches:

I am very proud of beRecruited's evolution and it's maturation since the very early days!